Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 11/09/2017 03:14 pmSuggest BE-4, unlike BE-3, hasn't enough throttle/gimbal to do a single engine vehicle landing.If you're going to do a single BE-4 vehicle, it'll be an expendable like a twin engine Vulcan.Landing of a single main engine rocket can always be accomplished by adding more little engines such as the 11,000 lb methalox thrusters planned for use in Blue Moon. I digress since this is off topic for the most part, but that "single engine can't land" comment always bugs me as being dismissive of other design possibilities.
Suggest BE-4, unlike BE-3, hasn't enough throttle/gimbal to do a single engine vehicle landing.If you're going to do a single BE-4 vehicle, it'll be an expendable like a twin engine Vulcan.
And your comment strikes me as dismissive of design *practicalities*. Adding several smaller landing engines is not trivial, and it will effect the performance of the vehicle.
Considering that there is *zero* evidence that Blue is developing a single BE-4 powered launch vehicle, this whole discussion seems pointless.
I thought Bezos said they were considering optional US for NS booster so it could service cubesat and smallsat market.S for smaller payloads.
Quote from: TrevorMonty on 11/10/2017 06:11 pmI thought Bezos said they were considering optional US for NS booster so it could service cubesat and smallsat market.S for smaller payloads. No, he has never said that. It may have been speculated by forum members, though.
“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. It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."
Quote from: Steven Pietrobon on 11/10/2017 07:54 amThere are other ways to land boosters besides rockets. Air bags were considered for the Kistler K-1.I don't think airbags have been seriously attempted, never mind demonstrated, though they have been proposed several times for vehicles as large as Zenit.
There are other ways to land boosters besides rockets. Air bags were considered for the Kistler K-1.
Quote from: envy887 on 11/10/2017 02:07 pmQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 11/10/2017 07:54 amThere are other ways to land boosters besides rockets. Air bags were considered for the Kistler K-1.I don't think airbags have been seriously attempted, never mind demonstrated, though they have been proposed several times for vehicles as large as Zenit. Thanks to both of you for bringing this up.What happened when a Falcon 9 fell over on its side? Boom!That's what would happen also with an airbag landing. You can't passivate the booster fast enough, and the landing area as well as the engine/stage is still hot and extremely dangerous - how do you mitigate those?Also, what's the parasitic weight gain for the airbag/deployment mechanism? Reuse following burn through? How does the engine spin down / tale off during the "topple"?
Quote from: Lars-J on 11/10/2017 06:26 pmQuote from: TrevorMonty on 11/10/2017 06:11 pmI thought Bezos said they were considering optional US for NS booster so it could service cubesat and smallsat market.S for smaller payloads. No, he has never said that. It may have been speculated by forum members, though.Yes, he did.Quote from: Jeff Bezos“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. It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3213/1
Quote from: Space Ghost 1962 on 11/10/2017 08:51 pmQuote from: envy887 on 11/10/2017 02:07 pmQuote from: Steven Pietrobon on 11/10/2017 07:54 amThere are other ways to land boosters besides rockets. Air bags were considered for the Kistler K-1.I don't think airbags have been seriously attempted, never mind demonstrated, though they have been proposed several times for vehicles as large as Zenit. Thanks to both of you for bringing this up.What happened when a Falcon 9 fell over on its side? Boom!That's what would happen also with an airbag landing. You can't passivate the booster fast enough, and the landing area as well as the engine/stage is still hot and extremely dangerous - how do you mitigate those?Also, what's the parasitic weight gain for the airbag/deployment mechanism? Reuse following burn through? How does the engine spin down / tale off during the "topple"?Has anyone proposed a retroburn immediately followed by airbag landing? Everything I have seen uses chutes to reduce terminal velocity to something the airbags can handle, which would leave the booster hanging in cool air for a long time, enough to cool at least the really hot surfaces. And maybe even long enough to fully passivate and dump all props and fluids.
Small chutes are lighter than landing fuel; they just don't scale to EELV sizes.
