BE-4 is already a powerful engine. Is there any reason to assume that they will develop anything afterwards in the short to medium term? Just refine BE-4 and cluster it if needed.
Where did you find information on specific impulse?
Quote from: WBY1984 on 04/14/2016 12:20 pmBE-4 is already a powerful engine. Is there any reason to assume that they will develop anything afterwards in the short to medium term? Just refine BE-4 and cluster it if needed.It is powerful, but the ISP is kinda low. There's a lot of improvement available in that area. Of course if it increases the weight of the engine significantly, it might not be worth it for the first stage.
Quote from: J-V on 04/14/2016 12:29 pmQuote from: WBY1984 on 04/14/2016 12:20 pmBE-4 is already a powerful engine. Is there any reason to assume that they will develop anything afterwards in the short to medium term? Just refine BE-4 and cluster it if needed.It is powerful, but the ISP is kinda low. There's a lot of improvement available in that area. Of course if it increases the weight of the engine significantly, it might not be worth it for the first stage.That was to keep costs low and increase number of flights. At some point, increasing performance greatly increases cost and decreases reliability. Resusable rockets need to be more like a truck and less like a sports car.
Quote from: RonM on 04/14/2016 12:54 pmQuote from: J-V on 04/14/2016 12:29 pmQuote from: WBY1984 on 04/14/2016 12:20 pmBE-4 is already a powerful engine. Is there any reason to assume that they will develop anything afterwards in the short to medium term? Just refine BE-4 and cluster it if needed.It is powerful, but the ISP is kinda low. There's a lot of improvement available in that area. Of course if it increases the weight of the engine significantly, it might not be worth it for the first stage.That was to keep costs low and increase number of flights. At some point, increasing performance greatly increases cost and decreases reliability. Resusable rockets need to be more like a truck and less like a sports car.Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't e.g. FFSC offering better performance with more room for reusability than ORSC?
Yes, if Blue chooses to make another engine and SpaceX proves that FFSC is workable without too big issues, Blue's next engine will probably be FFSC, if they will still exist.Too many ifs. It's just too soon to speculate about anything . . . You should have waited with this thread 4-7 years more.
Not sure if BE5 will necessary be bigger but Blue will need to do something with its propulsion team. Maybe a smaller high performance replacement for RL10 for a lunar lander.Edited. An aerospike engine.
BE-5 will be pressurefed methalox in the 70-100ish kN range with TEA/TEB autoignition feature. It will be called SuperKraken. It will become the standard solution in several Blue threads.There will be a miniature ~500N version too, called Kraken.