Blue Origin, the commercial rocket company founded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, will break ground in Alabama Friday on a promised plant to produce its new, next-generation rocket engine.
Wonder what that means in terms of thrust they've achieved and duration of the tests. You can clearly see throttling in the video, but we've already seen throttling tests right? Have they achieve 100% thrust for full duration yet? I'd think achieving either 100% thrust or full duration would have prompted a press release from Blue. Wonder where they are standing now.
Blue Origin’s Cornell, talking about BE-4 testing, says the next version of the engine that will be tested soon will go up to 100% thrust, vs 70% of earlier tests.
Looks like they saved on architecture/engineering for the Alabama factory.
Quote from: Davidthefat on 09/27/2018 11:27 pmWonder what that means in terms of thrust they've achieved and duration of the tests. You can clearly see throttling in the video, but we've already seen throttling tests right? Have they achieve 100% thrust for full duration yet? I'd think achieving either 100% thrust or full duration would have prompted a press release from Blue. Wonder where they are standing now.Today, Jeff Foust:QuoteBlue Origin’s Cornell, talking about BE-4 testing, says the next version of the engine that will be tested soon will go up to 100% thrust, vs 70% of earlier tests.
Quote from: AncientU on 01/23/2019 05:22 pmQuote from: Davidthefat on 09/27/2018 11:27 pmWonder what that means in terms of thrust they've achieved and duration of the tests. You can clearly see throttling in the video, but we've already seen throttling tests right? Have they achieve 100% thrust for full duration yet? I'd think achieving either 100% thrust or full duration would have prompted a press release from Blue. Wonder where they are standing now.Today, Jeff Foust:QuoteBlue Origin’s Cornell, talking about BE-4 testing, says the next version of the engine that will be tested soon will go up to 100% thrust, vs 70% of earlier tests.Have they done ANY tests at 100%, even short ones? Going from 70% to 100% is a 42% increase in thrust, with a corresponding increase flow rates, pump power, and throttle range. That's not a gimme, even though the engine was clearly designed for it.
Quote from: LouScheffer on 01/24/2019 05:45 amQuote from: AncientU on 01/23/2019 05:22 pmQuote from: Davidthefat on 09/27/2018 11:27 pmWonder what that means in terms of thrust they've achieved and duration of the tests. You can clearly see throttling in the video, but we've already seen throttling tests right? Have they achieve 100% thrust for full duration yet? I'd think achieving either 100% thrust or full duration would have prompted a press release from Blue. Wonder where they are standing now.Today, Jeff Foust:QuoteBlue Origin’s Cornell, talking about BE-4 testing, says the next version of the engine that will be tested soon will go up to 100% thrust, vs 70% of earlier tests.Have they done ANY tests at 100%, even short ones? Going from 70% to 100% is a 42% increase in thrust, with a corresponding increase flow rates, pump power, and throttle range. That's not a gimme, even though the engine was clearly designed for it.The tweet says that the power level of the engine never exceeds 70%.They were babying it for a reason. Probably to prevent it from blowing up.
Blue Origin breaks ground for BE-4 factoryby Jeff Foust — January 25, 2019WASHINGTON — As Blue Origin breaks ground on a new factory for producing rocket engines, the company says development of its BE-4 engine will be completed later this year.
Smith announced at the groundbreaking that Blue Origin is working on agreement with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center to take over Building 4670 at the center. That site, a test stand previously used for testing engines for the Saturn 5 and shuttle, will be used for acceptance testing for both the BE-3U and BE-4 engines.
Test Stand 4670 was originally used to test S-IC-T and the first three S-IC flight stages of the Saturn V!http://heroicrelics.org/info/s-ic-test-stand/s-ic-stand-log-book.html
But I assume that they won’t be using the stand to test NG first stages?
This will be money making business, selling BE4s to ULA and BE3U to Blue for customer missions. Should be able to stand on its own two feet without relying on Bezos $Bs to jack it up.SNIP
Quote from: Lars-J on 01/26/2019 05:58 amBut I assume that they won’t be using the stand to test NG first stages?Yes, that is my understanding as well. The article doesn't say they will be testing full stages on the S-IC stand, only BE-4 and BE-3U engines.
.@blueorigin's Mowry: #BE4 engine fired to 70% power and 200-sec duration, roughly flight profile for launch. Testing continues in West Texas.
https://twitter.com/stephenclark1/status/1100165131101720579QuoteJust finished a nice interview with @torybruno. The first flight hardware for Vulcan is now being produced at ULA’s factory in Alabama. First launch remains set for Spring 2021.https://twitter.com/stephenclark1/status/1100167165578235905QuoteCritical design review for Vulcan should be completed soon, says @torybruno. Waiting on some final data from BE-4 engine tests. He says Blue Origin has completed dozens of hotfire tests to date on the BE-4, the most powerful methane rocket engine ever built.Presumably waiting to get higher than 70% power?
Just finished a nice interview with @torybruno. The first flight hardware for Vulcan is now being produced at ULA’s factory in Alabama. First launch remains set for Spring 2021.
Critical design review for Vulcan should be completed soon, says @torybruno. Waiting on some final data from BE-4 engine tests. He says Blue Origin has completed dozens of hotfire tests to date on the BE-4, the most powerful methane rocket engine ever built.