Today’s (12-11-21) Blue Origin New Shepard crew landing looked to be at full 15mph with no evidence of retro rockets firing or slowing of the capsule. Did they fire?
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2$\begingroup$ Blue Horizon? Blue Origin, surely? $\endgroup$– RichardDec 12, 2021 at 14:10
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1 Answer
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The live stream shows clear evidence of the retro rockets firing (they don't fire for long, nor do they have to):
Notably, see the dust cloud form before there is slack in the parachute lines. The slack in the parachute lines indicates when the capsule hits the ground.
The slowdown can also be seen in the on screen telemetry, though take these numbers with a grain of latency.
answered Dec 12, 2021 at 1:21
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3$\begingroup$ First frame where the retrorockets fire - you can use , and . to move frame-by-frame in Youtube video, you'll see it's about 6 frames after that until they touch down, then continue to slide over the surface for another couple frames. $\endgroup$– SF.Dec 12, 2021 at 4:22
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5$\begingroup$ 6 frames@25/sec = the retro fired a whole 0.24 second before impact. Pretty close to the advertised "quarter of a second" claimed for them. $\endgroup$ Dec 12, 2021 at 14:02
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4$\begingroup$ commentator called it "innovative" ... haven't Soyuz capsules been doing this for decades? $\endgroup$ Dec 12, 2021 at 16:28
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$\begingroup$ feel free add anything useful from: How does New Shepard Crew Capsule sense proximity to trigger retropropulsion just before impact? (especially the GIFs where the flash of the engine is visible for Soyuz on hard tundra(?) but not in the big dust cloud that New Shepherd disappears into) $\endgroup$– uhohDec 12, 2021 at 22:46
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1$\begingroup$ @user_1818839 Interesting! So I've just asked What are the innovative aspects of New Shepard's "retro-thrust system on the bottom of the capsule"? $\endgroup$– uhohDec 12, 2021 at 23:24
