Blue Origin's website still indicated as of late March that New Glenn's second stage would be powered by a BE-4U engine. A company executive, however, said Blue switched to BE-3U around the first of the year.
Credit: Blue Origin
Credit: Blue Origin
Posted on 04/04/2018 10:13:12 AM PDT by BenLurkin
The BE-3U is the upper stage variant of the liquid hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine that has powered Blue
Origin's reusable New Shepard spacecraft on seven suborbital test flights since its 2015 debut.
Mowry said switching to the BE-3U for New Glenn's second stage will allow Blue Origin to conduct the rocket's first launch in the fourth quarter of 2020. He declined to say how much time the engine change saves compared to the original configuration.
Blue Origin is developing two versions of New Glenn: a two-stage version designed to launch a wide range of satellites and a three-stage version for more demanding launches such as deep space missions.
Before making the change, Blue Origin intended to power the second stage of both versions with a single BE-4U engine. Now the company plans to forgo BE-4U development and rely instead on a pair of BE-3U engines to power the New Glenn second stage.
...
Blue Origin is lining up New Glenn to compete with United Launch Alliance and SpaceX in launching U.S. military satellites by giving the rocket enough muscle to reach every orbit specified in the Launch Service Agreement (LSA) solicitation the U.S. Air Force issued last fall. The solicitation — which has also drawn interest from Orbital ATK and Aerojet Rocketdyne — specifies nine wide-ranging "reference orbits" the proposed launchers must be able to reach in order to qualify for Air Force funding.
The Air Force plans to help fund development of at least three launch system prototypes. Awards are expected in July.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.com ...
Credit: Blue Origin
The BE-3U uses liquid hydrogen as does the BE-3 instead of liquid methane; which, though hydrogen is more efficient necessitates a significantly larger tank for the less dense fuel. Perhaps the combination of the two much less powerful engines will allow a testing operation of a second stage with little to no payload; and, provide Jeff Bezos a photo opportunity. Washington Post can write about their owner and his space venture Blue Origin.
ULA wanted the BE-4 and partially funded it’s development for their Vulcan rocket. Apparently vacuum restarts were an issue for the BE-4U, which raises a question of BE-4 first stage engine restart also, as considered in the context of maneuvers of a reusable first stage.
Interesting.
They sure are taking a long time to get to orbit.
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