Blue Origin reveals full throttle long duration test of its BE-4 engine
Capitalism in space: Jeff Bezos today revealed that Blue Origin has successfully completed a full throttle long duration test of its BE-4 engine to be used by both its New Glenn Rocket and ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
“Perfect night,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who created the Blue Origin space venture more than two decades ago, wrote in an Instagram post. “Sitting in the back of my pickup truck under the moon and stars, watching another long-duration, full-thrust hot-fire test of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine.”
The post featured a shot of Bezos and other spectators looking on at the rising rocket plume from afar, as well as a video with closer perspectives of the firing.
The company has delivered two engines to ULA designed for ground testing, and says it will deliver soon the flight ready engines for Vulcan’s first launch later this year. Blue Origin also needs to get flight ready engines finished this year for New Glenn, which is also supposed to make it inaugural flight in ’21.
Personally, I think both Blue Origin and ULA are cutting it close. I will not be surprised if this tight schedule means that the first launches of both rockets get delayed into ’22.
Nonetheless, it is great news that the BE-4 appears to finally working as planned after what appeared to be problems for the past few years.
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Capitalism in space: Jeff Bezos today revealed that Blue Origin has successfully completed a full throttle long duration test of its BE-4 engine to be used by both its New Glenn Rocket and ULA’s Vulcan rocket.
“Perfect night,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who created the Blue Origin space venture more than two decades ago, wrote in an Instagram post. “Sitting in the back of my pickup truck under the moon and stars, watching another long-duration, full-thrust hot-fire test of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine.”
The post featured a shot of Bezos and other spectators looking on at the rising rocket plume from afar, as well as a video with closer perspectives of the firing.
The company has delivered two engines to ULA designed for ground testing, and says it will deliver soon the flight ready engines for Vulcan’s first launch later this year. Blue Origin also needs to get flight ready engines finished this year for New Glenn, which is also supposed to make it inaugural flight in ’21.
Personally, I think both Blue Origin and ULA are cutting it close. I will not be surprised if this tight schedule means that the first launches of both rockets get delayed into ’22.
Nonetheless, it is great news that the BE-4 appears to finally working as planned after what appeared to be problems for the past few years.
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.
Even if New Glenn and Vulcan fly perfectly (not proven yet, especially the recovery part), if they can’t mass-produce the BE-4 they’re not catching up to SpaceX any time soon. Especially if the latter starts mass-producing Raptors and Spaceships alike.
@V-Man – that was my thought… Vulcan needs 2 per flight, at most 10 flights a year. New Glenn will use 5 or 7 on the first stage I think. But reusable so not that many…
How many can they make a year?
SpaceX Is aiming for hundreds of Raptors a year. Good job SpaceX.
I wonder if SpaceX will attempt to ramp up production to 500 or more Raptors / year in-house, or outsource to a company more accustomed to serious mass-production, such as a Japanese automaker. After all, assuming 50 Raptors per SS/SH (with spares) that is only 10 ship-sets per year.
The question might boil down to whether it is possible to keep your design secrets from the Chinese if you outsource… or even if you don’t!
“Sitting in the back of my pickup truck….”
Awe shucks, Jeffie is just a good ol’ boy, one of us, a billionaire of the People, keeping Hope & Change alive in obama’s Amerika.
I think that should be “Aw, shucks”. But Jeff would no doubt prefer “Awe, shucks”.
Bezos has the money to sink into finishing M-1.. a big hydrogen engine. That’s what I want to see.
Ray, SpaceX will not outsource Raptor production. Musk has been very clear that he is designing manufacturing for Raptors at the same time they design Raptor itself. They have also mass-produced Merlin engines at a rate of several hundred a year, and Starlink satellites at 120 per month. SpaceX views outsourcing as risky and as loss of control.
“I’m going to get me a beer…”
Elizabeth Warren
https://youtu.be/pj46A35KD4o
2:36