Blue Origin Prepares To Produce Hundreds of BE-4 Engines

Right now, Blue Origin is trying its best to create more flight-capable BE-4 engines than ever before. With current and future demand soaring, what once was an engine stuck in development, is now the backbone of hundreds of future missions. This bump in production will need to be nearly perfect as rockets such as ULA’s Vulcan and eventually New Glenn begin to fly.
Blue Origin has two main factories producing these engines among others, one in Washington and one in Alabama. Recently we learned that one of the company’s relatively new factories is starting to outperform the other and a lot faster than expected. This is a good sign for the company and a pattern they will need to keep up.
While the BE-4 engine test stand explosion a few months ago was not ideal, Blue Origin and Tory Bruno assured everyone that it was human error rather than a problem with the engine itself. By now they have moved past that anomaly and are focusing on maximizing engine production. Here I will go more in-depth into the current engine production, what the future demand will look like, whether or not Blue Origin can keep up, and more.
Full article here - thespacebucket.com/how-is-be-...
For more space-related content check out - thespacebucket.com/
Credit:
ULA - / unitedlaunchalliance
Blue Origin - / blueoriginchannel
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
0:53 - Factory Progress
3:40 - BE-4 Development

[@Wrangler-fp4ei]

Good Update, thank you for you're hard work!

[@joansparky4439]

just in case.. it's "your" not "you're"

[@markhollis5850]

I am having trouble understanding why they would start making lots of engines without ever, once, having flown them.

[@roberthayes5037]

Absolutely hit it on the nail.

[@aktab9]

Cus raptor has also successfully failed to put starship anywhere and be 4 is way under stressed than the raptor and is both larger and produces much more thrust. In simple words. There is only one engine made in America which can replace the Rd 180 in both thrust and capabilities. which is no longer available after the invasion of Ukraine.

[@TheMoneypresident]

Let's hope everyone is successful and safe. Get there when you can.

[@MrEd2291]

2024 is a make it or break it year for both Blue Origin and ULA. I wish them both good luck, but continued delays past 2024 means SpaceX will have to start taking over.

[@MaxStax88]

I don’t think so, space x is already in a big lead. But there is just too much going on for space x to do everything themselves. I don’t think 24 will break either company because BO has enough money to keep it going forever

[@MrEd2291]

The military contracts for ULA start in 2024 and then ULA has a contract for 60% and SpaceX for 40%. NASA has a launch contract for Blue Origin in 2024. Sierra Space has said they can launch on multiple vehicles if ULA is not ready in early 2024. I hope Blue Origin and ULA both succeed, but they cannot keep coming up with excuses. As you said, SpaceX has a big lead in both technology and 80% of the world's launch weight to orbit.

[@MaxStax88]

@@MrEd2291 they will be successful

[@MaxStax88]

@@MrEd2291 I am curious as to where did you get those numbers from? The government contract percentages? Just purely curious is all

[@iamaduckquack]

Eh, ULA is too important the the US. They'll just bail them out.

[@dissaid]

Thanks man! 😎😎😎

[@Cooky00123]

Wake me up when they actually put something, anything into orbit.

[@ChristLink-Channel]

I reckon you are in for a loooooong nap!

[@i-love-space390]

Elon Musk said that building a rocket is hard, but mass producing a rocket is the hardest. Huntsville has a storied history in spaceflight. Glad to see them coming online and moving forward. We need a diverse Aerospace ecosystem in the United States in order to support our nation in future endeavors and maintain our lead. We can't depend on one company to take America forward. It is never good to give any one company that kind of power, no matter how much we like them. Right now, we have a lot of promising companies making progress. Sierra Space is another great company. Rocket Lab is also making progress in reusability and is designing a Falcon 9 class vehicle next.

[@joansparky4439]

Why do you need to maintain a lead? What's the argument there please?

[@michaelreid2329]

Hooly dooly. We've not even seen a launch of a prototype New Glen or Vulcan rocket. It seems that there is a steep learning curve for any rocket design following the initial launch, so there is something of a disconnection with reality in both BO and ULA hopes for immediate success.

[@Nowhereman10]

Sort of like SpaceX, right?

[@joansparky4439]

​ @ Nowhereman10 The difference is that SX iterates faster. Much faster.

