Blue Origin

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tnt22

#1100
Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 4 ч. назад

At CSIS #SpaceSecurity event, Blue Origin's Brett Alexander says first BE-4 engine hotfire test "coming up soon."

tnt22

Цитировать Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 3 ч. назад

Diving into some Blue Origin launch site content. They certainly are part of the #MakeCapeGreatAgain gang! Article shortly.

tnt22

Цитировать Chris B - NSF‏ @NASASpaceflight 1 ч. назад

ARTICLE: Blue Origin working towards making the Cape its Orbital Launch Site - https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/blue-origin-making-cape-orbital-launch-site/ ... Document: https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42623.0 ...
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https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2017/03/blue-origin-making-cape-orbital-launch-site/
ЦитироватьBlue Origin working towards making the Cape its Orbital Launch Site
March 29, 2017 by Chris Bergin and Noel Munson


 

A newly acquired environmental impact report has provided fascinating insights into Blue Origin's plans to become a major player on the Space Coast. With a massive facility under construction at KSC's Exploration Park, the company plans to utilize two Cape Canaveral launch complex's to test rocket engines, integrate launch vehicles, and conduct up to 12 launches per year of its heavy-lift class orbital vehicles.

Blue Origin:

Blue Origin was founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and initially tagged as a space tourism project. However, the company is now upping its pace, following the path of its motto 'Gradatim Ferociter' – step by step, ferociously.



While its test flights – and landings – of the suborbital New Shepard rocket have been greatly impressive, Blue Origin is now pushing towards a slice of the orbital market via its New Glenn rocket.

With New Shepard testing the BE-3 engine, it's the BE-4 engine that will accelerate the company forward even more ferociously.

The new engine – set for a test fire in the very near future – even won the attention of space industry powerhouse United Launch Alliance (ULA), as it eyes an American made engine for its Vulcan rocket.

Blue Origin's New Glenn will be the primary user of the BE-4 engine, launching from Cape Canaveral's LC-36. However, the company's presence on the Space Coast will be far more than just at the historic launch pad.
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With a huge facility already rising out of the ground at the Kennedy Space Center's Exploration Park, hardware will make the trip to what will be a 300-acre parcel of land that formerly housed both LC-36 and LC-11.

Throughout nearly 43 years of operation, LC-36 – which comprised of two pads (A and B) launched a combination of commercial and government missions, including those for the USAF and NASA.

Since NASA's first launch of an Atlas/Centaur rocket in 1962, LC-36 has hosted 145 rocket launches from its two pads (68 from LC-36A and 77 from LC-36B).



The last launch from LC-36A was an Atlas IIAS in 2004, and the last launch from LC-36B was an Atlas IIIB in 2005.

After LC-36 was deactivated in 2006 and much of the infrastructure was demolished in 2006 and 2007, the USAF granted a license to Space Florida in 2009 for the re-development of LC-36 for use as a launch complex for generic launch vehicles (GLV).

In 2010, the USAF 45th Space Wing issued a Real Property License to Space Florida for the complex, allowing for a deal to be struck with Blue Origin with a  sub-license agreement on May 12, 2016. Space Florida has played a pivotal role in revitalizing the Space Coast, with numerous deals, including the SpaceX's deal to lease Pad 39A.



While LC-36 will be the site of New Glenn launches, a lengthy Environmental Assessment report shows Blue Origin will create another facility at the adjacent LC-11.

The USAF operated LC-11 from 1958 through 1964 as a launch complex for the Atlas family of rockets. It was constructed alongside launch complexes 12, 13, and 14 on what is known as "missile row."

From the time of the first launch on July 19, 1958, of an Atlas B to the last launch on April 1, 1964, of an Atlas F, thirty-two rockets were launched.

The site was deactivated in 1967, with the pad and service tower structures dismantled. In 2013, the blockhouse was demolished and the site is no longer being maintained.

That will change via Blue Origin's plans, which include a BE-4 engine test stand at LC-11.



As such, a path of operation for Blue Origin will involve the manufacturing of the large elements, such as first stages, second stages, payload fairings, etc. occurring at the new facility located at Exploration Park (Phase 2).

It is anticipated that primary commercial payload processing would occur at an off-site operations support area.

Once primary payload processing is complete, the payload will be trucked to the Orbital Launch Site (OLS). Optionally, payloads would be fueled at the integration facility.

For the rocket hardware leaving the Exploration Park facility, it will go on road trip to the OLS, as overviewed in the Environmental Assessment report. The path takes the hardware north, then east and down the coastline into LC-36.



"The major elements of the OLS at CCAFS are the launch pad, integration facility, engine test stand, and the systems to recover and refurbish reusable space systems such as the first stage.

"Once elements have been manufactured at the Exploration Park manufacturing facility, they would be transported by road to the integration facility at LC-36.

"The first and second stages, and a possible third stage, would then be mated together and integrated onto the transporter erector system.

"Following integration of the booster stages, the SC (or payloads) would be attached, and then the entire system would undergo a readiness test. The OLV would then be transported from the integration facility approximately 2000 ft. to the launch pad and erected for launch."



When New Glenn was first introduced, the two-stage variant – with its seven BE-4 engines consuming liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen – was portrayed as 270 feet tall, with a second stage powered by a single vacuum-optimized BE-4 engine (the BE-4U).

A 3-stage New Glenn was shown to be 313 feet tall, with a single vacuum-optimized BE-3 engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powering the third stage.

Interestingly, the report notes the three-stage vehicle will be "up to 350 ft (106.68 m) tall, with the thrust of the vehicle reaching approximately, 4.5 million lbf (2 MN). The report also adds that the launch rate anticipated for New Glenn will eventually reach 12 launches per year.

The eventual makeup of the Blue Origin OLS complex will see it spread over existing LC-11 and LC-36, with the launch pad co-located on the former LC-36A area and the engine test stand on the former LC-11 area.

The company will build a deluge basin for the launch pad, located east of the pad, an integration facility, refurbishment building, and GSE (Ground Support Equipment) building will be constructed to support launch operations. Approximately 100 parking spaces will also be constructed for the facility workforce.

Another GSE building will be constructed to support engine testing operations. LOX, and LNG, and LH2 storage tanks will be constructed in the vicinity of the launch pad for the purpose of supporting both launch vehicle fueling, as well as engine testing. A water tank will also be constructed between the launch pad and the engine test stand for water sound suppression and firefighting water supply.

Blue Origin – like SpaceX – has reusability as a major element of its business case, with New Shepard proving to be an able pathfinder for landing the booster after launch.



New Glenn will also return the booster home for reuse, with the latest overview video showing the first stage landing on a ship in the Atlantic.

The report notes the recovery area is expected to defined as an ellipse centered on approximately latitude 29° 42' 17.79" N and 71° 30′ 53.01″ W with a length and width of approximately 630 miles (1013 km) and 440 miles (708 km) respectively.

The booster will then be returned back to Florida, sailing into Port Canaveral, with the environmental impact report showing the path it will then take back to LC-36 for refurbishment – including a wash down – while also outlining how Blue Origin will process the returned stages.

"The refurbishment building will be constructed at the entrance to the current LC-36 complex.



"After the recoverable first stage is retrieved and returned to the launch site from its offshore landing area, it must be washed to remove salt spray and possible contaminants associated with launch and re-entry.

