{"id":17985,"date":"2019-07-18T22:40:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-18T14:40:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/blue-origin-racks-up-a-full-six-minutes-of-firing-time-on-be-7-moon-lander-engine\/"},"modified":"2019-07-18T22:40:35","modified_gmt":"2019-07-18T14:40:35","slug":"blue-origin-racks-up-a-full-six-minutes-of-firing-time-on-be-7-moon-lander-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/blue-origin-racks-up-a-full-six-minutes-of-firing-time-on-be-7-moon-lander-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Origin racks up a full six minutes of firing time on BE-7 moon lander engine"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_510998\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-510998\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-510998\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/190718-be7-630x354.jpg\" alt=\"BE-7 engine test\" width=\"630\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/190718-be7-630x354.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/190718-be7-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/190718-be7-1260x709.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/190718-be7.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-510998\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Blue Origin\u2019s BE-7 rocket engine executes a test firing in June. The green flame is produced by the engine\u2019s ignition system. (Blue Origin Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>RENTON, Wash. \u2014 Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture says it has test-fired its BE-7 rocket engine for the total six-minute duration it would need for a landing on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick Zeitouni, Blue Origin\u2019s head of advanced development programs, said the milestone for cumulative firing time was reached during a test conducted just a few days ago at NASA\u2019s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama \u2014 part of a series of tests that began a month ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re very excited,\u201d Zeitouni said here at the Space Frontier Foundation\u2019s NewSpace conference. \u201cThat means we\u2019re getting a whole lot closer to getting that engine fielded,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd as you guys know, propulsion, rocket engines are extremely important. They\u2019re the long pole in the tent when you\u2019re trying to develop a new system and bring it online.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A single hydrogen-fueled BE-7 engine would power Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon lander for payload deliveries to the lunar surface, packing up to 10,000 pounds of thrust.<\/p>\n<p>Bezos unveiled a mockup of the lander and its engine in May in Washington, D.C. Just a week after that big reveal, NASA said Blue Origin and 10 other companies would share $45.5 million in funds set aside to develop lunar lander concepts, under the terms of a program called NextSTEP E.<\/p>\n<p>NextSTEP E focuses on the descent stage of a lunar lander. A follow-up offering, known as NextSTEP H, is due to be issued imminently to solicit proposals for the ascent stage. <strong>(Update for July 22: The draft solicitation has been released. See note below for details.)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>NASA is using the process to select concepts for commercial landers that\u2019ll be capable of transporting astronauts between a yet-to-be-built, moon-orbiting Gateway space outpost and the lunar surface.<\/p>\n<p>The plan calls for the landers to be available in time for the astronauts\u2019 first trip to the lunar surface in 2024. This week, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine told lawmakers that he expected two designs to win the go-ahead for full development.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Introducing Blue Moon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hmk1oHzvNKA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bezos and Blue Origin are counting on Blue Moon to serve as one of the options. During an interview that aired this week on CBS, Bezos said he hoped Blue Origin would be \u201can instrumental part\u201d of the Artemis moon program.<\/p>\n<p>Zeitouni told the NewSpace crowd that Blue Origin was \u201cvery much aligned\u201d with NASA\u2019s 2024 plan \u2014 which he put in the context of this week\u2019s 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been working with NASA as part of this initial study that they\u2019ve laid out,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re very excited to be getting going, actually moving forward on landing by 2024. We look back at how Apollo did it, and it\u2019s so inspiring to see how that happened.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Blue Moon development effort is taking advantage of tools that weren\u2019t available in the Apollo era. Zeitouni said Blue Origin is using machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as additive manufacturing and computer-controlled cutting tools, to design and fabricate space hardware.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to Blue Moon, Blue Origin is conducting uncrewed tests of a suborbital spaceship known as New Shepard, which could start flying people to space and back as early as this year. New Shepard hardware is built at the company\u2019s headquarters in Kent, Wash., and tested in West Texas.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin is also gearing up to build a reusable orbital-class rocket called New Glenn at a Florida factory, and launch it from Cape Canaveral starting in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s workforce has been steadily growing as the various programs ramp up. \u201cWhen I joined two years ago, we were at somewhere around 1,000 people,\u201d Zeitouni said. \u201cNow we\u2019re at 2,200 and still growing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Correction for 6 p.m. PT July 19:<\/strong> We\u2019ve revised the story to make clear that the six minutes of firing time was cumulative for the BE-7 engine, rather than representing a single firing that lasted six minutes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update for 12:15 p.m. PT July 22:<\/strong> NASA has issued its draft solicitation under NEXTStep 2\u2019s Appendix H for human-carrying lunar lander concepts. The space agency notes that its current architecture calls for a three-stage system \u2014 including a transfer element, a descent element and an ascent element. However,&nbsp;it\u2019s open to other architectures (presumably including SpaceX\u2019s Starship).<\/p>\n<p>Responses are due Aug. 2, and NASA says it may revise its draft solicitation based on the comments received. NASA says contracts could be awarded by as early as November, but for now, the anticipated initial allocation is listed as \u201c$TBD million.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blue Origin\u2019s BE-7 rocket engine executes a test firing in June. The green flame is produced by the engine\u2019s ignition system. (Blue Origin Photo) RENTON, Wash. \u2014 Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin space venture says it has test-fired its BE-7 rocket engine for the total six-minute duration it would need for a landing on [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4778,1508,509,625,4973],"class_list":["post-17985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-be-7-rocket-engine","tag-blue-moon","tag-blue-origin","tag-moon","tag-new-space-conference"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}