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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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