This is also good news for SpaceX. Satellite and payload designers generally design to common fairing sizes so they have a choice in launch providers. The 8.7m 9x4 fairing is similar to the 9m Starship fairing so more designers will now be designing payloads that use the full Starship capacity.
New Glenn Update
31–40 of 154 posts
Re: New Glenn Update
#32The incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course. The exciting thing in this announcement is the new 9x4 configuration (9 and 4 engines in the first and second stages vs the current 7x2). They don't mention whether the tanks will get stretched to allow for more fuel, or if this just burns the fuel faster. Starship generations keep getting both more engines and longer.
Yup, the thrust improvements were expected. The BE-4 engines have quite a low chamber pressure for their engine class, so they can gain significant performance just by increasing chamber pressure. Additionally, the New Glenn fairings are very large for their weight capacity. New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. So many expected that BO designed it this way because…
The numbers:
BE-4 is 140 bar chamber pressure vs SpaceX Raptor 2 at 350 bar. Thrust to weight of BE-4 is 80:1 vs Raptor2 at 140:1.
I don't think the capabilities are as different as those numbers imply. I believe that it's due to the conservativeness of Blue Origin and SpaceX's willingness to blow up hundreds of engines on the test stand to iteratively push the margins.
Re: New Glenn Update
#33The incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course. The exciting thing in this announcement is the new 9x4 configuration (9 and 4 engines in the first and second stages vs the current 7x2). They don't mention whether the tanks will get stretched to allow for more fuel, or if this just burns the fuel faster. Starship generations keep getting both more engines and longer.
Yup, the thrust improvements were expected. The BE-4 engines have quite a low chamber pressure for their engine class, so they can gain significant performance just by increasing chamber pressure. Additionally, the New Glenn fairings are very large for their weight capacity. New Glenn has 3x the fairing volume compared to the Falcon Heavy, but can throw less mass. So many expected that BO designed it this way because…
Falcon Heavy is a huge outlier, and has never actually demonstrated the capability to lift close to its nameplate capacity to LEO. Falcon 9 is already volume constrained to LEO outside of Starlink or Dragon launches, and Starlink is packed incredibly densely to get to that point. When I ran the numbers some time back, New Glenn was similar to Falcon 9.
Increasing thrust by 15% doesn't just increase payload by 15%. I don't know a simpler way to estimate this than to run a simulation, and I don't have one with numbers I can toggle.
Re: New Glenn Update
#34The incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course. The exciting thing in this announcement is the new 9x4 configuration (9 and 4 engines in the first and second stages vs the current 7x2). They don't mention whether the tanks will get stretched to allow for more fuel, or if this just burns the fuel faster. Starship generations keep getting both more engines and longer.
> incremental improvements to the engine thrust is par for the course
Blue Origin is matching from Raptor 2 to Raptor 3. Comparing thrust at sea level, lbf:
Raptor 2 | 507,000 [1]
Raptor 3 | 617,000 [1]
BE-4 | 557,143
BE-4' | 642,857
BE-3U | 160,000
BE-3U' | 200,000
Re: New Glenn Update
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
NASA still had much smaller jumps in capability between flights. Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk.
> Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk
FYI, that talk was poorly received in the aerospace community.
Destin missed that the entire point of Artemis is not to one and done the Moon again but build towards getting to Mars. And the repeated "we're going, right?" shtick was condescending in the same way Hegseth wanting generals to cheer and holler for him was.
He acted like a petulant influencer. Not a science communicator.
Re: New Glenn Update
#36This is also good news for SpaceX. Satellite and payload designers generally design to common fairing sizes so they have a choice in launch providers. The 8.7m 9x4 fairing is similar to the 9m Starship fairing so more designers will now be designing payloads that use the full Starship capacity.
I agree, though I think the real winner here is the customers. The New Glenn 9x4 has a higher targeted payload capacity that an expended Falcon Heavy. Mission design takes years, and payload mass is the most important constraining factor. So it'd now be fairly reasonable approach to start building now for 9x4's constraints, and then fly on it or Starship depending on readiness and price. If customers start doing this now, that also means a quicker pickup on using the increased launch capability.
On a funnier note, the 9 in Falcon 9 is the number of engines. So blue origin is somewhat picking up on their naming scheme. Or, by BO's scheme, it'd be the Falcon 9x1, or the Starship 33x6.
Re: New Glenn Update
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
That seems like a big jump between flights. I'm used to the spend and explode fast incremental iterations of SpaceX.
Seems BO is taking the NASA approach of not being so cavalier with testing. You can tell people you expect the thing to fail, but repeatedly seeing them fail is still seen as a negative.
Sad part is that even though SpaceX / Elon has been very clear about expected outcomes it's still used against them.
Re: New Glenn Update
#38I REALLY wish they would stop displaying ft, mi, lbs. It actually angers me.
Re: New Glenn Update
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
NASA still had much smaller jumps in capability between flights. Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk.
> Check out the Smarter Every Day NASA talk FYI, that talk was poorly received in the aerospace community. Destin missed that the entire point of Artemis is not to one and done the Moon again but build towards getting to Mars. And the repeated "we're going, right?" shtick was condescending in the same way Hegseth wanting generals to cheer and holler for him was. He acted like a petulant influencer. Not a science comm…
AFAICT it's "getting to Mars" for SpaceX and their ecosystem, and "sustainable cislunar economy" for Nasa, ULA and Blue Origin and their respective ecosystem. For example, see ULA's "cislunar 1000" concept from ~10 years ago.
Either way, your criticism of Destin's presentation hits. One and done'ing the Moon is not particularly helpful in setting up a sustainable cislunar economy.
Re: New Glenn Update
#40I REALLY wish they would stop displaying ft, mi, lbs. It actually angers me.
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