"A wash water collection system would be designed and constructed to retain the water for recycling or approved discharge to the CCAFS waste water system."

The stage – as with new stages – will then head to the integration facility at LC-36, located approximately 2,000 feet from the launch pad. This building will have an area of approximately 150,000 sq. ft. (13,935 sq. m.) with a length of 500 ft. (152.4 m.), a width of 300 ft. It may also contain office space and payload fueling operations may also be performed in the integration facility.

The single engine test stand at LC-11 will be used for engine acceptance testing of the BE-4 engine.



"This stand could be designed with a vertical testing configuration for testing the BE-4 engine," added the report. "The BE-4 will be indirectly fueled during testing through use of remote LNG and LOX tanks located in the vicinity of the test stand.

"The flame duct for the test stand is proposed to be directed in a north-northeast direction at approximately 5 degrees. The deluge basin will be located to the north of the engine test stand and will be approximately 100 ft. x100 ft. (30.5 m x 30.5 m)."

The report adds acceptance testing requires a variety of engine test run durations with a maximum total run duration of approximately 500 seconds.



The total duration of all engine testing would be approximately 30 minutes per month based on approximately nine test events per month. The report also notes New Glenn flows will likely include static fire tests of the rocket on LC-36.

Additional points made in the document includes work that will be undertaken on the roadways, which includes side by side roadways and enough room for at least two first stage boosters side by side in the integration facility.

All new road-ways will be constructed between 6 inches and 12 inches higher than existing roadways "which are some of the highest in the area", based on "factored global climate change and water level rise" forecasting.

With Blue Origin set to make Cape Canaveral the home of its OLS, the report also noted the Space Coast had to compete with several rival sites within the continental United States, including Camden County Georgia, Hyde County North Carolina and Virginia's Wallops Island.

New Glenn may debut out of Cape Canaveral as soon as 2020.

(Images via USAF, Blue Origin and L2).
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tnt22

В ветке форума NSF (по ссылке ниже) попытка краткого (насколько это возможно) изложения основных моментов и положений 340-страничного отчета Blue Origin по созданию пускового комплекса компании на мысе Канаверал
(оч много букв + интересные картинки + таблица)
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=42623.msg1659817#msg1659817
ЦитироватьFrom the FONSI:
The EA assesses the environmental impacts resulting from Blue Origin constructing and operating an engine test stand for the Blue Engine 4 (BE-4) engine, and constructing and operating a launch complex for launching an Orbital Launch Vehicle (OLV). The BE-4 engine test stand will be located at Launch Complex (LC)-11, and the launch facility will be located at adjacent complex LC-36 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), Florida. Collectively the combined sites of LC-11, LC-36, and approximately 50 acres of surrounding land form a total of approximately 306 acres which are the subject of the EA and are referred to collectively as the Orbital Launch Site (OLS).
...
Не удержусь, таблицу приведу
  :o

tnt22


tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 40 мин. назад

Blue Origin wins the 2016 National Aeronautic Association's Collier Trophy for its work on New Shepard: http://bit.ly/2nB6tEu 

tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Bezos‏Подлинная учетная запись @JeffBezos 40 мин. назад

Impossible to express how personally meaningful this is. A dream. Huge kudos to @BlueOrigin team that worked so hard https://naa.aero/userfiles/files/documents/Press%20Releases/Collier%20Trophy%202016.pdf ...
 
Jeff Bezos Ретвитнул(а) NAA
Цитировать NAA‏ @NatlAero 3 ч. назад

NAA is proud to announce that Blue Origin New Shepard has been named as the recipient of the 2016 Collier Trophy

Salo

Цитировать  Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust  38 мин.38 минут назад  
Bezos: don't know what ticket price will be yet. Have time, since not ready to start selling tickets for a while. #33SS
 
   Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust  45 мин.45 минут назад  
Bezos: still hoping to fly people on New Shepard in 2018. #33ss
 
   Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust  50 мин.50 минут назад  
Bezos: we'll put people on New Shepard when it's ready and not a second sooner. #33SS
 
   Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust  53 мин.53 минуты назад  
Jeff Bezos appears in front of Blue Origin's New Shepard at #33ss
 
"Были когда-то и мы рысаками!!!"

tnt22

:o   :|  
http://spacenews.com/bruno-vulcan-engine-downselect-is-blues-to-lose/
ЦитироватьBruno: Vulcan engine downselect is Blue's to lose
by Jeff Foust — April 5, 2017
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Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos speaks in front of his company's New Shepard suborbital vehicle on display at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 5. Bezos said the company still plans to start flying people on suborbital space tourism flights by the end of 2018, although the company has yet to start selling tickets or even setting a ticket price. Development of New Shepard, he said, is informing the company's plans for an orbital launch vehicle, New Glenn, that will use the same BE-4 engines that United Launch Alliance is considering for its Vulcan rocket. Credit: Chuck Bigger for SpaceNews
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COLORADO SPRINGSUnited Launch Alliance is prepared to sel ect Blue Origin's BE-4 engine for its Vulcan launch vehicle this year if the engine passes an upcoming series of tests, the company's chief executive said April 5.

In an interview during the 33rd Space Symposium here, Tory Bruno said that tests of the BE-4 engine, scheduled to begin "very soon" at Blue Origin's test site in West Texas, are the last major hurdle the engine must clear before ULA decides to use it on Vulcan.
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"The economic factors are largely in place now and the thing that is outstanding is the technical risk," Bruno said. "That's why we keep talking about the engine firing."

A major aspect of the engine tests, he said, is to determine the degree of combustion instability the BE-4 has when the engine starts. "Any time when you are developing a new rocket engine, any time you change the scale or the fuel, you are at risk of this phenomenon," he said. The BE-4 engine is the largest engine developed to date that uses methane as fuel, rather than more common alternatives like kerosene or liquid hydrogen.

"We look first to the combustion instability as the chief technical risk that must be retired before we'd be able to pick an engine," Bruno said. He anticipated a series of tests, lasting for several weeks, where the engine's thrust is gradually increased to measure its performance and determine if it suffers from combustion instability.

Bruno said he was encouraged by tests of some key engine components, including the preburner, a smaller version of the main engine that powers the engine's turbomachinery. "The good news is the preburner is running like a top," he said. "We're starting to get more and more confidence that we're going to have a good experience when we run a full-scale engine."

If the tests all go as planned, Bruno said ULA could be ready to formally sel ect the BE-4 in as soon as 60 to 90 days. "But it could take longer," he added. "It's not on the calendar."

 
Tony Bruno (left), Jeff Bezos and the BE-4 engine at 2014 press conference. Credit: SpaceNews/Brian Berger
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Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, confirmed in an April 5 interview that test of the BE-4 will start in the next several weeks. One engine is already at the company's test site, with two more shipping there soon.

"We wanted to go into the test program hardware-rich," he said. With those engines and other equipment at the test site, "we can move through the test program quite rapidly." He said that testing would continue after ULA made its decision, with final certification of the BE-4 planned for late 2018 or early 2019.
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While Bruno will make the decision about the engine, he will get plenty of advice. He said he recently established an independent non-advocate review (INR) team of outside experts to review the overall engine evaluation process. That team includes former Secretary of the Air Force Sheila Widnall; retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Susan Mashiko, former deputy director of the National Reconnaissance Office; and Ray Johnson, former vice president for space launch operations at the Aerospace Corp.

