3 ms·

Blue Origin is also talking up their moon lander, but we still haven't seen them actually put a payload in orbit. The BE-4 engine has been delayed and they've s

by themgt 6y ago

Blue Origin is also talking up their moon lander, but we still haven't seen them actually put a payload in orbit. The BE-4 engine has been delayed and they've still only delivered test stand versions to ULA. If you read the Blue Origin Glassdoor and subreddit where a number of anonymous employees talk, they're not doing well. New Glenn looks unlikely to fly until 2022 at the earliest, and presumably they'd need at least 6-10 launches even being optimistic about fitting hundreds of sats in the large fairing. I can't see them being able to offer service until 2024 at the earliest, and there's a non-nil chance Blue Origin implodes trying to leapfrog from suborbital test vehicle to reusable heavy-lift rocket with their own (possibly flawed) engine and Kuiper would need to launch with SpaceX or fold.

modeless 6y ago
Is Kuiper completely dependent on Blue Origin? I assumed they would start by buying a few launches from other providers, though I didn't expect them to try SpaceX. I guess SpaceX would sell to them although it would be a little weird.
- tidepod12 6y ago
  Per this tweet, they're planning on using multiple launch providers: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1339306611488288768?s=21 https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1339306611488288768?s=... > Interesting comment at TC Sessions: Space by Amazon’s David Limp about launching its Project Kuiper constellation: we hope that Blue Origin can provide launch capacity, but hope others will, too. Expecting to use multiple launch providers.
  - themgt 6y ago
    FCC approval only gives Amazon until July 30, 2026 to launch at least 50% of their 3,200 sat constellation into orbit. I don't know of any existing provider other than SpaceX that could plausibly put that much payload into orbit in 5 years. It's not like ULA has a ton of spare launch capacity sitting around.
    - modeless 6y ago
      Blue Origin may move slowly but it would still be surprising if New Glenn couldn't easily handle that by 2026. It should only take 14 launches for 1600 satellites assuming 120 per launch (double Starlink/Falcon 9), and New Glenn is supposed to be reusable and operational next year.
- rlt 6y ago
  I can’t find the article/tweet but I believe SpaceX said they’d launch competitors’ satellites. Of course they won’t get the same at-cost deal SpaceX gives themselves.
tidepod12 6y ago
>If you read the Blue Origin Glassdoor and subreddit where a number of anonymous employees talk, they're not doing well. Got any specific examples? Glassdoor is practically useless for reading into a company's actual culture, and after checking out the BO subreddit I only saw one single negative post about BO, and even on that post most of the comments were disagreeing with the premise that BO is failing.
- mikeyouse 6y ago
  The comments are interspersed in random threads, but there's a bunch in last month's about the COO being replaced, one striking example: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/k5icgf/coo_of_jeff_bezos_space_venture_blue_origin_is/gf0dudr/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/k5icgf/coo_of_j... > I work for Blue Origin. blue is not telling the public.. > 1. They built 4 different rockets..none are built the same. > 2. They never documented the builds. The allowed legacy engineers transfer to New Glenn. > 3. The rockets are marginal at best. tail 4 just came back from Kent..They had to cut it open to replace helium tanks. the tanks have a life cycle.Instead of replacing with new..they ground on the welds till the cracks went away. ATP test was need to know only. > 4. Software between tails is different..they cant talk to one another. > 5. BE3 is a single engine dud..The last flights have all been done with the same engine cracks and all. > 6. All BE3 engine assembly attempts have produced an Engine
  - tidepod12 6y ago
    While that's certainly not a stellar take on things, none of those points seem to be indicating that "Blue Origin is not doing well". Those seem like pretty standard occurrences for anyone who's worked on a large iterative engineering team. I remember reading similar stuff about SpaceX back in the Falcon9 1.0 days.
    - Klinky 6y ago
      If you're comparing their rocket to Falcon 9 1.0 from 7 - 10 years ago, that is concerning, especially when they were founded 2~ years earlier.
Isinlor 6y ago
Blue Origin doesn't need to be worried about lack of cash. As long as Bezos is willing to burn billions they will keep on going. But that also means they don't have fear of failing, so they keep on doing things slowly. Elon on the other hand was and still is relentlessly pushing his companies to a breaking point. Model 3 production hell was a great example - do or die for Tesla, with crazy production lines in tents, flying machines from Germany in matter of days etc. Starship program is also managed as if the world was ending tomorrow with every other prototype ending with a big boom. The big pivot from carbon fiber to steel is example of agility, not failing for sunken cost fallacy and optimizing for rapid development speed.
- jpgvm 6y ago
  SpaceX is a company that understands, respects and capitalizes on failure. Their entire development process is based around failing early and often in order to prune the search space of viable solutions as quickly as possible. Proper Agile development, but for rockets.
  - giantrobot 6y ago
    Not quite. SpaceX isn't just throwing random designs at the wall and using some gradient descent to find a good rocket design. They are starting with competent designs and well thought out systems. The most interesting aspects to their rockets is how boring they are. The Falcon 9 basically uses a Beowulf cluster of Merlin engines. The second stage uses yet another Merlin engine. All use RP-1/LOX so there's minimal cryogenics involved in fueling and defueling the rocket on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy is a Beowulf cluster of Falcon 9s. They didn't happen into any of those designs. They've existed from the beginning. Where SpaceX accepts "failure" is in their integration tests, these are their more visible "failures". All of their subcomponents have been bench tested before their integration tests and are known to work correctly. Their integration tests are literally testing their large scale integration, the things that can't be bench tested. Their process is waterfall AF. They might take iterative steps in the process but they're not stumbling around looking for good designs.
    - 6y ago
ChuckMcM 6y ago
Well they could buy space on Falcon9's :-) Internet Service is a known way to generate cash. But that said, BO seems to be an "announcements" company and not a "doing things" company, which is sad. The former relates to research and good ideas, the latter relates to execution of said ideas. I've met one engineer who used to work there and their experience was not particularly positive but it was also anecdotal so I don't give it a lot of weight. What I do give weight to are seeing results. This is something SpaceX has lately excelled at and BO has not. It seemed like they were "ahead" of Virgin Galactic on the "Suborbital Tourists / Minting Astronauts" thing but now VG seems to be a couple of proof flights away from their first customers. Then they seemed to be ahead of SpaceX's efforts to get the Raptor engine going but the BE-4 stalled (although it seemed to unstall[1] as well). Not that SpaceX's time lines vs announcements are that much better but SpaceX seems to be getting over the finish line more often. As a result I wonder sometimes what is going on over at BO. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/ula-chief-says-the-be-4-rocket-engines-turbopump-issues-are-resolved/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/ula-chief-says-the-b...

