Blue Origin delivers its first BE-4 rocket engine
Capitalism in space: Blue Origin this week delivered its first BE-4 rocket engine to ULA, for use in ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.
This engine is still a test article and is not yet flight-worthy.
“The engine delivered is the first pathfinder engine to be mated with the Vulcan Centaur and will support ULA’s testing,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told SpaceNews. “We are planning on delivering the second engine in July.” A pathfinder is a development engine. Blue Origin has not said when a flight-qualified engine will be delivered.
…ULA set a 2021 target to fly its first Vulcan Centaur mission and needs two production-quality engines to build the launch vehicle for that mission. Flying Vulcan Centaur in 2021 is an imperative for ULA as it tries to win one of two contracts that the U.S. Space Force will award this summer to launch dozens of national security satellites between 2022 and 2027.
According to sources, frustration has been mounting at ULA as the company’s future is tied to the success of Vulcan Centaur and there is no room for error when it comes to the main engine.
I empathize with ULA’s frustration. The pace of development at Blue Origin has seemed incredibly slow in the past two years. They had begun static fire tests in 2018, and then — beginning with ULA’s decision to buy the BE-4 for Vulcan in May 2018 — for more than a year there was no news. It wasn’t until August 2019 that they announced completion of the first full power test. Even then, it took another whole year before they got to this point now, where they were willing to deliver a first test engine to ULA.
Building a new rocket engine is not simple, so these delays could be entirely reasonable. At the same time, the company’s overall pace in accomplishing anything has been glacial. For example, in the past three years it has repeatedly not delivered on its promises to start flying humans on its New Shepard suborbital capsule. Four months ago, in their most recent promise, they said they would need three more unmanned test flights of New Shepard before they’d put humans on it, and that all those flights (including the manned one) would occur this year. Yet nothing has happened since.
While I truly want Blue Origin to succeed, one must cast a cold eye on what is really happening. If they wish to really compete with SpaceX they have got to pick up their pace.
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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
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Capitalism in space: Blue Origin this week delivered its first BE-4 rocket engine to ULA, for use in ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.
This engine is still a test article and is not yet flight-worthy.
“The engine delivered is the first pathfinder engine to be mated with the Vulcan Centaur and will support ULA’s testing,” a Blue Origin spokesperson told SpaceNews. “We are planning on delivering the second engine in July.” A pathfinder is a development engine. Blue Origin has not said when a flight-qualified engine will be delivered.
…ULA set a 2021 target to fly its first Vulcan Centaur mission and needs two production-quality engines to build the launch vehicle for that mission. Flying Vulcan Centaur in 2021 is an imperative for ULA as it tries to win one of two contracts that the U.S. Space Force will award this summer to launch dozens of national security satellites between 2022 and 2027.
According to sources, frustration has been mounting at ULA as the company’s future is tied to the success of Vulcan Centaur and there is no room for error when it comes to the main engine.
I empathize with ULA’s frustration. The pace of development at Blue Origin has seemed incredibly slow in the past two years. They had begun static fire tests in 2018, and then — beginning with ULA’s decision to buy the BE-4 for Vulcan in May 2018 — for more than a year there was no news. It wasn’t until August 2019 that they announced completion of the first full power test. Even then, it took another whole year before they got to this point now, where they were willing to deliver a first test engine to ULA.
Building a new rocket engine is not simple, so these delays could be entirely reasonable. At the same time, the company’s overall pace in accomplishing anything has been glacial. For example, in the past three years it has repeatedly not delivered on its promises to start flying humans on its New Shepard suborbital capsule. Four months ago, in their most recent promise, they said they would need three more unmanned test flights of New Shepard before they’d put humans on it, and that all those flights (including the manned one) would occur this year. Yet nothing has happened since.
While I truly want Blue Origin to succeed, one must cast a cold eye on what is really happening. If they wish to really compete with SpaceX they have got to pick up their pace.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
That looks pretty complicated, although I’d assume that some of that is instrumentation that won’t be part of production engines.
Still, it looks like a lot more spaghetti wiring and tubing than the early Raptors, and Raptors have been shedding that complexity as production continues. The last Raptor we’ve seen was SN20, which was to be the engine for the first Starship hop with SS SN4. SN5 should be getting its Raptor in a day or two; it will be interesting to see how it’s progressing. Elon’s last update on Raptor production was SN30, a month ago. And these Raptors are flight-test articles.
BO needs to stop being so careful and accept they’re going to have the occasional mishaps along the way.
I mean, look at that mobile trailer. Strong, straight, probably cradles the engine perfectly at just the right places. Took months to design and tons of money to build.
Meanwhile, SpaceX shuffles Raptors around on wooden pallets using a rented forklift.
BO has the “advantage” of a very wealthy and undemanding benefactor. They are under no real stress to do anything, so they pretty much don’t. If the contract with ULA falls through, Bezos will just cut them another billion dollar check. Just like NASA with SLA, failure is not only an option, it’s standard operating procedure.
I wonder if BO realized that the Air Force wants redundancy and if Blue and ULA have the same engine the AF will pick ULA every time.
BO by law does not have to produce anything on time.
By law the US must buy from US contractors when available.
V-Man
100 years ago when Ford started his production line for the model T he was ordering engines and other parts.
Well he came up with a pretty good idea about that.
He ordered all the crates to be the same thickness .
He then had them broke apart and re-used as floor boards for the car.
True classic original Model T’s still have the shipping labels on the floor.
The scrap wood from all that he couldn’t use went to a relative. Mr. Kingsford who turned it into charcoal.
Diane Wilson wrote: “That looks pretty complicated, although I’d assume that some of that is instrumentation that won’t be part of production engines.”
Probably. Other photographs of the BE-4 do not show as much plumbing or wiring, and, generally, anything that is red on a flight unit is a remove-before-flight item.
V-Man wrote: “Meanwhile, SpaceX shuffles Raptors around on wooden pallets using a rented forklift.”
It certainly demonstrates a philosophical difference between the companies. SpaceX takes Keep It Simple Stupid to heart. However, the Raptor engine may be lighter than the BE-4 (I haven’t looked it up), so it may tolerate carrying its own weight better than the BE-4 does.
BO appears to have a different motivation than SpaceX. SpaceX is a company designed to pay for Elon Musk’s dreams while BO is a company designed to get government contracts. That doesn’t mean they wont be competitive in the private market but they are certainly trying to capture government.
Being a government contractor is quite lucrative. Displacing the existing ones are hard but the reward is that BO also becomes hard to replace. Then there are the benefits that Bezos’ other companies will get from tying so many strings to the government. It is a smart but also corrupt strategy.