New Glenn

New Glenn

New Glenn as presented in September 2016
Function Reusable orbital launcher
Manufacturer Blue Origin
Country of origin United States
Size
Height 2 stage: 82 m (270 ft)
3 stage: 95 m (313 ft)
Diameter 7 m (23 ft)
Stages 2 or 3
Associated rockets
Comparable Space Launch System
Falcon Heavy
Launch history
Status In development
Launch sites Cape Canaveral LC-36
First stage
Diameter 7 m (23 ft)
Engines 7 × BE-4
Thrust 17.1 MN (3,850,000 lbf)
Fuel Methane / LOX
Second stage
Diameter 7 m (23 ft)
Engines BE-4 Vacuum
Thrust 2.4 MN (550,000 lbf)
Fuel Methane / LOX
Third stage
Diameter 7 m (23 ft)
Engines BE-3U
Thrust 490 kN (110,000 lbf)
Fuel H2 / LOX

The New Glenn is a privately-funded orbital launch vehicle in development by Blue Origin. It is expected to make its initial test launch prior to 2020. Design work on the vehicle began in 2012. The high-level specifications for the vehicle were publicly announced in September 2016. New Glenn is described as a 7-meter-diameter (23 ft), two- or three-stage rocket. Its first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 engines that are also being designed and manufactured by Blue Origin. Like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it, the New Glenn's first stage is designed to be reusable.[1]

History

After initiating the development of an orbital rocket system prior to 2012, Blue Origin publicly announced the existence of their new orbital launch vehicle in September 2015.[2] In January 2016, Blue Origin indicated that the new rocket would be many times larger than New Shepard even though it would be the smallest of the family of Blue Origin orbital vehicles.[3] Blue Origin publicly released the high-level design of the vehicle—and announced the name New Glenn—in September 2016.[1]

Early development work on orbital subsystems

Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human spacecraft prior to 2012. A reusable first-stage booster was projected to fly a suborbital trajectory, taking off vertically like the booster stage of a conventional multistage rocket. Following stage separation, the upper stage would continue to propel astronauts to orbit while the first-stage booster would descend to perform a powered vertical landing similar to the New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The first-stage booster was to be refueled and launched again, allowing improved reliability and with the goal of lowering the cost of human access to space.[4]

The booster rocket was projected to loft Blue Origin's biconic Space Vehicle capsule to orbit, carrying astronauts and supplies. After completing its mission in orbit, the Space Vehicle was designed to reenter Earth's atmosphere and land under parachutes on land, to be reused on future missions.[4]

Engine testing for the (then named) Reusable Booster System (RBS) launch vehicle began in 2012. A full-power test of the thrust chamber for Blue Origin BE-3 liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen upper-stage rocket engine was conducted at a NASA test facility in October 2012. The chamber successfully achieved full thrust of 100,000 pounds-force (about 440 kN).[5]

Orbital launch vehicle

Further plans for an orbital launch vehicle were made public in 2015. By March 2016, the rocket was referred to by the placeholder name of "Very Big Brother".[6][7] It was stated to be a two-stage-to-orbit liquid-propellant rocket,[2] with the launcher intended to be reusable.[8] Blue Origin indicated that the first orbital launch was expected in 2020 from the Florida launch facility.[7]

Those plans called for the first stage to be powered by Blue Origin's BE-4 single-shaft oxygen-rich staged combustion[9] liquid methane/liquid oxygen rocket engine while the second stage will be powered by the recently qualified BE-3 tap-off cycle liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine. The number of engines powering each stage was not released, nor was the payload or gross launch weight specifications. Blue Origin intends to launch the rocket from the historic Launch Complex 36 and manufacture the rockets at a new facility on nearby land in Exploration Park. Acceptance testing of the BE-4 engines will also be done in Florida.[8]

On 12 September 2016, Blue announced that the rocket would be named New Glenn in honor of the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth, John Glenn, and that the 7-meter-diameter (23 ft) first stage will be powered by seven Blue Origin BE-4 engines. The first stage is reusable and will land vertically, just like the New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle that preceded it.[1]

