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BE-3

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BE-3 (Blue Engine 3)
BE-3 Undergoing testing
Country of originUnited States
First flight29 April 2015 (2015-04-29)
DesignerBlue Origin
ManufacturerBlue Origin
Associated LVNew Shepard
New Glenn
StatusActive
Liquid-fuel engine
PropellantLOX / LH2
Performance
Thrust, vacuum769 kN (173,000 lbf)
Thrust, sea-level488 kN (110,000 lbf)
Throttle range18–100%

The BE-3 (Blue Engine 3) is a liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen rocket engine developed by Blue Origin.

The engine began development in the early 2010s and completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The engine is being used on the New Shepard suborbital rocket, for which made its first test flight on 29 April 2015 and had its first crewed flight on 20 July 2021.

A variant will be used in the 2nd stage of the New Glenn launcher.

In 2015, the engine was under consideration by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for use in a new second stage, the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage, in ULA's Vulcan orbital launch vehicle with first flight in the 2020s.

History

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Following Aerojet’s acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2012, Blue Origin president Rob Meyerson saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the defense industrial base.[1] Blue Origin publicly entered the liquid rocket engine business by partnering with ULA on the development of the BE-4, and working with other companies.[1] Meyerson announced the selection of Huntsville, AL as the location of Blue Origin’s rocket production factory in June 2017.[1]

The BE-3 follows the earliest rocket engine development efforts at Blue Origin in the 2000s. Blue Origin's first engine was a "simple, single-propellant engine" called the BE-1 (Blue Engine 1) which used peroxide propellant and generated only 8.9 kN (2,000 lbf) of thrust, and their second, the BE-2 (Blue Engine 2) which was a bipropellant engine using kerosene and peroxide, producing 140 kN (31,000 lbf) thrust.[2]

In January 2013, the company announced the development of the BE-3 (Blue Engine 3), a new liquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/LOX) cryogenic engine. The engine was originally announced to produce 440 kN (100,000 lbf) thrust, with initial thrust chamber tests planned for mid-February 2013 at NASA Stennis.[3] The thrust chamber tests were run sometime in 2013.[4]

The BE-3 was successfully tested in late 2013 on a full-duration simulated suborbital burn, with coast phases and engine relights, "demonstrating deep throttle, full power, long-duration and reliable restart all in a single-test sequence."[5] NASA has released a video of the test.[4]

By December 2013, Blue Origin updated engine specifications following engine tests conducted on test stands at ground level, near sea level. This demonstrated that the engine could produce 490 kilonewtons (110,000 lbf) of thrust at full power, and could successfully throttle down to as low as 110 kilonewtons (25,000 lbf) for use in controlled vertical landings if needed for that purpose on particular launch vehicles.[5] The final engine specifications, released in April 2015 following the full test phase, included a minimum thrust of 89 kilonewtons (20,000 lbf), an even wider throttling capability by 20 percent than the preliminary numbers, while maintaining the previously released full power thrust spec.[6]

As of December 2013, the engine had "demonstrated more than 160 starts and 9,100 seconds (152 min) of operation at Blue Origin's test facility near Van Horn, Texas."[5][7] Additional testing of the BE-3 was completed in 2014, with the engine "simulating a sub-scale booster suborbital mission duty cycle."[8] Test stand testing of the engine was completed by April 2015, with over 450 engine firings and a cumulative engine test time of over 500 minutes. Blue Origin stated it would make the first test flight of its New Shepard vehicle later in 2015,[6] with the BE-3PM engine.[9][10]

In the event, Blue Origin made the first flight test of the BE-3PM[10][9] engine on the New Shepard suborbital vehicle before the month was out, flying a boost profile to 93,500 meters (307,000 ft) altitude on 29 April 2015.[11]

In April 2015, United Launch Alliance (ULA) was considering the BE-3 for use in a new second stage, the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES), which was planned to become the primary upper stage for ULA's Vulcan orbital launch vehicle in the 2020s. The Vulcan was planned to begin orbital flights in 2019 with an existing Centaur upper stage, and was considering three engines from various manufacturers for the ACES stage which would putatively begin flight in 2023, with selection expected before 2019.[12]

While development of a sea-level version of the engine, BE-3PM,[10] was completed and fully qualified by early 2015, Blue Origin said then that they intend to develop a vacuum version of the engine to operate in space.[13]

In January 2016, the US Air Force provided partial development funding to Orbital ATK to develop an extendable nozzle for the Blue Origin BE-3U.[14][15]

On 20 July, 2021, the engine design was used in its first crewed flight of the New Shepard.[16]

On September 12, 2022, New Shepard 3 with RSS H.G. Wells capsule suffered an un-contained engine failure that resulted in the triggering of a launch abort and the loss of the vehicle.

