Blue Origin thread.

[Starman4308]

11 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

What is the advantage of the NG over the F9? 

Heavier payload capacity.

Vastly larger 7m-wide payload fairing.

Optional third hydrolox stage for very high-energy ejections: this is useful for things like sending probes out to other planets.

Methalox BE-4 engine is likely to be more easily reused than the kerolox Merlin engine; methane is less prone to coking.

No hard dependence on a non-renewable resource such as kerosene: it is not hard to synthesize methane once natural gas stocks run out.

Easier to ensure fuel purity and quality: kerosene is a very complicated mixture, while methane is a neat substance.

[mikegarrison]

22 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

What is the advantage of the NG over the F9? 

Comparing aerospace vehicles usually doesn't work that way. In this case, I would guess that the New Glenn could accomplish some missions that the Falcon 9 could not. It likely will have more fairing volume and more lift capacity to orbit than the Falcon 9. Obviously those are positives if the need for them is present, but those are negatives if the capacity isn't needed.

Technology-wise, the methalox engines should likely have higher ISP than kerolox engines. I believe SpaceX is also moving to methalox for their future rockets, right?

[DAL59]

 

3 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

Heavier payload capacity.

FH

[Starman4308]

1 minute ago, DAL59 said:

 

FH

You asked about the Falcon 9, not the Falcon Heavy.

Also, the New Glenn still has the advantage for lower orbits, since SpaceX are still using the same payload adapter, limited to 10 tons. All FH does is make it easier to recover boosters after sending heavy payloads to GTO.

[mikegarrison]

3 minutes ago, Starman4308 said:

No hard dependence on a non-renewable resource such as kerosene: it is not hard to synthesize methane once natural gas stocks run out.

On the other hand, there is a lot of interest in creating biofuel Jet A (going on now to a limited extent), and a biofuel RP1 would not be any harder to do.

3 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

 

FH

Did you or did you not just ask about New Glenn v. Falcon 9?

[Starman4308]

2 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

On the other hand, there is a lot of interest in creating biofuel Jet A (going on now to a limited extent), and a biofuel RP1 would not be any harder to do.

Jet fuel is made to a less exacting specification than RP-1. While theoretically RP-1 can be refined from any oil well, in practice there's only a few suppliers, who start from very high-quality crude oil. While it's not impossible to make a biofuel replacement for RP-1, it would almost certainly be harder to do.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Starman4308

[mikegarrison]

1 minute ago, Starman4308 said:

Jet fuel is made to a less exacting specification than RP-1. While theoretically RP-1 can be refined from any oil well, in practice there's only a few suppliers, who start from very high-quality crude oil. While it's not impossible to make a biofuel replacement for RP-1, it would almost certainly be harder to do.

I think not. Bio-jet is actually pretty remarkably "pure" kerosene. In fact, the main concerns with it (other than the feasibility of mass production) are the need to add aromatics in order to work with seals that were designed expecting natural-stock Jet A.

[Reactordrone]

10 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Jet fuel is made to a less exacting specification than RP-1. While theoretically RP-1 can be refined from any oil well, in practice there's only a few suppliers, who start from very high-quality crude oil. While it's not impossible to make a biofuel replacement for RP-1, it would almost certainly be harder to do.

 

You can pretty much much make any liquid fuel you want starting with methane stock,

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_process

[magnemoe]

12 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Heavier payload capacity.

Vastly larger 7m-wide payload fairing.

Optional third hydrolox stage for very high-energy ejections: this is useful for things like sending probes out to other planets.

Methalox BE-4 engine is likely to be more easily reused than the kerolox Merlin engine; methane is less prone to coking.

No hard dependence on a non-renewable resource such as kerosene: it is not hard to synthesize methane once natural gas stocks run out.

Easier to ensure fuel purity and quality: kerosene is a very complicated mixture, while methane is a neat substance.

