New Glenn: Blue Origin Announcement of Orbital Rocket Plan

[nacnud]

You probably only need a few hundred m/s of landing propellant, if that.

Is there so much friction loss because of the air? Otherwise, it's travelling >2,500 m/s forward there's some reduction necessary, especially including the gravity drag.

I think so, that's why it has wings, so it can stay lofted and slow down without needing as much ∆v as Falcon. On the down side it ends up much further downrange than Falcon. This is from memory of reading this forum not any insider knowledge so I could well be wrong.

I seem to recall that New Glenn won't need an entry burn either.

[spacenut]

New Glenn doesn't really have wings, but fins to guide in on re-entry and landing, like SpaceX uses grid fins and cold gas thrusters.  It is coming back into earth's atmosphere engine first like SpaceX. 

[nacnud]

Well when I say wings I mean aerodynamic surfaces that induce lift in order to change the direction of the body. Ok they are not aircraft type wings but they are wingy type devices. They are different to Falcons gridfins, as they are fixed and mostly just increase the cross section of the rocket body. As you say its the fins do the guiding.

[Aeneas]

I think so, that's why it has wings, so it can stay lofted and slow down without needing as much ∆v as Falcon. On the down side it ends up much further downrange than Falcon. This is from memory of reading this forum not any insider knowledge so I could well be wrong.

I seem to recall that New Glenn won't need an entry burn either.

But this makes my calculations more weird. Having less saved for return provides even more upward delta-v and New Glenn could go beyond 45 t to LEO...

[Stan-1967]

But this makes my calculations more weird. Having less saved for return provides even more upward delta-v and New Glenn could go beyond 45 t to LEO...

Modeling payload calculations with re-use schemes is very tricky, & very sensitive to the exact weights & margins of the vehicle.  Lot's of uncertainty in those guesses.  I think it is too early to make any reliable models of New Glenn, given all the specs are proprietary to Blue Origin.  At best some reasonable ranges could be verified.  When I have run models that came up with unrealistic payload numbers, it usually was poor modeling of gravity losses, or bad guesses of dry mass.

As to the fins on New Glenn, I think they are intended to provide lift ( yes..it's a wing) and shed energy more slowly during re-entry. This does result in landing quite far downrange. It should be interesting to see what the staging velocity of New Glenn will be.  Shame we have to wait until 2022 to see it.  Gradatim Ferociter  /s

[envy887]

Hi all,

I did some rough calculations on the dimensions of New Glenn and I'm a bit confused:

Given both New Glenn stages use a shared bulkhead, which makes sense in regard to the fuel temperature, the first stage should hold >1250 t (O/F ~ 3.3) of propellant and the upper stage about 230 t (O/F ~5.5). Adding some structural weight and the payload, we end up with a GLOW... or more like GSAW (gross stand around weight)... of ~1650 tons which is about the SL thrust the 7 BE-4s need to develop. The total size of the stages being ~49 m for the first stage excluding the interstage and ~25 for the second stage. Engine length ~5 m for the first and ~4 m for the second.

Introducing on both stage 7 m of inter tank structure, it comes down to ~1050 t for the first and ~145 t for the second. With a GLOW of around 1300 t, yet only 1.3 TWR at launch. Possible but not much.

Then, I included 3000 m/s of landing fuel in the first stage to be on the save side but what do you expect.

Nonetheless, no shared bulkheads - does that makes sense to you?

Blue has shown cutaway graphics of New Glenn confirming that it has a common bulkhead in each stage. If you want to pixel-measure the stages to calculate the propellant mass, that would be informative.

This image was posted earlier in this thread, and contains some measurements that are not info from Blue. All we officially know is the 7 m diameter and maybe the overall height.

[tommy099431]

You would really think they would be more open about their progress, freaking Boeing is better. Without this I feel like it will be harder for them to succeed long term. SpaceX is merely a household name while saying blue origin to people would seem like your talking crazy. Also both Elon and Jeff Bezos are well known people, each running a house hold company. Very disappointing to me

[GWH]

You would really think they would be more open about their progress, freaking Boeing is better. Without this I feel like it will be harder for them to succeed long term. SpaceX is merely a household name while saying blue origin to people would seem like your talking crazy. Also both Elon and Jeff Bezos are well known people, each running a house hold company. Very disappointing to me

I totally agree, it's really hard to envision a future of "millions of people living and working in space" when the company can't be bothered to engage the public today.

