AMZN Amazon.com Inc

By Andy Pasztor 

The privately funded space company backed by Amazon.com Inc. founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos announced a historic coup by successfully landing a spent rocket back on Earth after an unmanned flight to the edge of space.

Blue Origin LLC said its reusable New Shepard vehicle flew a suborbital test mission to 333,000 feet on Monday--reaching nearly four times the speed of sound--and then both the unmanned capsule and its BE-3 liquid-fueled rocket separately landed safely back on earth.

According to a company release issued some 18 hours after the test flight, the rocket made a flawless return through stiff winds and touched down gently at the company's launch facility in West Texas. The single rocket engine reignited at an altitude of about 5,000 feet during the controlled return, according to the company, and it landed upright, 4 feet from where it started, traveling at a speed of 4.4 miles an hour.

The ability to reuse such a large rocket has been a long-standing goal of the global aerospace industry, and until now the efforts of Elon Musk's closely held Space Exploration Technology Corp. have garnered the most attention. The aim is to reduce costs and speed up the tempo of launches.

SpaceX, as Mr. Musk's company is called, has repeatedly tried but failed to land its Falcon 9 booster on a floating platform after operational launches. Those attempts came close, but weather issues and mechanical problems disrupted the returns and ended with the spent rocket failing to land vertically.

SpaceX, which has worked over the years to improve its guidance, propulsion and other systems, is expected to try again in coming months.

But with its first-of-a-kind accomplishment, Blue Origin set a new benchmark for the burgeoning commercial space industry. The New Shepard system is intended to carry six passengers on suborbital flights to the edge of the atmosphere, giving space tourists a taste of weightlessness with the capsule floating to earth after deployment of three main parachutes.

The rocket is designed to separate at the high point of its trajectory, as it sends the capsule and its passengers coasting on a thrill ride. The BE-3 engine, used to slow the rocket during the final descent phase, is intended to be reused.

"Full reuse is a game changer, and we can't wait to fuel up and fly again," Mr. Bezos said in the release.

The company, renowned for its secrecy, has steadfastly refused to indicate when it expects manned flights to begin.

In typical rocket launches, parts of the booster either burn up during re-entry or come back too damaged to be flown again. Many industry officials and space aficionados consider reusability essential for space tourism projects to thrive.

The ability to inspect, refurbish and then launch the same booster--instead of allowing it to plummet back to earth in an uncontrolled fashion--also offers huge potential advantages for satellite operators and launch providers alike.

In the past, Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk have dueled over reusability concepts. Blue Origin, based in Kent, Washington, initially conceived the concept of vertically landing a spent rocket on a barge, but SpaceX successfully challenged the patent.

The two hard-charging billionaires, both self-described space geeks enamored with the idea of human missions, also clashed briefly over taking over launchpads at Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

As part of his expanding space ambitions, Mr. Bezos in September announced a roughly $200 million investment to build rockets and capsules in Florida, and then blast them into orbit from a nearby Cape Canaveral launchpad that hasn't been used for a decade.

Those missions will use different capsules and rocket engines than the suborbital New Shepard, which is intended to continue launching from the Van Horn, Texas, facility

Mr. Bezos over the years has kept many details of Blue Origin's plans private, and has shunned publicity about nearly all test flights.

The space startup's orbital missions will use historic Launch Complex 36, located on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, which among other firsts launched the initial American spacecraft to visit other planets.

Blue Origin also is joining with a Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. joint venture to provide a new, all-domestic rocket engine to launch national-security and other U.S. government payloads.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 24, 2015 09:34 ET (14:34 GMT)

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