Tag: BE-4 Engine

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Blue Origin’s rocket engine wins ULA’s backing

Blue Origin BE-4 engine
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is on display in Colorado Springs in April. (Blue Origin Photo)

After years of development and months of suspense, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture has won a high-stakes race to provide United Launch Alliance with its BE-4 rocket engine.

First word of the win came unofficially in a Wall Street Journal report, and was confirmed hours later by United Launch Alliance, a Boeing-Lockheed joint venture. United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno confirmed that BE-4 engines would be used on the first stage of ULA’s yet-to-be-built Vulcan rocket.

“We are pleased to enter into this partnership with Blue Origin and look forward to a successful first flight of our next-generation launch vehicle,” Bruno said in a news release.

Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith said he was “very glad” to see the BE-4 engine selected as the Vulcan rocket’s prime propulsion system.

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Blue Origin says next-gen rocket engine is on track

Blue Origin BE-4 engine
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is on display in Colorado Springs. (Blue Origin Photo)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — For years, there’s been a big question surrounding the next-generation BE-4 rocket engine that’s being built by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture: Will it be good enough for United Launch Alliance, a crucial prospective customer?

Now Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith says the BE-4 has passed all of the technical tests required for ULA to sign onto a production contract.

“We’ve met the technical and performance requirements that they’re looking for,” Smith told GeekWire today during a one-on-one interview at the 34th Space Symposium in Colorado Springs. “And so we’re just working through how do we actually get to a production deal. We’re working through terms and conditions, termination liability, all of the things you’d want within a contractual structure.”

Smith said there’s been good interaction with ULA on the technical side of the BE-4 test-firing process. “At this point, we think it’s just, how do we get to the commercial production deal?” he said.

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SNC and Blue Origin show off space hardware

Buzz Aldrin and Mark Sirangelo
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin and Sierra Nevada Corp.’s Mark Sirangelo get an early look at SNC’s Dream Chaser atmospheric test plane. (SNC Photo)

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. —  A year after Blue Origin put its New Shepard rocket booster on public display for the first time, Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ space venture has brought its BE-4 rocket engine here for one of the nation’s premier space conferences.

But this time, Colorado-based Sierra Nevada Corp. is taking up at least as much of the spotlight at the 34th Space Symposium with the prototype for its Dream Chaser mini-space shuttle.

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Jeff Bezos shares 114-second rocket engine video

Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine is an essential part of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ vision of getting millions of people living and working in space, so he’s anxious to show it works.

But not anxious enough to cut corners. The video he shared today on Twitter and Instagram shows a work in progress: a test firing of the methane-fueled BE-4 at Blue Origin’s facilities in West Texas, with the power dialed down to 65 percent of maximum and the blast limited to 114 seconds.

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Success! Blue Origin fires up BE-4 rocket engine

BE-4 engine firing
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine blasts through its initial hot-fire test. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture says it has successfully test-fired its BE-4 rocket engine, marking a key step in the development of its own New Glenn rocket as well as United Launch Alliance’s next-generation rocket.

Billions of dollars are at stake in the BE-4 project, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno told GeekWire last year.

ULA has been waiting for months to get good news about the BE-4 tests in West Texas. The company wanted to see a successful full-scale test before going ahead with plans to use the BE-4 engine on its Vulcan rocket, which is due to have its first flight in 2019.

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Blue Origin to build engines in Rocket City

Blue Origin BE-4 engines
Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engines are currently produced in Kent, Wash. (Blue Origin Photo)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ space venture, Blue Origin, plans to invest $200 million to build its BE-4 rocket engine in a new facility in Huntsville, Ala., which has been known for decades as the Rocket City.

Construction of the 200,000-square-foot facility at Huntsville’s Cummings Research Park can begin once Blue Origin wins an engine production contract from United Launch Alliance for its next-generation Vulcan rocket, the Huntsville / Madison County Chamber said today in a news release.

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Jeff Bezos says BE-4 rocket test went awry

BE-4 rocket engine testing
In a photo from March 2017, the BE-4 rocket engine’s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin’s West Texas proving ground for startup transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo)

In a rare update, the Blue Origin space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos reported that it lost a set of powerpack test hardware for its BE-4 rocket engine over the weekend, but added that such a setback is “not unusual” during development.

“That’s why we always set up our development programs to be hardware-rich,” the company tweeted today. “Back into testing soon.”

Blue Origin is headquartered in Kent, Wash., but the BE-4 is being tested at its facility in West Texas, on ranchland owned by Bezos. The powerpack is the heart of a rocket engine, pumping fuel and oxidizer to the engine’s combustion chamber.

The current round of engine testing is key to the company’s fortunes: Blue Origin is planning to use the BE-4, which is powered by liquefied natural gas, on its own New Glenn orbital-class rocket. Blue Origin already has started lining up satellite customers for the New Glenn.

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Jeff Bezos gets his bearings on rocket engine

BE-4 rocket engine testing
The BE-4 rocket engine’s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin’s West Texas proving ground for startup transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo)

What’s the difference between ball bearings and hydrostatic bearings? You should have more of an inkling after checking out Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos’ latest update on the development of Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine.

The engine is undergoing testing for use not only on the New Glenn rocket that Bezos’ space venture is planning, but also on United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket.

The BE-4 is designed to provide 550,000 pounds of thrust, propelled by liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas. Bezos says that kind of thrust should be enough to send a payload on the first leg of a trip to the moon when seven of them are firing together.

But that kind of performance can involve a lot of wear and tear, particularly if you’re using traditional ball and roller bearings. To maximize the engine’s reusability, Blue Origin’s team is taking a different approach. To keep the BE-4 running smoothly, Bezos says the turbine at the heart of the engine’s turbopump will use a thin film of the fluid propellants as its bearings.

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Jeff Bezos shows off shiny new rocket engine

BE-4 engine
Blue Origin employees move the BE-4 engine through the company’s production facility in Kent, Wash. (Blue Origin Photo via Jeff Bezos / Twitter)

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos is providing a sneak peek at his Blue Origin space venture’s BE-4 rocket engine, which could someday help power missions to the moon.

Today’s preview tweets comes a day before Bezos is expected to update his vision for commercial space missions at the Satellite 2017 conference in Washington, D.C. The BE-4 engine, fueled by liquefied natural gas, is expected to play a key role in that vision.

Bezos announced that the first BE-4 has been built at Blue Origin’s production facility in Kent, Wash., and the second and third are “following close behind.”

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Jeff Bezos gives a boost to his rocket engine

Ox Boost Pump
An employee works on the BE-4 Ox Boost Pump prior to engine installation. (Blue Origin Photo)

And now for something completely different from Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos: His latest mass email isn’t about jobs, or Donald Trump, or his new D.C. digs. It’s about a rocket engine boost pump.

Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture, which he founded more than 16 years ago, is in the midst of building a next-generation rocket engine fueled by liquefied natural gas, known as the BE-4. Today, Bezos lifted the curtain on one of the engine’s subassemblies and highlighted how Blue Origin is using 3-D printing.

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