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Industry sources on aerospace forums are saying they may use the 5 meter diameter Delta IV core to increase propellant tank volume vs Atlas V's 3.81 meter core. This both makes up for methane/LNG's lower bulk density, and it already has cryogenic insulation for liquid hydrogen so that's covered.
Also interesting is that ULA has been working with XCOR on an inexpensive hydrogen upper stage to replace Centaur. They may not need the XCOR hydrogen engine, but XCOR also has tested a methane engine and a VERY inexpensive and small piston cryogenic propellant pump suitable to the task.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n.../#.VBr5-HrD_qA
BE-4 mockup
[img]
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1409/17ulablueorigin/be4engine_400378.jpg[/img]
Also interesting is that ULA has been working with XCOR on an inexpensive hydrogen upper stage to replace Centaur. They may not need the XCOR hydrogen engine, but XCOR also has tested a methane engine and a VERY inexpensive and small piston cryogenic propellant pump suitable to the task.
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n.../#.VBr5-HrD_qA
ULA taps Blue Origin for powerful new rocket engine
United Launch Alliance announced Wednesday it is teaming with Blue Origin, a secretive space company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, to develop a new U.S.-made rocket engine that could replace the Russian engine used to power Atlas 5 first stage boosters.
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The arrangement comes after building concerns over ULA's reliance on Russian propulsion to loft U.S. national security satellites into space, and ULA's chief executive said Wednesday the choice of Blue Origin as a new engine provider is part of a potential overhaul of the company's Atlas and Delta rocket fleet used to send up spacecraft for the Pentagon, NASA and commercial customers.
"I think it's pretty clear it's time for a 21st century booster engine," Bezos told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. "The great engines of the past were truly remarkable machines in their own right. The engines that you remember built in the '50s, '60s and '70s were remarkable pieces of hardware, but we have tools and capabilities, software simulations, computational horsepower that the builders of those great engines could have only dreamed about."
Formed in 2006 as a 50-50 joint venture by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., United Launch Alliance announced a review of new rocket engine concepts in June.
ULA's selection of Blue Origin's Blue Engine-4, or BE-4, left out the company's primary engine vendor, Aerojet Rocketdyne, which builds powerplants for the Atlas and Delta upper stages, plus the hydrogen-fueled RS-68 engine at the bottom of ULA's Delta 4 rocket.
"We selected Blue for a couple of reasons," said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO. "First, they are way ahead ... Also, they have this really innovative technology that's going to allow us to modernize, increase performance and lower our recurring costs."
Blue Origin has already completed three years of development on the BE-4 engine.
"It's 550,000 pounds of thrust, it has a very low recurring cost and low life cycle cost," Bezos said. "Cost to space is a very important factor, so basically cost and reliability are the two driving factors. It's (fueled by) liquefied natural gas, it's reusable and it's built, tested, designed and engineered 100 percent in the United States."
Bruno said the engine could be integrated on a ULA launcher within about four years, in half the time other experts projected.
"There is no way to rush a rocket development process," Bezos said. "You can't cut corners. It needs to be methodical and deliberate, so the reason we can accelerate the timeframe of the BE-4 is because we're already three years into the process."
>
Bezos said ULA has committed a "very significant dollar amount investment" to complete development of the BE-4 engine, which Blue Origin has so far funded internally and intends to use on its own space launcher.
"There's a second thing which is very unusual -- probably the rarest of things that you can ever find in a rocket engine -- and that is that the BE-4 rocket engine is fully funded," Bezos said.
Budget legislation under consideration in Congress would give the Air Force funding to devote to a new rocket engine project managed in a public-private partnership between government and industry. While the BE-4 engine program announced Wednesday is a purely commercial effort, Bruno said ULA's stakeholders -- presumably including the Air Force, the company's biggest customer -- were kept informed of the private engine initiative.
>
Blue Origin's BE-4 engine uses an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle, employs a single nozzle, and burns liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, a fuel that makes the engine cheaper, less complex, and easier to reuse, according to a fact sheet released by Blue Origin.
"It is a single turbopump, one shaft," Bezos said. "It's as simple as it can be while still being high-performing and highly reliable."
>
[NOTE: so it's NOT a full flow staged combustion cycle, a missed opportunity to max out efficiency, output and re-use]
>
Blue Origin's engineering team, based in Kent, Wash., and at a test facility in West Texas, has tested sub-scale components of the BE-4 engine, including elements of its oxygen-rich preburner and staged combustion testing of the preburner and main injector assembly, according to a fact sheet.
