ULA closing facility in Texas that makes parts for the retiring Atlas-5 rocket

ULA has announced that it is shutting down its facility in Harlingen, Texas, that makes parts for the company’s soon-to-be retired Atlas-5 rocket.

The facility will shut down at the end of this year, with a loss of about 100 jobs.

This closure is actually a very positive sign for ULA. It indicates that it is streamlining its operations. For example, construction of the Vulcan rocket that replaces the Atlas-5 is all done in Alabama. One of the reasons Atlas-5 cost so much was the widespread distribution of its ULA facilities, probably done to satisfy congressional demands.

With Vulcan, ULA has instead been much more focused on making it less expensive so it can compete with SpaceX. Thus, it simplified its construction, putting everything in Alabama. (Choosing Alabama was likely to satisfy the most powerful senator at the time, porkmeister Richard Shelby (R-Alabama), who has now retired.)

Two die at Northrop Grumman facility that makes solid rocket boosters

Two individuals died last night from an as-yet unknown cause at the Northrop Grumman Bacchus facility in Utah that makes solid rocket strap-on boosters for ULA’s rockets.

Further details about what exactly led to the deaths and who died were not made available.

The West Valley City Fire and Police Departments said they responded to the Bacchus facility after the two employees were found unconscious. Crews attempted life-saving measures and transported the two employees to the hospital, where they later died.

An investigation into the incident is ongoing by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Depending on circumstances, delivery of strap-on boosters for upcoming Atlas-5 and Vulcan launches could be impacted.

Hat tip to Jay, BtB’s stringer.

First Vulcan rocket arrives at Cape Canaveral

ULA’s first Vulcan rocket has now arrived at Cape Canaveral in preparation for its planned inaugural launch before the end of March.

This first mission for Vucan will fly in a VC2S configuration. “VC” stands for “Vulcan Centaur.” The number, in this case “2,” represents the number of solid rocket boosters needed and the final letter stands for the payload fairing length.

VC2S will use a 51-foot-long Standard payload fairing. Nestled inside will be a few different payloads. This mission will send the first two Kuiper prototype satellites into Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander to the Moon and a Celestis Memorial Spaceflight payload into deep space. The remains of several people connected to the original Star Trek series will be launched on what Celestis dubbed the “Enterprise Flight,” including show creator Gene Roddenberry along with actors Nichelle Nichols and Jackson DeForest Kelley.

This first Vulcan launch will also be the first of two flights required by the Pentagon in order to certify Vulcan for military launches. Since ULA already has contracts for seven Vulcan military launches, it very much wants to get these two launches off this year, as soon as possible. According to the article at the link, ULA is thus aiming to fly this year those two test flights, followed quickly by the first military launch.

Whether it can complete three Vulcan launches in 2023 is quite uncertain. For example, it will need to get four more BE-4 engines from Blue Origin for the second and third launches, and there is no indication at this time that Blue Origin is close to delivering.

Then there is the delays and risks involved with this first launch. Though ULA has decades of experience building and launching rockets, the first launch of a rocket almost always experiences delays during testing. We should expect the same with Vulcan.

Assuming this schedule holds, however, this means ULA is targeting 10 launches in 2023, five Atlas-5 launches, two Delta Heavy launches, and three Vulcan launches. That would be the most launches by this company in a year since 2016.

Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander passes launch tests

Astrobotic’s first demonstration lunar lander, dubbed Peregrine, has passed its vibration and acoustic tests, demonstrating it can survive launch on ULA’s Vulcan rocket, presently scheduled for the first quarter of ’23.

The lander is now undergoing electromagnetic interference testing, which will be followed by thermal vacuum tests. Once those tests are complete, the company said, it will ship the lander to Cape Canaveral, Florida, to be integrated with the Vulcan Centaur for a launch currently scheduled in the first quarter of 2023. That launch will be the inaugural flight of the Vulcan Centaur.

A great deal will be riding on that first Vulcan launch, both for Astrobotic and ULA.

November 11, 2022 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

Atlas-5 completes last launch at Vandenberg

ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket early this morning successfully launched a NOAA weather satellite, completing this soon-to-be-retired rocket’s last launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base.

The company also successfully tested an inflatable heat shield it wants to use to safely recover and reuse the first stage engines on its new Vulcan rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

51 SpaceX
48 China
19 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 74 to 48 in the national rankings, but trails the rest of the world combined 76 to 74.

