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Bezos Discloses Failure of Blue Origin Rocket Test Flight

Posted by timothy on from the discovering-ways-not-to-make-lightbulbs dept.

astroengine writes "An experimental suborbital space vehicle developed by Blue Origin, a space startup founded by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos, was lost during a test flight last week. During the secretive flight, the vehicle reached an altitude of 45,000 feet and attained a velocity of Mach 1.2. Soon after, things went horribly wrong. 'A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle,' said an upbeat Bezos in Friday's statement."

11 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. It's rocket science folks by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Informative

    Things go boom. Pretty much no one in the business of putting up boosters has managed to do so without create a fair amount of debris and fuss.

    Bezos seems to appreciate this. It's a disappointment, for sure but it's just that.

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    Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    1. Re:It's rocket science folks by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh, and 45000 feet at Mach 1.2 is the beginning of the real stress zone for the frame. Not too surprising it flopped over there. Of course, there are lots of ways a booster can screw up.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:It's rocket science folks by crankyspice · · Score: 2

      Oh, and 45000 feet at Mach 1.2 is the beginning of the real stress zone for the frame. Not too surprising it flopped over there.

      Anytime you hit or exceed transonic speeds you're getting into all new worlds of potential hurt. (Ask anyone who worked with us on Prospector 8A: http://www.csulb.edu/colleges/coe/mae/views/projects/rocket/background/ :) )

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      geek. lawyer.
    3. Re:It's rocket science folks by roc97007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > If private corporations were developing new technology on the edge of the unknown then I would agree. Unfortunately this is not new tech, this science, technology, and research has been around and in use for decades. Delays and failures such as this are a serious blow to the idea that we are ready for space flight based on the for profit model.

      Like many things, that's both true and untrue. You're right, the individual pieces are not new tech, and the purpose is also not new tech. If all it took is bolting the right parts together, then, well, anyone could do it, and we'd all have spaceships. The thing is, integrating a machine of that size and designed to work under those conditions is non-trivial even though it *has* been done before. If nothing else, it hasn't been done by this particular team, who has to learn all kinds of things like procurement, QA, integration and how to launch the thing. As we've learned from every space mission back to the 1960's, one error, one bad decision, anywhere in the process of component parts to launch, can result in a prang. Even when NASA does it. Most especially if a company does it who hasn't done it before. Creating and successfully launching a functional spaceship is a process. A really complicated process that's difficult to learn.

      So I contend that if they got up to 45K feet and a mach-and-a-half on their first try, that's pretty damned good for a newcomer.

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      Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  2. I got to tour there once. by Conrthomas · · Score: 2

    I find this article especially interesting, as I did a job shadow at Blue Origin last year as a part of my requirement to graduate High School. One of the Employees showed me around the test facilities and showed me the various systems in place to try to prevent this kind of failure from happening. It's unfortunate that this happened, but as the employee told me, most of this is chump change for Jeff Bezos, and Blue Origin is in all reality a pet-project of his. Cool fact though, the Blue Origin Building in Kent, WA is home to an original Bell X-1 as well as the original model of the Starship Enterprise that was used in the episode where the Enterprise gets destroyed, I believe. All sorts of other cool things there too.

    1. Re:I got to tour there once. by arcsimm · · Score: 2

      That doesn't thin out the field much.

  3. Have they patented this by Dunbal · · Score: 2

    One click detonation by the range officer.

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    Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    1. Re:Have they patented this by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2

      One click detonation by the range officer.

      No patent for Bezos here. There is a whole bunch of prior art..

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      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  4. I seem to recall... by roc97007 · · Score: 2

    ...that this is the way science works. You try something, learn from the results, and then change your plans accordingly. Nothing to see here.

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    Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
  5. While he may have burned money doing this... by IDarkISwordI · · Score: 2

    ...it is valuable research for the next test flight. The stuff their working on is really somewhat innovative because it hasn't been explored much by NASA, RKK or ESA. Their vehicle is intended to be entirely reusable, albeit as a suborbital craft as well but it will be an impressive marit with ideas that stem from some of the earliest space-flight ideas. Should be interesting to see when the time comes that Virgin and Blue Origin are competing for customers.

  6. Just goes to show... by stephencrane · · Score: 2

    ...sometimes, it -does- take a rocket scientist.