page_title: Blue Origin
section_title: Charon
hierarchical_section_title: Blue Origin / Vehicles / Charon
caption_attribution_description: Blue Origin is a quiet space company, founded by Amazon's Jeff Bezos. I have high hopes for them, they have a development center in Kent, Washington near the former Boeing Kent Space Center. "Blue Origin's first flight test vehicle, called Charon, was powered by four vertically mounted Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines rather than rockets. The low-altitude vehicle was developed to test autonomous guidance and control technologies, and the processes that the company would use to develop its later rockets. Charon made its only test flight at Moses Lake, Washington on March 5, 2005. It flew to an altitude of 316 feet (96 m) before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point." Seen in the Museum of Flight, Seattle, Washington USA. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin#Charon IMG_20140425_155246_615
context_page_description: Blue Origin Federation, LLC is an American privately funded aerospace manufacturer and sub-orbital spaceflight services company headquartered in Kent, Washington. Founded in 2000 by Jeff Bezos, the company is led by CEO Bob Smith and is developing technologies to enable private human access to space with the goal to dramatically lower costs and increase reliability. Blue Origin is employing an incremental approach from suborbital to orbital flight, with each developmental step building on its prior work. The company motto is Gradatim Ferociter, Latin for "Step by Step, Ferociously".
  Blue Origin is developing a variety of technologies, with a focus on rocket-powered vertical takeoff and vertical landing vehicles for access to suborbital and orbital space. The company's name refers to the blue planet, Earth, as the point of origin.
  Initially focused on suborbital spaceflight, the company has designed, built and flown multiple testbeds of its New Shepard vehicle at its facilities in Culberson County, Texas. Developmental test flights of the New Shepard, named after the first American in space Alan Shepard, began in April 2015, and flight testing is ongoing.
context_section_description: Blue Origin's first flight test vehicle, called Charon after Pluto's moon, was powered by four vertically mounted Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 jet engines rather than rockets. The low-altitude vehicle was developed to test autonomous guidance and control technologies, and the processes that the company would use to develop its later rockets. Charon made its only test flight at Moses Lake, Washington on 5 March 2005. It flew to an altitude of 96 m (316 ft) before returning for a controlled landing near the liftoff point.
  As of 2016, Charon is on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
caption: Charon on display at the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Washington.
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