Blue Origin

[che wi]

Космический стартап "Амазона" возродит космодром на мысе Канаверал
http://ria.ru/science/20150915/1253521347.html

МОСКВА, 15 сен – РИА Новости. Космический стартап Blue Origin, открытый Джеффом Безосом, директором компании Amazon, объявил о приобретении и перестройке стартового комплекса №36 на мысе Канаверал, где компания планирует построить первый частный космопорт на Земле, о чем Безос рассказал на пресс-конференции на космодроме.

"Сегодня мы объявили о том, что мы будем отправлять наши корабли в космос с этой площадки на территории Флориды. Мыс Канаверал всегда был вратами человечества к самым захватывающим приключениям. Когда я был ребенком, меня всегда вдохновляли космические гиганты, ракеты Сатурн V, которые просыпались и поднимались, рыча, в космос. Теперь мы возвращаемся сюда и начинаем новую эру в истории изучения космоса", — заявил Безос.

Стартовый комплекс №36 (LC-36), одна из пусковых платформ на космодроме на мысе Канаверал, на протяжении почти 45 лет отправляла в космос военные и гражданские миссии НАСА, в том числе и зонды из серии "Маринер", "Пионер" и "Сервейер", изучавшие Марс, Луну, Юпитер и Сатурн во время знаменитой "космической гонки".

В 2007 году, через два года после последнего пуска ракеты "Атлас", комплекс был выведен из эксплуатации, так как часть систем запуска была повреждена в результате коррозийного действия капель воды Атлантического океана, долетавших до платформы с побережья. Большая часть построек LC-36 была уничтожена в последующие годы в ходе взрывных работ. В 2010 году ВВС США передала права на эксплуатацию платформы государственной компании Space Florida, которая, в свою очередь, продала ее стартапу Безоса.

По словам предпринимателя, на территории комплекса будет возрожден не только космопорт, но и построен специальный научно-технический комплекс, где будут собираться и тестироваться ракеты-носители, созданные инженерами Blue Origin.

По словам Безоса, уже в этом году на территории LC-36 его компания проведет тесты жидкостного ракетного двигателя BE-4, разрабатываемого в стенах стартапа, а также начнет разработку своей собственной ракеты с полностью повторно используемыми первыми ступенями и возможностью вертикального взлета и посадки.

"Моя мечта – провести следующую пресс-конференцию вместе с вами не здесь, на Земле, а в космосе", — подытожил предприниматель.

[triage]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/09/blue-origin-lc-36-cape-canaveral/
...
Tuesday's announcement revealed a new rendering of a Blue Origin rocket launching from LC-36.
The rocket – an orbital vehicle that will sport the BE-4 engine – is a two-stage rocket and capsule system that will ferry  astronauts and payloads to low-Earth orbit destinations.
This vehicle will also play into Blue Origin's aspirations for first stage reuse, potentially landing just a short distance from SpaceX's first stage landing site at LC-13.
"Similar to our suborbital vehicle, the first stage booster will separate and land back on Earth," noted newly updated Blue Origin press materials.
"An expendable second stage will continue to propel the capsule into orbit, toward scientific research and exploration. At the completion of its flight, the capsule will reenter Earth's atmosphere and land under parachutes, enabling reuse, improved reliability and lower cost access to space."
No date has been revealed as to when launches will begin from LC-36, other than later this decade.

[testest2]

Метан снизу, водород сверху. Почти идеально.

[Александр Ч.]

Ходят слухи, что они решили продаться ULA     
Но это скорее всего испорченный пересказ слуха о покупке Aerojet-ом ULA. Во всяком случае Bezos ничего похожего не говорил. Самое свежее.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-announces-florida-factory-and-launch-site-for-orbital-vehicle/

Blue Origin Announces Florida Factory and Launch Site for Orbital Vehicle
by Jeff Foust — September 15, 2015

Jeff Bezos shows an illustration of Blue Origin's planned orbital launch vehicle during an event at Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida Sept. 15. Looking on is Florida Gov. Rick Scott. Credit: SpaceNews photo by Jeff Foust  
 