Remains or DNA samples of numerous Star Trek actors/creators to be sent into space

Because the space burial company Celestis has now made agreements to fly into space the remains or DNA samples of so many actors or creators from the classic Star Trek television series on its next burial flight, it has named that flight its “Enterprise Mission.”

Slipping the gravitational bonds of Earth early next year, the Enterprise Flight will blast off in early 2023 using United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket carrying additional cremated remains and DNA samples of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry, “Star Trek” engineer James “Scotty” Doohan, and “2001: A Space Odyssey” VFX wizard Douglas Trumbull.

The Enterprise Flight’s trajectory will send the spacecraft roughly 93 million miles to 186 million miles (150 million to 300 million kilometers) into deep space beyond our familiar Earth-moon system. Celestis’ memorial mission intends on launching over 200 space burial flight capsules comprised of cremated ash remains, special messages, mementos and DNA samples from a range of international customers headed towards the great mystery of interplanetary space.

The flight will also include the remains or DNA samples from special effects artist Greg Jein, the series original associated producer Robert H. Justman, and actors Nichelle Nichols and DeForest Kelly.

What makes this burial flight especially unique is that the cremated remains and DNA samples will apparently be on a part of the Vulcan rocket that will escape Earth orbit and enter solar orbit.

ULA breaks ground on new facility in Alabama

ULA yesterday broke ground on the construction of a new facility in Alabama, where it will store its Vulcan rockets and build the fairings for that rocket.

The factory is scheduled to begin operations in 2024. According to ULA’S CEO, Tori Bruno, the facility will double the production rate for making Vulcan rockets, necessary to provide the launches that Amazon wants for its Kuiper internet constellation.

ULA successfully launches two communications satellites

Capitalism in space: ULA today successfully used its Atlas-5 rocket to place two SES communications satellites into orbit.

Satellite deployment will occur in about five hours, after the rocket gets them to their proper geosynchronous orbit.

43 SpaceX
41 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 62 to 41, and the entire globe combined 62 to 61. This lead will grow before the week is out. SpaceX has scheduled two launches on October 5th, first a manned mission to ISS followed a few hours later by an unmanned launch of 52 Starlink satellites. Rocket Lab follows on October 6 with another Electron launch.

ULA’s Delta Heavy successfully launches spy satellite for NRO

ULA today has successfully launched a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, using its Delta Heavy rocket, its largest rocket.

With this launch, ULA retires the Delta from any further launches from Vandenberg. Future California launches will use its as yet untested Vulcan rocket.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

42 SpaceX
38 China
12 Russia
7 Rocket Lab
6 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 59 to 38 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 59 to 58. The 59 launches makes this the third most active launch year in American history, trailing only 1966 (70 launches) and 1965 (64 launches).

SpaceX has a Falcon 9 launch of 52 Starlink satellites scheduled very shortly, so these numbers will hopefully go up again before the day is out.

Two launches from U.S. set for this afternoon

Both ULA and SpaceX have planned launches this afternoon a little over an hour apart, at 2:53 pm and 4:10 pm Pacific time respectively.

The ULA launch is first, and is the last Delta rocket launch from Vandenberg Space Force base. The company is slowly phasing this rocket out as it transitions to its not-yet-launched Vulcan rocket. The payload today is a spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office, using ULA’s biggest rocket, the Delta Heavy.

SpaceX will follow with another Falcon 9 Starlink launch, placing another 52 Starlink satellites into orbit.

I have embedded the live streams of both launches below.
» Read more

Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine experiences more delays

Capitalism in space: Though Blue Origin appears only a few weeks from delivering its first flightworthy BE-4 rocket engine to ULA for use in that company’s new not-yet-launched Vulcan rocket, the second flightworthy engine is further delayed due to technical problems discovered when static fire testing began.

Sources told Ars that the first engine was put onto the test stand in Texas early in August, but almost as soon as work began to hot-fire the powerful engine, an issue was discovered with the engine build. This necessitated a shipment back to Blue Origin’s factory in mid-August, as the company’s test stands in Texas do not allow for more than minor work.

As a result of this technical issue, ULA now appears likely to get one flight engine this month, but it probably will not receive the other one for installation onto the Vulcan rocket before mid-October, assuming a clean battery of tests in Texas.

