[welikespace]

The rocket & capsule are designed to be fully reusable.

Retro rockets fire just before landing. This is the main cause of the dust cloud that kicks up around the capsule.

Various sources on the web put the touchdown speed at 1-3 mph.

Edit: the 3mph comes from a test where they disabled 1/3 of the parachutes [1]:

Similar flights had been done with the same craft three times before, but this time around, one of the capsule’s parachutes was disabled. Bezos said the two parachutes slowed the descent to 23 mph, as opposed to the usual 16 mph with three parachutes.

Just before the touchdown, the capsule’s retro rocket system fired. Bezos said that brought the speed at impact down to 3 mph. The capsule was equipped with a ring of crushable bumpers on its bottom to absorb that remaining force.

[1] https://www.geekwire.com/2016/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-test-ch...

[alex_young]

Thanks. Looks like no retro rockets on the capsule this time around to me. Wonder what the underside looks like now.

[greglindahl]

Looks the same as previous landings -- a big puff of dust. Normally everyone's showing up to claim that it looked like a hard landing, but the dust is kicked up by the retrorockets that make the landing soft.

[walrus01]

On this thing's trajectory and apogee, re-entry heating will be minimal if any. I wonder if they've looked at putting a crushable/deformable honeycomb type single use structure bolted onto the bottom side, that can be replaced after every flight.