Bruno said Congress also established a separate INR team, comprised of engineers fr om NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, to review the engine selection process. "I was actually happy to hear that they did that," Bruno said, adding that this team had access to the same data as ULA's own review team.

 
Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, confirmed in an April 5 interview that test of the BE-4 will start in the next several weeks. Credit: Tom Kimmel

Bruno added that he expected the Air Force would also seek access to the test data and provide ULA with its own opinion about the engine. "I will hear all of those opinions and it will be super easy if everybody says the same thing," he said. "If they do not, then we will resolve that. And then we will make a choice."

Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR1 engine remains the alternative for Vulcan should the BE-4 run into technical problems. Development of the AR1 is 18 to 24 months behind the BE-1, he said, because it started later. "I have confidence they can get their engine to work" because of its use of a more conventional fuel, kerosene.

Blue Origin, though, has the financial edge. Bruno said ULA already haa a firm fixed-price deal with Blue Origin for "a large enough quantity" of engines that covers initial Vulcan missions. Those engines will be produced initially at Blue Origin's factory in Kent, Washington.

"Their production capability actually looks quite good," Bruno said of those initial BE-4 engine plans. "My INR heads came back to me and said they are very comfortable with that production capability already."

Later engines will be built at a separate facility Blue Origin plans to develop in the next few years that will be designed to produce dozens of engines a year. "We're in the process of site selection for a full production site," Meyerson said. He declined to identify the locations being considered, but said a decision should be made in the next six months.

Bruno said that he expected to decide on the Vulcan engine this year, but wouldn't be rushed into one. "I get to make this decision, like, once. This is a big decision and if you don't get it right, it's very hard to come back fr om that," he said. "So I'm going to take my time and listen to all these experts and stakeholders and then do it."
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tnt22

Цитировать Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust 28 мин. назад

Jeff Bezos on New Shepard test flights, smallsat launches, and his current business model for Blue Origin: http://bit.ly/2obXjiG  #33SS
http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-still-planning-commercial-suborbital-flights-in-2018/
ЦитироватьBlue Origin still planning commercial suborbital flights in 2018
by Jeff Foust — April 5, 2017
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Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos discusses the status of the company's New Shepard suborbital vehicle April 5 at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. Behind Bezos are a model of the New Shepard crew capsule and the propulsion module that flew five suborbital flights. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust
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COLORADO SPRINGS — Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said April 5 that his company was still hoping to start flying people on suborbital space tourism flights by the end of next year, while suggesting crewed test flights will not start this year as previously planned.

Bezos, speaking in front of the company's exhibit at the 33rd Space Symposium here that features the New Shepard propulsion module that flew five suborbital spaceflights in 2015 and 2016, backed away from earlier statements that called for flying people on test flights later this year.

"We're going to go through the test program, and we'll put humans on it when we're happy," he said. "I don't think it's going to be 2017 at this point. It could be."
 
Even if Blue Origin doesn't start crewed test flights this year, he believed the vehicle could be ready for commercial flights next year. "I still think we could do commercial paying passengers in 2018," he said.
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Bezos emphasized several times in a question-and-answer session that the company was not following a rigid schedule for the development of New Shepard. "I always remind the team that we're not racing. This vehicle is going to carry humans. We're going to make it as safe as we can make it," he said. "We're not going to take any shortcuts. We're going to put humans on this vehicle when we're ready and not a second sooner."

Any delay in the development of New Shepard, he said, is not based on the company's work on the BE-4 engine for both United Launch Alliance's Vulcan engine and Blue Origin's own New Glenn orbital launch vehicle. "We're really not constrained by our BE-4 activities. Both are fully staffed," he said.

Blue Origin used the conference to show off a model of the interior of the New Shepard's crew capsule. It features six seats, fixed in a horizontal position. People flying on the vehicle will have access to large windows as well as computer monitors that display information on the status of the flight. They will also be able to float around the cabin during the approximately four minutes of weightlessness on a typical flight.

Blue Origin, though, has not started selling tickets for those flights. "We'll probably start taking down payments and selling tickets when we're closer to commercial operations," Bezos said. "We have a whole test program ahead of us."

Blue Origin has also not yet set a ticket price for those flights. "We're working on that," he said. "We still have time. It's not an urgent thing to figure out because we're not ready to sell tickets anyway."

 
Ariane Cornell, head of astronaut strategy and sales at Blue Origin, discusses the features of the New Shepard crew capsule inside a full-sized model of the capsule on display at the 33rd Space Symposium. Credit: SpaceNews/Jeff Foust

Bezos suggested that New Shepard, in addition to serving as a suborbital vehicle for tourism and research, could also be converted into a small satellite launch vehicle. "I'm thinking it might be interesting to build a small second stage for this New Shepard booster because we could use it to put smallsats into orbit," he said. "It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."

He said such a system would not necessarily be a low-cost vehicle on a price-per-kilogram basis. "It does have certain advantages if you're doing, say, replacement of LEO constellation satellites," he said.

Blue Origin's focus for satellite launch is the far larger New Glenn vehicle that the company announced last September and provided additional details about in March. That vehicle's first stage is also designed to be reusable.

"All of the learnings that we're getting from New Shepard are going into our orbital vehicle, New Glenn," he said. "We already learned so much just by designing and building and flying New Shepard, and all of those learnings are already incorporated into our New Glenn design."

Blue Origin expects to begin New Glenn flights in 2020, and will initially focus on launching satellites. "Ultimately, most of our flights will be taking people up into space," he said. "That is going to take a while."

Bezos didn't state how much of his personal wealth, estimated to be more than $75 billion thanks to his stake in retailer Amazon.com, he has invested into Blue Origin to date. However, he did state he expected New Glenn to cost $2.5 billion to develop.

"My business model right now for Blue Origin is that I sell about $1 billion a year of Amazon stock and I use it to invest in Blue Origin," he said. "It's very important that Blue Origin stand on its own feet and be a profitable, sustainable enterprise. That's how real progress gets made."
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Salo

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/04/06/blue-origins-staying-power-bankrolled-by-jeff-bezoss-multibillion-dollar-investment/
ЦитироватьBlue Origin's staying power bankrolled by Jeff Bezos's multibillion-dollar investment
 April 6, 2017 Stephen Clark
 
Jeff Bezos speaks at the 33rd Space Symposium on April 5. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, now the second-richest person in the world, is funding his space company's lofty ambitions $1 billion per year, driving Blue Origin closer to taking paying passengers to the edge of space and fielding a reusable satellite launcher that will usher in a golden age of space exploration, the billionaire tycoon said Wednesday.
Speaking in front of Blue Origin's five-times-flown New Shepard booster at a space industry convention in Colorado Springs, Bezos said his financial backing will keep Blue Origin on course help foster a new commercial space economy made possible by cutting space transport costs.
"My business model right now for Blue Origin is I sell about $1 billion per year of Amazon stock, and I use it to invest in Blue Origin," Bezos said. "So the business model for Blue Origin is very robust."
Blue Origin is on pace to hire several hundred employees this year — its total staff now totals more than 1,000 — as the company builds a fleet of new suborbital New Shepard rockets and capsules, tests a powerful methane-fueled engine, develops the New Glenn orbital-class booster, and refines concepts for a robotic moon lander.
In the long run, Bezos believes Blue Origin should be able to "stand on its own feet and be a profitable enterprise."
"That's how real progress gets made," Bezos said. "I do not want Blue Origin to be a not-for-profit. I want Blue Origin to be a thriving enterprise and to help open the gateway to this new generation of people who will have this dynamic entrepreneurial explosion in space. That's what we're going to do.
"That can only be done if it's sustaining," Bezos said. "It's a long road to get there, but I'm happy to invest in it."
 
