On April 7, Blue Origin President Rob Meyerson said that the space company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos would be conducting its first unmanned test flights “later this year.” As it turns out, “later this year” meant “three weeks.” The company has announced that it had conducted the first flight of its New Shepard space vehicle yesterday. The propulsion module, powered by Blue Origin’s BE-3 rocket engine, took the New Shepard space capsule up to a speed of over Mach 3. The capsule then separated from the propulsion module and flew to an altitude of 307,000 feet before beginning...
