15 thoughts on “Blue Origin’s New Engine”

  1. I’d like to know much more about their tap-off system for the turbines.

    As an aside, I think it’s possible to take the exhaust from an engine test, which is supersonic so downstream equipment wouldn’t affect the validity of the test, and use it to generate electrical power to sell back to the grid, possibly at price that’s competitive enough to negate a large part of the fuel cost of the engine test.

  2. Blue Origin is a weird company. On the one hand they have some reasonable design choices, but on the other hand the fact that they are so far out from the market is a huge disadvantage for them. They are shooting for fully reusable, highly reliable launch but I have a hard time seeing how they get there with just sub-orbital testing and little operational launch experience. And by the time they have a orbital launch offering SpaceX will likely have, or be bringing to market, fully reusable LOX/Methane powered stages which will be very difficult to compete with.

    1. Honestly, I think they’re still a startup and they’ll eventually take on some government contracts and accelerate their program.. kinda like they did with CCDev.

      But yes, their technology drive is towards the DC-X concepts.

    1. Could be. They desperately need to get some business, revenue is the lifeblood of any company, there’s only so long a company can survive on investment even with Bezos’ deep pockets backing them up. It’s also extremely valuable to have experience building actual flight hardware.

  5. Maybe the fuel choice was made to ease NASA apprehension of something out of the normal supply chain. Or maybe they got a great deal on fuel from suppliers with no market since the Shuttle retired.

  6. Rand,

    One reason makes sense to me. You have to to think long term like Bezos.

    IMO, Bezos is thinking TSTO RLV and what makes sense is a hydrocarbon first stage and a hydrogen second stage.

    The mass fraction driven by the physics of the TSTO RLV challenge really pushes you to hydrogen on the second stage.

    If you look at the thrust class of his hydrogen engine, it makes sense. He is doing the hardest part — the longest pole in the tent — first. He needs a LOX-H engine of a certain class and now he has it.

    A reusable first stage is much easier by comparison.

    Think long term.

    Onwards and upwards,
    – C

    1. Well, LH2 gives you a lighter upper stage but one with more volume, and thus much more surface area, lowering your loading (in lbs/sq ft) as you re-enter, affecting the mass of your thermal protection system. Would that pay for the increased mass you spent on the extra second-stage volume? Also, if you’re going for a powered landing, you have to retain quite a bit of fuel on board which can soak up part of the re-entry heating. If that’s an option I’m pretty confident I could use segments of thin stainless steel foil as the heat shield as long as I keep them moving, but that would introduce a constant fuel leakage rate which might negate the weight savings.

  7. Part of the answer is that Blue Origin is thinking much higher than suborbital. But that certainly doesn’t explain everything.

  8. Blue Origin has long term goals and jeff Bezos is fully capable of funding it at the current level for as long as it takes.

  9. To me, the biggest excitement comes from combining the Blue Origin story with the SpaceX flight. It also illustrates the importance of different groups going for similar goals by different methods. Elon said it would cost too much to develop a hydrogen engine, opting instead to go with methane. Now, Blue Origin has a (as yet unflown) hydrogen engine, that could lead to quite a performance boost for Falcon 9/Heavy beyond LEO.

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