Did they blow up a pad? Or just a test stand?
EDIT: Oh crap, they took out a launch complex.
Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
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Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#42There's got to be better way than burning a shittonne of fuel. Anyone else know?
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#43[dead]
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#44It is not clear what "full duration static fire" means, but if the stage was fully fueled, the fuel tank would have contained 1000 tons of methane. The heat of combustion of methane is 55 MJ/kg. TNT equivalent is defined as 4.2 MJ/kg. In terms of heat output (not blast or other effects) this would have been equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT. The first atomic bomb had yield of 20 kt TNT, of which about half was in heat…
Counting frames on YouTube, I get about 0.3s for the blast front to reach the top of the 600ft towers. That gives an estimate of around 600 tons TNT so definitely nowhere near all the fuel exploding.
how did you compute that?
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#45It is not clear what "full duration static fire" means, but if the stage was fully fueled, the fuel tank would have contained 1000 tons of methane. The heat of combustion of methane is 55 MJ/kg. TNT equivalent is defined as 4.2 MJ/kg. In terms of heat output (not blast or other effects) this would have been equivalent to 13 kilotons of TNT. The first atomic bomb had yield of 20 kt TNT, of which about half was in heat…
> TNT equivalent is defined as 4.2 MJ/kg.
It isn't this simple for liquid oxygen and methane mixtures, and there's a great deal of disagreement between industry and regulators over what the right percentage of TNT equivalence is. Naturally, industry thinks the percentage is low, and regulators are skeptical, so there's a government-run test campaign going on as we speak to collect data for proper modeling.
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#46Did they blow up a pad? Or just a test stand? EDIT: Oh crap, they took out a launch complex.
Pad. And one of the lightning protection towers. And the transporter-erector.
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
SpaceX will increase the lead from all potential competitors even further.
It's a static fire test. There weren't any payloads inside, this isn't very bad PR.
Not very bad, except that they lost the whole rocket, and damaged the launch complex. No big deal. What's a few hundred mil and a one year delay...
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#48I would guess this puts a big dent in NASA's moon plans. I think Blue origin was _just_ selected to be the first moon lander mission. Now they are going to be grounded _again_. They just got off grounded status last week! And this is not even going to mention the significant ground equipment damage they have to deal with. Very unfortunate all around. I hope BO finds a way to keep the timelines.
> Blue origin was _just_ selected to be the first moon lander mission Just a rover [1]. Blue Moon is one of the two lander contractors. But pretty much everyone thinks Artemis is Starship HLS or bust. Does Blue Origin not have another pad? (Did they blow up a pad or a test stand?) [1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-blue-origin-t...
>Blue Moon is one of the two lander contractors. But pretty much everyone thinks Artemis is Starship HLS or bust.
That isn't my impression of NASA/government opinion. Starship HLS is seen as the eventual option, as is obvious from the testing campaign. It'll get there eventually and offer unprecedented capability, but it's very clearly several years out.
Blue's option was being seen as the faster option due to having a less risky critical path. The rocket was already orbital, fewer refueling flights were needed, the engines weren't pushing the limits of materials technology, no reusable heat shield to worry about.
Though, ultimately it's worth keeping in mind that the landers aren't actually the current bottleneck in the program. The space suits are in total development hell.
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#49Would be really curious to learn more about how rocket scientists are using (or not using) LLMs.
This is a fair question on its own. It comes across as pretty disrespectful within the context of the thread.
Re: Blue Origin's New Glenn blows up during static fire test
#50Very unfortunate, but strategically this changes nothing for US spaceflight. If anything, SpaceX will continue to increase its dominance.
Blue Origin is challenging SpaceX - they are not the incumbent. I'm not sure how you can say that SpaceX will increase dominance despite this.
One can be the dominant player in a field and still increase dominance.