Their youtube does show a little bit of progress, but they still look quite a long ways off from producing a fully integrated stage. https://www.youtube.com/user/blueoriginchannel/videos

[Aeneas]

Hi all,

I did some rough calculations on the dimensions of New Glenn and I'm a bit confused:

Given both New Glenn stages use a shared bulkhead, which makes sense in regard to the fuel temperature, the first stage should hold >1250 t (O/F ~ 3.3) of propellant and the upper stage about 230 t (O/F ~5.5). Adding some structural weight and the payload, we end up with a GLOW... or more like GSAW (gross stand around weight)... of ~1650 tons which is about the SL thrust the 7 BE-4s need to develop. The total size of the stages being ~49 m for the first stage excluding the interstage and ~25 for the second stage. Engine length ~5 m for the first and ~4 m for the second.

Introducing on both stage 7 m of inter tank structure, it comes down to ~1050 t for the first and ~145 t for the second. With a GLOW of around 1300 t, yet only 1.3 TWR at launch. Possible but not much.

Then, I included 3000 m/s of landing fuel in the first stage to be on the save side but what do you expect.

Nonetheless, no shared bulkheads - does that makes sense to you?

Blue has shown cutaway graphics of New Glenn confirming that it has a common bulkhead in each stage. If you want to pixel-measure the stages to calculate the propellant mass, that would be informative.

This image was posted earlier in this thread, and contains some measurements that are not info from Blue. All we officially know is the 7 m diameter and maybe the overall height.

Those measures reduce the weight of a fully shared bulkhead ensemble slightly because of the longer engine sections, nonetheless, it comes out with fuel for the first stage at about 1,200 t... This can't be right...

[envy887]

That sounds a bit large, but New Glenn does have over 1700 tonnes of thrust. TWR of 1.25 or or even 1.20 is no problem.

[Aeneas]

That sounds a bit large, but New Glenn does have over 1700 tonnes of thrust. TWR of 1.25 or or even 1.20 is no problem.

Sure, that would be possible. But if I size a rocket that would be capable to get 45 tons into orbit (incl. margins 9,400 m/s delta-v, average 330 s Isp for 1st and 450 s Isp for 2nd), with proper margins, it comes around with a TWR of ~1.45. And length of 1st stage of 40 m and 2nd at 22 m. Not 50 and 25.

[envy887]

That sounds a bit large, but New Glenn does have over 1700 tonnes of thrust. TWR of 1.25 or or even 1.20 is no problem.

Sure, that would be possible. But if I size a rocket that would be capable to get 45 tons into orbit (incl. margins 9,400 m/s delta-v, average 330 s Isp for 1st and 450 s Isp for 2nd), with proper margins, it comes around with a TWR of ~1.45. And length of 1st stage of 40 m and 2nd at 22 m. Not 50 and 25.

New Glenn is a bit oversized for the payload mass Blue is advertising.

[JEF_300]

That sounds a bit large, but New Glenn does have over 1700 tonnes of thrust. TWR of 1.25 or or even 1.20 is no problem.

Sure, that would be possible. But if I size a rocket that would be capable to get 45 tons into orbit (incl. margins 9,400 m/s delta-v, average 330 s Isp for 1st and 450 s Isp for 2nd), with proper margins, it comes around with a TWR of ~1.45. And length of 1st stage of 40 m and 2nd at 22 m. Not 50 and 25.

New Glenn is a bit oversized for the payload mass Blue is advertising.

I, and I believe others here too, have long suspected that the margins on New Glenn are massively oversized, and that the max payload will start to increase significantly after several flights, as they start to trim away that margin. I'd guess it goes up to at least 50 mT to LEO, with recovery.

We should also remember that we have no idea how much propellent New Glenn needs to save for landing. We could estimate it using F9 numbers, but the SpaceX and Blue Origin's approaches to propulsive landing are so different (wings vs entry burn, hover vs hover-slam, methalox vs kerolox, etc.), I doubt SpaceX numbers will be of much help.

Do we know how much propellant New Shepard saves for landing? It's hydrolox, so it may be irrelevant, but it's probably worth a look.

