Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin rocket booster New Shepard practiced its in-flight escape on Wednesday morning in West Texas, seeing whether the abort system could successfully separate the crew capsule from the booster in case of an emergency.
The rocket had already been used four times, and Bezos said he would probably put the booster in a museum if it didn’t blow up in Wednesday’s test—which it was widely expected to do. But the booster and the crew capsule both nailed a safe landing, in another step forward for commercial space flight.
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