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Jeff Bezos's Space Company Reveals Some Secrets

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-some-details dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Jeff Bezos's commercial spaceflight company, Blue Origin, has kept its plans secret to better compete with rivals such as Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. But in order to build its launch facility in West Texas, it has revealed some details of its future operations: Blue Origin's Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) will carry three or more passengers on suborbital, ballistic trajectories to altitudes in excess of 325,000 feet above sea level. It will launch vertically and land vertically, and will use hydrogen peroxide and kerosene as propellants. It will operate autonomously under control of on-board computers, with no ground control. Blue Origin plans a maximum rate of 52 launches per year."

2 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. Landing vertically by madaxe42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm assuming they mean they're going to use 'chutes to land - landing on reverse thrusters or what have you in earth's gravity well could be fairly fuel expensive, and doesn't make much sense.

  2. Re:Here's a problem set for you: by madaxe42 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Well, in a nutshell -

    The amount of GPE gained during an ascent requires X amount of fuel.

    Descent requires no fuel to move downwards, however K.E. will be accumulated equal to the sum of the GPE and disippated thermal energy.

    Therefore the amount of fuel required to stop a descent is less than that required to ascend.

    To be honest, the best solution would probably be a combination of the two - drogue chute, main chute (both lightweight and easily re-deployable in future missions), which ensure a low velocity, and also proper alignment for the retro-rockets, which could be used for final touchdown (much like several mars missions).

    And yes, I am a rocket scientist. :)