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Spaceflight Now members can read a transcript of Jeff Bezos's question-and-answer session with reporters at the 33rd Space Symposium.  
Blue Origin's spaceflight record to date is limited to the New Shepard, a single-stage rocket that has flown six times. Five of those missions used the same vehicle after the first booster was lost during a landing attempt.
The first successful New Shepard landing came in November 2015, making it the first vehicle to return to Earth on rocket thrust after reaching space. A month later, SpaceX exceeded that feat by landing a larger Falcon 9 rocket booster at Cape Canaveral after sending a set of communications satellite toward orbit.
Taking off and landing vertically, the New Shepard is Blue Origin's answer to Virgin Galactic's suborbital space plane, which fires above the Karman line — the internationally-recognized boundary of space around 62 miles (100 kilometers) above Earth — after dropping fr om the belly of a purpose-built carrier jet.
Virgin Galactic's spaceship glides to a runway landing after its brief trip into space.
The New Shepard booster on display this week in Colorado Springs will soon be put in a museum after surviving its last flight, during which a prototype crew capsule on top of the rocket fired a solid-fueled abort motor just as it flew faster than the speed of sound, one of the most sensitive parts of any launch.
The test verified the performance of an abort motor that would rapidly whisk passengers away from an exploding rocket. The capsule was expected to survive, but the New Shepard launcher was not designed to keep flying after such a maneuver.
 
Jeff Bezos sits inside a mock-up of Blue Origin's suborbital crew capsule, with the five-times-flown reusable New Shepard booster in the background. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

"You can see it's a little scarred," Bezos said. "We have tortured this vehicle, including on its last flight, wh ere we did a very stressing escape test."
The rocket's BE-3 main engine continued firing, arcing on a suborbital trajectory before the booster deployed drag brakes, reignited the engine, and extended landing legs for touchdown at Bezos's ranch near Van Horn, Texas.
Blue Origin's engineers are building a second version of the New Shepard and a human-rated crew capsule, the first of what the company says will be a fleet of reusable suborbital vehicles designed to carry six passengers into space on each flight.
Late last year, Blue Origin officials hoped to put its employees on test flights of the next New Shepard booster and crew carrier by the end of 2017, followed by the launch of commercial service in 2018.
Bezos said Wednesday that while he is still optimistic that New Shepard will be ready to start flying customers to space next year, the first crewed test flights are unlikely to occur before the end of 2017.
"I always remind the team that we're not racing," Bezos said. "This vehicle is going to carry humans. We're going to make it as safe as we can make it. We're not going to take any shortcuts, so we'll put humans on this vehicle when we're ready, and not a second sooner."
Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson told the British newspaper The Telegraph last week that he hopes his firm's SpaceShipTwo rocket plane is taking passengers to space by the end of 2018. Virgin's program was set back by a crash in late 2014 that killed a SpaceShipTwo co-pilot on a test flight.
A SpaceShipTwo ride will cost about $250,000.
Blue Origin has not started selling tickets, and officials have not disclosed a price tag for a New Shepard flight. Several university microgravity research experiments flew on New Shepard launches last year.
"The vehicle we're building is the human-rated vehicle," Bezos said. "We're going to go through the test program, and we'll put humans on it when we're happy. I don't think it's going to be 2017 at this point. It could be, but I still think we can do commercial paying passengers in 2018.
 
Blue Origin's New Shepard booster takes off on its fourth flight on June 19, 2016. Credit: Blue Origin

"The good news about our architecture is it's completely autonomous, so we can fly these vehicles with no humans, even though they're human-capable, and do that as many times as we want until we're confident and comfortable, and then we can put humans on-board," Bezos said. "If we had to have pilots, for example, we couldn't use that approach, but the fully autonomous nature of the vehicle makes it easy to do that."
Blue Origin engineers are upgrading the software and heat shield used on Version No. 2 of New Shepard, replacing spray-on insulation with a metallic thermal protection system near the ring attach point with the crew capsule and on the booster's fins, according to Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin.
The crew capsule will also feature windows — the largest to ever fly in space — that have been rated to launch and land 100 times.
"When you get in here, I think you'll have that same emotion many of us, certainly me, have lived with since we were little kids and we wanted to go to space," Bezos said from inside the capsule mock-up. "Everybody says that when you go to space it changes you. All the astronauts come back with stories like that."
Blue Origin hosted reporters inside the scale model of the crew capsule after Bezos took questions Wednesday.
"It's going to be a pretty comfortable ride, but an exciting ride," said Ariane Cornell, head of astronaut strategy and sales at Blue Origin.
The recumbent seats, modeled on helicopter seats, can fit short and tall would-be space fliers, keeping with Blue Origin's goal of accommodating up to 95 percent of potential passengers.
Customers would spend about a day or day-and-a-half training at Bezos's West Texas launch site before strapping into the New Shepard's crew capsule at about T-minus 30 minutes.
 
A view inside Blue Origin's crew capsule. Credit: Blue Origin

A tabletop-looking structure in the middle of the capsule covers the ship's abort motor, which would save passengers from a failing rocket. There are no controls — the spaceship flies on autopilot — but each seat has a tablet-sized video screen showing external views and real-time altitude and speed data.
The cabin is otherwise sparse, with padded walls and an open design.
"A lot of design thought was put into the interior of the capsule," said Cornell as she gave reporters a tour of the craft. "What we wanted to do is to really embrace and celebrate the engineering that's gone into this."
Once the New Shepard's BE-3 engine switches off, the capsule will separate and arc in weightlessness for about four minutes. During that time, the passengers will unstrap their seat belts and float around the cabin, using handrails to ease their movement.
On the way up, fliers will experience 3gs of acceleration. That will briefly spike to up to 5.5gs on descent, Cornell said.
The whole jaunt will take about 11 minutes.
Bezos said he is optimistic Blue Origin will get plenty of sign-ups once sales begin, but there are unknowns in the market.
"We can build as many of these vehicles as we need," Bezos said. "The real question is what will the customer demand be. You can do research and surveys and ask people if they want to go, but it's really hard to know. Really, you just have to do the experiment, so we're very close to finding out what the customer demand will be, but I think nobody knows that for sure yet."
The New Shepard is just a stepping stone to bigger ambitions.
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"Были когда-то и мы рысаками!!!"

tnt22

http://www.space.com/36423-what-blue-origin-space-tourists-can-expect.html
ЦитироватьNo Bathrooms, No Barf Bags: What Blue Origin's Space Tourists Can Expect
 By Calla Cofield, Space.com Staff Writer | April 11, 2017 07:00am ET
 
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Blue Origin founder and CEO Jeff Bezos says people who buy a ticket to fly on his company's space tourism vehicle New Shepard will need to use the bathroom before flight, and they'd better not get sick during the trip — the company has no plans to install systems to deal with human waste.
Спойлер
New Shepard is the reusable, suborbital vehicle produced by Bezos' private spaceflight company Blue Origin. Bezos, who is also founder and CEO of Amazon.com, said that after years of test flights, he is hopeful that Blue Origin will fly customers in 2018. He emphasized, however, that the company will only start flying humans on New Shepard "when it's ready." 
 