This issue almost certainly means that Vulcan will not attempt its first launch this year. The rocket is thus more than three years behind schedule.

The problems outlined here however are far greater than simply the technical issues with this one engine. First, Blue Origin’s pace of operations continues to be far too leisurely. Nothing the company has done since 2017 has proceeded with any sense of urgency, and thus neither ULA nor Blue Origin have been able to launch their rockets.

Second, and far more important, Blue Origin is supposed to be manufacturing the BE-4 for two rockets, both Vulcan and its own New Glenn. Neither rocket will be reusable to begin with, which means the number of needed engines required at first will be high. For example, ULA has contracts to launch Vulcan twice almost immediately, with the need to follow these with several military launches. Each launch will require two BE-4 engines, so Blue Origin at a minimum needs to manufacture four engines, probably more, just to fulfill its obligations to ULA. To supply its own New Glenn rocket, it needs seven BE-4 engines for each launch, with the company having four launches on its manifest for 2023.

All told, Blue Origin thus has to deliver, at a minimum, 32 engines in 2023 alone, to meet its contractual obligations. And since the rockets and engines will be untested, expect at least one or two launch failures that will further increase the need for more engines.

Yet, there is no sign that Blue Origin has figured out how to manufacture these engines on an assembly line basis. Even if it gets these two engines delivered soon, it is unclear it can produce a lot of flightworthy engines fast enough to meet this launch schedule. Expect therefore that both rockets will continue to experience launch delays that could stretch out years.

Meanwhile, a plethora of new rocket companies have been appearing, all aiming eventually to compete with Blue Origin and ULA. If Blue Origin doesn’t get a move on, these new companies will soon be in a position to replace both it and ULA, entirely.

August 29, 2022 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay:

As I’ve said numerous times, I’ll believe this engine is a flight engine when I see it in flight.

The link goes to the research paper from the Beijing Institute of Space Mechanics and Electricity, which is in Chinese except for the abstract. This tweet highlights the “leg deploying test and full-scale landing impact experiment” from that paper.

August 23, 2022 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay:

ULA launches Space Force reconnaissance satellite

Capitalism in space: ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket early today successfully placed a Space Force reconnaissance satellite into orbit, designed to detect the heat signatures of incoming missiles.

At this moment ULA has only 21 Atlas-5 rockets in its inventory, after which the rocket will be fully replaced with the not-yet launched Vulcan.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

33 SpaceX
27 China
10 Russia
6 Rocket Lab
5 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 48 to 27 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 48 to 44.

The American total of 48 matches the total launches all last year.

Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine set for “commissioning” tests

Capitalism in space: According to a tweet from Blue Origin on June 21, 2022, engineers have finally installed a flight-worthy engine on the test stand in Huntsville for static fire “commissioning” tests.

This is an engine that was supposed to be delivered to ULA for its new Vulcan rocket more than two years ago. With final engine tests only beginning now, it likely means the engine will not be delivered for at least several more months.

ULA will then have to install it in the rocket, and do its own fueling and static fire tests. All this suggests that a Vulcan launch before the end of this year is almost impossible.

When Blue Origin’s own New Glenn rocket will fly using the BE-4 is utterly unknown. ULA at least has built a full-scale test version of Vulcan and done launch countdown rehearsals in order to iron out issues with its launchpad and ground systems. Blue Origin has done none of this.

Vulcan likely delayed until ’23

According to Eric Berger at Ars Technica, continuing delays with both the rocket’s payload and main engines, ULA’s Vulcan rocket will almost certainly not launch before the end of this year, as hoped by the company.

The rocket’s first stage BE-4 engines are being built by Blue Origin, and are already four years behind schedule. According to Berger’s sources, they will not be delivered to ULA until mid-August, which makes a launch in ’22 very unlikely, especially because both the engines and rocket are new, and will need time for fitting and further testing as a unit.

As for the payload, Berger’s assessment is not based on any new information. The payload, Astrobotic’s first lunar lander dubbed Peregrine, has also been experiencing delays, but the article provides no further information on whether it will miss its targets to be ready in ’22.

Regardless, it appears that Blue Origin is still dragging in its effort to build the BE-4 engine. If Vulcan cannot launch this year, it will threaten ULA’s long term future, since the company is depending on it to replace its Atlas-5 and Delta rockets. The delays now are allowing others to catch up and grab business that ULA might have garnered had Vulcan been operational as planned.

