DECRYPTION – From its inaugural flight, scheduled for this week, Blue Origin will attempt to recover the first stage of the New Glenn heavy launcher. A maneuver that only Falcon 9 has mastered to date.
« Whatever happens, it will be exciting ! » The words chosen by American billionaire Jeff Bezos six months ago to evoke the inaugural firing of his first rocket, New Glenn, scheduled for Wednesday at the earliest from Cape Canaveral, Florida, are not insignificant. They are very directly reminiscent of the way Elon Musk talks about his spectacular experimental launches (« Guaranteed show ! »). This could suggest that the two rivals subscribe to the same philosophy of « fail and retry » (“fail and start again”), consisting of stacking prototype tests. This is not the case. The founder of Amazon has chosen a much more traditional development model for his company Blue Origin. “New Space” (the privately-initiated space industry made up of very innovative new players which appeared in the 2000s) in the clothes of the old, some observers gripe
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