Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has abandoned a plan to use a retrofitted ro-ro to capture rockets launched by the space venture.
The move comes more than a year after the Amazon founder’s rocket company renamed the vessel Jacklyn, after Bezos’ mother.
Blue Origin spokeswoman Linda Mills told CNN that the company is now seeking a more “cost-effective” alternative for rocket recovery.
It is also assessing its options about what to do with the Jacklyn, listed in shipping databases as the 21,100-gt LPV (built 2004).
Blue Origin bought the former Stena Freighter in 2018 from Sweden’s Stena RoRo. Data from VesselsValue shows that the company paid an estimated $30m for the vessel.
The company currently carries passengers into suborbital space on its New Shepard rocket, which has flown Bezos, Star Trek star William Shatner and others, but is aiming to put the New Glenn rocket into orbit by the end of this year.
That plan would have used the Jacklyn to recover reusable first-stage rocket boosters.
But CNN reported that the plan would require extensive retrofitting, including a platform on which the rockets would land.
Rival Space X has developed a fleet of three autonomous barges to carry out landings of its reusable rockets.
The Marshall Islands-flag Jacklyn, which is classed by Norway’s DNV, was last seen on vessel tracking data at Pensacola, Florida, where its retrofitting was to take place.
