Jeff Bezos’ rocket company Blue Origin hit a new milestone earlier this week—it successfully launched and landed a rocket test with its new capsule.
Atop the company’s New Shepard rocket was the Crew Capsule 2.0, a new and improved capsule that features “the largest windows in space” and some internal amenities. The windows measure 2.4 feet wide and 3.6 feet high, promising a spectacular view. It’s the latest version of the capsule that the company is creating for eventual passenger flights. The New Shepard rocket, meanwhile, has been used seven times by Blue Origin, most recently in October 2016.
Read: Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Now Plans to Launch Space Tourists a Few Months After Elon Musk
Bezos, Amazon’s founder and CEO, tweeted out a video of the test flight Thursday, showing viewers what a passenger’s experience might one day look like.
The Crew Capsule 2.0 only carried a dummy onboard this week’s test flight, but Blue Origin reportedly hopes to carry real people by early 2019. And it appears that Blue Origin could be on track to meet their goal—the capsule reached an altitude of 326,075 feet, which according to Popular Mechanics, is just shy of the internationally recognized boundary for space.
First use of our landing pad bot #Blue2D2. @blueorigin pic.twitter.com/Ht2P7yVwEs
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) December 15, 2017
This marks a significant improvement over previous capsule deployments, the first of which crashed during attempted landing in April 2015.
