What Blue Origin is Up To

[Yazata]

It's starting to look like Orbital Reef has run aground. Blue Origin is devoting its attention to its Blue Moon lander, while Sierra Space (Blue's partner on Orbital Reef) is concentrating on its Dream Chaser space plane. The Orbital Reef website hasn't been updated in a year and now there's talk that the two companies are trying to unwind their joint program and go their own ways.

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/28/blue-ori...limbo.html

But even if Orbital Reef doesn't happen, Axiom and several other companies like Vast are working on their own private space station plans.

[Yazata]

What appears to be a New Glenn first-stage test tank has rolled out at Cape Canaveral, for tank pressure tests I assume.

Photo by Nasaspaceflight.com

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[confused2]

^^^ Nicely painted. Kind of aspirational - Elon just blows 'em up without bothering to paint them first.

[Yazata]

A complete New Glenn rolled out to Blue's Cape Canaveral launch pad today for fueling and pressure tests. This is a test article and not a flight article, though they do hope to fly one later this year.

Blue Origin photos

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I'm guessing the guy on the right in the photo below is Jeff Bezos. New Glenn is a big rocket, some 98 meters tall.

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[Yazata]

Cryo-testing of the fully-stacked New Glenn is occurring as I write this - frost on the vehicle and vapor visible around it.

[Yazata]

It's starting to look like Orbital Reef has run aground.

Or maybe not.

Blue recently published an article in Nature in which they provided more information about their Orbital Reef space station.

I think that Blue has given Orbital Reef a low priority while they devote their attention to New Glenn and to their Artemis lander. But Orbital Reef is still in their plans for further down the line when the ISS is retired.

Unfortunately, along with so many European webpages, Nature won't let people look at its content unless they accept all of its marketing cookies. They say that by clicking 'accept' you agree to them sharing your data with their marketing customers. Like hell I do. So I couldn't read the article.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41526-024-00363-x

But people who did read it have posted comments:

"For the first time, specific components and features of the station are known. Notably, Orbital Reef can host 10 astronauts at a time, and has 91% the pressurized volume of the ISS, equivalent to a Boeing 777 cargo.

In addition, there is a 2 floor research module to conduct various types of science, with external payload capability."

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[Yazata]

Just saw an interesting article on New Glenn by Irene Klotz in Aviation Week.

The trip by New Glenn to the pad described up above was what Blue called an Integrated Tanking Test. They loaded cryogenic fluids into the ship and detanked. That New Glenn did not have engines installed and the cryo-fluid was liquid nitrogen, not live propellant.

That booster is indeed the booster slated for their first test flight, though the second stage will be different.

Blue says that they are determined to fly New Glenn this year, and will do it even if there's some risk (to the vehicle, not the public). They say that they hope to get in two flights this year.

The BE-4 engines for the first flight are currently being tested at Blue's west Texas site east of El Paso.

And Blue says the first flight attempt will include a landing attempt for the first stage. They told Irene that they are confident that the landing will work because of all their experience landing their New Shephard suborbital tourist rocket. New Glenn will use essentially the same software.

So it sounds like Blue is showing more urgency than we've seen from them in the past.

[Yazata]

Blue conducted a successful human spaceflight of their New Shephard suborbital tourist rocket today. It was the first flight with people aboard since a New Shepard booster suffered a mishap during ascent a year ago, during an uncrewed flight. The in-flight abort system worked as planned in that one, and if there had been people aboard they would have been ok.

There's been at least one uncrewed flight since return-to-flight, before today's flight with six people aboard. All returned safely under two parachutes in Blue's capsule, after a trip up above the Karman line.

There was supposed to be three parachutes, but one didn't fully inflate. The chutes are redundant and two are sufficient, as we saw today. But the FAA will almost certainly require a mishap report, particularly as there were people aboard.

This was the 25th New Shepard flight and the seventh human spaceflight.

And the booster landed successfully too:

(Blue Origin photo)

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[Yazata]

Photo showing one of the three parachutes not fully open.

(Blue Origin photo)

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