• Jimmy S. Overly

    Love those big fat beautiful LOX/LNG Mach diamonds!

  • Jacob Samorodin

    Well…since it’s not vaporware, I approve. BTW, since the rocket-motor is intended for the New Glenn booster, it is ironic that at 550,000Ibf of thrust, this single motor exceeds the 360,000Ibf thrust of the three Atlas D rocket-motors combined that lifted off on February, 20, 1962..

  • 868686

    Shine bright like a diamond…

  • It’s beautiful, and also a very major milestone passed. Go Blue!

  • Mr Snarky Answer

    Aerojet Rocketdyne have fun with that RS-25 and RL-10 production.

  • patb2009

    That would be true of the F-1, the RD-180 and the RS-68.

  • Michael Vaicaitis

    Good work BO, but I’m a little worried for you. This puts BE-4 about a full year behind Raptor – will that mean that New Glenn will be a year behind BFR?. I guess we’re all either overtly or secretly a little sceptical that SpaceX can get BFR flying on Elon’s schedule, but if it seems reasonable that BO can get NG flying by 2020-22, shouldn’t SpaceX get BFR flying even sooner?. SpaceX have a year head start on the motor and many years experience head start on manufacturing orbital rockets. Will BFR beat NG to the launch (and landing) pad?, and eat NG’s lunch?.

  • Aerospike

    Not sure I can follow your line of thought this time.
    If that is a full scale, flight like configuration of a BE-4, then it isn’t behind, but actually ahead of Raptor.
    As far as I know, SpaceX has not yet tested a full scale, flight like Raptor engine. In the latest reddit AMA Elon explicitly said that the flight engine will be configured somehow differently than the current test engine (and that this will be the actual challenge, since he said just scaling the thrust to the final figures will be “easy”).

  • Paul451

    The irony he refers to is in the name of BO’s rocket and which Atlas mission lifted off in 1962.

  • Michael Vaicaitis

    If that is the case then BO can return to Defcon Relax.

  • ThomasLMatula

    Or like the turtles in its Coat of Arms just keep moving at a steady pace forward.

  • Jimmy S. Overly

    Ha, Defcon Relax. I’ll have to steal that one.

  • Mr Snarky Answer

    Hard to say whether that is behind or ahead per se. With 42 starts and a lot of analysis over the last year, they know a lot more about the function of their engine than Blue does at the moment even if it is not at full scale yet. Two different approaches, the Raptor approach to go full up before full scale is recommended for FFSC engines since there is a lot of dependency between the sub-systems. Meanwhile, Blue was doing more sub-scale and full testing at component level, pre-burner and injector and took more time to jump directly into full scale engine. Probably the preferred path for ORSC.

  • Mr Snarky Answer

    I think this makes the US, the only country to fire a staged combustion hat trick.

    FRSC -> RS-25
    FFSC -> Raptor
    ORSC -> BE-4

  • Michael Vaicaitis

    Yes, but wouldn’t a faster steady pace be nice.

  • ThomasLMatula

    Actually they are accelerating slowly, just like an ion rocket. The good thing is their foundation is solid as a result.

  • Terry Stetler

    “If that is a full scale, flight like configuration of a BE-4, then it isn’t behind, but actually ahead of Raptor.”

    Eric Berger at Ars reports this BE-4 was only running at 50% and for a few seconds. This after suffering a powerhead failure a few months ago.

    Contrast this with the US Air Force’s funding for Raptor development. On Oct. 19 SpaceX got another $40.7 million from the Air Force, and the vacuum engine prototypes completion date was moved up from January 30th 2018 to April 30th 2018. Musk reports 100 second burns at McGregor, limited by tank size.

    That doesn’t sound like an engine that is a year behind BE-4.

  • Aerospike

    Well I never said that Raptor is a year behind. I just brought forward arguments against the statement by Michael, that BE-4 appeared to be a year behind.

  • windbourne

    it is really too bad that AR has not gotten the price of those 2 engines down. U would think that AR would be concerned about their future enough to focus on lowering their costs.
    Yet, nothing. They are pulling a ULA and basically saying that we do not have to, or that we have done enough.

  • ThomasLMatula

    It also exceeds the 380,000 lbs thrust of the new Raptor which the USAF is partially funding.

  • windbourne

    NG does not compete against BFR. Not even close.
    NG competes against FH, which is within months of first launch.

    Not sure why you think that a 45 tonne rocket will somehow compete against a 150 tonnes (reusable)/250 tonne(expendable) rocket, esp. when FH will do 50 tonnes in a reusable fashion.

  • windbourne

    not really.
    NG competes against FH, not BFR.

  • Michael Vaicaitis

    Since BFR will “compete with” and then quickly replace FH, BFR will also compete with NG.

  • Michael Vaicaitis

    BFR will compete against the 50kg to orbit Vector, Rocklab’s 250kg to orbit Electron, Virgin’s 500kg to orbit Launcher One, the 130 tonne to orbit SLS Block II and everything in between, including F9 and FH. It has nothing to do will the maximum lift category of the launcher, it has everything to do with the cost of delivery. If NG can put 45 tonnes to LEO for $50-70 million, and BFR can put 150 kg to 150 tonnes to LEO for $5-10 million (or less for ride shares) whilst also launching more often, then BFR is going to be competitive with NG and ALL other launchers.

  • duheagle

    Given that the new production line for SSME’s has to be stood up from scratch (the original factory no longer exists) it is obviously possible to take considerable cost out of RS-25 – especially since the new version is to be expendable. And AJR has been noodling around with 3-D printing of some RL-10 parts. It’s not exactly that AJR is doing nothing, they just, as usual, aren’t doing anywhere near enough or fast enough to matter in the end.

  • publiusr

    Same angle we saw in the movie ALIEN when the xenomorph got spat out of the engine.