US Space Program - a thread

[Hamartia Antidote]

Salt may be the answer to Ceres mysterious spots, NASA says - Pulse Headlines

After months analyzing high resolution images of the topography of the surface of the asteroid Ceres, NASA scientists are closer to unveil its nature. The images were sent from the Dawn spacecraft, which has been orbiting the cratered minor planet at an altitude of 915 miles.

At first, NASA believed that the spots reflected on the images of the surface of an object on the asteroid were ice formations, given that scientists belief that Ceres has a subsurface ocean that is being exposed by asteroid impacts. Nevertheless, this hypothesis was trashed and scientists are going in a different way.

“We believe this is a huge salt deposit […] We know it’s not ice and we’re pretty sure it’s salt, but we don’t know exactly what salt at the present time.” Dawn’s principal investigator Chris Russell told a crowd of scientists Monday at the European Planetary Science Congress in Nantes, France.

Russell explained that salt may come from the interior, although they can’t explain it yet, but they discarded the possibility of it coming from other asteroids. Another fact that NASA provided is that the salt is completely dry.

The spots are found in Occator – a 56-mile-wide crater on the highland area of Ceres – but they can also be found on other lower areas.

Another interesting area that scientists are studying, according to Russell, is a tall mountain that also presents the salt spots. He also pointed out that the unnamed mountain may have a twin, although the Dawn spacecraft haven’t had a good look at it yet.

They still don’t have an explanation of how the mountain was formed, but an hypothesis could be that of tectonic forces similar to Earth, but with differences on gravity. Russell concluded with the remaining possibility of finding liquid water on Ceres, needing more research with different equipment.

For the moments, the Dawn spacecraft will continue providing images helping researchers analyzing more data to keep taking a deep look on the planet’s mysteries.

“Ceres continues to amaze, yet puzzle us, as we examine our multitude of images, spectra and now energetic particle bursts,” said Chris Russell on his talk.

 

[Transhumanist]

SpaceX Will Return Falcon-9 to Flight with Orbcomm-2 Mission to Test Rocket's Upper Stage

SpaceX Will Return Falcon-9 to Flight with Orbcomm-2 Mission to Test Rocket’s Upper Stage « AmericaSpace

The first Orbcomm launch with SpaceX on 14 July, with six Orbcomm Generation-2 (OG-2) satellites onboard. SpaceX is primed to return their Falcon-9 rocket to flight with the next set of Orbcomm satellites in 6-8 weeks. Photo Credit: Alan Walters/AmericaSpace

Its been over three months since the loss of the SpaceX Commercial Resupply Services (CRS)-7 Dragon cargo mission to the International Space Station (ISS) for NASA, which appeared to have fallen victim to a failed helium tank strut, provided by an external supplier. Now the Hawthorne, CA-based company stands ready to resume launches of its workhorse Falcon-9 rocket, in a heavily modified form, in as soon as “6-8 weeks”, and will do so on the Orbcomm OG-2 Mission-2 to deliver 11 satellites to orbit for Orbcomm.

“As we prepare for return to flight, SpaceX together with its customers SES and Orbcomm have evaluated opportunities to optimize the readiness of the upcoming Falcon 9 return-to-flight mission,” says SpaceX in a statement released this afternoon. “All parties have mutually agreed that SpaceX will now fly the Orbcomm-2 mission on the return-to-flight Falcon 9.”

SpaceX’s Falcon-9 booster launching Dragon on the CRS-5 mission to the ISS. Photo Credit: Mike Killian / AmericaSpace

Launch of the SES-9 communications satellite into Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO) on behalf of the Luxembourg-headquartered SES had been speculated for some time as SpaceX’s Return to Flight mission, but the company decided to “switch” missions in order to conduct on-orbit testing of their now modified Falcon-9 upper stage.

“The Orbcomm-2 mission does not require a relight of the second stage engine following orbital insertion. Flying the Orbcomm-2 mission first will therefore allow SpaceX to conduct an on-orbit test of the second stage relight system after the Orbcomm-2 satellites have been safely deployed. This on-orbit test, combined with the current qualification program to be completed prior to launch, will further validate the second stage relight system and allow for optimization of the upcoming SES-9 mission and following missions to geosynchronous transfer orbit.”

Built by Sierra Nevada Corp., the original plan was to launch 18 OG-2 satellites, the first of which flew ‘piggyback’ on SpaceX’s first dedicated Dragon mission in October 2012. However, an upper-stage engine shortfall of the Falcon-9 v1.0 rocket caused the satellite to be injected into a low orbit of just 125 x 200 miles (200 x 320 km), instead of the intended 220 x 470 miles (350 x 750 km). As a result, the satellite re-entered Earth’s atmosphere and was destroyed.

SpaceX’s third Falcon-9 launch of 2014 flew the first six Orbcomm OG-2 satellites (OG-2 Mission-1), successfully delivering the 380 pound satellites into a circular 460 x 460 mile high orbit. Each satellite measures 42.7 feet (13 meters) x 3.3 feet (1 meter) x 1.6 feet (0.5 meters) when fully deployed, and each can generate about 400 watts of electrical power. Designed with Automatic Identification System (AIS), it is expected that the OG-2 network will be marketed by Orbcomm to U.S. and international coast guards and government agencies, as well as private security and logistics companies.

The rocket itself has been upgraded in many ways. SpaceX refers to it as the “Falcon 9 v1.1 Full Thrust”, which is an internal code name for calculating the Merlin 1D engine output at 100 percent, and many of the modifications are outlined in a recent Falcon-9 update by AmericaSpace Senior Writer Ben Evans. Upgraded Merlin 1D+ engines, increased thrust performance, structural enhancements to the vehicle’s airframe, increases in propellant tank volumes, a lengthened second stage, upgraded landing legs and grid fins and an improved “Octaweb” support structure for the first-stage engine suite all compliment the “new” Falcon-9.

The Orbcomm OG Mission-2 flight will also give SpaceX another try at landing their rocket’s first stage on an offshore barge known as the Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship (ASDS), part of the company’s efforts to turn the Falcon-9 into a truly reusable launch system. A series of “controlled oceanic touchdowns” in April, July, and September 2014 were followed with mixed fortune earlier this year, when two attempts were made to land on the ASDS. The first reached the deck, but impacted hard at a 45-degree angle and exploded, whilst the second landed with excessive lateral velocity and toppled over upon impact.

Stabilizing the 150-foot-tall rocket stage in flight, traveling at a velocity of 2,900 mph at separation, has been likened to someone balancing a rubber broomstick on their hand in the middle of a fierce wind storm.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk expects that the new improvements will allow SpaceX to soft-land the Falcon-9 even during high-energy launches to the 22,300-mile (35,900-km) altitude of GTO, where SES-9 will launch to. Previously, only comparatively low-energy launches to Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) had seen soft-landing attempts, although SpaceX originally intended to bring the first stage from NASA’s L1-bound Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) back to the ASDS in February 2015, but was ultimately thwarted by rough seas.

When they do finally land a rocket successfully, it will be a history-making feat, a game-changer that many expect the company to accomplish sooner rather than later, including their main competitor United Launch Alliance (ULA). Never has a rocket made a controlled landing after a launch, and the expectation is that once the Falcon-9 is truly reusable it will drive down dramatically both the costs of access to space and turnaround time between launches.

In the meantime, SpaceX is building the actual landing site for their rockets, at the old Launch Complex-13 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, under a five-year lease agreement with the U.S. Air Force. Although instead of being called “Launch Complex-13,” it is now designated as “Landing Complex-1.” A primary concrete landing pad will be developed, surrounded by four smaller contingency landing pads for use in case a landing rocket is not quite on the bull’s eye.

The company is also planning similar operations at their west coast launch site at Vandenberg AFB, Calif. Another ASDS will serve as the company’s Vandenberg barge while SpaceX continues on the reusability development path to landing their rockets back on solid ground.

 

[Transhumanist]

If You Send a Sloth to Space, You Better Expect it to Nap

so cute

Would a sloth make a good astronaut? Probably not, but it’s damn cute to watch one try.

This little creature headed to NASA’s Human Exploration Research Analog(HERA) for International Sloth Day, raising awareness for our tiny friends while investigating what it would be like to go on a deep space mission.

Sloth prepares space food.

Most food is dehydrated to reduce weight and irradiated for safety; the arrival of fresh fruit is a welcome treat. The low-energy-density diet of tough leaves favoured by most sloths is not very space-friendly, at least until space-gardening is more reliable.

Sloth climbing into the upper levels of the habitat.

Sloths are strong climbers: their 8 to 10 centimeter (3 to 4 inch) claws make hanging from the ladders easier than walking on flat ground.

Sloth reading NASA procedures on Google Glass.

Sloths have poor vision, so reading procedures on Google Glass might actually be more feasible than reading a screen, aside from their lack of literacy and language skills.

Sloth clambering around the exercise equipment.

Exercise is incredibly important in space, not only for maintaining muscle tone in reduced gravity, but also for reducing other health risks from prolonged time off-planet. Although our little sloth is game to clamber and climb, alas, the poor creature lacks appropriate proportions to use standard equipment either in the habitat or on the space station.

Sloth checking on HERA systems.

Space habitats are kept at controlled environmental conditions. Humans would need to get used to warmer, more humid conditions if the tropical species joined in on space missions.

Sloth providing saliva for science experiments.

An important aspect of sending creatures to space is to run biological experiments on how that environment impacts them. We have plenty of data on humans and limited data on other species, but the only way sloths have gone to space is in meme-format.

Sloth resting after an abnormally long day.

Sloths usually sleep for 15 to 20 hours a day, leaving very little time for mission research, station upkeep, or recreational activities. Any sloth heading to NASA’s HERA facility is going to spend a lot of time in the crew quarters relaxing.

While slothtronauts may not be the most practical crewmates to bring along on deep space expeditions, their cute-factor alone must be good for decreasing stress levels of crews kept in confined isolation for far too long.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

NASA just announced an unexpected asteroid flyby this Halloween - ScienceAlert

It’s time to get to know a new friend: asteroid 2015 TB145, a sizeable chunk of rock that’s hurtling through space at speeds of over 126,000 km/h (78,293 mph) right now. Discovered just 10 days ago, the asteroid has caught the attention of scientists at NASA because on October 31, it’s expected to draw closer to Earth than anything this size has since July 2006.

But before you reach for the keys to your apocalypse bunker, relax. When we say "close", we’re talking relatively, which in this case means 1.3 lunar distances, or about 499,000 km (310,000 miles) from Earth.

"This is the closest approach by a known object this large until 1999 AN10 approaches within 1 lunar distance in August 2027," a NASA report states. "The last approach closer than this ... was by 2004 XP14 in July 2006 at 1.1 lunar distances."

Detected on October 10 by the Pan-STARRS I survey in Hawaii, which employs several astronomical cameras and telescopes from around the world to identify potentially threatening near-Earth objects, asteroid 2015 TB145 is estimated to be between 280 to 620 metres (918 to 2,034 ft) in diameter.

We’ve had closer encounters recently, but not by something on this scale. In 2013, Russian motorists filmed a 17-metre meteorite burn up in Earth’s atmosphere at a top speed of 19 km/s, and back in 1908, a 40-metre meteorite crashed into a Russian forest.

NASA says asteroid 2015 TB145 has an extremely eccentric and high-inclination orbit, which Colin Jeffrey at Gizmag suggests could be the reason it was only just recently discovered (which is admittedly a bit disconcerting). He adds that while it won’t be visible to the naked eye during its closest moments on Halloween, it should be observable to those lucky enough to have a good-quality amateur telescope.

For those playing at home, it’s expected to pass through the constellation of Orion at about 17:18 UT on Saturday 31 October. That’s 5:18pm EDT and 3:18am AEST.

According to NASA's Near-Earth Object Observations Program, as of 16 October 2015, 13,251 near-Earth objects have been discovered, 877 of which are asteroids with a diameter of approximately 1 kilometre or larger. Some 1,635 of these have been classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs).

If all that makes you slightly nervous, don't worry. NASA says none of the asteroids or comets it's identified will come close enough to impact Earth anytime in the foreseeable future. "All known Potentially Hazardous Asteroids have less than a 0.01 percent chance of impacting Earth in the next 100 years," they reported back in August. Sure, they didn't spot 2015 TB145 till less than two weeks ago, so what can you do about it?

