Space X’s Falcon 9 rocket landing on a sea-base landing barge this Friday was the third such amazing feat pulled off by the futuristic company of Elon Musk. They have achieved it once on land and twice on a landing barge floating in the sea, the latter of which is a much more complex process than the former due to the tighter constraints involved. Space X’s main competitor is Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin which was incidentally the first space company to successfully land a rocket back to Earth and despite being technically inferior than Space X in its approach, Blue Origin has provided it with the PR competition that Space X has always responded to.
When Blue Origin first landed its own rocket, Space X had to respond in a timely manner and did it in an even more challenging situation within a few days. Now that the Blue Origin was able to get this video of its Shepherd rocket’s landing:
Amazing video, huh? But wait till you see the Space X’s landing itself. Last Friday was when Space X was able to land the Falcon 8 rocket on floating platform in the sea only for the second time. Here is the video of the remarkable achievement.
Not being biased or anything but there is a clear difference in the level of complexity of these two landings. While in the Blue Origin’s landing the rocket falls vertically to its landing area based on dry land, the Space X’s system is too complex and seems to be taken from a lot more altitude than the Blue Origin’s system. The Falcon 9 rocket even has to swerve and fire up its rockets from time to time to achieve a stable flight which we just not see in the case of Blue origin. So, despite the Blue Origin pre-empting the onboard camera battle, I have to say that Space X wins this by a mile.
