
Blue Origin has hot fired its BE-4 rocket engine for the first time - kanamekun
https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/10/blue-origin-has-successfully-tested-its-powerful-be-4-rocket-engine/
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neverminder
I'm curious which one will launch first, BFR or New Glenn. My money is on the
BFR, so far with 1200 s Raptor engine fire and full size cryo tank they seem
to be making progress. It's good to have Blue Origin breathing down SpaceX's
neck though, hopefully it will provide them with sustained motivation.

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mabbo
Just imagine what things would look like if SpaceX has a serious failure
again. It could drop them back six months, and Blue Origin would get that much
closer.

Must be a really good motivator for SpaceX.

~~~
nickik
Why would a Falcon 9 failure set the BFR back six months? The teams working
the BFR parts are probably not strongly involved and could just continue
working.

It would set them back somewhat, but I don't see why it would be that long.

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foota
They could lose their launch pad again

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vermontdevil
Biggest thing to me is the use of fuel here. Liquified natural gas has a lot
of benefits. Simpler pressurization system, less soot etc

The future is exciting.

~~~
nickik
One of the price advantages that Blue has over SpaceX is that they will fly
with LNG rather then pure methane.

Edit: Will New Glenn also not use a third gas for pressurisation? Like BFR?

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jofer
Wait, I'm confused... LNG is pure methane. Are there rockets that use methane
that aren't storing it as a liquid? I would have to guess that any rocket
using methane would pressurize it enough to be in liquid form for storage,
anyway. Surely they wouldn't use methane in a gas state... It would take up
far too much space to be practical.

~~~
philipkglass
LNG is 85-95% methane, typically, with ethane making up most of the rest. It
contains small amounts of propane and butane.

I hadn't known that SpaceX was using a special grade of ~100% liquefied CH4 as
nickik says above.

EDIT: shale gas is richer in ethane and higher hydrocarbons than traditional
sources of natural gas. Maybe SpaceX is sticking to 100% methane just so they
don't have to ponder variability of composition depending on how gas is being
extracted.

~~~
shmerl
Methane can be synthesized from CO2 and hydrogen. More complex hydrocarbons
are way more difficult to produce. So pure methane based engine is a better
method for using on other planets.

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shasheene
Anyone know the price to low-earth orbit using New Glenn? (perhaps can be
inferred from Eutelsat or OneWeb's financial disclosures to regulators?)

With Jeff Bezos selling $1 billion worth of Amazon shares a year to fund Blue
Origin, will he choose to sell below cost for significant periods of time to
stay competitive with the Falcon 9 and Heavy?

~~~
Nokinside
It would be interesting to see how the market share affects the profits and
how these two companies plan to compete in long term.

If Blue Origin and SpaceX compete in the same segment and divide the market,
development and manufacturing costs per launch will increase for both.
Assuming each will price the launch price so low that they get roughly 50
percent of the market they would get without the other, both lose half of the
volume to the competition.

SpaceX aims for moderate 3% ($55 million) operating profit margin. Bezos has
deeper pockets, so if he perceives financial weakness in Musk/SpaceX, he can
decide to absorb the losses for a decade and steal launches and drain profits
from SpaceX driving it to the ground.

[https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/05/how-profitable-
is-...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/02/05/how-profitable-is-spacex-
really.aspx)

~~~
valuearb
A 3% profit margin isn’t modest, it’s catastrophic. With a their heavy capital
requirements and massive technology lead they should be banking 30%. 3% says
please shut us down first time we have a bad year.

~~~
nbanks
However spacex could easily survive off 3% profit for now, as long as they
still keep collecting all their used rockets. I only remember them launching
one used rocket so far which was successful, and presumably they'll work out
any remaining glitches and start using the others.

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greglindahl
SpaceX has launched 3 boosters a second time. However, they don't expect to
start launching them many times until another revision in the hardware.

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faitswulff
A few frames of the video caught my eye:
[https://screenshots.firefox.com/eOm06NUSg0CSkb1a/arstechnica...](https://screenshots.firefox.com/eOm06NUSg0CSkb1a/arstechnica.com)

It looks like there's some sort of harmonic wave in the blast. Does anyone
have any insights on why the design would result in that?

~~~
trothamel
I believe those are Mach/Shock diamonds, which are common in rocket engine
exhaust. It wouldn't surprise me if the propellant and the time of the test
made them more visible.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond)

~~~
tim333
As also seen on page 2 of "Ignition" with page 3 showing some other
interesting rocket effects.
[http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf](http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pdf)

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nbanks
Anyone know how the specific impulse compares to other engines? I guess the
fuel is similar to spacex--better than anything other then hydrogen.

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rwmj
How are they planning to reuse the engine? Will they land the first stage like
SpaceX? It took SpaceX a lot of attempts to get that right ...

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JshWright
That depends on who you mean by "they". BO is planning on landing the whole
first stage, like SpaceX. BO has some experience doing stuff in that arena
with their New Glenn rocket (there are a number of factors that make the New
Glenn landings a lot easier than the Falcon 9 landings, but it's still very
useful experience).

The BE-4 will also be used by ULA, on their Vulcan rocket. ULA has talked
about detaching the engines from the first stage of the rocket and having them
fall under parachutes (to be caught be a helicopter). It remains to be seen if
they ever implement that (it kinda feels like a token nod to reuse to get
people to stop asking question).

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iamcreasy
Anybody knows what's special about this engine besides it being able produces
more thrust than SpaceX's Raptor engine?

~~~
caconym_
It's a new commercially viable rocket engine (not a pork-barrel jobs program)
of a size suitable for serious heavy-lift applications, designed and built in
America.

Obviously SpaceX is doing similar things, but Merlin, Raptor, and the BE-4 are
all part of a pretty exclusive club. I don't know why SpaceX chose to go with
a greater number of smaller engines for their planned heavy lifter; I imagine
it might be something to do with the difficulty of building bigger engines
scaling non-linearly, and the fact that modern analysis and engineering ought
to give us some advantages relative to the last time someone tried to make a
really big rocket with a lot of little engines (Soviet N1).

~~~
DuskStar
That, and it's a lot easier to shut off 90% of your engines and land at 50%
thrust than it is to design an engine that will run at 5% thrust.

Oh, and if your engine is small enough, you can also use the same design on
your upper stages - otherwise you need to design two engines.

Also, it may be worth pointing out that the current planned thrust for the
Raptor is ~1,700kN at sea level, while the BE-4 is ~2,450 kN. They aren't
actually that different - it's just BFR is massive.

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return0
In a few years, amazon may also be dominating the defense industry.

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dgudkov
If this is claimed only because of the engine then I doubt it -- the defense
industry uses solid-fuel rocket engines in almost all cases except large
missiles like IBCMs. Although, anyone who manages to mass-produce cheap,
reliable, high-performance solid-fuel engines may indeed gain a huge defense
market.

~~~
wbl
The US uses solid fuel rockets in ICBMs. Russia uses storable liquids which
are highly toxic. We switched after some nasty accidents.

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netsharc
Off-Topic: But it's not exactly brain surgery, is it?
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I)

~~~
joejerryronnie
HN is for very serious discussion, there is no room for humor or irreverence
here. And to those seeking enlightening discourse on highly complex technical
topics, I say to you . . . it's not exactly brain surgery, is it?

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olegkikin
I get

    
    
        ReferenceError: dc is not defined[Learn More] 23b3059e-eac6-432f-b59a-9202ea32f7cb:33:11
    

When I click on "Encrypt"