Lots, as it turns out. You can get involved in the search for near-Earth objects by downloading NASA's free app, called Asteroid Data Hunter. All you need to start helping out is an Internet connection and a telescope. Or you could just sit back and freak yourself out by watching the video below, which visualises space if all the near-Earth Objects we know about were visible. I know which option I'm taking...

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

NASA orders first crewed mission to ISS from SpaceX - SpaceFlight Insider

NASA placed its first mission order to SpaceX for the NewSpace firm to ferry crews to the International Space Station. This is the second in a series of four guaranteed orders the Space Agency plans on making under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCap) contract.

“It’s really exciting to see SpaceX and Boeing with hardware in flow for their first crew rotation missions,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program. “It is important to have at least two healthy and robust capabilities from U.S. companies to deliver crew and critical scientific experiments from American soil to the space station throughout its lifespan.”

Orders have to be placed prior to certification, so as to allow for the lead time needed for these missions to take place. If things continue apace and SpaceX meets readiness conditions, the flight could take place in late 2017.

SpaceX conducted a Pad Abort Test of its Crew Dragon spacecraft in May 2015. Photo Credit: Michael Howard / SpaceFlight Insider

“Commercial crew launches are really important for helping us meet the demand for research on the space station because it allows us to increase the crew to seven,” said Julie Robinson, International Space Station chief scientist. “Over the long term, it also sets the foundation for scientific access to future commercial research platforms in low-Earth orbit.”

The two companies involved with NASA’s Commercial Crew Program have each taken similar but different paths in terms of accomplishing the program’s directives. SpaceX has opted to field not only the crewed version of their spacecraft but also to send it to orbit via the firm’s Falcon 9 booster. Boeing, on the other hand, will use United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V 401 booster and potentially the yet-to-be-launched Vulcan Next-Generation Launch System.

According to NASA, both the Crew Dragon and the Falcon 9 have successfully passed through both development and certification phases. Moreover, a Critical Design Review or “CDR” has recently been successfully completed. This particular CDR verified that the system was “mature” enough to proceed to fabrication, assembly, integration, and testing.

CCtCap orders are placed approximately two or three years before the actual mission is scheduled to take to the skies. NASA closely monitors and validates that each system is ready before providing final approval.

Each contract includes a minimum of two and a maximum potential of six missions.

If things go as advertised, a “normal” CCP mission could see around four NASA or NASA-sponsored crew members and about 220 lbs (100 kg) of pressurized cargo to the orbiting laboratory.

NASA has been dependent on Russia since the close of the Space Shuttle Program in July of 2011 for crew access to and from the ISS. Also, whereas Russian Soyuz spacecraft have remained at the ISS as a lifeboat, both Crew Dragon and Starliner will be capable of staying docked to the ISS for 210 days allowing the U.S. to have its own ability to carry out this important service.

Boeing received the company’s first mission order in May 2015. The final determination of whether Boeing or SpaceX will conduct the first commercial flight to the station has yet to be made. SpaceX has already claimed the historical prize of sending the first commercial spacecraft to the ISS via the COTS-2 mission in May of 2012.

“The authority to proceed with Dragon’s first operational crew mission is a significant milestone in the Commercial Crew Program and a great source of pride for the entire SpaceX team,” said SpaceX’s President and Chief Operating Officer, Gwynne Shotwell. “When Crew Dragon takes NASA astronauts to the space station in 2017, they will be riding in one of the safest, most reliable spacecraft ever flown. We’re honored to be developing this capability for NASA and our country.”

