Main Engine Cut OffRobin Seemangal joins me for a free-flowing discussion on the stories we found most important in 2017 and what we’re looking forward to in 2018, including SpaceX’s huge year, Blue Origin’s under-the-radar work to lay foundations for their future, SLS’ rough year, and—what else?—Falcon Heavy.
Chris Gebhardt of NASASpaceflight published a nice article last week on Blue Origin’s ongoing New Glenn work. He also had this great little nugget of info to share regarding the ship that New Glenn will land upon.
Chris Gebhardt wrotea fantastic piece over on NASASpaceflight.com on SLS, Europa Clipper, EM-2, and its Mobile Launcher(s?). The Mobile Launcher is being finalized in its SLS Block 1 configuration for EM-1, after which it will need to be converted for SLS Block 1B—a 33-month process, and NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel has some interesting concerns.
Blue Origin fired up their BE-4 engine for the first time, which is a big moment. And I share some meandering thoughts on the future of commercial and military launch.
We’re seeing the same strategy from several players in the market with several launch vehicles—ULA with Atlas V, Arianespace with Ariane 6, and ILS with Proton Medium. Cutting costs and optimizing launch vehicles to compete at current Falcon 9 prices is going to work for the next few years, at least.
Formerly of Honeywell, United Space Alliance, and The Aerospace Corporation, Smith has a ton of experience and a very interesting background to bring to Blue Origin.
Blue Origin announced a size increase to New Glenn’s fairing, and OneWeb has decided to keep their Toulouse factory open for other customers after their initial 10-satellite production run is over. Both decisions bring about some interesting implications for the market at large.
With every step taken towards the launchpad, Blue Origin gets more confident, they open up, and they let the industry know just what’s coming its way.
This is exactly what NASA was hoping to achieve by putting the plans for the Deep Space Gateway out into the public eye. They need international and commercial partners to latch onto the idea of the Deep Space Gateway, develop plans to use it, and talk about those plans publicly. That’s how they can build support for it within the US political sphere, and that’s how they can get it funded.
This leaves ULA’s Vulcan-ACES in an interesting position. Blue Origin and Aerojet Rocketdyne are now in direct competition for engines on both stages of Vulcan-ACES: BE-4 and AR1 for the first stage, BE-3U and RL10 for ACES.