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Blue Origin – First Flight

55 points by hendler 11y ago

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
whoisthemachine 11y ago
Very cool! Seems like they could be a serious competitor to SpaceX, although they are only aiming for sub-orbital flights at the moment.
- jccooper 11y ago
  At the moment, true, and Blue Origin is not renowned for their development speed, but suborbital is clearly just a stepping stone for them. Their suborbital booster uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which is a very good fuel but so obscenely cold that you don't want to use it unless you really have to. So it's mostly reserved for upper stages where efficiency really matters. (For suborbital a much easier, but less powerful, fuel like alcohol would be fine.) And given that they already have a much larger methane engine under development, this suborbital stage seems to be an early revenue-generating version of a future second stage of an EELV (Falcon 9/Atlas V) class launch vehicle. And probably, like SpaceX, they will be targeting VTVL recovery. This is actually really good news for launch prices, because without a real competitor with reusable vehicles (and none of the incumbents seem capable of this in any reasonable time frame) SpaceX will have no reason to drop prices much below expendable costs (other than benevolence). Blue Origin could probably field a Falcon 9-equivalent in a few years, and even if they don't the prospect should keep SpaceX on their toes.
- branchan 11y ago
  They are going to be providing ULA with their engines so that we will no longer be reliant on the Russian RD-180s.
kitd 11y ago
Sorry, I have to say this: it's very ... phallic.
- krallja 11y ago
  It's a frustrum on top of a fuel tanker. What other shape could it possibly be?
TimSAstro 11y ago
tl;dr: A competitor to Virgin Galactic (space tourism) using what appears to be a more traditional booster rocket / parachute pod arrangement - except that the booster rocket self-lands after separation. Interesting to see another competitor in the space industry!
- nine_k 11y ago
  The self-landing was not performed, it seems: no video coverage, no mention. They plan the first stage to self-land, though.
  - jccooper 11y ago
    It was intended to on this test, but it failed. Hydraulic issues (just like SpaceX!). No video, presumably because they thought a nice video of part of they system exploding would be bad press.
jccooper 11y ago
And all of a sudden Blue Origin looks to be in the lead in the (very long) race to suborbital passenger flights. Scaled/Virgin seemed to be a lock in the beginning, but have been squandering their lead. Until yesterday, I'd have thought underfunded but competent XCOR might beat out VG.
antoniuschan99 11y ago
For those who aren't aware. Blue Origin is backed by Amazon/Jeff Bezos

55 points by hendler 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

Very cool! Seems like they could be a serious competitor to SpaceX, although they are only aiming for sub-orbital flights at the moment.

jccooper 11y ago
At the moment, true, and Blue Origin is not renowned for their development speed, but suborbital is clearly just a stepping stone for them. Their suborbital booster uses liquid hydrogen as a fuel, which is a very good fuel but so obscenely cold that you don't want to use it unless you really have to. So it's mostly reserved for upper stages where efficiency really matters. (For suborbital a much easier, but less powerful, fuel like alcohol would be fine.) And given that they already have a much larger methane engine under development, this suborbital stage seems to be an early revenue-generating version of a future second stage of an EELV (Falcon 9/Atlas V) class launch vehicle. And probably, like SpaceX, they will be targeting VTVL recovery. This is actually really good news for launch prices, because without a real competitor with reusable vehicles (and none of the incumbents seem capable of this in any reasonable time frame) SpaceX will have no reason to drop prices much below expendable costs (other than benevolence). Blue Origin could probably field a Falcon 9-equivalent in a few years, and even if they don't the prospect should keep SpaceX on their toes.
branchan 11y ago
They are going to be providing ULA with their engines so that we will no longer be reliant on the Russian RD-180s.

kitd 11y ago

Sorry, I have to say this: it's very ... phallic.

krallja 11y ago
It's a frustrum on top of a fuel tanker. What other shape could it possibly be?

TimSAstro 11y ago

tl;dr: A competitor to Virgin Galactic (space tourism) using what appears to be a more traditional booster rocket / parachute pod arrangement - except that the booster rocket self-lands after separation. Interesting to see another competitor in the space industry!

nine_k 11y ago
The self-landing was not performed, it seems: no video coverage, no mention. They plan the first stage to self-land, though.
- jccooper 11y ago
  It was intended to on this test, but it failed. Hydraulic issues (just like SpaceX!). No video, presumably because they thought a nice video of part of they system exploding would be bad press.

jccooper 11y ago

And all of a sudden Blue Origin looks to be in the lead in the (very long) race to suborbital passenger flights. Scaled/Virgin seemed to be a lock in the beginning, but have been squandering their lead. Until yesterday, I'd have thought underfunded but competent XCOR might beat out VG.

antoniuschan99 11y ago

For those who aren't aware. Blue Origin is backed by Amazon/Jeff Bezos