NASA has been working for some time to cede control of ferrying cargo and crew to the sole destination in low-Earth orbit to private firms, Boeing, Orbital ATK, and SpaceX. Meanwhile, the agency wants to return to the business of sending humans to destinations further than low-Earth orbit such as the Moon, an asteroid, and eventually Mars. No person has been further than some 350 miles (560 kilometers) from Earth since 1972 when Apollo 17 returned home from the Moon.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon will launch from launch pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center. The firm received a 20-year lease on the former Space Shuttle launch pad in 2014 and has since built a horizontal integration facility and made modifications to the pad to support the Transporter Erector. The company is planning for the first launch on this pad – a Falcon Heavy – to occur sometime in 2016. Photo Credit: SpaceX

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

NASA places order for second Starliner from Boeing - SpaceFlight Insider

Last week, NASA ordered the second crewed mission from Boeing, bringing the space agency one step closer to returning regular crewed missions to the International Space Station (ISS) to U.S. launch facilities.

In addition getting a second order from NASA, Boeing successfully completed several interim developmental milestones for the Starliner spacecraft, the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Atlas V and the ground support system.

“Once certified by NASA, the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon each will be capable of two crew launches to the station per year,” said Kathy Lueders, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP). “Placing orders for those missions now really sets us up for a sustainable future aboard the International Space Station.”

....

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Old solid rocket booster separation footage.

 

[jhungary]

US Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Wings Past 200 Days in Orbit - Yahoo News

US Air Force's X-37B Space Plane Wings Past 200 Days in Orbit

Mum's the word: The U.S. Air Force's secretive X-37B space plane has winged its way past the 200 day mark, carrying out a classified agenda for the American military.

The unmanned X-37B space plane rocketed into orbit on May 20 on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launching from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station back. The reusable robotic space plane mission, also dubbed OTV-4 (short for Orbital Test Vehicle-4), is the fourth spacecraft of its kind for the U.S. Air Force.

OTV-4 also marks the second flight of the second X-37B vehicle built for the Air Force by Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems. Only two reusable X-37B vehicles have been confirmed as constituting the fleet. [See photos from the X-37B space plane's OTV-4 mission]


Mini-shuttle
The X-37B space plane looks like a miniature version of NASA's now-retired space shuttle orbiter. The military space plane is 29 feet (8.8 meters) long and 9.5 feet (2.9 m) tall, and has a wingspan of nearly 15 feet (4.6 m). The spacecraft sports a payload bay about the size of a pickup truck bed.

The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office (AFRCO) runs the X-37B program.

While the overall duties of the space plane remain secretive, it was previously announced that this craft carries a NASA advanced materials experiment and an experimental propulsion system developed by the Air Force.

Track record

• The first OTV mission began April 22, 2010 and concluded on Dec. 3, 2010, after 224 days in orbit.
• The second OTV mission began March 5, 2011, and concluded on June 16, 2012, chalking up a mission of 469 days.
• The X-37B program completed its third mission on Oct. 17, 2014 following 674 days in orbit after its Dec. 3, 2012 launch. This last flight extended the total number of days spent on-orbit for X-37B craft to 1,367.

Florida landing?
To date, all flights of the X-37B touched down at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. When and where OTV-4 will return to Earth is not known.

In 2014, it was announced that Boeing Space & Intelligence Systems had consolidated its space plane operations by making use of NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida as a landing site for the X-37B.

According to Boeing, a former KSC space-shuttle facility known as Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF-1) has being converted into a structure that will enable the Air Force "to efficiently land, recover, refurbish and relaunch the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV)."

Leonard David has been reporting on the space industry for more than five decades. He is former director of research for the National Commission on Space and is co-author of Buzz Aldrin's 2013 book "Mission to Mars – My Vision for Space Exploration" published by National Geographic with a new updated paperback version released in May 2015. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Published on Space.com.

• What Is X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle? Air Force TV Speculates | Video
• X-37B: The Air Force's Mysterious Space Plane
• US Air Force's Secretive X-37B Space Plane (Infographic)

Copyright 2015 SPACE.com, a Purch company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

• Science
• Space & Astronomy
• Air Force
• space plane

 

[Slave_to_the_waffle]

I posted this on AMF too, thought I do so here as well:

Next Gen Space Suit - NDX-1 being tested:

University of North Dakota graduate researcher Travis Nelson, wearing an NDX-1 spacesuit, practices scooping up objects and placing them into containers inside the SwampWorks regolith bin at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The university team is analyzing the prototype suit’s ability to protect astronauts while allowing them the flexibility to dig samples and perform other tasks in regolith, a fine, powdery soil similar to that found on Mars.

