New Shepard Mission 9

Couple of takeaways:

  1. That sucker went really high. Just a little shy of 120 kilometers.
  2. This test—assuming all reviews are good—proved out New Shepard’s full-envelope-and-then-some escape ability. Very impressive.
  3. The booster landing is so slow and controlled, yet they don’t really seem to aim for the center point, which I find a bit odd.
  4. The capsule touched down really close to the pad. I wonder if that was deliberate, and if so, whether the capsule maneuvers a little on its way back down. Once the chutes are open, I’m not sure how much maneuvering capability there is, if any at all, but this touchdown didn’t seem like a mistake.