Blue Origin - BE-4 Methalox Engine

[HVM]

Jeff Foust‏ @jeff_foust:

"Bob Smith, Blue Origin, stresses importance of ..."

"Smith: had really good test recently on what we think is the last dev version of the BE-4 engine; expect to finish qualification of the engine this year. #SATShow"

Jeff Foust on Twitter

That sounds lot better.

 

[Grendal]

BE-4 new update development video:

 

[ecarfan]

Glad to see BO is making progress. But I dislike their superior attitude: their engines are “meant to actually be a road into space”. As if that is something that no other company is doing, and that everyone else is just building rockets with no long term goals in mind.

SpaceX is in volume production with Raptors right now, and appears to be well ahead of BO in terms of building that “road”.

 

[bxr140]

External communications team member #1: "How about 'meant to be the road to space'...?"
#2: "Hmmm...not sure we can say that, I thought someone else was doing that too?"
#3: "I got it! I got it!" <changes *the* to *a*>
All: <High fives around>

 

[Grendal]

Finally ready to begin production. ULA is waiting. New Glenn can hopefully launch.
With turbopump issues “sorted out,” BE-4 rocket engine moves into production

 

[Grendal]

A breakdown of the issues that the BE-4 has had:

Blue Origin’s powerful BE-4 engine is more than four years late—here’s why

"This is a success oriented approach, but it could definitely backfire."

arstechnica.com

 

[miimura]

A breakdown of the issues that the BE-4 has had:

Blue Origin’s powerful BE-4 engine is more than four years late—here’s why

"This is a success oriented approach, but it could definitely backfire."

arstechnica.com

My favorite quote:

"It is insanely hard to pass US Space Force requirements and testing," ... "The paperwork mass will exceed engine mass."

 

[HVM]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1453643778762420224

 

[EVCollies]

My fav comment:
Virgil

It's fun to see two methalox engines being developed at the same time, but it's a bit comical that one has better Isp and better T/W and better T/$ and is more reusable and has a higher thrust and is ready for flight earlier.

 

[Grendal]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1524386115511324672

 

[bxr140]

Great shot of the throttle up at 4 seconds and shock diamonds pushing out.

 

[Grendal]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1656609776783208448

 

[scaesare]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1656609776783208448

So what else remains after an engine passes qualification testing?

 

[scaesare]

So what else remains after an engine passes qualification testing?

View attachment 937410

And I realize I misread that tweet as "several months to go" when I posted that yesterday... my bad.

 

[mongo]

Reportedly, a BE-4 failed during testing June 30th. Cause is thought to be known and should not impact Vulcan Cert-1 flight.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1678844068703477762

 

[HVM]

It was an acceptance test, and not a development test for some changes, so somewhat bad. Only way that will not impact Vulcan Certification flight, is that flight is not going to happen any time soon due Centaur problem(s) (-this year).

 

[HVM]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1678871112468373505

First of all, full credit to Michael Sheetz for a great scoop here. Michael works really hard. Secondly, a trusted Blue Origin source confirms what Tory says here; that this is not a huge deal. They've ID'd the failure, and it's not a huge setback.

 

[scaesare]

An Engadget blurb about it: Blue Origin is investigating why a rocket engine exploded during testing | Engadget

References this CNBC piece: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/11/jef...lzxx0TgxyPWlM1HUUuIQxRUkFzmqTtyWNF0o0&irgwc=1

 

[mongo]

New report: Engine had failed one acceptance test. On second attempt, had burn through faster than monitoring system could shut it down.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1679514432072761344

 

[scaesare]

Follow up tweet from Sawyer:

"Bruno says they've already successfully tested 12 engines in addition to the two used during the flight readiness firing, adding it's not the first engine to do that and won't be the last, noting it's happened on other ULA-used engines. "It's not a news story""

Some insight in to the # of engines they have...