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Blue Origin announced Sept. 15 that it will establish a manufacturing facility and launch site here for its planned orbital launch vehicle, which the company expects to start launching by 2020.
At a press conference on the site of Launch Complex 36, a former Atlas launch pad, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said the company would soon break ground on both a factory and a launch site for a reusable orbital vehicle for flying payloads and people.
"The site saw its last launch in 2005, and the pad has stood silent for more than ten years. Too long," Bezos said. "We can't wait to fix that."
That orbital vehicle, discussed by Bezos for the first time at the event, is a two-stage design with a reusable lower stage and an expendable upper stage. The lower stage will use the BE-4 engine Blue Origin is developing, and the upper stage the BE-3 the company already developed for its New Shepard suborbital vehicle.
Bezos said the vehicle's first stage is designed to land vertically, either on a ship in the ocean — an approach the company patented, only to have that patent disputed by SpaceX — or back on land. "It's an architecture we have a lot of experience with fr om our New Shepard program," he said. "It's a great architecture because it scales to unusually large size."
Bezos said the vehicle, which doesn't yet have an official name, is designed for launching satellites as well as people. He declined, though, to specify its payload capacity, saying the company would release more details about the vehicle next year.
Most of the vehicle will be manufactured at a facility the company plans to build in Exploration Park, a business park adjacent to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). "We're talking about bringing raw aluminum and raw carbon fiber here, and it'll be milled and formed and welded here," he said in a briefing with reporters after the event. "It's not just final assembly."
One exception may be the engines. "Where the engines are produced is not yet determined," he said. On Sept. 10, however, United Launch Alliance and Blue Origin announced an agreement to expand production facilities for the BE-4 engine at Blue Origin's development facility in Kent, Washington. ULA is considering using the BE-4 on the first stage of its new Vulcan launch vehicle.
Once built at Exploration Park, the vehicles will be trucked over to Launch Complex 36. That site will host a launch pad and a vehicle assembly building, as well as a test stand for acceptance testing of the BE-4 engines.
Bezos did not give a timetable for building the facilities, but said work would start "very soon" on the factory. "The Exploration Park facilities will be some of the first to come on line," he said.
Blue Origin will invest more than $200 million in its Florida facilities, creating 330 jobs, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said in remarks at the event. State officials said that up to 12 states competed to win the factory and launch site.
 
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos and Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) at a Sept. 15 press conference announcing Blue Origin's Florida launch site plans. Credit: SpaceNews photo by Jeff Foust

Bezos said that the company received "detailed bids" from five states, which he did not identify. "There were pluses and minuses to all of the options, and Florida, in our opinion, was the best choice," he said. "A big part of that is the talent pool here."
Blue Origin was originally interested in a site called Shiloh just north of KSC. That site, though, faced opposition from some residents who were concerned about the environmental impact of building a launch site there.
Bezos said he became convinced that Launch Complex 36, within the boundaries of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, was a suitable alternative. "We became very encouraged we went through the process about how forward leaning the Air Force is, and NASA, on making sure that LC-36 can be operated in a very commercially favorable way," he said. "We got comfortable with that."
Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) said that he helped put pressure on the Air Force to be more accommodating to commercial ventures like Blue Origin. That included what he called "friendly persuasion" of the Secretary of the Air Force at a meeting with NASA and FAA officials at an unspecified date in Washington. He said Air Force officials are now "totally on board" commercial use of facilities at Cape Canaveral.
There are no plans to build or fly the company's New Shepard suborbital vehicle from Florida, Bezos said. Those launches will continue to take place at Blue Origin's test site in West Texas, wh ere New Shepard flew to an altitude of 93.5 kilometers on an April test flight. A second test flight is planned before the end of the year, he said.

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-reaches-milestone-in-be-4-engine-development/

Blue Origin Reaches Milestone in BE-4 Engine Development
by Jeff Foust — September 30, 2015
Testing of components of the BE-4 engine is in progress at Blue Origin's facilities in West Texas. Credit: Blue Origin photo  
 
