Author Topic: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine  (Read 1149119 times)

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #440 on: 09/27/2017 04:28 am »
Not the most effusive statement:

Quote
Meyerson: we have made “measurable progress” on BE-4 engine this year, with more engines in the pipeline. #IAC2017

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/912479192444420096

In a follow-up tweet Jeff clarified it’s more BE-4 engines.
It's like getting a "C+" on an elementary student's report card.

Offline sanman

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #441 on: 09/28/2017 10:44 pm »
Hasn't Blue been working on BE-4 longer than SpaceX has been working on Raptor?

Who is closer to a finished engine right now?

Offline yokem55

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #442 on: 09/28/2017 10:57 pm »
Hasn't Blue been working on BE-4 longer than SpaceX has been working on Raptor?

Who is closer to a finished engine right now?
At what size? SpaceX is already in all up testing for a 1MN engine but is likely a  couple years at least from the 3MN version. But Blue has a pretty good chance to be in all up testing at 2.4MN in the next year or so.

Offline russianhalo117

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #443 on: 09/29/2017 02:08 am »
Hasn't Blue been working on BE-4 longer than SpaceX has been working on Raptor?

Who is closer to a finished engine right now?
Raptor had been in testing at Stennis way before BE-4 and it wasn't even called Raptor when it started initial testing.

Offline jongoff

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #444 on: 09/29/2017 03:27 am »
Hasn't Blue been working on BE-4 longer than SpaceX has been working on Raptor?

Who is closer to a finished engine right now?

They were pretty far along with BE-4 when ULA had them totally change the engine size (by almost 50%) to be compatible with what they needed for Vulcan. While they were able to leverage a lot of the earlier design work, it did force some redesigns and delays.

~Jon

Offline Nomic

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #445 on: 09/29/2017 08:55 am »
As JoGoff points out BE-4 is a big engine, with Raptor seemingly down sized, BE-4 is the largest thrust chamber on a stage combustion engine since the ill fated RD-270. Apart from the size BE-4 is about as conservative as possible for an ORSC engine, low chamber pressure, when they where still doing update looked like its coxial swirl injector elements at least on the preburner. From SG1962 excellent commentary above it looks like they thought cfd modelling and component test they could avoid combustion instability and nasty transients, but they are finding the modelling doesn't correlate with reality at full scale.

The whole decision to go with ORSC leaves me puzzled, obviously it leaves a lot of room for iterative improvements, but ULAs big customer is national security payloads, who normally aren't to keen on that kind of thing, but suppose they might have more oversight in this case.

Offline ChaoticFlounder

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #446 on: 09/30/2017 01:17 am »
has anyone seen anymore details on the BE-4 engine following the IAC conference, the information faucet seems to be just barely dripping right now...  :'(

Offline StvB

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #447 on: 10/05/2017 01:59 am »
Have we seen this picture yet? Looks like an engine without a powerpack



edit: came from an article on this website: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/04/jeff-bezos-has-3-customers-at-blue-origin-now-he-j.aspx
« Last Edit: 10/05/2017 02:00 am by StvB »
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Online catdlr

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #448 on: 10/05/2017 02:42 am »
Have we seen this picture yet? Looks like an engine without a powerpack



edit: came from an article on this website: https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/10/04/jeff-bezos-has-3-customers-at-blue-origin-now-he-j.aspx

Original source BY ALAN BOYLE on June 26, 2017: Geekwire.com:  https://www.geekwire.com/2017/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-picks-huntsville-alabama-rocket-city-4-engine/
Tony De La Rosa, ...I'm no Feline Dealer!! I move mountains.  but I'm better known for "I think it's highly sexual." Japanese to English Translation.

Offline Kabloona

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #449 on: 10/06/2017 02:57 am »
has anyone seen anymore details on the BE-4 engine following the IAC conference, the information faucet seems to be just barely dripping right now...  :'(

This hardly qualifies as "details," but here it is anyway, a tweet from Jeff Foust quoting Bob Smith of Blue Origin at the National Space Council:

Quote
Jeff Foust‏
@jeff_foust
Smith: “soon” begin testing of BE-4 engine [after testing mishap earlier this year]

https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/915959558203478016
« Last Edit: 10/06/2017 03:04 am by Kabloona »

Offline Space Ghost 1962

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #450 on: 10/06/2017 03:10 am »
Better late than never.

Offline Rik ISS-fan

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #451 on: 10/17/2017 07:21 am »
The test stand on the image is for the BE-3 engines.
The BE-4 test stand is located here 31.43 ; -104.72

Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #452 on: 10/19/2017 07:30 pm »
Quote
First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success #GradatimFerociter

https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/921095318669873154

Edit: Added screen grab
« Last Edit: 10/19/2017 07:36 pm by pstephens »

Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #453 on: 10/19/2017 07:35 pm »
According to Eric Berger, it was fired at 50% thrust for about three seconds.

Offline envy887

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #454 on: 10/19/2017 07:36 pm »
Quote
First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success #GradatimFerociter

https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/921095318669873154

Excellent news :)

I think that is the nail in the already mostly-closed coffin for AR-1.

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #455 on: 10/19/2017 07:55 pm »
Here’s the video

Online FutureSpaceTourist

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #456 on: 10/19/2017 08:03 pm »
Eric Berger’s write-up:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/blue-origin-has-successfully-tested-its-powerful-be-4-rocket-engine/

Quote
Blue Origin just sent a jolt through the aerospace industry
"As Joe Biden would say, this is a BFD for the space industry."

by Eric Berger - Oct 19, 2017 8:31pm BS

Edit to add:

Quote
The significance of Blue Origin's successful engine test is pretty simple. The company basically built a huge new engine with private money.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/921098453698121732

Quote
The main line of attack from its legacy competitor was that this new company didn't have the experience to build such a large engine.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/921098607436226560

Quote
Well, they just took a huge step toward putting the lie to that. Seven years of hard work, and now they're on fire. Like, literally.
https://twitter.com/sciguyspace/status/921098909090430976
« Last Edit: 10/19/2017 08:15 pm by FutureSpaceTourist »

Offline Star One

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #457 on: 10/19/2017 09:04 pm »
« Last Edit: 10/19/2017 09:05 pm by Star One »

Offline abaddon

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #458 on: 10/19/2017 09:06 pm »
Congratulations to Blue Origin, this is a huge step forward for the BE-4 program!

Offline wannamoonbase

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Re: Blue Origin's BE-4 Engine
« Reply #459 on: 10/19/2017 10:38 pm »
Congratulations Blue.

Now lets see how it goes and how long it takes. 

Long way to go, but this is a huge step for the American space industry.
Wildly optimistic prediction, Superheavy recovery on IFT-4 or IFT-5

 

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