Jeff Bezos Returns To Test The New Sheppard Rocket In Uncrewed Flight, Preparing For The Moon?

Jakarta - The rocket that flew Jeff Bezos into space last month has just made a short suborbital journey into the upper atmosphere. This time with no one on board, as the company continues to test the vehicle and prepare to offer rides to other ultra-rich aspiring astronauts and thrill-seekers.

This marked the 17th test flight for the New Shepard, a suborbital rocket developed by Bezos' Blue Origin. The 60-foot-tall vehicle took off from a small launch pad at Blue Origin's West Texas facility Thursday morning.

New Sheppard, carried only a few more science experiments and artwork than passengers, and hovered more than 60 miles above the former landscape. came to a point, landing upright on a nearby concrete pad.

The initial launch has been delayed by an hour due to what Blue Origin said was a "payload readiness issue". But the rest of the initial flight did not appear to be significantly affected by the wait.

New Shepard's unmanned suborbital test missions also often include experiments, and on Thursday's flight he flew a "moon landing technology demonstration" on NASA's behalf. Essentially, Blue Origin put a set of sensors and computer algorithms on a New Shepard rocket, testing technology that could one day be used to navigate lunar landers.

New Shepard attracted global attention last month when Bezos, along with three other passengers, became the first humans to board a rocket. Even though they had only carried out unmanned test flights up to that point.

Bezos recounted his experience after the flight, saying, "Oh my God! The expectations were high, and dramatically exceeded." But Wally Funk - one of the "Mercury 13" ladies who was previously denied the opportunity to go into space but flew with Bezos as an "honoured guest" last month, praised the experience as well. He added: "I saw darkness. I thought I would see the world but we weren't high enough," Funk added at his post-flight press conference.

Blue Origin's suborbital tourism flight covered an altitude of more than 60 miles, which is widely considered to be the point where outer space began. But even the International Space Station, orbiting more than 200 miles above the ground, isn't far enough away to offer a holistic view of Earth.

Despite Thursday's unmanned flight, Blue Origin said it is still planning up to two more manned flights this year.

Bezos plans to use New Shepard's rockets for his suborbital space tourism business, in direct competition with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which is developing air-launched rocket-powered spacecraft. Branson had already made his own flight to the edge of space just days before Bezos' flight last month.

Both companies plan to open a business in the coming months, allowing anyone who can afford to book a seat on each company's spacecraft and enjoy fast hop-off flights that offer great views of the earth and a few minutes of weightlessness.

Virgin Galactic had sold about 600 tickets for about $200,000 before closing ticket sales in 2014. The company recently reopened ticket sales for $450,000 per piece.

Blue Origin has not yet disclosed ticket prices, although at least one ticket sold at auction for $28 million. The company has directed other potential customers only to fill out online forms.

Space tourism is a small but potentially profitable sub-sector of the space industry, and UBS estimates it could become a US$4 billion per year business by 2030.

Blue Origin also hopes to incorporate the technology it developed for New Shepard into a spacecraft capable of landing on the moon. Bezos said the rocket engines, which are able to make precise adjustments to the amount of force they exert, have helped inform how companies can use thrusters, or small engines, to make soft landings on the lunar surface.

But Blue Origin's dream of landing humans on the moon has run into significant obstacles. Earlier this year, NASA announced that it awarded SpaceX a multibillion-dollar contract to build a lunar lander, excluding Blue Origin from the contract it had hoped to land.

Blue Origin has fought back. After losing its first attempt to overturn the decision, the company sued the federal government, claiming that NASA's decision-making was "flawed." A decision in that case is due in November.