On Wednesday April 5, at the 33rd annual Space Symposium, Bezos and Blue Origin revealed new details about the experience that space tourists will have on New Shepard. Bezos also discussed the company's efforts to anticipate customer demand for space tourism, and a possible lottery for anyone who can't afford a trip aboard New Shepard. (Jeff Bezos Reveals 'Sneak Peek' of Blue Origin's Space Tourism Capsule)

A trip to space
 
Passengers who buy a ticket on a New Shepard will travel above the Kármán line, 62 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface of the planet, which is considered the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and space. From that altitude, passengers will experience weightlessness, and see the curve of the planet and the darkness of space.

Each New Shepard flight will last about 11 minutes. Six passengers will be strapped into soft, black-leather seats lined up around the perimeter of the capsule, according to Ariane Cornell, head of astronaut strategy and sales for Blue Origin. Though the seats will be reclined to about a 70-degree angle (in other words, nearly facing the ceiling), each passenger will be positioned to have a clear view out one of the capsule's massive windows. 

Once the capsule reaches space, the passengers will be able to unbuckle from their seats and enjoy about 4 minutes of weightlessness. The capsule is equipped with handrails and soft walls to make the capsule ideal for customers as they float around inside, Cornell said during the Space Symposium event. 

The crewmembers will board the vehicle only about 30 minutes before takeoff, Bezos said, which is part of the reason the company is not planning to have any kind of system in place for the passengers to urinate or defecate

"Go to the bathroom in advance," Bezos said. "The whole thing, from boarding until you're back on the ground, is probably 40 or 41 minutes. So you're going to be fine. You could dehydrate ever so slightly if you have a weak bladder."

Many people get sick when they experience weightlessness. In fact, it's so common that the nickname "Vomit Comet" has been given to an airplane that flies in parabolic arcs so that passengers experience 30-second bouts of weightlessness. But Bezos said vomiting doesn't usually occur until about 3 hours into a flight.  

"[People] don't throw up right away," he said. "We're not going to worry about it. ... It's a delayed effect, and this journey takes 10 or 11 minutes. So you're going to be fine."

The New Shepard vehicle is fully autonomous, which means the company can run tests of the system without having to put a human pilot on board, Bezos said. It also means that the paying passengers won't have an onboard escort. 

Passengers will arrive at the Blue Origin facility in Van Horn, Texas, two days before launch, and they'll begin with a brief half day of training and introductions. They'll meet their fellow crewmembers, as well as "Crew Member 7," the Blue Origin employee who will train them. Crew Member 7 will remain on the ground during the flight but will be available to talk to the passengers during flight, Cornell said at the Space Symposium. 

Passengers' second day at the Blue Origin facility will be full of training, which will include "etiquette" for the weightless environment, Cornell said. Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, told reporters that much of the training will be dedicated to helping the crewmembers become comfortable with one another before the trip. 

"The system has been designed from the very beginning so that the training can be minimal," Bezos said. "You have to know how to strap yourself in and a few other things. But it's not a significant amount of training.": (How Blue Origin's New Shepard Spacecraft Works)

Ticket to ride

While the cost of a trip aboard New Shepard has not yet been announced, it will assuredly be beyond the budget of most people. For comparison, private spaceflight company Virgin Galactic has been selling tickets to suborbital space aboard its SpaceShipTwo space plane for between $200,000 and $250,000 apiece. (However, Bezos and other space tourism experts believe the cost of such trips will go down over time.) At the symposium, Bezos was asked whether he had considered some kind of raffle that would bestow a free ticket on some lucky winner. 

"That's a fascinating idea," Bezos said. "We have not spent a lot of time thinking about that. But I kind of like that idea ... So yeah, maybe we should do something like that."

Regarding the price of those first tickets, Bezos said the company is "working on that, and we'll figure something out ... but it's not an urgent thing." He said the company won't begin selling tickets until it has completed a series of human test flights with Blue Origin astronauts.

The level of customer demand may deeply influence those ticket prices, but Bezos said it's still difficult to anticipate that interest. 

"You can do research and surveys, and ask people if they want to go, but it's really hard to know," he said. "We're really close to finding out what the customer demand will be, but I think nobody knows that for sure yet.

"You know, I've thrown parties that nobody came to," he added. "And I don't think that's going to be the case here. I'm superoptimistic. But the customers get to decide what the flight rates are. I hope they decide they want to fly."
[свернуть]

Apollo13

https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/62sklf/rspacex_spaceflight_questions_news_april_2017_31/dg58vfb/
ЦитироватьInteresting video by Clayton Mowry of Blue Origin giving additional details on New Glenn.
Key points:
    [/li]
  • Blue Origin will now be much more open about plans and progress
  • BE-4 engine is mounted to the test stand in Texas and is ready for its first test fire
  • BE-4 wil throttle down to around 30% of full thrust so around 700 kN
  • BE-4 thrust of 2.4 MN is very achievable - likely flagging significant increases once they finish development
  • NG booster is built for 100 flights but they will not get anywhere close to that in practice
  • NG will fly in the second half of 2020
  • Three years from that point they will be flying 12 times per year - but able to do two missions per month if required.
  • Blue intend to be a low cost provider with market leading cost per kg to orbit - given their high lift capacity this may well mean their cost per flight is not as low as a preflown F9
  • Landing ship will be underway at landing for stability and will be fully autonomous

Apollo13

https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/64uvm2/a_step_by_step_approach_to_lowcost_access_to/

