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Was this is supposed to be a launch to orbit (LEO)? If not, what is point of carrying any payload?
Is this the same rocket that carried a bunch of a folks up beyond troposphere and landed back? I get confused between New Glenn and New Shepard.
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Lots of good stuff you can do with this kind of mission.
Hmm.. like what? If the whole time spent in microgravity is about a minute or two, what useful experiment can you do?
Its not just gravity. There's the launch environment, the space environment, the altitude, etc.
New Glenn is BO's orbital rocket that they have factories for but is still in the design phase. Expect two to four more years before they even launch one. The engine for that rocket is the BE-4 which they haven't even gotten to ULA for their Vulcan rocket. It is years behind and ULA desperate for it. Vulcan will launch before New Glenn. If Vulcan starts being a reliable launcher with BO providing enough engines for it then I'd expect New Glenn to hit the pad within a year or two after that.
petit_bateau
Active Member
Yes. So I was wrong that they have gotten some over to ULA. Though flight engine means that BO is saying they are good enough for flight. I believe that ULA will be testing these engines but not launching them. That said, ULA is saying they will be launching a Vulcan sometime before the end of the year. That is aspirational. As we're seeing with SLS, it is quite common that there will be delays. I'd bet it actually launches in 2023 some time.
Those are the engines for the first flight (I think they had test articles earlier).
So the entire experiment lasts 7 to 10 minutes from launch to land, out of which it will be in "space" for 2 minutes? I get the joy ride part of it, if they are sending humans.
Yes. There's a lot of good data that can come out of that kind of experiment, AND its much easier to set up that kind of experiment than, say, something that's going to the ISS.
Yeah, just saw that and was coming here to post it. Apologies @Grendal, I confused BO's facilities with ULA's.
Engine is produced at Location A. And then sent to Location B for unit testing. Then sent to rocket factory owned by a different company in Location C for mating. Then the whole rocket is shipped to location D for launch testing.
If there any small issue in this process, rinse repeat from Location A.
If there any small issue in this process, rinse repeat from Location A.
Minus step C, which is a function of ULA being a customer (and so is not part of the NG BE-4 flow), that’s basically the same process used by early/low volume Merlin/Raptor.
If you were around at the time of the Mercury program, it is easy to remember which is which. The first suborbital American astronaut human flight was Alan Shepard, and the first orbital American human flight was John Glenn.
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