Earlier this week, Blue Origins CEO Jeff Bezos announced new details about the company's upcoming reusable orbital rocket, New Glenn. Along with the details, Bezos presented a video animation of the reusable orbital rocket's launch and landing.
It should be noted that the video of the New Glenn's landing looked strikingly similar to that of the Falcon 9. Falcon 9 is the New Glenn's rival rocket by Elon Musk's SpaceX. The landings of both rockets in their respective videos showed the Falcon 9 and the New Glenn easing up towards a boat platform. It could just be a coincidence that the boat platforms in each video sported the same color scheme. Regardless, viewers will be able to notice the similarity without being pointed out.
It should be noted Blue Origins had applied for a patent back in 2010 that described the sea landing of rockets and its systems and methods. It described the concept of rockets landing on ocean platforms as seen in the video.
The patent was issued to Blue Origins in 2014 but was eventually canceled. The cancellation came after SpaceX argued that Blue Origins' concept could not be patented as it had already been done before. Musk's company even showed evidence to support its argument.
SpaceX and Blue Origins are currently the only players in this domestic space race. Blue Origin's Bezos founded his company based on a childhood dream involving affordable spaceflight. Musk, on the other hand, had always wanted to colonize Mars and to assist in making humanity an interplanetary species.
Going back to Blue Origin's reusable rocket, features of the New Glenn as announced by Bezos include the ability to carry as much as 100,000 pounds into the Earth's lower orbit and six landing legs. Blue Origin's rocket will still be able to land safely even if one of the six malfunctions. Bezos also announced that the New Glenn already has its first customer in the form of Eutelsat, a French-based satellite operator.
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