![]() The incident first came to light today in a report from CNBC, which quoted unnamed sources as saying that the engine detonated about 10 seconds into a test firing on June 30. Boeing said its bid uses the Atlas 5 rocket and RD-180 engines, but leaves open the possibility of switching to a different engine or booster. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture confirmed that one of its BE-4 rocket engines suffered a significant anomaly during testing at its West Texas facility in late June. 4 The engine has been designed to produce 2.4 meganewtons (550,000 lbf) of thrust at sea level. The BE-4 is being developed with private and public funding. The engine will use liquefied natural gas.īezos said Blue Origin was also part of the Boeing team that won a $4.2 billion contract from NASA on Tuesday to develop a space taxi. The Blue Engine 4 2 or BE-4 is an oxygen-rich 3 liquefied-methane-fueled staged-combustion rocket engine under development by Blue Origin. ULA said it would use two BE-4 engines on each of its boosters, providing combined thrust of over 1 million pounds, more than the RD-180 engine now used on the Atlas 5 rocket. Blue Origin has officially given the 'go' for its New Shepard rocket to launch six passengers on the suborbital NS-21 mission on Saturday, June 4, 2022. Blue Origin was continuing to work on plans for its own orbital vehicle, which would re-use the engines and should be ready later this decade. Capitalism in space: The head of Blue Origin’s rocket engine division has decided to leave the company, even as it was revealed that the first flight worthy BE-4 engines will not be delivered to ULA until May at the earliest. He said his company had been working for three years on the new liquid oxygen engine, which will deliver 550,000 pounds of thrust at sea level, and testing of various components was already under way at the company’s new facility in West Texas.īezos said the engine could eventually be reusable, although ULA did not plan to recover them initially. Bezos said only that it was possible to develop an engine for less than the standard estimate of seven years and $1 billion. “If all your competitors are banding together to attack you, that’s like a good compliment.”īezos said ULA was making a significant investment in the development of the BE-4 engine, which would help accelerate the program, but gave no details. Musk told Fox Business Network he viewed the ULA-Bezos agreement as a compliment. The BE-7 is a high-performance, additively manufactured liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen lunar. “But.the more competition and the more ideas we have, the better off we are.” This is the engine that will take the first woman to the surface of the Moon. “I’m not sure which way we’re (ultimately) going to go,” he said. General John Hyten, head of Air Force Space Command, welcomed news that the effort was privately funded, but stressed that any new engine would have to pass a rigorous certification process, like the one SpaceX is undergoing, before it could be used to launch expensive and critical satellites into space. Pentagon acquisition chief Frank Kendall said he had not been fully briefed on the initiative, but called it an example of the innovative and creative ideas the military was seeking on how to end dependence on Russian-built engines.
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