ЦитироватьVery interesting Video! Really nice to follow. Usually Blue Origin is way too secretive. Overview of the company and tons of little details. Some highlights:
    [/li]
  • Blue origin = we are all of blue origin, Carl Sagan's blue Dot
  • Feather is a metaphor for weightlessness.
  • Move polluting industries to space; space is a way to be more sustainable. Thought this was really interesting.
  • Low cost access to space
  • Jeff Bezos inspired by Neil Armstrong and moon landings.
  • Blue Origin is 'customer focused' because of Amazon influence.
  • Blue Origin is actually 17 yrs old but it was very secretive for a long time. Philosophy of talking about technology after you have done it instead of when you plan on doing it.
  • 1024 employees! Facilities in Washington, Texas, building in Florida, and small office in Virginia
  • Building a large scale engine production facility soon in an undisclosed location
  • First New Shepard Propulsion module crashed instead of landing. (I didn't know that)
  • First three flights of the 2nd booster they didn't even take the engine out! Just inspections!
  • Blue origin = Tortoise not hare. Slow and steady. Step by Step.
  • There was a BE-1 and BE-2!!! I can't make out their stats (20:39) They were both LOX LH also.
  • 30% of employees have 20+ yrs experience. 30% 10+ yrs experience 30% recent grads (wonder how this compares to spacex)
  • <4% turnover. People like working at New Origin. (not quite like spaceX.....)
  • 'Strakes' on NG help glide on re-entry.
  • NG needs to be robust to launch in 95% of weather conditions. This will help with launch delays and just generally launching on time.
  • NG is so big to be robust and reusable.
  • BE-4 designed for 100 reuses (not expected to actually fly that much, overdesigned on purpose)
  • NG numbers a conservative estimate. Better to over-preform.
  • 2 stage for commercial and LEO payloads.
  • 3 stage for exploration and further afield.
  • 6 landing gear so if one breaks it can still land.
  • LNG (Liquid natural gas) chosen because: it is green, commercially available, 1/3 to 1/4 the cost of RP-1 (especially beneficial for tons of testing).
  • BE-4 expected to get down to 40% thrust.
  • NG expected to fly 2nd half of 2020.
  • Launch site refurbishment of an Atlas launch pad underway at CCAFS, just outside KSC.
  • 1st and 2nd stage and fairings built onsite at the new factory. (not engines)
  • Giant florida factory: 750,000 sq ft, 250 million dollars, 27 months start to finish, will be done this December!
  • Horizontal integration like spaceX.
  • goal of 12 missions per year by three years of flying. But want to be able to fly multiple times a month if necessary. Interesting this is so little. (compared to SpaceX who are constantly talking about launching every two weeks)
  • As was speculated, landing will be on a ship that is moving because it is more stable.
  • Mission control at the factory.
Q&A:
    [/li]
  • Ship will be autonomous!
  • Undisclosed patented system to maneuver the NS in space. (WTF does this mean?)
  • 5 degrees of gimbal on BE-4
  • 3 stage NG could fly the Blue Moon Lander
  • NG will be easier to land than NS. Because it has more mass/harder to tip over. Elon said a similar thing with ITS being easier to land.
  • We intend to be 'market-leading' in terms of cost per kg.

Apollo13

Цитировать
    [/li]
  • BE-4 was upgraded from 400k lbf to 550 at ULA's request
  • On the BE-4 engine: "...it is now sitting on the test stand in Texas and getting ready to hot fire that engine in the coming weeks."
  • Eutelsat is first customer for New Glenn, also OneWeb has booked 5 flights
  • Landing area on ship will be 50m x 60m
  • Landing burn begins at altitude of 3000 ft

tnt22

https://spaceflightnow.com/2017/04/18/ula-chief-says-blue-origin-in-drivers-seat-for-vulcan-engine-deal/
ЦитироватьULA chief says Blue Origin in driver's seat for Vulcan engine deal
 April 18, 2017 Stephen Clark
Спойлер

The first fully-assembled BE-4 engine. Credit: Blue Origin
[свернуть]
A full-scale BE-4 engine developed by Blue Origin, the space company founded by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos, is installed on a test stand in West Texas for a series of hotfire tests that United Launch Alliance will closely examine before settling on the reusable methane-fueled engine for its new-generation Vulcan rocket.

If the engine firings are successful, ULA will likely sel ect the BE-4 engine for the first stage of the Vulcan booster set to begin launching by the end of 2019, according to Tory Bruno, ULA's president and chief executive.

ULA will decide between Blue Origin's BE-4 engine and the kerosene-fueled AR1 powerplant fr om Aerojet Rocketdyne, a more traditional aerospace supplier.

But the BE-4 is ahead of the AR1 in development, and Bruno said ULA will go with the Blue Origin-built engine as soon as the first series of test-firings are successfully accomplished.

"When that engine begins its testing and we collect enough data, we'll be able to decide if the engine is going to work and meet the performance requirements," Bruno said April 4 at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. "When that data is in hand, then we'll make the down-selection. I expect that to be this year."
Спойлер
Blue Origin kicked off development of the BE-4 engine for its own launcher several years before ULA approached Bezos's company. Bruno and Bezos announced the engine partnership in September 2015, a few months before ULA unveiled the name and basic design of the Vulcan launch vehicle.

At the time, full-scale testing of the BE-4 engine was expected to begin before the end of 2016. A timetable for the first full-scale BE-4 hotfire test has not been released, but officials fr om ULA and Blue Origin said the first test engine has been installed on a firing stand at Bezos's West Texas test facility for final checks.

Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, said April 5 that the first firing of the test engine would occur "very soon."

 
Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin's president, presents a photo of the BE-4 engine being mounted on a test stand in West Texas during remarks at the 33rd Space Symposium on April 5. Credit: Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now

According to Bruno, the hotfire tests will eliminate sufficient risk in the engine's development to permit ULA to settle on the BE-4 as the main propulsion system for the Vulcan booster stage.

Despite a delay of several months in the start of full-scale BE-4 testing, Bruno said the Vulcan rocket is still on track for a maiden flight by the end of 2019 if Blue Origin ends up the winner in ULA's engine test-off.

"Assuming we can make this decision in a reasonable span of time, yes," Bruno told reporters on the sidelines of the Space Symposium. "If we're on the BE-4, it's a pretty clear schedule. If the BE-4 is not going to work out and we sel ect AR1, they're further behind, so that puts a little more pressure on that schedule ... If we had to sel ect the AR1, I cannot fly it by 2019."

ULA will introduce the Vulcan launcher in phases, eventually replacing the company's Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rocket fleets in the 2020s.

The first step is developing a new high-power engine to replace the Russian-made RD-180 engine currently flying on the Atlas 5's first stage, followed by work on a new upper stage to replace the Centaur second stage, which is based on a 1960s-era design.

The advanced upper stage will be capable of refueling in space and can generate its own electricity with an on-board fuel cell, allowing it to loiter in orbit for weeks or months to conduct multiple missions as a space tug.

If ULA decides on the BE-4 as the RD-180's replacement, the Vulcan's first stage will be powered by two of the commercially-developed and privately-funded engines, each generating about 550,000 pounds of thrust at full throttle.

The U.S. Air Force last year committed more than $46 million of government funding to partially pay for the cost of accommodating the BE-4 engines on the Vulcan's first stage.

 
Artist's concept of ULA's Vulcan rocket, powered by two BE-4 engines and strap-on solid rocket boosters. Credit: ULA

Development of the BE-4 engine itself is a commercial effort, primarily funded by Blue Origin, with additional investment by ULA. Officials have not disclosed the BE-4's development cost, but Bruno said new rocket engines of its scale have typically cost about $1 billion to design, test, and certify.

The Air Force has obligated at least $115 million to the AR1 engine project in a cost-sharing arrangement with ULA and Aerojet Rocketdyne.

ULA engineers are designing two versions of the Vulcan first stage in case company managers pick either of the candidate engines.

Both engines use oxygen-rich staged combustion technology, a technique that minimizes propellant waste during launch. The BE-4 will burn a combination of super-cold liquified natural gas and liquid oxygen, while the AR1 consumes kerosene fuel at room temperature.

In the case of the BE-4, the Vulcan first stage will measure around 16.7 feet (5.1 meters) in diameter. The wider propellant tanks are needed to hold the BE-4's methane fuel, which is less dense than the RP-1 kerosene fuel used by the RD-180 and AR1.

The AR1 variant of the Vulcan launcher would have a first stage closer in design to the Atlas 5, which has a diameter of about 12.5 feet (3.8 meters). The AR1 engine will produce more than 500,000 pounds of thrust at sea level.

