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Blue Origin
A color-coded image shows an analysis of computational fluid dynamics for Blue Origin's proposed next-generation Space Vehicle.
In a rare news release, Blue Origin — the rocket venture backed by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff Bezos — says it has successfully tested the design for its orbital spaceship during a series of wind-tunnel tryouts.
Blue Origin is the most publicity-shy of four companies that are receiving $320 million from NASA to work on technologies for commercial space crew transports. (The other three are the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and SpaceX.) NASA aims to begin using commercial vehicles to send astronauts to the International Space Station as soon as 2017. During the next phase of funding, NASA aims to support at least two commercial space efforts, but some in Congress are pressuring the space agency to fund only one effort.
The fact that Blue Origin is involved in such a public competition to develop America's next-generation space taxis has led the company to become less reticent. Today's news release, detailing the wind tunnel tests, could be seen as part of that trend. Here's the full release, issued from the company's corporate headquarters in Kent, Wash.:
"Blue Origin successfully tested the design of its next-generation Space Vehicle, completing a series of wind tunnel tests to refine the aerodynamic characteristics of the spacecraft’s unique biconic shape. The tests were carried out as part of Blue Origin’s partnership with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) under the agency’s Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program. Blue Origin is designing the Space Vehicle to provide safe, affordable transport of up to seven astronauts to low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station.
"'Our Space Vehicle’s innovative biconic shape provides greater cross-range and interior volume than traditional capsules without the weight penalty of winged spacecraft,' stated Rob Meyerson, president and program manager of Blue Origin. 'This is just one of the vehicle’s many features that enhance the safety and affordability of human spaceflight, a goal we share with NASA.'
"The wind tunnel tests validated Blue Origin’s analysis of the Space Vehicle’s aerodynamics during descent through the atmosphere and the ability to change its flight path, increasing the number of available landing opportunities each day and enhancing the vehicle’s emergency return capability. More than 180 tests were conducted over the past several weeks at Lockheed Martin’s High Speed Wind Tunnel Facility in Dallas.
"Under CCDev, Blue Origin is maturing the design of the Space Vehicle, including its aerodynamic characteristics, culminating in a System Requirements Review in May of this year. Blue Origin will conduct tests of its pusher escape system later this year, demonstrating the ability to control the flight path of a subscale crew capsule using an innovative thrust vector control system. Also under CCDev, Blue Origin is conducting tests of the thrust chamber assembly (TCA) for the BE‑3 100,000-lbf liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen rocket engine, which was recently installed on the E‑1 complex test stand at NASA’s Stennis Space Center."
Blue Origin
Blue Origin's next-generation Space Vehicle undergoes wind tunnel tests to refine its innovative biconic shape.
NASA
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, right, discusses the upcoming testing of Blue Origin's BE-3 engine thrust chamber assembly with Blue Origin project manager Steve Knowles on the E-1 Test Stand at NASA's Stennis Space Center in south Mississippi.
In addition to the NASA-funded work on the orbital Space Vehicle, Blue Origin has a separate development program for a suborbital crew capsule and propulsion vehicle, designed to take passengers and scientific experiments past the boundary of outer space for a few minutes of weightlessness. That effort suffered a setback last year when a test vehicle crashed, but in a statement issued at the time, Bezos said the suborbital program was continuing. Later, Meyerson indicated that Blue Origin was committed to building a space launch system even if it took 30 years.
Where nations used to compete to get into space, now the competition focuses on private businesses, pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into next-generation spaceships. Msnbc.com science editor Alan Boyle reports from inside the rocket factories on the future of spaceflight.
More about Blue Origin and commercial space:
- Next steps in the new space race
- Blue Origin spruces up its rocket report
- Jeff Bezos reports crash of Blue Origin rocket ship
- Cosmic Log archive on the commercial space race
Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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I think that I am like a lot of people who just can't get excited by capsules. Where are the "spaceships" we were going to build? A capsule is just a can of meat - human meat to be sure, but meat-in-a-can none the less. This is the problem in firing up the public. I remember the space shuttle, a spaceship even if it was low earth orbit only. It looked like a spaceship and people supported it. As it is, why not paint these things like a can of Spam and at least bring in some advertising dollars.
Your right AZWarrior ....
Where's the windows .... ??
i'm sure that the real thing will have windows. wind tunnel models aren't always full detail.
@ AZ. people got excited about the Saturn V and the Apollo Capsules so this is no different. Even with the space shuttle, after the first few launches, interest in them dropped like crazy and people started to think of them as a waste of money. The problem isn't that we don't have space ships to "fire" up the public; the problem is that the public isn't fired up enough or places as much interest in space so that we can actually get policies that let us build spaceships. Too many people down here are too busy looking down at their smartphones to look up and see that our future is in space.
(sigh) Do you want pretty, or do you want functional...?
Do you want to get useful, desirable, even profitable things done in space, or do you want 'excitement?"
These are not always the same things.
After the first few of anything, people get used to it. Even going to the Moon. I know this, because it happened. Indeed, the perfect space project/mission is a dull one, where everything went pretty much as it should, with no drama. Any space project that depends on providing constant public thrills can only fail. But one whose development and operating costs can be kept so low that it stays under the radar of those who would use its budget for 'something more important on Earth' as it continues to achieve its intended goals and purposes will tend to go on as long as needed.