Do they plan on upper stage recovery?
With 46 ton to leo they have an massive overcapacity for most launches so even if recovery system weight 20 ton they can recover after putting an 26 ton satellite into orbit. 

Geo would not work not only higher speed but also less capacity, I assume 13 ton is as two stages, and capasity would be higher as 3 stage with upper hydrolox? 

[tater]

Starman makes good points. It's not surprise that SpaceX is working in earnest on BFR, since they want something in the pipes to compete with NG.

[Streetwind]

14 hours ago, Starman4308 said:

Also, the New Glenn still has the advantage for lower orbits, since SpaceX are still using the same payload adapter, limited to 10 tons. All FH does is make it easier to recover boosters after sending heavy payloads to GTO.

This is not correct; Falcon Heavy has a beefed-up payload adapter and can mount more. Source: a SpaceX employee on r/SpaceX, in a post I have absolutely no clue how to find anymore. x_o

How much more can it mount? We don't know. I assume - or rather, hope - that now that the test flight has been completed, we will get a "Falcon Heavy User's Guide" like the one that exists for Falcon 9, and is the source for the payload adapter information.

Still, it's almost a guarantee that Falcon Heavy cannot mount its full theoretical 60+ metric tons lifting capacity. I personally would be surprised if it can mount half that much. As such, New Glenn with its proposed 45 metric tons payload capacity may or may not out-lift Falcon Heavy to LEO. Depends on how much Blue Origin expects to actually be lifting. Is there a strict need to build a payload adapter for something that heavy? It depends a lot on how they expect their Moon plans to play out, and we know very little about that at this point.

If New Glenn is even supposed to do stuff around the Moon at all. I mean, Blue Origin has a pretty direct naming scheme. New Shepard is a suborbital vehicle, named after the first American to fly on a suborbital hop. New Armstrong is named after the first American (and person in general) to land on the Moon. So perhaps Blue Origin does not plan to land anything bigger than a probe or rover on the Moon until New Armstrong is ready. That would relegate New Glenn - named after someone who flew in orbit - to duties in orbit. Launching commsats and interplanetary missions. Stuff that takes dV, but not really big upmass. They may very well not bother with a 45 ton capable payload adapter for that.

 

Edited February 8, 2018 by Streetwind
Typos, typos everywhere!

[tater]

NG is an SLS killer to LEO, frankly. Not in mass to LEO, clearly, but in volume. The only mass-limited payload right now is propellant. Crew vehicles are mostly empty bits full of air compared to props. It seems like it could easily handle and SLS-sized fairing. If part of a future space economy for people (a stated goal of Bezos) involves routinely docking and assembling things in space, then X cheap NG launches is not a problem vs 1 ridiculously expensive SLS launch. NG has a "program cost" equal to whatever Bezos wants to spend with his own, personal "f you" money. As a result, marginal launch costs are not unreasonable to look at, or in the case of a customer, what they actually get charged.

NG could easily put Orion and SM into orbit with almost 20 tons to spare, for example. SLS block 1b only puts ~105 tonnes in LEO. Since the EUS alone is ~130 t, the EUS must be used to finish LEO insertion, given the 25 tonne Orion CSM with some props left over for TLI. A new US, like ACES, could be sent and refilled, instead, over multiple NG flights. Even with impossibly optimistic SLS flight cadence (2/year), the annual cost of those launches must equal literally 10s of NG flights.

[sh1pman]

So I found this article on NSF about the BO plans for future launch pads in Florida: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/01/kennedy-cape-brownsville-launch-pads-schedules/

And there is a picture there:

And it made me wonder... what the bloody heck is that Horizontal Launch Area for?!

[tater]

3 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

And it made me wonder... what the bloody heck is that Horizontal Launch Area for?!

https://masterplan.ksc.nasa.gov/Future-State/Future-Land-Use/Horizontal-Launch-Landing

[sh1pman]

1 minute ago, tater said:

https://masterplan.ksc.nasa.gov/Future-State/Future-Land-Use/Horizontal-Launch-Landing

So... what’s going to be launched from this horizontal area?

