Updates Blue Origin announces the New Glenn Orbital Launch Vehicle

[Kyle]

Also hints at another vehicle, New Armstrong (Blue Origin SHLV)?

Our mascot is the tortoise. We paint one on our vehicles after each successful flight. Our motto is “Gradatim Ferociter” – step by step, ferociously. We believe “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” In the long run, deliberate and methodical wins the day, and you do things quickest by never skipping steps. This step-by-step approach is a powerful enabler of boldness and a critical ingredient in achieving the audacious. We’re excited to give you a preview of our next step. One we’ve been working on for four years. Meet New Glenn:

Introducing New Glenn: Reusable, vertical-landing booster, 3.85 million pounds thrust
Building, flying, landing, and re-flying New Shepard has taught us so much about how to design for practical, operable reusability. And New Glenn incorporates all of those learnings.

Named in honor of John Glenn, the first American to orbit Earth, New Glenn is 23 feet in diameter and lifts off with 3.85 million pounds of thrust from seven BE-4 engines. Burning liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen, these are the same BE-4 engines that will power United Launch Alliance’s new Vulcan rocket.

The 2-stage New Glenn is 270 feet tall, and its second stage is powered by a single vacuum-optimized BE-4 engine. The 3-stage New Glenn is 313 feet tall. A single vacuum-optimized BE-3 engine, burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, powers its third stage. The booster and the second stage are identical in both variants.

We plan to fly New Glenn for the first time before the end of this decade from historic Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral, Florida. New Glenn is designed to launch commercial satellites and to fly humans into space. The 3-stage variant – with its high specific impulse hydrogen upper stage – is capable of flying demanding beyond-LEO missions.

Our vision is millions of people living and working in space, and New Glenn is a very important step. It won’t be the last of course. Up next on our drawing board: New Armstrong. But that’s a story for the future.

Gradatim Ferociter!

Jeff Bezos

7 BE-4 engines on the first stage, 1 BE-4 engine on the second stage (with the option for a 3rd stage powered by 1 BE-3 engine) for a total thrust of 3.85 million lbs.

 

[Andy44]

Exciting times ahead! Looking at that graphic, I like how the boosters are growing these days once again.

 

[Urwumpe]

Sweeet ... seven engines? Sounds like a ring of 6 + 1 center configuration. Nice to see how the reversed aerodynamic shape of the New Shepard is kept as design characteristic of the first stage.

 

[Kyle]

New Shepard: Suborbital.
New Glenn: Orbital.
New Armstrong: Lunar?

 

[GLS]

New Shepard: Suborbital.
New Glenn: Orbital.
New Armstrong: Lunar?

What will the Mars LV be called then, "New Bezos" or "New Musk"? :rofl:

 

[Urwumpe]

What will the Mars LV be called then, "New Bezos" or "New Musk"? :rofl:

New Watney, of course. :lol:

 

[Pipcard]

Sweeet ... seven engines? Sounds like a ring of 6 + 1 center configuration.

Just like my fictional M-III. Methane engines, too.

I was expecting a Falcon 9 sized rocket, but I'm guessing Blue Origin wants to have a heavy-lift rocket like SpaceX's next-generation reusable heavy-lift Mars rocket codenamed "BFR" (which is supposed to be revealed later this month).

(However, the BFR concept is likely to be bigger than a Saturn V. New Armstrong will likely be the actual BFR equivalent. Except it's going to be mainly used for lunar colonization, I guess.)

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Blue Origin isn't interested in going places es themselves. They're interested in providing launch capacity. An orbital pickup truck, if you will.

 

[Kyle]

Blue Origin isn't interested in going places es themselves. They're interested in providing launch capacity. An orbital pickup truck, if you will.

Lunar tourism? Seems like a natural evolution of what they're currently doing.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Lunar tourism won't allow millions of people to live and work in space.

 

[boogabooga]

Wait a second.

Our mascot is the tortoise. We paint one on our vehicles after each successful flight. Our motto is “Gradatim Ferociter” – step by step, ferociously. We believe “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” In the long run, deliberate and methodical wins the day, and you do things quickest by never skipping steps.

Am I the only one that finds it curious then that the company is going from sub-orbital space tourism (which they are still yet to carry out) all the way to very-heavy class reusable orbital launch...with a liftoff thrust nearly twice that of Delta IV-heavy?

If they can pull it off, more power to them. But it just seems to me that the product is the opposite of their stated philosophy.

Seems to me to be more like an excuse as to why they are so far behind their competition which HAS gone through more intermediate steps.

 

[Andy44]

I never take corporate statements, slogans, or "philosophy" too seriously.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Wow...that's going to be an AWESOME R.U.D. when the inevitable flaw in a new system decides to bite. I'll make popcorn.

 

[Urwumpe]

If they can pull it off, more power to them. But it just seems to me that the product is the opposite of their stated philosophy.

Well, size-wise it is a major step. But technically, less so. It is an up-scaled version of the New Shepard, which means that the technical risk is pretty minimized. Of course, you can't just take the New Shepard Blueprints and scale them up. There will be new technical problems.

But the important aspect is: The test results and experience from the New Shepard still apply. Blue Origin already knows what to test and how. This alone means a lot of risk less compared to a clean sheet design.

I am pretty sure, their plan can work - if they keep the steps small. The next important step towards their big one would be testing its first stage solo in Corn Ranch.

 

[fausto]

Small steps, big announcements.

 

[boogabooga]

One small step for eccentric billionaire, one giant...

:lol:

 

[Col_Klonk]

I never take corporate statements, slogans, or "philosophy" too seriously.

True.. it's usually a lot of BS anyway, usually to divert your attention away from the underhand dealings

But it's nice now that the orbital competition is hotting up..

 

[dman]

Any info on payload capacity of New Glenn boosters....?

2 stage .......

3 stage.........

 

[Urwumpe]

Any info on payload capacity of New Glenn boosters....?

2 stage .......

3 stage.........

Not yet. By the take-off thrust, you can at least estimate the payload - about 2-3% of the take-off mass should be payload, the take-off mass should be thrust divided by an acceleration of 1.5g ... so its approximately 20-30 tons.

 

[boogabooga]

It's funny that at the same time ILS is scaling down the Proton because they see a trend to lighter, more efficient payloads.

What is the business case for very-heavy lift?