by themgt 6y ago

modeless 6y ago

Is Kuiper completely dependent on Blue Origin? I assumed they would start by buying a few launches from other providers, though I didn't expect them to try SpaceX. I guess SpaceX would sell to them although it would be a little weird.

tidepod12 6y ago
Per this tweet, they're planning on using multiple launch providers: https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1339306611488288768?s=21 https://twitter.com/jeff_foust/status/1339306611488288768?s=... > Interesting comment at TC Sessions: Space by Amazon’s David Limp about launching its Project Kuiper constellation: we hope that Blue Origin can provide launch capacity, but hope others will, too. Expecting to use multiple launch providers.
- themgt 6y ago
  FCC approval only gives Amazon until July 30, 2026 to launch at least 50% of their 3,200 sat constellation into orbit. I don't know of any existing provider other than SpaceX that could plausibly put that much payload into orbit in 5 years. It's not like ULA has a ton of spare launch capacity sitting around.
  - modeless 6y ago
    Blue Origin may move slowly but it would still be surprising if New Glenn couldn't easily handle that by 2026. It should only take 14 launches for 1600 satellites assuming 120 per launch (double Starlink/Falcon 9), and New Glenn is supposed to be reusable and operational next year.
rlt 6y ago
I can’t find the article/tweet but I believe SpaceX said they’d launch competitors’ satellites. Of course they won’t get the same at-cost deal SpaceX gives themselves.

tidepod12 6y ago

>If you read the Blue Origin Glassdoor and subreddit where a number of anonymous employees talk, they're not doing well. Got any specific examples? Glassdoor is practically useless for reading into a company's actual culture, and after checking out the BO subreddit I only saw one single negative post about BO, and even on that post most of the comments were disagreeing with the premise that BO is failing.

