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Blue Origin thread.


Vanamonde

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42 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Will BO launch people with scientific payloads?

So, passengers can theorectically mess with these payloads...

Tourist launches would be just tourists. I'm sure they can find six people to fill up a pod.

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2 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Will BO launch people with scientific payloads?

So, passengers can theorectically mess with these payloads...

IIRC, the experiment racks are located in a separate compartment from the passengers.

I don't know if they envision people buying whole launches for running interactive experiments, but I would guess they would be OK with that if they had launch slots available.

Edit: I was only partly correct.

https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard/new-shepard-payloads/

They do offer standardized racks for payload in the cabin and also payload exposed to the ambient (lack of) atmosphere.

Edited by mikegarrison
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1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

IIRC, the experiment racks are located in a separate compartment from the passengers.

I don't know if they envision people buying whole launches for running interactive experiments, but I would guess they would be OK with that if they had launch slots available.

Edit: I was only partly correct.

https://www.blueorigin.com/new-shepard/new-shepard-payloads/

They do offer standardized racks for payload in the cabin and also payload exposed to the ambient (lack of) atmosphere.

You'd think people bouncing off the walls would mess up any zero g experiment that's attached to the vehicle.

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He said they could build the human one by 2024.

blueorigin_be7.jpg

Be-7

Quote

BE-7 is an additively manufactured, high-performance, dual-expander cycle engine, generating 40 kN (10,000 lbf) thrust.

We are maturing the design, manufacturing hardware and about to begin hotfiring the engine. We’re also developing an integrated testbed under NASA’s Tipping Point award.

 

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So, they have been working on this for three years if I remember what I read correctly. The New Glenn is also planned to be man rated, so I'd guess that they have a large crew capsule in development as well. Maybe large for tourism, or smaller for beyond LEO applications...

If it's the latter, then I could imagine that with some orbital assembly, a New Glenn manned lunar mission could be done...

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Blue Moon masses 15 tonnes wet, and he said ~3t dry. So the props are ~12 tonnes.

Using a middle of the road hydrolox Isp of 450, that gives this thing some 4500 m/s of dv with a 3.6 tonne payload. NG can get this to GTO, it can then use a couple km/2 to get to LLO by itself, and still have over 2 km/s to land.

Looks like the larger stack with the crew ascent vehicle can actually do a RT from GTO to the lunar surface via Gateway (otw, and back) if it masses ~30.6t.

NG can't quite get this thing to close in one launch (it's maybe 400m/s shy), but the 3-stage version almost certainly can.

 

Edited by tater
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Also, it's important to note that this has something akin to ULA's IVF. They want to take the H2 boiloff, and use it to first cool the LOX tanks, then use it in fuel cells to provide some 2.5kW of power (some of which can then be used to actively cool, presumably).

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I haven't had a chance to watch the full webcast yet, but was there any info on the ascent engine for the human version?  From the rendering it looks like it could be another BE-7, but hard to say.  Seems a little surprising they would not go with hypergolics for that one, but obviously they feel pretty comfortable with hyrdolox at this point.

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9 hours ago, tater said:

NG can't quite get this thing to close in one launch (it's maybe 400m/s shy), but the 3-stage version almost certainly can.

Many months back when we were speculating NG performance, I was strongly convinced that BO is sandbagging their performance numbers. Me being wrong isn't out of the question but it definitely looks like they have significant margin to make up 400 m/s.

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