NDX-1 led to the development of NDX-2:

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

This New 'Earthrise' Photo from NASA Is Simply Breathtaking

A spectacular new photo of Earth from space recalls the two most famous images of our planet ever taken.

The photo, which was captured by NASA's robotic Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), shows a sunlit Earth looming above a rumpled moonscape banded with shadow.

"The image is simply stunning," Noah Petro, deputy project scientist for LRO at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "The image of the Earth evokes the famous 'Blue Marble' image taken by astronaut Harrison Schmitt during Apollo 17, 43 years ago, which also showed Africa prominently in the picture."



The shot is a sort of combination of the Blue Marble photo and an earlier "Earthrise" image, which was taken by the Apollo 8 crew — the first people ever to leave Earth orbit — as they entered orbit around the moon on Dec. 24, 1968.

"It was credited with awakening the modern version of the environmental movement," former United States Vice President Al Gore said of the 1968 photo at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco on Dec. 16.


"Within 18 months of this image being seen here on Earth, the first Earth Day was organized," Gore added. "The Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and its counterparts in many other countries came in the immediate aftermath of the consciousness-raising that accompanied this picture."

The 1968 photo was not actually the first Earthrise image; that distinction goes to a picture taken by NASA's robotic Lunar Orbiter 1 spacecraft in 1966. But the black-and-white 1966 picture did not have the same dramatic and lasting impact on society, Gore said.

The new photo, which NASA released Friday (Dec. 18), was created from a series of pictures that LRO took on Oct.12, when the car-size probe was about 83 miles (134 kilometers) above the lunar far side's Compton Crater. (The moon is tidally locked to Earth, meaning observers on the planet only ever one face of the satellite — the near side.)

The $504 million LRO mission launched in June 2009 and initially worked primarily as a scout, gathering data that could be useful for future crewed journeys to the moon. The spacecraft transitioned to more of a pure science mode in September 2010.

 

[Fenrir]

The Martin Marietta X-24A and then the later X-24B were an experimental US aircrafts developed from a joint USAF-NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). They were designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered re-entry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

The Martin Marietta X-24A and then the later X-24B were an experimental US aircrafts developed from a joint USAF-NASA program named PILOT (1963–1975). They were designed and built to test lifting body concepts, experimenting with the concept of unpowered re-entry and landing, later used by the Space Shuttle.

 

[Fenrir]

SpaceX's Crew Dragon Rocks Latest Hover Tests

Go go Dragon! SpaceX just posted video of its Dragon 2 spacecraft testing its ability to hover. Once certified, this spacecraft will carry astronauts to the space station as part of NASA’s commercial crew program. Crewed test flights are tentatively planned to start in 2017.

The Dragon 2 (or Crew Dragon) is the spacecraft that will sit atop the Falcon 9 rockets. Although it’ll be launched into orbit by the rocket, the eight SuperDraco engines will be used to bring the craft down for acontrolled landing when it brings crews safely home.

The hover test was the latest in a long line of tests for certifying the Dragon 2 to transport humans. The craft performed beautifully during two tethered tests in November 2015 at SpaceX’s test facility in McGregor, Texas. A NASA statement describing the eight thrusters as landing the full-sized spacecraft mockup with the “accuracy of a helicopter.”

Despite the flawless performance, the thrusters won’t be used the first few times humans ride in the Dragon. Initially, the spacecraft will use parachutes to slow its descent through the atmosphere, and splash down in the ocean in a manner familiar to fans of the Apollo missions.

Check out the full video of the descent landing tether test:

 

[Aepsilons]

@SvenSvensonov, if you don't log bag in to say hi, I will officially declare war on you !

 

[Fenrir]

Blue Origin launches and lands sub-orbital rocket for second time | Science | The Guardian

Blue Origin, the space transport venture set up by Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, has launched and landed a sub-orbital rocket for the second time, an achievement hailed as a significant development in the company’s drive to develop reusable rockets.

The spacecraft, which is designed to carry six passengers, reached a height of 333,582 ft (63 miles) before coming back to earth and landing itself a few minutes later. It was the same vehicle that made a successful test launch and landing two months ago, Bezos said.