Blue Origin successfully tests their rocket engine for the first time

[William Gayde]

Jeff Bezos has been pumping money into his rocket company Blue Origin, but besides some media photos and mission plans, there hasn't been much to show for it. This week was the company's first real debut: a hot-fire test of their new BE-4 rocket engine. The test was only at 50% power and only ran for three seconds, but it brings Blue Origin one step closer to a real space launch.

First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/xuotdzfDjF

— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) October 19, 2017

This engine is fueled by liquid natural gas, a propellant not often used in the aerospace industry. This has other companies as well as the military interested because the technology is completely reusable and was produced with private funding. Most aerospace projects have been funded by government grants which ultimately means taxpayer dollars. The fact that Blue Origin and SpaceX have been able to achieve this level of success has many in the industry excited.

The BE-4 can deliver up to 550,000 pounds of thrust which makes it the most powerful rocket engine built in the last two decades. This puts it above SpaceX's current Merlin engine at 190,000lbs and their future Raptor engine at 380,000lbs.

The US military and United Launch Alliance, who fly the Atlas V and Delta IV rockets, have been looking for a replacement for the current Russian-designed engine technology. Their upcoming Vulcan rocket will likely be powered by the BE-4 engine.

This week's test shows Blue Origin's resiliency following a launchpad explosion back in May. It also serves to verify their commitment of making commercial space travel viable.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/71496-blue-origin-successfully-tests-their-rocket-engine-first.html

 

[mbrowne5061]

Impressive thrust, but with rockets, the name of the game is "thrust-to-weight ratio".

It's all about the empty mass of the engine, because that is one of the controlling factors. Rockets operate by Newton's Third Law taken to the absolutely extreme. The rocket isn't accelerating because of a large amount of thrust - that force is constant - but because it's mass is deceasing. As the mass deceases, and the thrust remains constant, the whole system conserves it's momentum by accelerating.

Thus a rocket's maximum velocity isn't just a result of the thrust of it's engines, but how much mass is left when those engines are shut down. The lighter the engine, the greater the thrust-to-weight ratio, the better.

To my knowledge, the Merlin 1D is still the top dog in this category, and has been since it's inception. It ousted an old Soviet/Ukrainian engine design from the 60s, if memory serves.

 

[Mike89]

Impressive but I'll reserve judgement until the results are proven in flight and it develops a proven track record. Right now spacex is still king with Blue Origin having a lot of catching up to do. What I'm waiting for is the US to get back into manned flight instead of currently only having Russia to do this (well China too but they do their own thing). At the rate NASA is going, Spacex is going to beat them to it. Whatever works as long as we do it. And we need to get our *** in gear and get back on the moon permanently. We could have had neighborhoods up there already if it wasn't for political bullshit.