If you’re hanging out in West Texas during a pandemic, there are few fireworks shows more thrilling than a test firing of your very own rocket engine. At least that’s the way Blue Origin’s billionaire founder sees it.
“Perfect night,” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who created the Blue Origin space venture more than two decades ago, wrote in an Instagram post. “Sitting in the back of my pickup truck under the moon and stars, watching another long-duration, full-thrust hot-fire test of Blue Origin’s BE-4 engine.”
The post featured a shot of Bezos and other spectators looking on at the rising rocket plume from afar, as well as a video with closer perspectives of the firing.
Blue Origin is testing the engine in preparation for its use in the company’s New Glenn rocket as well as United Launch Alliance’s semi-reusable Vulcan rocket. Both launch vehicles are currently due to make their debut late this year.
The BE-4, which uses liquefied natural gas for fuel, was developed at Blue Origin’s headquarters in Kent, Wash., with tests conducted at Bezos’ West Texas ranch (which is one of his pandemic hangouts).
Last year, Blue Origin opened up a factory in Alabama to turn out rocket engines on a production basis. Each BE-4 is designed to blast out up to 550,000 pounds of thrust — or about 10% more thrust than SpaceX’s methane-fueled Raptor engine.
Last month, Blue Origin provided two engines to United Launch Alliance for pathfinder ground testing, and flight-ready versions are due to be delivered in time for the launch of Astrobotic’s first lunar lander on a Vulcan rocket.
ULA CEO Tory Bruno says he’s confident that the BE-4 engines will be ready for launches in 2021. When he was asked on Twitter what gives him the most anxiety when it comes to the Vulcan development effort, here’s how he replied:
That its sheer blinding awesomeness will cause space enthusiasts to spontaneously swoon upon seeing it in person, thus risking a fall or other injury. https://t.co/7OseIe5mAp
— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) January 26, 2021
In other rocket news, the U.S. Space Force closed the books as of Dec. 31 on the participation of Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman in a multibillion-dollar program supporting the development of new launch vehicles for national security missions.
Last August, those two companies lost out to ULA and SpaceX in a competition for the next phase of development support, but it took months to work out the termination of the contracts.
In a statement provided to Space News, the Space and Missile Systems Center said Blue Origin was paid $255.5 million for work conducted on New Glenn between October 2018 and December 2020, while Northrop Grumman received $531.7 million over the same period for work on its now-canceled OmegA rocket.
The Space Force will have limited rights to data and hardware developed under the companies’ agreements, Space News reported.