[Ultimate Steve]

6 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

So... what’s going to be launched from this horizontal area?

Maybe XS-1 if that ever becomes a thing. Or maybe they will let DreamChaser land there... Or maybe stratolaunch could fly...

[sh1pman]

3 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Maybe XS-1 if that ever becomes a thing. Or maybe they will let DreamChaser land there... Or maybe stratolaunch could fly...

First two are launched vertically. And stratolaunch, does it even need to be at KSC? I thought it could take off from just about anywhere. 

[Nibb31]

Given the size, weight, and the fact that it carries a fully loaded rocket, it can only take off from a very limited number of airfields. The safety requirements for carrying a rocket pretty much rule out any civilian airport.

[CatastrophicFailure]

11 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

First two are launched vertically. And stratolaunch, does it even need to be at KSC? I thought it could take off from just about anywhere. 

Indeed, in fact there’s already a very nice, very long runway right nearby. What could possibly have such picky needs about launch direcrion?

Maybe they’ve just played a bit too much KSP and are trying to emulate the other KSC.

[sh1pman]

4 minutes ago, Nibb31 said:

Given the size, weight, and the fact that it carries a fully loaded rocket, it can only take off from a very limited number of airfields. The safety requirements for carrying a rocket pretty much rule out any civilian airport.

AFAIK, they're planning to launch from Mojave, where their hangars and manufacturing buildings are.

[sh1pman]

17 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Indeed, in fact there’s already a very nice, very long runway right nearby. What could possibly have such picky needs about launch direcrion?

Maybe they’ve just played a bit too much KSP and are trying to emulate the other KSC.

BO's future LC-49 is right beside it too. Just across the street. Coincidence?..

[PB666]

1 hour ago, sh1pman said:

So I found this article on NSF about the BO plans for future launch pads in Florida: https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/01/kennedy-cape-brownsville-launch-pads-schedules/

And there is a picture there:

And it made me wonder... what the bloody heck is that Horizontal Launch Area for?!

I thought X68 had been decommissioned.

[eskimo22]

On 2/7/2018 at 5:41 PM, Starman4308 said:

Heavier payload capacity.

Vastly larger 7m-wide payload fairing.

Optional third hydrolox stage for very high-energy ejections: this is useful for things like sending probes out to other planets.

Methalox BE-4 engine is likely to be more easily reused than the kerolox Merlin engine; methane is less prone to coking.

No hard dependence on a non-renewable resource such as kerosene: it is not hard to synthesize methane once natural gas stocks run out.

Easier to ensure fuel purity and quality: kerosene is a very complicated mixture, while methane is a neat substance.

BFR soves all of those issues

[T-10a]

The BFR is not the solution. The BFR is, well, too big for 99% of all payloads on the current market (and launching so many 1-8t typical satellites in one launch will be a nightmare to orchestrate), so it'll probably be delayed a good while until major payloads near its capacity become commonplace. For the near term, hedging bets on the BFR is a bad idea, so NG, Vulcan and F9/FH is still in the game for the next decade.

Edited February 25, 2018 by T-10a

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, T-10a said:

The BFR is not the solution. The BFR is, well, too big for 99% of all payloads on the current market (and launching so many 1-8t typical satellites in one launch will be a nightmare to orchestrate), so it'll probably be delayed a good while until major payloads near its capacity become commonplace. For the near term, hedging bets on the BFR is a bad idea, so NG, Vulcan and F9/FH is still in the game for the next decade.

The idea is to make it so cheap to operate that they can replace the F9 family entirely. It's possible, albeit unlikely, that a BFS could be used as an SSTO or be used to take a kick motor to near orbit, potentially orbiting payloads near F9 size without a booster being necessary. Even if it needs a booster for every launch, if they can get the cost to a level less than a current F9 launch, then if someone wants to launch a small payload they can do so at a cheaper cost than today, but going bigger would be better for the customer.