New Glenn: Blue Origin Announcement of Orbital Rocket Plan

[TinkerLaspeyrs]

As a redundant economist I think they are tube/plate heat exchangers for the building air conditioning. So nothing rocketory but yes they will be pretty cool and maybe out in a space on the roof. An amateur psychologist might suspect that subliminally you already knew this by your 'Pretty cool' comment.

[b0objunior]

As a redundant economist I think they are tube/plate heat exchangers for the building air conditioning. So nothing rocketory but yes they will be pretty cool and maybe out in a space on the roof. An amateur psychologist might suspect that subliminally you already knew this by your 'Pretty cool' comment.

Interesting, learned something today.

[brickmack]

With regard to the direct GEO/performance calculation issue, NASA LSP was told recently NG could do 14.0 tons to Earth escape (ESL2). Naively scaling that based on other launch vehicles with hydrolox upper stages, GTO payload capacity is probably in the vicinity of 18-24 tons, but maybe someone can calculate more accurately using the 14 ton figure to calibrate.

[McDew]

Clay Mowry was the featured speaker at the WSBR luncheon on Friday.  He specifically stated that the New Glen vehicle with 1st stage reusability could meet all 9 reference missions for the EELV LSA contract.  Stated that the design changes to the second stage (two BE-3U engines and stretched tank) were done specifially to meet these requirements.  Plans for a 3rd stage are no longer needed near term and is deferred pending future requirements.

[Prettz]

Clay Mowry was the featured speaker at the WSBR luncheon on Friday.  He specifically stated that the New Glen vehicle with 1st stage reusability could meet all 9 reference missions for the EELV LSA contract.  Stated that the design changes to the second stage (two BE-3U engines and stretched tank) were done specifially to meet these requirements.  Plans for a 3rd stage are no longer needed near term and is deferred pending future requirements.

So the alleged difficulty of finishing BE-4U in time was a secondary consideration, at best?

[Chasm]

Hard to tell from the outside.
BE-4 took slightly longer than expected and required the big test stand. BE-3 fits the small stand, it was developed on it. Much easier to work in parallel.

Another idea is that the date at wich the new rockets have to be able to deliver to all reference orbits was earlier as expected. So no time to do BE-4U now and then follow with the BE-3U 3rd stage for the high performance targets.

Then there is always customer demand. After the NG reveal there must have been a lot of talks with prospective customers. What crazy ideas did they have? Who is (probably) willing to pay for them? Blue certainly has ideas what to do with NG - if they can align them with customer demand things should get a bit more streamlined. See the 5 meter fairing, no actual need to build and qualify it.

I still think that Jeff is a bit more likely than Elon to go the quid pro quo route. He certainly has the money and tries to play the long game. Getting what was talked about is as good as getting ammunition because the other side did not deliver.  All that of course only as long as it is not too much of a detour from the internal goals Blue has for the rockets and as an organisation.

[Rocket Surgeon]

With regard to the direct GEO/performance calculation issue, NASA LSP was told recently NG could do 14.0 tons to Earth escape (ESL2). Naively scaling that based on other launch vehicles with hydrolox upper stages, GTO payload capacity is probably in the vicinity of 18-24 tons, but maybe someone can calculate more accurately using the 14 ton figure to calibrate.

Hmmm, do you have a source for this? I've suspected for a bit that the numbers for New Glenn are a bit sandbagged ,for several reasons.

[envy887]

With regard to the direct GEO/performance calculation issue, NASA LSP was told recently NG could do 14.0 tons to Earth escape (ESL2). Naively scaling that based on other launch vehicles with hydrolox upper stages, GTO payload capacity is probably in the vicinity of 18-24 tons, but maybe someone can calculate more accurately using the 14 ton figure to calibrate.

NG has a heavier upper stage and lower ISP than other hydrolox upper stage LVs, so the upper end of your estimate is probably more accurate. Assuming that's 14 metric tonnes, I get around 21 tonnes to GTO assuming booster reuse.

Do you know if that was with or without booster reuse?

[Llian Rhydderch]

BE-3U is no longer tap-off, they changed to expander a while back. First time we (the public) deduced that was a few weeks ago when a BE-3U image...

Could be; but the Wikipedia article on the engines seems to have figured out it was an expander cycle in mid-August, based on a Blue Origin source dated August 10th.

BE-3, section BE-3U

[Markstark]

New Glenn Payload User’s Guide arrived via inboxes this morning. See attached.

[GWH]

New Glenn Payload User’s Guide arrived via inboxes this morning. See attached.

I'm giddy! There is so much info here!

Common bulkhead on the second stage, that thing is huge. Also notes common tooling on the 2nd stage and that is also aluminum orthogrid  construction. 

Autogenuous pressurization for both  stages.

Previous hints of a composite second stage are either a future upgrade or no longer the plan.

[envy887]

New Glenn Payload User’s Guide arrived via inboxes this morning. See attached.

Bunch of new info here. The BE-3U is an open expander. both stages use aluminum isogrid tanks, so that big CFRP winder must be for interstages and fairings.

[GWH]

1060 kN (240,000 lb) total thrust 2nd stage. This is down slightly from the 125,000 lb per BE-3U stated on their website.

199 second burn time on the first stage for GTO missions.
Total duration of 2 second stage burns of 717 seconds on GTO missions.
600 second continuous burn time on the second stage for LEO missions

All payload capacities shown contain reserves - 13,600 kg to GTO (-1800 m/s), 45,000 to LEO.
Up to 10,000kg in either the upper or lower payload birth for dual payloads.

Up to 12 launches per year, launch surges of 8 in 4 months and a maximum of 3 in one month.

Autonomous flight safety system.
Pneumatic pusher separation of second stage.
One thing not provided is reaction control propellant

[Lars-J]

Image from the PDF with the internal structure of New Glenn:

[Zucal]

Third stage still planned for the future (just not addressed in this user's guide). Interesting!

[Markstark]

Third stage still planned for the future (just not addressed in this user's guide). Interesting!

That is pretty interesting. I think most (me included) assumed that was no longer the case after they updated the upper stage design.

[TrevorMonty]

They still want to use it for lunar missions, so there is a need for 3rd stage. This may also double as reuseable OTV.  For LEO HSF I think a reuseable US is also on the todo list.

[envy887]

They still want to use it for lunar missions, so there is a need for 3rd stage. This may also double as reuseable OTV.  For LEO HSF I think a reuseable US is also on the todo list.

A reusable 2nd stage would pretty much obviate the need for a 3rd stage.

[TrevorMonty]

They still want to use it for lunar missions, so there is a need for 3rd stage. This may also double as reuseable OTV.  For LEO HSF I think a reuseable US is also on the todo list.

A reusable 2nd stage would pretty much obviate the need for a 3rd stage.

A reuseable US would need multiple tanker launches to fill it as it has so much more dry mass than 3rd stage. For BLEO payloads in 5-15t range a 3rd stage is better option.

[envy887]

They still want to use it for lunar missions, so there is a need for 3rd stage. This may also double as reuseable OTV.  For LEO HSF I think a reuseable US is also on the todo list.

A reusable 2nd stage would pretty much obviate the need for a 3rd stage.

A reuseable US would need multiple tanker launches to fill it as it has so much more dry mass than 3rd stage. For BLEO payloads in 5-15t range a 3rd stage is better option.

That's fairly sensitive to the dry mass of the reusable second stage, but roughly speaking a single refueling is equivalent to a 3rd stage to TLI, and 2 refuelings are about 3x better than a 3rd stage.