Engine design

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BE-3PM

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The first stage variant of the BE-3, the BE-3PM,[10] uses a pump-fed engine design, with a combustion tap-off cycle to take a small amount of combustion gases from the main combustion chamber in order to power the engine turbopumps.[8][7]

BE-3U

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Blue Origin has developed an open expander cycle variant of the BE-3, the BE-3U. Two of these engines will be used to power the New Glenn second stage.[17]

In November 2015, the engine was projected to have a vacuum thrust of 670 kN (150,000 lbf).[18] Development had begun on the extendable nozzle for BE-3U by early 2016.[14] By August 2018, BE-3U engine development had proceeded, test engines built, and had accumulated over 700 seconds of test time, confirming performance assumptions in the design.[17] In February 2019, Blue Origin updated the thrust of BE-3U as used on New Glenn to 712 kN (160,000 lbf).[19]

In February 2020, Blue Origin opened up a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, to produce BE-3U and BE-4 engines.[20]

In August 2024 Jeff Bezos stated that the BE-3U's thrust had been uprated to 765 kN (172,000 lbf) and that its isp is 445s.[21] The reported thrust was later revised to 770 kN (173,000 lbf) in a press release[22] while the isp was revised to 455s.[23]

Technical specifications

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The performance of the sea-level version of the BE-3, the BE-3PM,[10] include:

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c "A First Look". Archived from the original on 2021-06-02.
  2. ^ "Blue Origin Technology". Blue Origin. Archived from the original on 2018-01-10. Retrieved 2016-10-25.
  3. ^ "Updates on commercial crew development". NewSpace Journal. 2013-01-17. Retrieved 2013-01-21.
  4. ^ a b Messier, Doug (2013-12-03). "Video of Blue Origin Engine Test". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
  5. ^ a b c Messier, Doug (2013-12-03). "Blue Origin Tests New Engine in Simulated Suborbital Mission Profile". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 2013-12-05.
  6. ^ a b c Foust, Jeff (7 April 2015). "Blue Origin Completes BE-3 Engine as BE-4 Work Continues". Space News. Retrieved 8 April 2015.
  7. ^ a b c Blue Origin Tests New Engine, Aviation Week, Guy Norris, 2013-12-09, accessed 2014-09-16.
  8. ^ a b Messier, Doug (2014-11-14). "Blue Origin Commercial Crew Development Status Report". Parabolic Arc. Retrieved 24 December 2014.
  9. ^ a b Tim Baker (27 June 2022). "Space tourism from companies like SpaceX, Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin could undo work to repair ozone layer, study finds". Sky.
  10. ^ a b c d e "BE-3". Blue Origin.
  11. ^ Foust, Jeff (2015-04-30). "Blue Origin's New Shepard Vehicle Makes First Test Flight". Space News. Retrieved 1 May 2015.
  12. ^ Gruss, Mike (2015-04-13). "ULA's Vulcan Rocket To be Rolled out in Stages". SpaceNews. Retrieved 2015-04-18.
  13. ^ "Our Approach to Technology". Blue Origin. Archived from the original on 2018-01-10. Retrieved 2015-05-01. The BE-3 engine is flying. The engine that powers the New Shepard suborbital vehicle today will be upgraded with a larger nozzle to operate in the vacuum of orbital space.
  14. ^ a b "Orbital ATK, SpaceX Win Air Force Propulsion Contracts". SpaceNews. 13 January 2016. Retrieved 1 March 2016. Specifically, Orbital ATK will combine the Air Force money with at least $31 million, and as much as $124 million, of its own to develop [..., including] an extendable nozzle for Blue Origin's BE-3U upper stage engine. Blue Origin uses the BE-3 for its New Shepard suborbital rocket. The BE-3 also is one of three upper-stage engines United Launch Alliance is considering for Vulcan, the Denver company's next-generation rocket. 'We are proud to provide the BE-3U high energy upper stage solution for Orbital ATK's next generation launch vehicle,' Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin's president, said in an email to SpaceNews. 'The BE-3U is a variant of our BE-3 engine that powers our New Shepard space vehicle for both launch and landing.'
  15. ^ "Contracts: Air Force". U.S. Department of Defense Contracts press release. 2016-01-13. Retrieved 2016-03-01.
  16. ^ "Jeff Bezos, Mark Bezos, Wally Funk and Oliver Daemen reach space, return safely on Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket". Washington Post. 2021-07-20. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  17. ^ a b BE-3 test update, Blue Origin, 10 August 2018, accessed 15 August 2018].
  18. ^ Meyerson, Rob (November 13, 2015). ISPCS 2015 Keynote (Speech). ISPCS. Retrieved November 14, 2015.
  19. ^ "BE-3". Blue Origin. Retrieved 2022-12-10.
  20. ^ "Blue Origin lays out ambitious plan for rocket engine production as it opens Alabama factory". GeekWire. 2020-02-18. Retrieved 2021-07-26.
  21. ^ Everyday Astronaut (2024-08-15). First Look Inside Blue Origin's New Glenn Factory w/ Jeff Bezos!. Retrieved 2024-08-18 – via YouTube.
  22. ^ "New Glenn Completes Second Stage Hotfire". Blue Origin. September 23, 2024.
  23. ^ Limp, Dave (2024-11-13). "BE-3U's nozzles release hydrogen-rich steam at speeds of roughly 10,000 mph". Twitter.
  24. ^ Foust, Jeff (13 April 2015). "Blue Origin's suborbital plans are finally ready for flight". Retrieved 19 April 2015. We've recently completed acceptance testing, meaning we've accepted the engine for suborbital flight on our New Shepard vehicle, [the end of a] very, very long development program [of] 450 test firings of the engine and a cumulative run time of more than 500 minutes. The completion of those tests sets the stage for Blue Origin to begin test flights of the vehicle later this year at its facility in West Texas [where they] expect a series of flight tests with this vehicle … flying in autonomous mode… We expect a series of dozens of flights over the extent of the test program [taking] a couple of years to complete.
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