London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Watch: Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket Nails ‘Astronaut Rehearsal’ Vertical Landing Test

Watch: Blue Origin’s New Shepard Rocket Nails ‘Astronaut Rehearsal’ Vertical Landing Test

With NASA’s Space Shuttle program gone for nearly a decade, a slew of private firms have stepped up their efforts to provide manned space flight capabilities, not just for US governmental needs, but also for space tourism.

In a Wednesday test described by the company as an “astronaut rehearsal,” Blue Origin successfully blasted a New Shepard rocket into suborbital space and then landed the vehicle back on planet Earth in an upright position.

The Wednesday afternoon test at the company’s West Texas launch site simulated how a real astronaut deployment would proceed, with the rocket lifting a crew capsule to just over the 62-mile limit delineating the beginning of space. Then, as the rocket descended, it fired its stabilizing engine and touched back down on the landing pad, facing upright on its landing struts. The capsule also tested its own re-entry procedures, deploying parachutes to slow its descent before landing in the desert.

Blue Origin streamed the entire event on its YouTube channel.


​The capsule was crewed only by an anthropomorphic test dummy nicknamed “Mannequin Skywalker” and about 25,000 postcards mailed in by students, according to Space News.

Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin's director of astronaut and orbital sales, said during the webcast that the mission "is really a critical step in our march towards first human flight.”

“We’re getting so close to flying people here at Blue Origin,” Cornell added. “You can almost taste it.”

Wednesday’s test was the 15th since 2015, of which only the first crashed. The rocket’s success stands in sharp contrast to competitor SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which has yet to arrive on the ground in one piece. Although SpaceX has unmanned rockets that land upright for reuse, Starship would be its first reusable manned spacecraft to do so.

Founded in 2000, Blue Origin is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ private space flight company, which aims to send paying customers into space for either commercial or tourism purposes. The company also works with the US space and defense industries. On Monday, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced it had selected Blue Origin to work alongside General Atomics and Lockheed Martin in developing a nuclear-powered spacecraft.

Another competitor, Virgin Galactic, recently unveiled its third suborbital space plane, the VSS Imagine, which is expected to ferry paying customers into space after blasting off from a high altitude “mothership.” Of the three, only SpaceX has transported humans into space, on board a Falcon 9 rocket.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×