Aerojet Rocketdyne says the AR1 is the lowest-risk engine option for the Vulcan and offers the fastest path to end ULA's reliance on Russian engines to send U.S. military payloads into orbit.

 
Artist's illustration of the twin AR1 engine package proposed by Aerojet Rocketdyne for the Vulcan rocket. Credit: Aerojet Rocketdyne

Both engine candidates are designed to cost less than similarly-sized U.S.-made rocket engines, such as the RS-68 engine on the Delta 4 rocket and the reusable RS-25 engine built for the space shuttle and now being modified for NASA's huge Space Launch System.

ULA launches the lion's share of U.S. national security satellites, but its hold on the military launch market has loosened with SpaceX now allowed to compete for Pentagon launch contracts.

Bruno said the both versions of the Vulcan will have a lengthened first stage to hold more propellant, taking full advantage of the power of the twin BE-4 or AR1 engines, which will deliver over a million pounds of combined thrust, higher than the 860,000 pounds of thrust fr om the RD-180 engine.

Blue Origin kicked off the design of the BE-4 engine in 2011, and ULA officials previously said the BE-4 development schedule was about two years ahead of the AR1's timeline.

Bruno said Blue Origin originally intended the BE-4 to produce about 400,000 pounds of thrust. The engine was initially conceived for Blue Origin's own orbital launcher, now named New Glenn.

Blue Origin agreed to increase the power of the BE-4 for ULA, Bruno said.

The head start and steady funding stream fr om Bezos, who is now ranked as the second-richest person in the world, give the BE-4 an advantage in the competition with the AR1, Bruno said.

"Normally, when you're developing an engine, you start testing at a relatively low-scale — 10, 20 sometimes 25 percent — and you test components, then you jump to full-scale," Bruno said. "Blue was already developing this engine for their New Glenn vehicle when we entered our partnership.

"They were at 400,000 pounds of thrust. We asked them to increase it to 550, which they've done," he said. "But that meant that when we started working together, they already had hardware at 80 percent scale. They finished testing that hardware, and now they're at 100 percent scale."

The AR1 engine's development got a "cold start" when ULA started working with Aerojet Rocketdyne, Bruno said.

"They're still at the sub-scale component level," Bruno said. "They've been testing their preburner, which is like a miniature version of their main engine's combustion chamber that powers the powerpack, so they've been testing that and other components.

"Both of them are doing fine, but they just happen to be in different places on those development timelines," he said.

 
ULA chief executive Tory Bruno. Credit: Space Foundation

Meyerson said the BE-4 engine can be recovered and reused up to 100 times. Seven BE-4 engines will propel the company's heavy-lift New Glenn rocket into space.

Engineers contend the methane fuel used on the BE-4 makes it easier to reuse than kerosene-fueled engines like the AR1 and SpaceX's Merlin powerplant, leaving less soot and other contaminants that might need to be cleaned out between flights.

In an update emailed to news media last month, Bezos said Blue Origin's engineers installed new hydrostatic bearings inside the BE-4 turbopump to replace traditional ball and roller bearings, reducing contact between engine parts between startup and shutdown as the the pump produces 70,000 horsepower fr om a turbine spinning at 19,000 rpm.

"Why do we go to all this trouble instead of just using traditional bearings? Engine life," Bezos wrote. "We're relentlessly focused on reusability, and properly designed hydrostatic bearings offer the potential for longer engine life without refurbishment. This is one of the many engineering decisions we've made that we hope will lead to reusability – not just in principle – but to practical, operational reusability."

ULA plans to begin recovering the Vulcan's BE-4 engines, if they are selected, around 2024 using a giant parafoil that can be plucked out of the sky with a helicopter. The first stage structure will crash into the ocean and be discarded.

ULA officials say their approach salvages the engines, which represent about 70 percent of the cost of the first stage, without reserving fuel and adding steering and landing mechanisms for flyback maneuvers like SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket.

Bruno called SpaceX's reflight of a previously-used Falcon 9 rocket stage March 30 a "tremendous engineering accomplishment."

"The notion of booster recovery has been around for a long time, as well as things like single stage to oribt, which implies recovery, so I think it was a great accomplishment, and I had total confidence that they would get it done," Bruno said.

"The reason you do it is an economic reason," he said. "It's in order to lower the cost of what would otherwise be a fully expendable launch service. The jury is still out on what is the best way to do that. They have a full booster recovey concept. We're working on a concept wh ere we recover just the engines because it turns out two-thirds of the price of that booster is in literally one part — it's just the engine."

The BE-4 is, by far, the most powerful methane-fueled rocket engine ever built. That adds to the importance of the upcoming ground test campaign in West Texas, according to Bruno.

"Whenever you develop a new liquid rocket engine, if you change the fuel, or if you stay with the same fuel and change the scale of the engine, or if you keep the scale, keep the fuel but change the thermodynamic cycle ... Any one of those three variables can create a situation we call combustion instability," Bruno said.

All three variables are new with the BE-4.

"It's just like if you went out to start your car (in cold weather), you start it up and it idles rough for a few minutes, and then it warms up and everything's cool," he said. "That is actually combustion instability in your car's engine.

"When a rocket engine is sitting there putting out hundreds of thousands of horsepower, those few seconds can tear your engine up," Bruno said. "So it's one of the technical issues we deal with in engine development.

"Blue Origin's engine is methane," he added. "This will the largest scale we've ever done in methane, therefore, combustion instability is an inherent technical risk."

The first sequence of BE-4 hotfire tests will tell engineers if the engine has any such hiccups at startup.

"It's not unusual, by the way, to have some instability when you develop a new engine," Bruno said. "There are tried and true techniques that you apply to smooth that out. If they work right way, you're usually home free. I've never developed an engine that I didn't have to tune, but I have been in situations wh ere you tried the tried and true things, then nothing works, and nine months later you're still stuck. That's the risk we're retiring here."
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tnt22

Цитировать Blue Origin‏ @blueorigin 1 ч. назад

We lost a set of powerpack test hardware on one of our BE-4 test stands yesterday. Not unusual during development.

1 ч. назад

That's why we always set up our development programs to be hardware rich. Back into testing soon. #GradatimFerociter

Apollo13

Цитировать
    [/li]
  • Powerpack (rocket engine), the set of turbopumps and valves that provides the fuel-oxidizer mix to the injectors and combustion chamber of a liquid rocket engine.

tnt22

http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-suffers-be-4-testing-mishap/
ЦитироватьBlue Origin suffers BE-4 testing mishap

by Jeff Foust — May 15, 2017
Спойлер

A Blue Origin BE-4 engine powerpack undergoing testing on a company test stand. Credit: Blue Origin
[свернуть]
WASHINGTON — Blue Origin said May 14 it suffered a setback in the development of its BE-4 engine with the loss of a key hardware component of the engine in a recent test.

In a pair of tweets late May 14, the company said it lost "a set of powerpack test hardware" for the BE-4 on a test stand at the company's West Texas test site in a May 13 incident. "Not unusual during development," the company said, offering no other details about what caused the accident, or any damage to the test stand or other equipment.
 