WASHINGTON — Blue Origin said Sept. 30 that it has completed more than 100 developmental tests of its BE-4 engine, which the company is building both for United Launch Alliance and its own vehicle.
The company said in a statement that the staged-combustion tests, performed at the company's test site in West Texas, provided "measurable performance data" about the engine for its upcoming critical design review. That data covered various elements of the engine's design and its manufacturing techniques, including the use of 3-D printing.
"We tested a number of injector element designs and chamber lengths at a variety of operational conditions," said Rob Meyerson, president of Blue Origin, in the statement. "Rigorous component testing ahead of full-engine testing significantly increases confidence in the development schedule and projected performance."
The BE-4 engine, under development by Blue Origin since 2011, uses liquefied natural gas and liquid oxygen propellants, and is designed to produce up to 550,000 pounds-force of thrust. The BE-4 will be the first large engine to use that propellant combination, although SpaceX has said it is working on a large engine called Raptor that uses the same propellants.
The company did not disclose a schedule for future development of the engine in its statement, and spokeswoman Julie Arnold declined to provide an estimated date for the engine's critical design review. In an April press briefing, Meyerson said full engine tests would take place in 2016, with the engine ready for service in 2017.
Blue Origin is developing BE-4 for the first stage of an orbital launch vehicle it announced during a Sept. 15 event at Cape Canaveral, Florida. Blue Origin plans to manufacture and launch that vehicle there, building facilities that include a test stand to carry out acceptance tests of the BE-4.
The BE-4 engine is also the leading candidate to be used in the first stage of ULA's Vulcan vehicle. Speaking to reporters after the Sept. 15 Florida event, Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos said that while he was aware of competing engines for the Vulcan, like the AR-1 under development by Aerojet Rocketdyne, he was focused on completing the BE-4. "We're going to build the best 21st century engine that we can for ULA," he said. "Ultimately they will make the decision about what they want to do."
Bezos also noted that, unlike the AR-1 or other concepts, Blue Origin was not seeking funding from the U.S. Air Force to help pay for development of the BE-4. "The most unique feature of the BE-4 engine is that it's fully funded," he said. "It's not something you see in rocket engine programs very often."

[Salo]

https://twitter.com/flatoday_jdean/status/656924565461929984

James Dean Подлинная учетная запись ‏@flatoday_jdean
Space Florida's Board has approved deals for Blue Origin to take over LC36 and 139 acres for Exploration Park manufacturing facility
  13:06 - 21 окт. 2015 г.

[Salo]

https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/659884423425318912

Blue Origin ‏@blueorigin  
BE-4 team: Nice job on today's Critical Design Review. Making progress on America's ride to space! #VulcanRocket  
 

[che wi]

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  33m ago

Wagner: Blue Origin's vehicle will have >1000 sq. inches of windows; it'll be more like flying in the ISS cupola than an airliner.

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  15m ago

Wagner: hoping to put first commercial payloads on vehicle next summer, depending on progress in test flights.

Jeff Foust ‏@jeff_foust  9m ago

Wagner: plan to do next New Shepard test flight by the end of the year, working on FAA comm'l launch license.

[che wi]

Blue Origin Plans To Begin Commercial Suborbital Research Flights in 2016
http://spacenews.com/blue-origin-plans-to-begin-commercial-suborbital-research-flights-in-2016/

[silentpom]

интересно, что именно в этих полетах коммерческого

[Salo]

http://spacenews.com/bezos-next-blue-origins-next-test-flight-coming-very-soon/

Bezos: Blue Origin's Next Test Flight Coming "Very Soon"
by Jeff Foust — November 20, 2015
  Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos poses in front of his rocket. Credit: Blue Origin  
 
Jeff Bezos says Blue Origin's next suborbital test flight is coming "very soon."
The Amazon.com and Blue Origin founder said Thursday that work was ramping up for another flight of the company's New Shepard vehicle, but did not give an estimated date of the flight. Company officials have recently said another test flight is planned before the end of the year.
Bezos said a goal of the next flight would be to recover both the vehicle's payload capsule and its propulsion module, which crashed to Earth because of a hydraulic problem on its previous test flight in April. [GeekWire]

[Salo]

http://www.geekwire.com/2015/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-new-shepard-test-very-soon/

Jeff Bezos says next flight test of Blue Origin's New Shepard spaceship should come 'very soon'
by Alan Boyle on November 19, 2015 at 1:44 pm

Blue Origin's New Shepard prototype spaceship lifts off from its West Texas launch pad during a test flight in April. (Blue Origin photo)

Even as Jeff Bezos celebrates past achievements in spaceflight, he's looking forward to seeing his Blue Origin space venture make future achievements.
The next flight test of Blue Origin's New Shepard suborbital spaceship should come "very soon," Bezos said today at Seattle's Museum of Flight, after a ceremony marking the arrival of historic Saturn V rocket engine parts that his Bezos Expeditions team recovered from the Atlantic two years ago.
"We're ready and excited to fly again," Bezos said.
Bezos is best-known as the billionaire founder of Amazon, the world's largest online retailer, but for more than a decade, he's also been funding Blue Origin's quest to develop lower-cost vehicles for suborbital and orbital flight. The company is headquartered in Kent, Wash., and currently has more than 400 employees, Bezos said.
 