Boeing uninterested in finding customers for Starliner outside of NASA?

Capitalism in space: According to a story yesterday, Boeing, ULA, and NASA plan on launching Starliner through the end of the decade on the last few Atlas-5 rockets in existence, which in turn suggests that Boeing is either not looking for any Starliner customers outside of NASA or has none.

With NASA planning to alternate between Boeing’s Starliner and SpaceX’s Crew Dragon for International Space Station crew rotation missions once Starliner is certified, each flying once a year, it implies that Atlas 5 launches of Starliner could continue well into the latter half of the decade. ULA, which has stopped selling Atlas 5 launches, has previously discussed phasing out Atlas 5 in favor of Vulcan Centaur around the middle of the decade.

…Even at a pace of one mission a year, though, and with no other customers for Starliner, the supply of Atlas vehicles would be exhausted before the projected retirement of the ISS in 2030. “We would look, toward the end of the decade, to award other flights, or have other flights potentially for Boeing,” said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager. “We would look for a new system.” He added NASA would support human-rating a new system “when Boeing and ULA are ready.” [emphasis mine]

The implications of the story is that Boeing is simply not interested in finding other customers for Starliner, nor is it trying to find alternative launch vehicles to replace the Atlas-5. Instead, the company has simply calculated that there are enough Atlas-5s left to complete its obligations to NASA, and that is all it needs. Competing for additional commercial manned space flights does not interest it.

It also appears that only when NASA demands or needs another launch vehicle will Boeing and ULA make an effort to replace Atlas-5.

All in all, this does not speak well for the future of either Boeing or ULA. A lack of competitive spirit will quickly leave you in the dust, especially if a host of new startups exist to grab your market share. Either both companies change their attitudes, or both will die.

ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket successfully launches Starliner into orbit

Atlas-5 immediately after lift-off
Screen capture just after lift-off

Capitalism in space: ULA’s Atlas-5 rocket today successfully launched Boeing’s manned Starliner capsule into orbit on its second attempt to complete an unmanned demo mission to ISS.

The capsule having been deployed by the rocket then followed with a final burn using the capsule’s own engines to get into its proper orbit for rendezvous with ISS tomorrow at 7:10 pm (Eastern). It was during this rendezvous period that Starliner had its problems in the first demo mission in December 2019 that caused the mission to be aborted prior to docking. Hopefully those software issues have been solved and all will go well through tomorrow.

It is interesting to compare the operation and equipment of Boeing/ULA vs SpaceX. While SpaceX has aimed for a sleek look, Boeing/ULA both retain the industrial feel of past rocketry. Neither is wrong, but the difference highlights the consequences of having competing operations. You get variety.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

21 SpaceX
15 China
7 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
3 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 30 to 15 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 30 to 25.

Watching Boeing’s Starliner launch tonight

At 6:54 pm (Eastern) tonight a ULA Atlas-5 rocket will launch Boeing’s manned Starliner capsule on its second attempt to complete an unmanned demo mission to ISS.

NASA’s live coverage will begin at 6 pm on NASA-TV. I have embedded the youtube channel of this live stream below the fold. At the moment the station is broadcasting its regular NASA propaganda (some of which is actually informative). The launch’s actual coverage will begin at 6 pm (Eastern), and continue until the spacecraft is successfully inserted into orbit. Further coverage of the flight, including docking with ISS, will be as follows:

9 pm (Eastern) – Post launch press conference (time subject to change).

May 20
3:30 pm (Eastern) – Coverage begins of the rendezvous and docking to ISS, with the actual docking scheduled for 7:10 pm (Eastern).

May 21
11:30 am (Eastern) – Coverage of the opening of Starliner’s hatch, scheduled for 11:45 am (Eastern).

Boeing’s first attempt to complete this mission in December 2019 was forced to return to Earth before docking with ISS because of numerous software issues. Then, an attempt to launch again in August 2021 was scrubbed because numerous valves in the capsule’s service module failed to operate properly during the countdown. The company had to return the capsule to the factory to replace that service module as well as make some changes to the valves to make today’s launch possible.

For Boeing, these delays and fixes have cost the company a lot of money, since its contract with NASA is fixed price. This second demo mission will cost Boeing about $400 million, but even worse, the delays meant that SpaceX got some of the business with NASA and other private customers that it might have gotten had Starliner been operational.