Quote from: GWH on 11/10/2017 06:58 pmQuote from: Lars-J on 11/10/2017 06:26 pmQuote from: TrevorMonty on 11/10/2017 06:11 pmI thought Bezos said they were considering optional US for NS booster so it could service cubesat and smallsat market.S for smaller payloads. No, he has never said that. It may have been speculated by forum members, though.Yes, he did.Quote from: Jeff Bezos“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. It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3213/1"Would be interesting" does not equal seriously considering doing it. This would be the ultimate LEGO rocket as the upper stage would have to provide almost all the delta-v. Possibly interesting for very small payloads, but this would be competing against Electron etc.
Quote from: GWH on 11/10/2017 06:58 pmQuote from: Jeff Bezos“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. It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3213/1"Would be interesting" does not equal seriously considering doing it. This would be the ultimate LEGO rocket as the upper stage would have to provide almost all the delta-v. Possibly interesting for very small payloads, but this would be competing against Electron etc.
Quote from: Jeff Bezos“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. It would be perfectly capable of being a first stage for a small orbital vehicle."http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3213/1
Quote from: envy887 on 11/11/2017 02:08 am"Would be interesting" does not equal seriously considering doing it. This would be the ultimate LEGO rocket as the upper stage would have to provide almost all the delta-v. Possibly interesting for very small payloads, but this would be competing against Electron etc.While the New Shepard's flight profile doesn't look impressive it carries a very large and heavy capsule on top. They claim a pressurized volume of 530 cubic feet, larger than Dragon 2 or CST-100. If that capsule is replaced with a light-weight solid motor (STAR-48?) the flight profile could look much more like Falcon 9 RTLS.
"Would be interesting" does not equal seriously considering doing it. This would be the ultimate LEGO rocket as the upper stage would have to provide almost all the delta-v. Possibly interesting for very small payloads, but this would be competing against Electron etc.
PARC to Partner with Commercial Space Leader to Accelerate Space R&D Partnership to Explore Advanced Technologies and Launch Suborbital Space R&D Projects5 December 2017Palo Alto, CA: PARC, a Xerox company, today announced its partnership with Blue Origin to enhance awareness and interest in the vast possibilities made possible by conducting R&D in space. The partnership will leverage PARC’s expertise in technology innovation and Blue Origin’s reusable suborbital rocket, New Shepard, to push new frontiers in four areas of technology R&D: advanced manufacturing, energy systems, human-machine interaction, and predictive analytics. “This is an exciting partnership at an exciting time,” said Austin Pugh, Senior Director of Global Business Development at PARC. “We look forward to working with Blue Origin’s world class team of scientists and engineers on gaining new insights from performing R&D in space. When a truly multi-disciplinary team of scientists come together to think about how to tackle big challenges, the possibilities are endless.”The two will work together in “Accelerating Research in Space” (ARIS) to market joint R&D opportunities to PARC’s global 1000 partners and government agencies. The ultimate goal is to include an advanced technology R&D experiment on one of Blue Origin’s upcoming suborbital flights.“PARC’s history of innovation makes them a fantastic partner for Blue Origin’s vision of opening the space frontier to new technologies, new science, and new people,” said Erika Wagner, Blue Origin’s Business Development Manager. “We look forward to adding space access to PARC’s toolbox of R&D capabilities.”PARC will establish an ARIS working group to focus on generating new technology concepts that would benefit from performing investigations in spaceflight environments. Together, the multidisciplinary group of scientists will build an understanding of commercial space Payload Lockers and begin scoping potential experiments to bring new understandings about how technologies behave in space, as well as how they may enable future generations of advanced space systems that support PARC’s commercial and government partners.
Hm, Blue was just granted a license for New Shepard Flight 8, NET Dec 25 (Christmas Day!). I have doubts that that NET has any actual meaning, but it would certainly be impressive if they manage to refly NS that quickly. https://apps.fcc.gov/oetcf/els/reports/GetApplicationInfo.cfm?id_file_num=1769-EX-ST-2017