Next up will be tests of the engine's turbopump and main valves.
Blue Origin also completed construction of an engine test stand in West Texas to accommodate up to a million pounds of thrust.
Full-scale engine testing should begin in 2016, with a first flight of the BE-4 engine in 2019, ULA said in a press release.
>
United Launch Alliance announced Wednesday it is teaming with Blue Origin, a secretive space company led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, to develop a new U.S.-made rocket engine that could replace the Russian engine used to power Atlas 5 first stage boosters.
>
The arrangement comes after building concerns over ULA's reliance on Russian propulsion to loft U.S. national security satellites into space, and ULA's chief executive said Wednesday the choice of Blue Origin as a new engine provider is part of a potential overhaul of the company's Atlas and Delta rocket fleet used to send up spacecraft for the Pentagon, NASA and commercial customers.
"I think it's pretty clear it's time for a 21st century booster engine," Bezos told reporters at the National Press Club in Washington. "The great engines of the past were truly remarkable machines in their own right. The engines that you remember built in the '50s, '60s and '70s were remarkable pieces of hardware, but we have tools and capabilities, software simulations, computational horsepower that the builders of those great engines could have only dreamed about."
Formed in 2006 as a 50-50 joint venture by Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., United Launch Alliance announced a review of new rocket engine concepts in June.
ULA's selection of Blue Origin's Blue Engine-4, or BE-4, left out the company's primary engine vendor, Aerojet Rocketdyne, which builds powerplants for the Atlas and Delta upper stages, plus the hydrogen-fueled RS-68 engine at the bottom of ULA's Delta 4 rocket.
"We selected Blue for a couple of reasons," said Tory Bruno, ULA's president and CEO. "First, they are way ahead ... Also, they have this really innovative technology that's going to allow us to modernize, increase performance and lower our recurring costs."
Blue Origin has already completed three years of development on the BE-4 engine.
"It's 550,000 pounds of thrust, it has a very low recurring cost and low life cycle cost," Bezos said. "Cost to space is a very important factor, so basically cost and reliability are the two driving factors. It's (fueled by) liquefied natural gas, it's reusable and it's built, tested, designed and engineered 100 percent in the United States."
Bruno said the engine could be integrated on a ULA launcher within about four years, in half the time other experts projected.
"There is no way to rush a rocket development process," Bezos said. "You can't cut corners. It needs to be methodical and deliberate, so the reason we can accelerate the timeframe of the BE-4 is because we're already three years into the process."
>
Bezos said ULA has committed a "very significant dollar amount investment" to complete development of the BE-4 engine, which Blue Origin has so far funded internally and intends to use on its own space launcher.
"There's a second thing which is very unusual -- probably the rarest of things that you can ever find in a rocket engine -- and that is that the BE-4 rocket engine is fully funded," Bezos said.
Budget legislation under consideration in Congress would give the Air Force funding to devote to a new rocket engine project managed in a public-private partnership between government and industry. While the BE-4 engine program announced Wednesday is a purely commercial effort, Bruno said ULA's stakeholders -- presumably including the Air Force, the company's biggest customer -- were kept informed of the private engine initiative.
>
Blue Origin's BE-4 engine uses an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle, employs a single nozzle, and burns liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas, a fuel that makes the engine cheaper, less complex, and easier to reuse, according to a fact sheet released by Blue Origin.
"It is a single turbopump, one shaft," Bezos said. "It's as simple as it can be while still being high-performing and highly reliable."
>
[NOTE: so it's NOT a full flow staged combustion cycle, a missed opportunity to max out efficiency, output and re-use]
>
Blue Origin's engineering team, based in Kent, Wash., and at a test facility in West Texas, has tested sub-scale components of the BE-4 engine, including elements of its oxygen-rich preburner and staged combustion testing of the preburner and main injector assembly, according to a fact sheet.
Next up will be tests of the engine's turbopump and main valves.
Blue Origin also completed construction of an engine test stand in West Texas to accommodate up to a million pounds of thrust.
Full-scale engine testing should begin in 2016, with a first flight of the BE-4 engine in 2019, ULA said in a press release.
>
[img]
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/news/n1409/17ulablueorigin/be4engine_400378.jpg[/img]