Update: NASA has cut off coverage of the docking on the channel I had embedded previously. I have now embedded an active live feed.

» Read more

Astrobotics unveils nearly complete Peregrine lunar lander

Capitalism in space: Astrobotics yesterday unveiled its nearly complete Peregrine lunar lander, scheduled for launch later this year on the first launch of ULA’s new Vulcan rocket.

The lander is still being assembled, said John Thornton, chief executive of Astrobotic. Remaining work includes installation of its solar panels, two fuel tanks and decks holding payloads. The engines are “just about done,” he said, and will soon be installed.

He was optimistic that remaining work will be done quickly. “In just a couple months’ time, this will be heading out to environmental testing,” he said, followed by shipment to the launch site late this year.

This announcement now strongly suggests that Peregrine would not have been ready for Vulcan’s original launch date in late 2021. Since then the delays by Blue Origin in developing Vulcan’s first stage BE-4 engine has pushed the rocket’s first launch back by more than a year, time that apparently Astrobotics needed to finish Peregrine.

ULA orders 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for its Vulcan upper stage

Capitalism in space: In order to meet its contract with Amazon to launch a lot of Kuiper satellites, ULA has now ordered 116 rocket engines from Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Centaur upper stage of its new and as-yet unlaunched Vulcan-Centaur rocket.

Aerojet said this was the company’s largest ever contract for the RL10 engine. The large purchase of rocket engines comes on the heels of Amazon’s announcement April 5 that it selected Arianespace, Blue Origin and ULA to launch up to 3,236 satellites for its Project Kuiper broadband constellation.

CEO Tory Bruno said ULA plans to fly Vulcan’s first mission late in 2022. Winning the Amazon deal would more than double the annual rate of Vulcan launches to as many as 25 per year, and ULA will ramp up production to meet the demand, Bruno said last week at the Space Symposium.

ULA’s engine choice for Vulcan’s upper stage dates back to 2018 when it selected a variant of the RL10, the same engine used to power the upper stages of ULA’s legacy rockets Atlas 5 and Delta 4 Heavy. Over the past 60 years, more than 450 RL10 engines have flown on various ULA heritage vehicles.

Meanwhile, ULA hopes to get its first BE-4 engines from Blue Origin, needed for the Vulcan first stage, this summer. Vulcan-Centaur cannot make its first launch until it gets some flightworthy BE-4 engines, and these are now three years behind schedule.

Amazon announces launch agreements with Blue Origin, Arianespace, and ULA

Capitalism in space: Amazon today announced major multi-launch agreements with Blue Origin, Arianespace, and ULA to launch its 3,000+ Kuiper satellite constellation.

According to the press release, ULA won 38 launches using its new Vulcan-Centaur rocket (not yet flown), Arianespace won 18 launches using its new Ariane-6 rocket (not yet flown), and Blue Origin won 12 launches using its new New Glenn rocket (not yet flown), with an option for 15 more. The ULA deal is in addition to a previous launch contract of nine launches using the Atlas-5 rocket.

In addition, Amazon hopes to launch two prototype satellites later this year using ABL’s smallsat RS1 rocket (not yet flown).

Overall, this Amazon launch announcement might be the largest launch contract deal ever. However, the company’s reliance on unproven rockets means it will also likely face some delays and failures in its early stages. That the press release makes no mention of any schedule for launches illustrates this fact starkly. All four rockets have already seen major delays. with the three biggest (Vulcan-Centaur, New Glenn, Ariane 6) now more than two years behind schedule, and the likelihood of their first launch occurring in 2022 increasingly unlikely.

Blue Origin delays 1st New Glenn launch again

Capitalism in space: At a conference earlier this week Blue Origin officials confirmed that the first test flight of its orbital New Glenn rocket will not occur in ’22, but will be delayed again, into ’23.

New Glenn was originally supposed to launch in 2020, and has been delayed repeatedly since then, first because of new requirements imposed by the military and then because of delays in getting Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine operational.

Though ULA is still aiming to launch its Vulcan rocket using the BE-4 in 2022, expect it to eventually recognize reality and delay also to ’23. That rocket was also supposed to make its first launch in ’20, and has been delayed for the same reasons.

These delays have cost both companies dearly. For example, had each been operational as planned, they might have won some or all of the launch contracts that OneWeb lost from the Russians. Instead, that business went to SpaceX.

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.