Three weeks of wind tunnel testing of a scale model New Glenn were completed in September 2016 in order to validate the CFD design models of transonic and supersonic flight.[10][11]

Description and technical specifications

The New Glenn is a 7-meter-diameter (23 ft) two-stage orbital launch vehicle with an optional third stage and a reusable first stage. The first stage will be powered by seven BE-4 methane/oxygen engines—designed and manufactured by Blue Origin—producing 17,000 kN (3,800,000 lbf) of liftoff thrust.[12] The first stage is reusable and will land vertically, a technology previously developed by Blue Origin and tested in 2015–2016 on its New Shepard suborbital launch vehicle. The second stage will share the same diameter as the first and use a single BE-4, but optimized for vacuum with a longer nozzle. It will share the same propellant but be expendable. The optional third stage will use a single BE-3U vacuum optimized rocket engine, and use hydrogen/oxygen as propellant. This engine is also manufactured by Blue Origin and has already been used on the New Shepard, as the "BE-3" sea-level-optimized version.[1] The company has not revealed the planned payload capacity of New Glenn.[12]

The New Glenn is designed to have a flight life of at least 25 missions. Launches of the New Glenn are planned to be made from Spaceport Florida Launch Complex 36, which was leased to Blue Origin in 2015.[1][7]

New Glenn will also be available for space tourism flights, with priority given to customers of New Shepard.[13]

Funding

The development and manufacture of the new two-to-three stage launch vehicle is being self-funded by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com.[1][14]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Bergin, Chris (2016-09-12). "Blue Origin introduce the New Glenn orbital LV". NASASpaceFlight.com. Retrieved 2016-09-13.
  2. 1 2 Foust, Jeff (2015-09-15). "Bezos Not Concerned About Competition, Possible ULA Sale". Space News. Retrieved 2015-09-16.
  3. ↑ Howell, Elizabeth (2016-02-29). "Blue Origin: Quiet Plans for Spaceships". Space.com. Retrieved 2016-03-05. [Blue Origin is] already more than three years into development of our first orbital vehicle ... Though it will be the small vehicle in our orbital family, it's still many times larger than New Shepard. [we] hope to share details about this first orbital vehicle this year
  4. 1 2 "Blue Origin – About Blue". Retrieved 2013-04-05.
  5. ↑ "Blue Origin tests 100k lb LOX/LH2 engine in commercial crew program". NewSpace Watch. 2012-10-16. Retrieved 2012-10-17. (subscription required (help)).
  6. ↑ Berger, Eric (2016-03-09). "Behind the curtain: Ars goes inside Blue Origin's secretive rocket factory". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  7. 1 2 3 Boyle, Alan (2016-03-05). "Jeff Bezos lifts curtain on Blue Origin rocket factory, lays out grand plan for space travel that spans hundreds of years". GeekWire. Retrieved 2016-03-09.
  8. 1 2 "Jeff Bezos plans to boost humans into space from Cape Canaveral". CBS News. Retrieved 2015-09-17. Bezos "You cannot afford to be a space-fairing civilization if you throw the rocket away every time you use it. ... We have to be focused on reusability, we have to be focused on lowering the cost of space."
  9. ↑ "ULA taps Blue Origin for powerful new rocket engine". Spaceflightnow.com. Retrieved 2015-04-08.
  10. ↑ Jeff Bezos on New Glenn, geekwire.com; accessed October 11, 2016.
  11. ↑ Wind tunnel testing, Blue Origin via Twitter.com, September 26, 2016.
  12. 1 2 Morring, Frank, Jr. (2016-10-12). "Private Space Colonizers Take Dramatically Different Stances". Aviation Week. Retrieved 2016-10-12.
  13. ↑ Eric Berger (October 6, 2016). "Blue Origin just validated the new space movement". Ars Technica.
  14. ↑ Berger, Eric (2016-09-12). "Why Bezos' rocket is unprecedented—and worth taking seriously". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2016-09-20.

External links

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