mikeyouse 6y ago
The comments are interspersed in random threads, but there's a bunch in last month's about the COO being replaced, one striking example: https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/k5icgf/coo_of_jeff_bezos_space_venture_blue_origin_is/gf0dudr/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/BlueOrigin/comments/k5icgf/coo_of_j... > I work for Blue Origin. blue is not telling the public.. > 1. They built 4 different rockets..none are built the same. > 2. They never documented the builds. The allowed legacy engineers transfer to New Glenn. > 3. The rockets are marginal at best. tail 4 just came back from Kent..They had to cut it open to replace helium tanks. the tanks have a life cycle.Instead of replacing with new..they ground on the welds till the cracks went away. ATP test was need to know only. > 4. Software between tails is different..they cant talk to one another. > 5. BE3 is a single engine dud..The last flights have all been done with the same engine cracks and all. > 6. All BE3 engine assembly attempts have produced an Engine
- tidepod12 6y ago
  While that's certainly not a stellar take on things, none of those points seem to be indicating that "Blue Origin is not doing well". Those seem like pretty standard occurrences for anyone who's worked on a large iterative engineering team. I remember reading similar stuff about SpaceX back in the Falcon9 1.0 days.
  - Klinky 6y ago
    If you're comparing their rocket to Falcon 9 1.0 from 7 - 10 years ago, that is concerning, especially when they were founded 2~ years earlier.

Isinlor 6y ago

Blue Origin doesn't need to be worried about lack of cash. As long as Bezos is willing to burn billions they will keep on going. But that also means they don't have fear of failing, so they keep on doing things slowly. Elon on the other hand was and still is relentlessly pushing his companies to a breaking point. Model 3 production hell was a great example - do or die for Tesla, with crazy production lines in tents, flying machines from Germany in matter of days etc. Starship program is also managed as if the world was ending tomorrow with every other prototype ending with a big boom. The big pivot from carbon fiber to steel is example of agility, not failing for sunken cost fallacy and optimizing for rapid development speed.

jpgvm 6y ago
SpaceX is a company that understands, respects and capitalizes on failure. Their entire development process is based around failing early and often in order to prune the search space of viable solutions as quickly as possible. Proper Agile development, but for rockets.
- giantrobot 6y ago
  Not quite. SpaceX isn't just throwing random designs at the wall and using some gradient descent to find a good rocket design. They are starting with competent designs and well thought out systems. The most interesting aspects to their rockets is how boring they are. The Falcon 9 basically uses a Beowulf cluster of Merlin engines. The second stage uses yet another Merlin engine. All use RP-1/LOX so there's minimal cryogenics involved in fueling and defueling the rocket on the launchpad. The Falcon Heavy is a Beowulf cluster of Falcon 9s. They didn't happen into any of those designs. They've existed from the beginning. Where SpaceX accepts "failure" is in their integration tests, these are their more visible "failures". All of their subcomponents have been bench tested before their integration tests and are known to work correctly. Their integration tests are literally testing their large scale integration, the things that can't be bench tested. Their process is waterfall AF. They might take iterative steps in the process but they're not stumbling around looking for good designs.
  - 6y ago

ChuckMcM 6y ago

Well they could buy space on Falcon9's :-) Internet Service is a known way to generate cash. But that said, BO seems to be an "announcements" company and not a "doing things" company, which is sad. The former relates to research and good ideas, the latter relates to execution of said ideas. I've met one engineer who used to work there and their experience was not particularly positive but it was also anecdotal so I don't give it a lot of weight. What I do give weight to are seeing results. This is something SpaceX has lately excelled at and BO has not. It seemed like they were "ahead" of Virgin Galactic on the "Suborbital Tourists / Minting Astronauts" thing but now VG seems to be a couple of proof flights away from their first customers. Then they seemed to be ahead of SpaceX's efforts to get the Raptor engine going but the BE-4 stalled (although it seemed to unstall[1] as well). Not that SpaceX's time lines vs announcements are that much better but SpaceX seems to be getting over the finish line more often. As a result I wonder sometimes what is going on over at BO. [1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/ula-chief-says-the-be-4-rocket-engines-turbopump-issues-are-resolved/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/10/ula-chief-says-the-b...