Bezos' Blue Origin launches, lands suborbital rocket for 4th time

Blue Origin, the U.S. aerospace company started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, on Sunday launched its same suborbital rocket and then successfully landed it vertically for a fourth time.

The New Shepard rocket lifted off from the company's test site in western Texas at 10:36 a.m EDT (1436 GMT), reaching its planned altitude of 331,501 feet (101 kilometers), just past the internationally-recognized boundary of space.

Just before reaching the peak altitude, the rocket and its capsule separated, and both eventually executed what the hosts of Blue Origin launch webcast called "picture-perfect" landings.

"Careful engineering plus of course ... the lucky boots. Successful mission," Bezos tweeted after the successful mission, with a photo showing a pair of cowboy boots on his feet resting on a desk.

The New Shepard system has made three successful landings previously, in November 2015, and in January and April this year, but this is the first time the test has been broadcast live on the internet.

On this flight, Blue Origin intentionally failed one of the three parachutes for the capsule to see whether it could still land safely, an important test given the company hopes to carry tourists into space and back again in the near future.

Blue Origin's rival space firm, Spacex, completed similar rocket recovery tests recently, but the California-based company landed its rocket on ground or on an ocean ship from low Earth orbit, which was thought to be much more difficult technically. Enditem