Blue Origin’s engine division manager leaves company; first BE-4 engines arriving in May
Capitalism in space: The head of Blue Origin’s rocket engine division has decided to leave the company, even as it was revealed that the first flight worthy BE-4 engines will not be delivered to ULA until May at the earliest.
According to company sources, the first two BE-4 flight engines are in final production at Blue Origin’s factory in Kent, Washington. The first of these engines is scheduled to be shipped to a test site in May for “acceptance testing” to ensure its flight readiness. A second should follow in reasonably short order. On this schedule, Blue Origin could conceivably deliver both flight engines to United Launch Alliance in June or July. Sources at Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance say development versions of the BE-4—which are nearly identical to the flight versions—have been performing well in tests.
Upon receiving the engines, United Launch Alliance plans to install two of the BE-4s on the Vulcan rocket for a debut launch as soon as possible. While at the Satellite 2022 conference in the District of Columbia, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno on Tuesday said he still anticipates that Vulcan’s debut launch will occur in 2022. However, a summertime delivery would be a very tight schedule for United Launch Alliance.
ULA was initially promised these engines more than three years ago. The delay not only put its Vulcan rocket three years behind schedule, it has delayed the development of Blue Origin’s own orbital rocket, New Glenn, by more than three years as well.
To supply the needed engines for both rockets Blue Origin will need to establish a production line that can churn them out at a much faster pace than indicated so far. Whether it can remains an unknown, with the exit now of the head of the company’s engine division making that unknown even more worrisome.
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Capitalism in space: The head of Blue Origin’s rocket engine division has decided to leave the company, even as it was revealed that the first flight worthy BE-4 engines will not be delivered to ULA until May at the earliest.
According to company sources, the first two BE-4 flight engines are in final production at Blue Origin’s factory in Kent, Washington. The first of these engines is scheduled to be shipped to a test site in May for “acceptance testing” to ensure its flight readiness. A second should follow in reasonably short order. On this schedule, Blue Origin could conceivably deliver both flight engines to United Launch Alliance in June or July. Sources at Blue Origin and United Launch Alliance say development versions of the BE-4—which are nearly identical to the flight versions—have been performing well in tests.
Upon receiving the engines, United Launch Alliance plans to install two of the BE-4s on the Vulcan rocket for a debut launch as soon as possible. While at the Satellite 2022 conference in the District of Columbia, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno on Tuesday said he still anticipates that Vulcan’s debut launch will occur in 2022. However, a summertime delivery would be a very tight schedule for United Launch Alliance.
ULA was initially promised these engines more than three years ago. The delay not only put its Vulcan rocket three years behind schedule, it has delayed the development of Blue Origin’s own orbital rocket, New Glenn, by more than three years as well.
To supply the needed engines for both rockets Blue Origin will need to establish a production line that can churn them out at a much faster pace than indicated so far. Whether it can remains an unknown, with the exit now of the head of the company’s engine division making that unknown even more worrisome.
The support of my readers through the years has given 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. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
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. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to 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.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:
5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
i hope that this turns out to be true, but
The question not answered (or asked) is: how much progress did ULA make on its reusable engines design, over the three year delay? Reusing Vulcan’s engines will put less pressure on the engine factory.
Edward: Heh. You remind me of something that I have completely forgotten about, which I think was ULA’s hope.
I would bet the amount of development is none. ULA had an opportunity here to use those three years to be ready to launch Vulcan in a way it could recover the engines. As far as I know, it has done nothing to take advantage of that opportunity.
In fact, all signs have suggested the company is making no effort to recover those engines. The announcement back in 2017 or so was merely empty PR.
When SpaceX agreed to launch OneWeb’s sat’s it didn’t just humiliate Russia and ding Arianespace but it served as a reminder of the missing big player – Blue Origin.
And poor ULA left sweating it out for choosing what they thought to be a safe bet.
How’s it going to look if SpaceX launches about 40 Raptor2s, some into orbit, before a BE4 leaves the pad. No wonder BO’s engine guy is gone.
Mitch S: Another good point. SpaceX right now has no competition, and that is entirely the fault of Blue Origin and its failure to get the BE-4 engine flight worthy on the promised schedule.
“I would bet the amount of development is none.”
This is my fear. If ULA is like Arianespace and not going for reusability, then it may not last very long.
Rocket Lab thinks that it will not save money by reusing its Electron rockets but should be able to increase its cadence. ULA has expressed skepticism about the economy of reuse, but if ULA had the same results, a higher cadence, and then there would be an advantage to reusability.
However, one of the beauties of free market capitalism is the ability to try different techniques and technologies to see what works best and what improves efficiencies, performance, availability, and above all: customer satisfaction.
Edward: It seems to me that ULA, already trailing the leader SpaceX badly, is also slowly being overtaken by many of the new rocket startups. Most can’t launch larger payloads, but all are working towards that goal.
Blue Origin meanwhile isn’t even on the playing field as these new startups begin to take the field. Jeff Bezos should be so angry at this failure, considering the cash he has given the company’s management, that he should white hot.
Bezos left Amazon about nine months ago, presumably to supervise Blue Origin more closely. I keep pondering whether his influence is having an effect, but I suspect that he would have done better had he cleaned house half a year ago, or so. He may be starting to do it now, but this is late in his management tenure. SpaceX is run by go-getters, and Bezos needs to stack his company with similar personalities.
New Glenn is a Falcon 9-class launch vehicle, and while SpaceX launched its first Falcon 9 test unit six years after the company was founded, New Glenn has been in development for a decade or more. Bezos needs a new corporate culture of rapid development, so that when he is ready to start New Armstrong, it will not take as long to develop. It seems to me that this is how he can best compete with SpaceX’s Starship.
I was wondering what ULA was doimg with all those engineers waiting for delivery of the BE-4 engines, and all I could think of is that they were working on other projects for customers with complex requirements. Expensive customization per launch could outweigh any savings from reuse, at least for a time.
I can attest that Blue Origin is ramping up its parts purchasing.
Their orders are being filled.
This red-meat-for-journalists situation is just camouflage for a bunch of really bad decisions made by different parties in the US government. I bet Rocketdyne has an interesting view of the situation.
BO has a warehouse full of parts for an engine that has never flown.
Bezos know how to buy but not how to fly.