The powerpack is a key component of a rocket engine that includes the turbomachinery that pumps propellant — in this case, liquid oxygen and methane — through the engine. The BE-4 powerpack generates about 75,000 horsepower, getting its power from a small engine called a preburner.
Спойлер
Blue Origin has been testing BE-4 powerpack systems since 2014, according to past company statements. The company has been gearing up for tests of the full BE-4 engine, once planned to begin in 2016 but which company officials had more recently been saying would begin in the coming weeks. The company announced in March that it had shipped the first BE-4 engine from its headquarters near Seattle to its Texas test site.

The company, in the second of two tweets about the accident, said it would bounce back quickly. "That's why we always set up our development programs to be hardware rich. Back into testing soon," it stated.
 
Blue Origin executives have emphasized that "hardware-rich" nature of its testing program even before this mishap. "We really wanted to go into the test program hardware-rich," Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, told reporters at the 33rd Space Symposium in Colorado Springs April 5. The company, he said, had two test stands for testing either the full BE-4 engine or its powerpack.

At that time, he said, the first BE-4 engine was on a test stand and the second and third engines would be shipping "soon" to the test site. "We want to have three engines in the queue," he said.

"We believe with two stands, a hardware-rich program, lots of sensors and great tools and great people, we can move through the test program quite rapidly," he said.

Blue Origin is developing the BE-4 engine both for the company's own New Glenn orbital launch vehicle as well as for use on United Launch Alliance's planned Vulcan rocket. While full-scale testing of the BE-4 has been delayed, Tory Bruno, president and chief executive of ULA, said in an April 5 interview at the Space Symposium that the engine was still the leading candidate for use on Vulcan.

"They've been testing powerpack at full scale and doing quite well," Bruno said in that interview, along with tests of the engine's preburner. "Both have been going very well, and they've been tuning their design and that tuning finds its way into the full-scale [engine]."

The other option for ULA's Vulcan is the AR1 engine under development by Aerojet Rocketdyne, which uses a more conventional combination of liquid oxygen and kerosene propellants. Aerojet announced May 8 that the AR1 recently completed its critical design review, several days after reporting successful tests of a full-scale preburner for that engine. Those milestones, the company said, keep the engine on schedule for certification in 2019.
[свернуть]

tnt22

Цитировать Blue Origin‏ @blueorigin 1 ч. назад

Excited to select Huntsville AL as the site for our #BE4 rocket engine production #VulcanRocket #GradatimFerociter http://www.hsvchamber.org/rocketcity/ 
http://hsvchamber.org/rocketcity/
ЦитироватьPress Release

BLUE ORIGIN SELECTS HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA FOR NEW BE-4 MANUFACTURING FACILITY

New 200,000 square feet facility to locate in Cummings Research Park
 
HUNTSVILLE, ALABAMA—Blue Origin announced plans to manufacture its BE-4 engine in a state-of-the art production facility to be built in Huntsville, Alabama -- the Rocket City.

The new facility will be in Cummings Research Park, the nation's second-largest research park, and construction can begin once an engine production contract with United Launch Alliance is awarded. The BE-4 is America's next rocket engine and will power United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket, once down-selected. The production of this engine would end the nation's dependence on Russia for access to space for critical national security space systems.
Спойлер
Two BE-4s would be used on the Vulcan booster rocket. The BE-4 will also power Blue Origin's New Glenn reusable launch system with seven BE-4s on the reusable first stage and a vacuum-optimized BE-4U on New Glenn's second stage. Blue Origin awaits the final public approval processes of the local package by the City and County governments during their respective July meetings.

Using the latest design and manufacturing techniques, the BE-4 is made for both commercial and government missions. The BE-4 uses oxygen-rich staged combustion of liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas to produce 550,000 lb. of thrust. Development of the BE-4 began in 2011. Testing of the BE-4 is currently underway.

"Alabama is a great state for aerospace manufacturing and we are proud to produce America's next rocket engine right here in Rocket City," said Robert Meyerson, President of Blue Origin. "The area's skilled workforce and leading role in rocket propulsion development make Huntsville the ideal location for our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility."

Blue Origin will employ up to 342 people in this new facility. The company will make approximately $200 million in capital investment in the state.

"This announcement today is excellent news for our state. I am pleased to see Blue Origin investing in Alabama, and I look forward to working with them and other businesses to continue boosting economic development opportunities," commended U.S. Senator Richard Shelby.

The announcement took place at the historic Davidson Center for Space Exploration under the Saturn V rocket, a nod to the community's aerospace heritage. Blue Origin builds on that aerospace heritage and positions the Huntsville/Madison County community in the commercial space industry.

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey said of the announcement, "We are excited to welcome Blue Origin to Alabama. I must commend founder Jeff Bezos and company President Robert Meyerson for their vision to create this innovative company, and for choosing to make Alabama its home sweet home! Because of this investment, more Alabamians can provide a better living for their families, and it helps cement Alabama as the preferred destination for the aerospace industry."

Many economic development partners contributed to the effort to successfully recruit Blue Origin to the state. These partners include the Governor's office, the Alabama Department of Commerce, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the City of Huntsville, Madison County, and the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber.

"Blue Origin's decision to locate its BE-4 engine manufacturing center in Huntsville reflects the deep and longstanding capabilities in the city that became the cradle of the nation's rocket program," said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce. "Huntsville is a hub of innovation in every facet of aerospace, making it the perfect home for this Blue Origin facility."​

Blue Origin chose Huntsville, Alabama for this project because of the high-tech aerospace manufacturing workforce and ecosystem, including NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, nearly 300 private aerospace and defense contractors, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville, number 14th in NASA research funding in the nation.

"Huntsville is proud to be the nation's propulsion center of excellence, and we couldn't ask for a better partner than Blue Origin to join our team. When you look at NASA's visionary work at the Marshall Space Flight Center, the talent and capacity of Huntsville's space industry partners, and our expertise in research and development, engineering, and manufacturing, Blue Origin is joining a truly remarkable environment," said Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle.

"Today's announcement ensures that our community will continue to be at the center of the world's rocket propulsion development. Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin will build on the legacy of the German rocket team and the Marshall Space Flight Center to power the growing commercial rocket business that will be a critical part of our nation's future space program," stated Madison County Commission Chairman Dale W. Strong.

In support of Blue Origin, the City of Huntsville, City of Madison, and Madison County have provided funding for their three school systems to launch an experiment on a Blue Origin rocket in Summer 2018. The school systems will determine how to select teams, and then they will work with the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber and Dream Up, an organization that supports space-based learning, to design and develop their payload.

"Blue Origin reinforces our regions' place as the Rocket City, and a center of excellence for rocket propulsion. Blue Origin's presence will have a positive impact on our State, our region and our community," said Chip Cherry, President and CEO of the Huntsville/Madison County Chamber. "This is an important development for Cummings Research Park's next era of expansion and we look forward to a long and productive relationship with Blue Origin."

For more information about this announcement, Huntsville/Madison County's propulsion expertise, and local job opportunities, please visit www.hsvchamber.org/rocketcity and follow #rocketcity on social media.

About Blue Origin
Blue Origin, LLC (Blue Origin) is a private company developing vehicles and technologies to enable commercial human space transportation. Blue Origin has a long-term vision of greatly increasing the number of people that fly into space so that we humans can better continue exploring the solar system. For more information and a list of job openings, please visit us at www.blueorigin.com.

CONTACT:
 Erin Koshut
 ekoshut@hsvchamber.org
 (256) 326-2086

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