[Aeneas]

Well, I wouldn't ask for the amount of propellant but the amount of delta-v. I opened a thread here to discuss the general landing of stages:

https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=51330.0

[johnlandish]

New Glenn has been identified as the launch vehicle selected to fly the first two modules of the Axiom station - https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/hk72xe/interview_with_the_module_manufacturer_of_the/

[Darkseraph]

New Glenn has been identified as the launch vehicle selected to fly the first two modules of the Axiom station - https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/hk72xe/interview_with_the_module_manufacturer_of_the/

I'm going to take a guess that since they chose a vehicle that doesn't even exist yet that it is probably pretty affordable. Falcon Heavy is the backup, exists and is at a very reasonable price itself. I'm going to guess somewhere between $30 and $60 million per launch. Maybe even lower. With a billion a year in funding, they can probably sell launches closer to cost rather than redeeming development costs immediately. It may even be competitive with Starship-SuperHeavy at the beginning because the latter though fully reusable will have to recoup the cost of its development a lot sooner!

[su27k]

Eric Berger guesstimate New Glenn first launch is 3Q-4Q 2022: Sadly, none of the big rockets we hoped to see fly in 2020 actually will

New Glenn
Capacity to GTO: 13 tons
Current launch date: End of 2021
Confidence: Low
Our estimated launch date: 3Q-4Q 2022

[meekGee]

Eric Berger guesstimate New Glenn first launch is 3Q-4Q 2022: Sadly, none of the big rockets we hoped to see fly in 2020 actually will

New Glenn
Capacity to GTO: 13 tons
Current launch date: End of 2021
Confidence: Low
Our estimated launch date: 3Q-4Q 2022

Given their estimate for BE4 and Vulcan, this estimate was pretty much expected.

[TomMul]

New Glenn doesn't really have wings, but fins to guide in on re-entry and landing, like SpaceX uses grid fins and cold gas thrusters.  It is coming back into earth's atmosphere engine first like SpaceX.

Did Blue Origin said what well be exact standard flight temperature for CH4 and LOX on New Glenn first stage. And if they plan to subcool them like SpaceX with Starship/SH ?

What will be exact temperature of CH4/LOX after subcooling ?

Did they also explain, why they changed their original plans with using 1 expendable BE-4 and CH4=LNG/LOX also for upper stage ?

Now they want to use 2 expendable BE-3 engines flying on LH2/LOX for upper stage.

Was it because they wanted better orbital insertion for big GTO comsats like Atlas V Centaur has with RL 10 engines ? Can even hydrolox BE-3 offer better orbital insertion than methalox BE-4 ? Has it better ISP ? Blue origin so far use it only for short suborbital flights.

Or was sole reason they switch 2 BE-3 for 1 BE-4, that they didn't want to throw away more expansive BE-4 engine ?

Using hydrogen upper stage seems to look more difficult, because LH2 is much more difficult to storage and hydrogen also can not be subcooled.

[Eric Hedman]

New Glenn doesn't really have wings, but fins to guide in on re-entry and landing, like SpaceX uses grid fins and cold gas thrusters.  It is coming back into earth's atmosphere engine first like SpaceX.

Did Blue Origin said what well be exact standard flight temperature for CH4 and LOX on New Glenn first stage. And if they plan to subcool them like SpaceX with Starship/SH ?

What will be exact temperature of CH4/LOX after subcooling ?

Did they also explain, why they changed their original plans with using 1 expendable BE-4 and CH4=LNG/LOX also for upper stage ?

Now they want to use 2 expendable BE-3 engines flying on LH2/LOX for upper stage.

Was it because they wanted better orbital insertion for big GTO comsats like Atlas V Centaur has with RL 10 engines. Can even hydrolox BE-3 offer better orbital insertion than methalox BE-4. Has it better ISP. Blue origin so far use it only for short suborbital flights.

Or was sole reason they switch 2 BE-3 for 1 BE-4, that they didn't want to throw away more expansive BE-4 engine.

Using hydrogen upper stage seems to look more difficult, because LH2 is much more difficult to storage and hydrogen also can not be subcooled.

Blue Origin say almost nothing on the details of New Glenn.  If they are going to sub-cool propellant in the first stage, I doubt if they have told anyone outside the company.

As for the switch on the upper stage, it is most likely they did it for both performance and cost.  It may have been the benefits of the combination that made the decision easier for them.  With two engines on the upper stage they will also gain some reliability in some engine out scenarios.