Blue Origin Just Launched and Landed Its Reusable Rocket for the Third Time

Private spaceflight company Blue Origin has successfully launched and landed its New Shepard rocket for the third time. On Saturday morning, CEO Jeff Bezos tweeted out that the rocket had a clean launch at 11:18 am ET and a “perfect booster landing.” The vehicle tested today is the same one that successfully launched and landed once in November and then again in January. This is the second time this New Shepard has been “reused” after launching into space.

Bezos noted beforehand that Blue Origin was trying out a couple new things with this launch. To perform its landing post-launch, the New Shepard rocket restarted its engine “fast at high thrust” just 3,600 feet from the ground. If the engine didn’t restart at that height, then the rocket would have slammed into the ground in six seconds, according to Bezos. Blue Origin also planned to test out new software that controls one of the crew capsule’s control systems, which Bezos said would be a big “performance win” if it works.

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This article originally appeared on Recode.net.

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