And even if you try to develop a better reusable launch vehicle(s), you'll get lots of whining from those who are antsy to get to the Moon/asteroids/Mars, and want nothing to do with a system that 'only' goes to boring, round-and-round, been there-done that LEO. Despite the fact that such systems are utterly necessary for what they want, if they want to do it on a continuing, affordable basis. Deep-space ships don't magically appear in LEO, something must take their components and propellants there for assembly, testing and departure.
Until we understand that, capsules with 21st Century technology, developed on lean commercial budgets are a perfectly valid way to go.
The current alternative is nothing, or something so unaffordable that the plug is soon pulled, and becomes nothing.
Now that's really keeping us up to date with the private space race Alan ....
This will turn out being so much more innovative I think ....
Streamlining more high tech efficient systems ....
To amalgamate the great ideas and great creativity of many usually produces something quite nice ....
Your posted video was really good ....
Thanks Alan ....
Holy!!! No way!!! Earth orbit!!! So glad we have these companies in "competition" instead of united in "collaboration." Give me a @!$%#ing break...
This ridiculous philosophy is sending us backwards.
That's Capitalism for ya.....
Use of the spam cans to get people into orbit just males sense in terms of cost. The true space ships must be built in orbit perhaps using raw material from asteroids.
The expenses of earth launch vehicles are holding back space exploration. Already, NASA is looking at doing the Mars landing by building the space ships for that by launching 'parts' and putting them together in orbit.
Essentially correct Paul, The current tech IS still the most effective way we have. One problem we have is "Star Trek-itis' People think it's simple to achieve L.E.O. By far, it' will be more efficient/cost effective to build long range spaceships in orbit or on the moon. We have to be patient,learn to crawl before we fly!!--S--
@Stephen
I'm not sure where you correlate people thinking it's easy to achieve L.E.O. with "Star Trek-itis". Any Trekkie worth their weight in gold pressed latinum know a space ship is built in a space dock in orbit of a planet or moon.
As for the rest of your statement, I agree. Using the current technology is the most cost effective as it has already been proven and doesn't need to be designed from "the ground up", so to speak, like engineering a new type of "space ship" would require. Case in point is Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser, which looks like a mini shuttle, is an old NASA design produced when the space shuttle was being developed. Now they are modifying the design of that rather than starting from scratch.
Why haven't we heard anything about space elevators in awhile? That is truly a cost effective system.
Incorrect, Currently, costs for the carbon-nanotube tech make it unviable.(un do-able also) It's a nice idea, tech. development? lagging.
Because the materials to build one do not yet exist. Carbon nano tubes have the potential but they need to be able to 1) show that their strength holds up at a macro scale and 2) Be able to be produced in sufficient quantities economically.
I think when we finally get to where we are going we will be surprise by how we got there.
....and the race presses on.....Neat capsule, like others, I know real space ships don't bounce, trek aside, the push for the nasp continues, I did not see a cosmic log article on the failed super, supersonic ship that tore apart a couple of days ago, just noting that I did not notice an article...as for this design...I like it, frank makes a very true statement above, basically in the engineering world, form follows function. I do wish all of them luck, and blue origin has been hard at work, obviously...one thing is for sure, as edision said, I have found 99 things that did not work. So we won't know unless we try, and meanwhile, the engineering envelope gets pushed further as we bring our light of knowledge into the unknown. I am all for real spaceships, at some point the design in capsules will, if nothing else, be most appreciated as escape pods in larger ships, perhaps ones made in orbit or ON the moon, but I guess it will take us many more capsules till we get to real spaceships, again, I do like the suttle shaping of this capsule, er, defacto space ship. One thing is for sure, gliders came before biplanes which came before multi engine large planes which came before, well before, the concord, for instance. Bring it on. This is all for a nasa contract....that is great, but I hope we all realize their is an even bigger industry, purpose, reason at hand and that, in the long run (centuries?) nasa won't be the only paying customer and leo WILL be the easy step of many a future journey. Note the dreams of spanish would be orbiting hotel operators, the dreams of chinese manufacturing bigwigs the dreams of canadian doctors wishing for cheaper better interferon, etc, etc etc. leave newt outta this. We are moving forward for now, and we are at a precarious junction, we hold the torch, we have stumbled, but we dare not drop it....others are all to eager to pick it up, set it down off world and break the silly treaty we all know as a fake glass ceiling. There was a book written in the sixties, balloon to the moon....all the naysayers said never in a million years....well, it's only been about fifty or sixty years now, nowhere near a million, a quick inventory of current tech says...of course it's possible, all thats left is someone to do it......been that way for a lot of things for quite a while now, kudus to blue origin. They are doing what they know they can do. the naysayers are now huddled again, gauging their hold on power and debating what to obsturct next, let's meet them head on this time.....no reds or blues, just us, the people. They naysayers only see one color anyways, it's called other peoples bright money green. A cool color that I hope Blue origin gets their fair share of. Let's make sure the people lobbying for only one commercial space company get pushed backwards, and the ones wisely opting for more than one get their fair time to be heard. Lest we end up right back here again, at square one.