Blue Origin announced two significant upgrades to its New Glenn rocket on Thursday, aimed at lowering manufacturing costs and expanding payload capacity to geostationary orbit and the Moon. The company says the upgrades could eventually allow New Glenn to launch more than 1,000 times a year.
"There has never been higher demand for launch, ever," said Dave Limp, chief executive officer of Blue Origin, speaking at the UP.Summit conference at the Shuttle Landing Facility in Florida. The company has already begun test firing a new engine, called Northstar, which will eventually replace the BE-4 engine powering the first stage of New Glenn. Blue Origin is also developing a hydrogen-oxygen third stage, GS3, to give the rocket an extra boost.
Northstar is a simplified but more powerful version of the BE-4. It has half the number of parts, 30 percent less mass, and about 65 percent of its components can be 3D-printed. Blue Origin believes it can build the engine at 25 percent of the cost of a BE-4 and eventually assemble each unit in less than a day. Limp said its starting thrust will be 715,000 pounds, compared with 640,000 pounds for the BE-4.
"To get access to space at a lower cost, we have to look at every part of the vehicle," Limp said. "This is going to be a game-changer." Blue Origin will continue manufacturing the existing BE-4 for United Launch Alliance, which uses two of the engines to power its Vulcan rocket.
Source: Ars Technica · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing