US Patent Issued to Blue Origin Manufacturing on Sept. 23 for "Reusable upper stage rocket with aerospike engine" (California, Washington Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,421,921, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to Blue Origin Manufacturing LLC (Huntsville, Ala.).

"Reusable upper stage rocket with aerospike engine" was invented by James R. French (Laguna Woods, Calif.), Roger Eugene Ramsey (Seattle) and Adam Wuerl (Seattle).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Systems and methods for a fully reusable upper stage for a multi-stage launch vehicle are provided. The reusable upper stage uses an aerospike engine for main propulsion and for vertical landing. A heat shield can include a plurality of scarfed nozzles embedded radially around a semi-spherical surface of the heat shield, wherein inboard surfaces of the p...