Vertical rocket destroyed mid-flight in failed test

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

The engines on Blue Origin's test vehicle had to be cut at 45,000 feet (Image: Blue Origin)

Blue Origin, one of the contenders in the race to launch a commercial space-flight industry, suffered an in-flight failure last week that resulted in its craft being purposely destroyed by ground controllers. The company is analysing the debris in a bid to determine the cause.

Blue Origin was founded by Amazon.com chief Jeff Bezos and is based in Kent, Washington. The company is planning to launch suborbital missions in a rocket that takes off and lands vertically. Until last week, however, the pill-shaped craft had only performed short hops to test its ability to take off and land vertically while remaining stable and controllable.

While the aim and intended range of last week's test mission is unclear - Blue Origin guards its development plans closely - the rocket lifted off from the firm's remote spaceport in west Texas and reached a speed of Mach 1.2 and an altitude of 14 kilometres (45,000 feet) before trouble struck. At that height the craft adopted a trajectory that could have taken it over populated areas, so its engines we're switched off, allowing it to drop to the ground.

In an online update, Bezos explained:

A flight instability drove an angle of attack that triggered our range safety system to terminate thrust on the vehicle. Not the outcome any of us wanted, but we're signed up for this to be hard, and the Blue Origin team is doing an outstanding job. We're already working on our next development vehicle.

Bezos, who is planning crewed flight tests in 2012 if further uncrewed launches succeed, is the third high-profile entrepreneur to throw his hat into the commercial space-flight ring. Virgin Galactic, headed by Richard Branson, and SpaceX, founded by PayPal founder Elon Musk, have also made entries.

Virgin Galactic - aided by its spaceship builder, Scaled Composites - is thought to be close to testing its air-launched rocket, SpaceShipTwo, with a live hybrid rocket engine after an extended series of glide tests designed to prove its aerodynamics. And SpaceX is preparing its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule for a NASA-funded cargo flight to the International Space Station in December.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/17ff6599/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cshortsharpscience0C20A110C0A90Cvertical0Elanding0Erocket0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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