OneWeb and Arianespace scramble to find a rocket to launch satellites

Capitalism in space: With the cancellation of the last six Soyuz-2 launches for OneWeb and Arianespace due to Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine, the two companies are struggling to find an alternative rocket to launch the remaining 216 satellites that would complete OneWeb’s satellite constellation.

OneWeb has already paid Arianespace for the launches, so the responsibility to get the satellites in orbit is at present Arianespace’s. The problem is that its flight manifest for both the Ariane-5 (being retired) and the new Ariane-6 rocket are presently full.

Going to another rocket provider is problematic, even if a deal could be negotiated. The flight manifest for ULA’s Atlas-5 and Vulcan rockets is also filled. Though SpaceX’s Falcon 9 could probably launch the satellites, that company’s Starlink satellite constellation is in direct competition with OneWeb, which makes it unlikely the two companies could make a deal.

There have been negotiations with India to use its rockets, but it is unclear at present whether this will work.

One other option is to buy a lot of launches from the smallsat rockets of Rocket Lab, Virgin Orbiter, and Astra. This will likely cost more because more launches will be required, and that would required a complex negotiation between all parties.

Blue Origin expands its rocket engine factory in Alabama

Capitalism in space: Blue Origin yesterday revealed that it is hiring 300 more engineers and expanding the rocket engine factory in Alabama in order to produce flight worthy BE-3 and BE-4 engines.

Blue Origin in Huntsville spent the pandemic supporting the company’s main engine plant in Kent Washington with parts for the company’s BE-3 and larger BE-4 engines, [site lead Nathan] Harris said. “We are now actually in the process of building our first set of complete engines through our facility,” he said. Those first engines will be produced this year.

…“We’re getting very close,” Harris said. “They’re still doing quite a bit of retrofitting. As you learn, anytime you retrofit something that’s over 60 years old, it takes a little bit more and there’s a little bit more that you unearth that was undiscovered.”

Harris said he expects to be testing the BE-3 “in the next couple of months followed shortly by the BE-4.” [emphasis mine]

This may be good news for both ULA’s Vulcan rocket as well as Blue Origin’s own New Glenn rocket. Both need the BE-4 engine, and both have been delayed years because it has not been ready on time. While the engine problems appear to have been resolved, Blue Origin had not put any thought into developing a practical and affordable manufacturing process that would allow it to build enough engines to serve both itself and ULA.

This expansion at the engine factory suggests the company is finally moving into its production phase. The highlighted sentence above however also tells us that the first flight worthy BE-4 engines are still months away, which will further delay launch of Vulcan and New Glenn. It is now certain that neither will launch this year, putting both rockets more than three years behind schedule.

Russia blocks future rocket engine sales to U.S.

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, today announced that Russia will no longer sell any rocket engines to U.S. companies.

The head of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, announced the new policy in an interview with the Russia 24 TV channel. “Today we have made a decision to halt the deliveries of rocket engines produced by NPO Energomash to the United States,” Rogozin said in the interview, according to Russia’s state press site Tass. “Let me remind you that these deliveries had been quite intensive somewhere since the mid-1990s.” Rogozin also added: “Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don’t know what,” according to Reuters.

Russian engines are used on two American rockets, ULA’s Atlas-5 and Northrop Grumman’s Antares. The Atlas-4 however is being phased out, and has already received all the engines it needs for all of that rocket’s remaining flights. ULA plans to replace it with its new Vulcan rocket, using Blue Origin’s (long delayed) BE-4 engine.

Antares however is a more serious issue. Northrop Grumman uses this rocket to launch Cygnus freighters to ISS. It depends on two Russian engines for its Ukrainian-built first stage. The Ukraine War now probably makes building more Antares rockets impossible, which means at some point Northrop Grumman will no longer be able to supply ISS with cargo using Cygnus. Furthermore, NASA’s plan to use Cygnus’ engines to maintain ISS’s orbit will be impacted if Cygnus launches to ISS cease.

There is an option, though it too has issues. ULA has already launched one Cygnus to ISS using its Atlas-5. Though this rocket is going away, ULA could probably use its Vulcan instead — assuming Blue Origin finally gets the BE-4 engine operational so that Vulcan can finally launch.

Overall, Russia’s decision might cause a temporary blip in the American space effort, but if the government doesn’t get in the way I think that competition will force a solution. As Aesop said, necessity is the mother of invention.

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