{"id":18962,"date":"2017-05-14T23:12:01","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T15:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-says-be-4-rocket-test-goes-awry-but-tests-will-resume-soon\/"},"modified":"2017-05-14T23:12:01","modified_gmt":"2017-05-14T15:12:01","slug":"jeff-bezos-blue-origin-says-be-4-rocket-test-goes-awry-but-tests-will-resume-soon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-says-be-4-rocket-test-goes-awry-but-tests-will-resume-soon\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin says BE-4 rocket test goes awry, but tests will resume soon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"BE-4
In a photo from March 2017, the BE-4 rocket engine\u2019s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas proving ground for start transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a rare update, the Blue Origin space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos reported that it lost a set of powerpack test hardware for its BE-4 rocket engine over the weekend, but added that such a setback is \u201cnot unusual\u201d during development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why we always set up our development programs to be hardware-rich,\u201d the company tweeted today. \u201cBack into testing soon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blue Origin is headquartered in Kent, Wash., but the BE-4 is being tested at its facility in West Texas, on ranchland owned by Bezos. The powerpack is the heart of a rocket engine, pumping fuel and oxidizer to the engine\u2019s combustion chamber.<\/p>\n

The current round of engine testing is key to the company\u2019s fortunes: Blue Origin is planning to use the BE-4, which is powered by liquefied natural gas, on its own New Glenn orbital-class rocket. Blue Origin already has started lining up satellite customers for the New Glenn.<\/p>\n

In addition, Boeing is said to be considering a modified version of the BE-4 for its proposed XS-1 military space plane.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=BTEhohh6eYk<\/p>\n

Most crucially, the BE-4 is the \u201cPlan A\u201d propulsion system for United Launch Alliance\u2019s next-generation Vulcan launch vehicle, which is meant to take the place of ULA\u2019s workhorse Atlas 5 rocket. \u201cPlan B\u201d is Aerojet Rocketdyne\u2019s AR1 engine, which is currently behind the BE-4 in development but completed a critical design review last week. Aerojet says the AR1 will become available in 2019.<\/p>\n

ULA has said the outcome of Blue Origin\u2019s full-scale BE-4 engine tests will determine whether it goes with Plan A or Plan B, with billions of dollars at stake for the companies concerned.<\/p>\n

The BE-4 and Aerojet\u2019s kerosene-fueled AR1 are both designed to provide more than 500,000 pounds of thrust, but Blue Origin\u2019s approach is considered riskier because it requires creating a new type of engine. Blue Origin\u2019s advantage is that it\u2019s been working on the technology for several years already, funded primarily by Bezos (with some investment from ULA).<\/p>\n

Bezos sent out tweets showing off the first fully assembled BE-4 engine in March, and said two more engines were \u201cfollowing close behind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a photo from March 2017, the BE-4 rocket engine\u2019s powerpack is installed on a stand at Blue Origin\u2019s West Texas proving ground for start transient testing. (Blue Origin Photo) In a rare update, the Blue Origin space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos reported that it lost a set of powerpack test hardware […]<\/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":[4459,509,291],"class_list":["post-18962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-be-4-rocket-engine","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18962"}],"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=18962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}