23.04.2022
The fate of the Blue Origin ship named Jacklyn appears to be up in the air as Jeff Bezos' rocket company is re-evaluating if it will use the ship for booster rocket recovery.
The 600-foot former cargo ship has been docked at the Port of Pensacola since 2018 and undergoing a retrofit by the Pensacola company Offshore Inland to enable the ship to serve as a landing platform for the first stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
When contacted by the News Journal to ask if the retrofit project had been canceled, a Blue Origin spokesperson responded that no final decision had been made yet.
The company is looking at "different options" for recovery vessels that give the best chance for mission success while also being safe and cost-effective, the spokesperson said.
Jacklyn, a 600-foot former cargo ship, has been docked at the Port of Pensacola since 2018 as it undergoes a retrofit to enable it to serve as a landing platform for the first stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
It's unclear what the review means for Offshore Inland. The company had not responded to the News Journal's request for comment as of Wednesday.
Blue Origin is the rocket company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The company has launched four human-crewed missions to space aboard its New Shepard rocket, most famously sending actor William Shatner to space last year.
An image for a Blue Origin video shows the New Glenn booster landing on a ship similar to the Jacklyn, which is currently docked at the Port of Pensacola.
Bezos visited Pensacola in December 2020 to rename the ship, Jacklyn, after his mother.
"New Glenn’s first stage will come home to the Jacklyn after every flight," Bezos wrote on his Instagram account at the time. "It couldn't be more appropriately named — Mom has always given us the best place and best heart to come home to."
The company is developing the New Glenn rocket, a heavy-lift rocket and the largest rocket built since NASA's Saturn V rocket that carried astronauts to the moon.
The rocket's first stage is designed to land aboard a ship like the Falcon 9 boosters flown by rival rocket company SpaceX. The Falcon 9 boosters land on a barge but missions can be delayed if there are rough seas that make the barge unstable.
Blue Origin's website touts that New Glenn boosters will land on a moving ship allowing it to land in heavy seas.
Jacklyn, a 600-foot former cargo ship, has been docked at the Port of Pensacola since 2018 as it undergoes a retrofit to enable it to serve as a landing platform for the first stage of Blue Origin's New Glenn rocket.
Amazon announced this month that it would use the New Glenn rocket to launch 3,236 satellites to provide global high-speed, low-latency broadband internet service. Additionally, Blue Origin said the company has contracts with other satellite companies Eutelsat, JSAT and Telesat, as well as NASA.
The New Glenn rocket was originally expected to make its first flight in 2020 from Cape Canaveral, but the company has experienced delays and most recently announcing that the first flight won't take place until at least 2023.
Quelle: Pensacola News