Opinion As he neared the end of the Tuesday presentation in which he introduced the world to SpaceX’s Interplanetary Transport System, Elon Musk was asked the inevitable question regarding what his plans meant for NASA. The answer was both polite and encouraging, as Musk rightly pointed out that there is no one sure path to […]
Blue Origin is continuing to make progress on multiple fronts. In a newsletter post, company founder Jeff Bezos tells subscribers that his company is advancing testing of the BE-4 LNG engine through construction of two new test cells. The first of those is a pressure-fed cell which will be used to support development of the preburner […]
A bit of rocket science courtesy of Jeff Bezos: In the BE-4 preburner, a very small portion of the engine’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) fuel mixes and burns with all of the engine’s liquid oxygen to produce hot gaseous oxygen, which is used to drive the turbine and spin the turbopumps. Oxygen and LNG burn […]
ULA Press Release: United Launch Alliance Completes Preliminary Design Review for Next-Generation Vulcan Centaur Rocket Centennial, Colo., (March 24, 2016) – United Launch Alliance (ULA) successfully completed the Preliminary Design Review (PDR) for the Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle with dual Blue Origin BE-4 engines. The PDR, a major milestone in development of the Vulcan launch […]
Earlier this week, Blue Origin finally opened the doors of its Kent, Washington headquarters to a small group of reporters. Although the overall purpose was to begin to pull the veil off a privately funded space development effort which up until now has inevitably been accompanied by the word “secretive,” one emerging theme was to […]
The Air Force has made two more awards in an effort to extricate itself from a controversial, and at times baffling American dependence on Russian rocket engines used to boost some of the nation’s most valuable and sensitive payloads into space. Yesterday’s awards, announced by the Space and Missile Systems PAO, went to Aerojet Rocketdyne […]
Blue Origin held an event at Cape Canaveral’s Space Launch Complex 36 this morning to officially announce the company’s decision to select Florida as both the production and launch site for a new, orbital launch vehicle which has yet to named. Conducted during alternating sequences of sun and rain, the ceremony, which was hosted by […]
Image Credit : Blue Origin After a four year hiatus, Blue Origin to the skies in West Texas yesterday, and it may well have been worth the wait. Here is the announcement from Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos on the company website. Apr 29, 2015 First Developmental Test Flight of New Shepard Today we flew […]
Vulcan Booster / Image Credit United Launch Alliance United Launch Alliance formally introduced its new booster on Monday. Intended to replace both the Atlas and Delta product lines over time, the new rocket’s name is Vulcan., although ULA also refers to the booster as the Next Generation Launch System. The name was chosen in an […]
BE-3 Undergoing Testing / Image Credit Blue Origin Long silent Blue Origin announced today that it has completed acceptance testing of its BE-3 cryogenic rocket engine. The complete press release is included below. Comments follow the release. KENT, Wash. – Blue Origin recently completed acceptance testing of its BE‑3 rocket engine, the first new hydrogen […]
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