Blue Origins’ New Shepard rocket lands in the Texas desert after a successful escape system test

Despite expectations of fiery explosions, Blue Origin successfully landed its New Shepard rocket after launching the vehicle for the fifth time today. The landing was a delightful surprise for the company, since it fully expected that rocket to either break up or slam into the floor of the Texas desert.

Blue Origin fully expected that rocket to slam into the floor of the Texas desert

That's because the purpose of today's flight was to test out the New Shepard's escape system. It's a feature that will save future passengers on board the vehicle, in case the rocket suffers a major failure during flight. Blue Origin initiated the escape system about 45 seconds after takeoff today, causing a rocket motor to ignite underneath the New Shepard's crew capsule — the portion of the vehicle that's meant to carry people. The motor, which burned for about two seconds, successfully carried the capsule up and away from the rest of the rocket. The capsule's three parachutes then deployed and lowered the vehicle gently down to the ground.

Prior to the flight, it was thought that igniting the capsule's motor would be too much for the rocket booster to handle. The ignition slammed the booster with a bunch of forceful heat exhaust, making it hard for the booster to survive the descent back to Earth. But the booster actually continued to climb to space before landing back down successfully at Blue Origin's test facility. Even if the booster had crashed, the flight would still have been considered a success, since the only objective today was to recover the crew capsule. But recovering the New Shepard booster makes the test flight extra special.

The New Shepard is designed to take passengers to the edge of space, where they can float around weightless for a few minutes. People have yet to ride on the New Shepard, but when they do, they'll travel to space inside a crew capsule that sits on top of a rocket booster. That booster carries the capsule up to 62 miles above the Earth's surface, an altitude that many consider to be the boundary of outer space. Once there, the capsule separates from the booster and the two eventually fall back to earth; the capsule touches down with the help of parachutes while the booster reignites its engine and lands upright on solid ground.

Developing...