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.
The Raptor has fired more but it is also not finalised in terms of design. The BE-4 is full sized and they don't seem to intend any more changes in the design.
Really the New Glenn competes more with Falcon Heavy then BFR. They are designing a New Armstrong rocket that will be more in the BFR class.
It will be very interesting, in 2020 we have planned New Glenn, Ariane 6, Vulcan and BFR. Falcon Heavy of course will have been flying for a while by then.
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.
The major benefit is that it's possible to synthesize methane from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Which is way easier let's say on Mars, than obtaining kerosene.
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?
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.
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.
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).
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).
The main special thing is that it runs on methane fuel, which has less sooting than kerosene engines. That makes it easier to reuse them. SpaceX is headed in the same direction with their Raptor engine, intended to power the BFR, and Europe is working on Prometheus, which might ship in the mid to late 2020s.
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.
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?
neverminder|8 years ago
nickik|8 years ago
Really the New Glenn competes more with Falcon Heavy then BFR. They are designing a New Armstrong rocket that will be more in the BFR class.
It will be very interesting, in 2020 we have planned New Glenn, Ariane 6, Vulcan and BFR. Falcon Heavy of course will have been flying for a while by then.
mabbo|8 years ago
Must be a really good motivator for SpaceX.
vermontdevil|8 years ago
The future is exciting.
shmerl|8 years ago
See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_reaction
http://www.co2club.it/agenda/abstracts/19_Barbarossa.pdf
nickik|8 years ago
Edit: Will New Glenn also not use a third gas for pressurisation? Like BFR?
ape4|8 years ago
shasheene|8 years ago
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|8 years ago
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-...
faitswulff|8 years ago
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|8 years ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_diamond
fkfk|8 years ago
paulyg|8 years ago
nbanks|8 years ago
rwmj|8 years ago
JshWright|8 years ago
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).
iamcreasy|8 years ago
caconym_|8 years ago
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).
greglindahl|8 years ago
return0|8 years ago
dgudkov|8 years ago
netsharc|8 years ago
joejerryronnie|8 years ago
olegkikin|8 years ago