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon as well as Blue Origin, talks about the past and future of spaceflight at Seattle's Museum of Flight. (GeekWire photo by Alan Boyle)

New Shepard's most recent flight test was conducted from Bezos' West Texas launch range in April. That flight sent an autonomously controlled capsule up to a height of 307,000 feet – which is close to 328,000 feet (100 kilometers, or 62 miles), the internationally accepted boundary of outer space. The unoccupied crew module parachuted to the ground as planned, but a hydraulic problem led to the loss of the craft's rocket-powered propulsion module after separation.
Bezos didn't specify the timing of the next test flight, other than to say he hoped it happened soon – but other statements from Blue Origin suggest the test could come before the end of the year.
The aim for the next flight will be to recover both of New Shepard's modules, which is in line with Blue Origin's vision for reusable launch vehicles. Bezos referred to the concept of rocket reusability in his comments about the decades-old F-1 engines that he and his team brought up from the Atlantic's depths.
"That first stage is gigantic, it's expendable. It's supposed to crash into the ocean," Bezos pointed out. "That was the whole plan. We're working, by the way, on changing that plan. ... We're trying to make reusable rockets because we don't like throwing the hardware away. We like to reuse it."
Blue Origin's spaceships will make use of next-generation rocket engines known as the BE-3 (which is fueled by liquid hydrogen) and the BE-4 (which will be powered by liquefied natural gas). The BE-4 engine is also due to be used on United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket.
"The BE-4 is a 21st-century engine," Bezos told GeekWire. 'We have tools today that [Wernher] Von Braun and all the 1960s rocket designers couldn't even have dreamed of, in terms of computer simulation. ... If Von Braun were to come today and look at the tools that we would have, he would be so excited and happy."
Bezos said he had no problem juggling his time between Amazon, a publicly traded company; and Blue Origin, which is privately funded. "They're very, very different, and they feed different parts of me," he said. "The bulk of my time is spent at Amazon, but I get energy from both."

[silentpom]

какие прогнозы?

[Apollo13]

[Apollo13]

Ну что Безоса можно поздравить. Утер нос Маску с посадкой первой ступени! "Страшный ветер" (тм) не опрокинул. Зависание оказалось не нужно. Как и все остальные страшилки.

[Leonar]

А у маска же тож кузнечик летал не?

[Apollo13]

Leonar пишет:
А у маска же тож кузнечик летал не?

Літав. Але низенько-низенько.

Кузнечик не успел долетать до программы хотя бы отдаленно напоминающей реальную.

[Lanista]

Крутотень же!

[АниКей]

Blue Origin заявляет о первой успешной посадке "многоразовой" ракеты
15:4924.11.2015126
Космический стартап Джеффа Безоса, основателя компании Amazon, смог успешно посадить на поверхность Земли повторно используемую ракету на базе двигателя BE-3, созданного в Blue Origin.

© Blue Origin
МОСКВА, 24 ноя – РИА Новости. Космический стартап Blue Origin заявил об успешном приземлении многоразовой ракеты на базе двигателя BE-3, который позволил ракете взлететь на высоту в 100 километров и затем приземлиться на поверхность Земли в западной части штата Техас, сообщил в своем блоге создатель компании Джефф Безос.
Blue Origin — частная космическая компания, которой владеет миллиардер Джефф Безос, основатель онлайн-ритейлера Amazon.com. Сейчас Blue Origin работает над созданием частной космической инфраструктуры – космодрома, космических кораблей и повторно используемых ракет – для отправки грузов и человека в космос.
Компания Безоса начала испытания водородно-кислородного двигателя BE-3, предназначенного для своего будущего суборбитального космического корабля New Shepard в декабре 2013 года. В апреле текущего года испытания двигателя были завершены, и первый прототип New Shepard был запущен в космос.


© РИА Новости. Сергей Пятаков | Купить иллюстрацию
Blue Origin разработает ракетные двигатели на замену российских РД-180
Пуск завершился с частичным успехом – корабль успешно отправился на высоту в 100 километров над поверхностью Земли, но сама ракета не смогла удачно приземлиться и разбилась при падении из-за проблем с гидравликой.
Новый пуск, который состоялся вчера, завершился полностью удачно — New Shepard поднялся на высоту в 112 километров и мягко приземлился в заданную точку посадки, а BE-3 смог включиться при падении на Землю и опустился на ее поверхность, двигаясь со скоростью в 6 километров в час.
Безос провозгласил этот успех "первым в истории Земли приземлением ракеты" и отметил, что это лишь первый шаг к реализации его мечты – отправке миллионов людей в космос.

РИА Новости http://ria.ru/science/20151124/1327546517.html#ixzz3sPfABQ7A