The Glenn’s first stage can hover. Even nearly empty, the booster is heavy enough and the BE-4 can throttle low enough that it doesn’t need to do a suicide burn. Instead, and as they just demonstrated, it can just gently lower itself down on the deck.
Takes more prop to do so, but for a second attempt, the decision to play it safe was perfectly sound. It’s practically guaranteed that they’ll dial the margins in with more flights. This might be the softest landing that a New Glenn ever experiences.
I guess escapade being tiny gave them a lot more margin
The Glenn’s first stage can hover. Even nearly empty, the booster is heavy enough and the BE-4 can throttle low enough that it doesn’t need to do a suicide burn. Instead, and as they just demonstrated, it can just gently lower itself down on the deck.
Takes more prop to do so, but for a second attempt, the decision to play it safe was perfectly sound. It’s practically guaranteed that they’ll dial the margins in with more flights. This might be the softest landing that a New Glenn ever experiences.
I wonder if they’ll go with for full Falcon 9 style suicide burn at some point.
I assume that’s a method of using the minimum amount of thrust and time in the air? So, full blast at the last possible second?
Yup. Falcon 9’s Merlin engines have too high of a thrust to weight ratio to hover, so they have to do a last second burn. If it doesn’t work, boom.
It does also save fuel.
If they do, it won’t be anytime soon. They have no pressing need to.