Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin launched a reusable rocket just two months after they tested the same rocket in November 2015. The rocket was recovered in a soft landing.
Bezos has repeatedly declared that his goal is to have "millions of people living and working in space". Using reusable rockets is a breakthrough for the commercial space industry. The cost of space flight could decrease dramatically in the future due to this new trend. This is the first step toward flying tourists to the cosmos and democratizing space.
The New Shepard vehicle is the first rocket to pass the boundary of space, and then successfully land for the second time in a row. For decades, rocket boosters were discarded after launch. Now, landing rockets is the latest trend in the space industry. Blue Origin and SpaceX have been developing boosters that land safely so that they can be reused.
The Washington Post reported analysts consider that recovering and reusing rockets reliably is a huge breakthrough for the commercial space industry. In order to achieve his vision of democratizing space for the masses' access, Bezos declared that his company Blue Origin plans building much larger rockets. The tech billionaire explained that it would be easier to land bigger rockets because their size increases stability.
In November 2015, Blue Origin launched the New Shepard vehicle past the boundary line of space, from its test site in west Texas. The spacecraft then landed safely, becoming the first rocket to land vertically, according to the website Spaceflightnow. Friday's flight was relatively straightforward due to data from that first flight. The only change was a significant software update aimed to further improve the autonomous landings.
In December, SpaceX topped Blue Origin by launching the Falcon 9 rocket on an orbital mission, then landing the first stage of the rocket at Cape Canaveral, on a landing site. However, SpaceX decided to preserve that rocket for history and to not fly it again.