[@michaelreid2329]

We've seen LOTS of testing from SpaceX, and watched the development of both the Facon series and now the Starship series. It has been surprising to see some of the little things that have caused failures that could/should have been caught during modelling and design but failed at time of physical kaunch or testing that leaves me wondering how BO or ULA can be confident about initial launch success.

[@joansparky4439]

​ @ michaelreid2329 I think the argument goes along the lines of - because they take their sweet time and are very thorough, so that they will catch most of those little things before they become a problem.. and this might be correct. Personally I think this is not really the interesting question/difference though. What I'm wondering about is how the agile vs the slow processes compare on the big scales.. SX obviously changes major stuff along the way and adopts the design, sometimes makes even radical changes after it has found something not working as expected or not scaling up as expected. The slow meticulous process that BO et al follow would need to catch those cases just by thinking about the problem before they have even touched a single piece of machinery/hardware.. this is taking up a lot of time and requires a lot of experience IMHO (I personally work in a similar fashion, but I always wonder how the bigger results I get would look like if I was more iterative and less afraid of smallish failures - like SX).

[@akira28shima32]

Sue Origin having more engineers than lawyers is good step forward to try to get to orbit.

[@liquidpatriot4480]

Too bad bozos can't sue his rockets into orbit, New Glenn would have been flying years ago😂

[@setituptoblowitup]

@@liquidpatriot4480 you got it not enough baldy hate 👊❤️‍🔥

[@RevMikeBlack]

If BE-4 production is going so well, then why are Amazon shareholders, including the Teamsters pension fund, suing Amazon and Jeff Bezos for not moving the Kuiper project forward in a timely manner?

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Was just going to say. If BO produces 10 BE-4s before the end of 2024 I will be very surprised.

[@MaxStax88]

Hahahahaha, this is just the very beginning. I can’t wait to for BO to shut all you SX fanboys up hahahahahahahaha

[@iamaduckquack]

​@@MaxStax88Hopefully. Competition is good. There just isn't any right now.

[@bosshog8844]

@@MaxStax88 that is not an argument.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

@@MaxStax88 What goes on in that puny mind of yours...

[@Sammy19327]

Im looking forward to BE-4's first flight test. Got my scuba tanks and float bags ready for collecting some rocket parts from the ocean.

[@ChristLink-Channel]

IT would be nice to see one of these engines actually fly, and maybe even survive... How many years behind SpaceX will that be?

[@rbrtck]

Well, the BE-4 is considered operational or nearly so, and the two that are waiting to fly now have passed certification testing for a rocket that is expected to immediately become operational, while the Raptor is still in development. The latter might have flown first, due to SpaceX's "hardware-rich" development program that flies incomplete prototypes for "guaranteed excitement" (and flight data), but that doesn't mean the Raptor is ahead. In fact, it's "behind", in the sense of development. Of course, when the Raptor becomes operational (as the Raptor 3, perhaps?), it will automatically be far "ahead" in the sense of technology and level of performance, and for that matter, it already is (the current Raptor 3 prototype has greater thrust than the BE-4 with greater fuel efficiency despite being a fraction of the size and mass--incredible!).

[@flechette3782]

I will believe it when I see it...and then may still not believe it.

[@nightlightabcd]

Haven't they been preparing to make hundreds of these engines for about ten years now, holding up a good part of the space program because so many contracted with them for engines and have not yet produced!

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

FYI. For most of those last ten years BO was working on developing the Be-4 and it is only in the last year or so that they felt that they could ramp up production to that 100 engines.

[@nightlightabcd]

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 - I hope they work right! Best of luck to them! But I thunk we all know that the B4 engine is a obsolete engine and a political and overpriced jobs program even before it's first successful rocket launch with their main production being loosing law suits.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

@@nightlightabcd On what do you base the claim that the Be-4 engine is obsolete? I sure wasn't aware of that, but then I never thought of myself as part of the "we all know" crowd?!

[@ChristLink-Channel]

Oh come on! They made two already, after all these years, so they aren't THAT far behind! Elon is only turning out a few dozen every month, so I'm sure BO can catch up! (Well, maybe by the turn of the century, or so....)

[@rbrtck]

If these are images of the operational BE-4, then it looks rather complicated, doesn't it? It looks like a larger, even more complicated counterpart to the early SpaceX Raptor engine, before it was simplified.

[@MakaiMauka]

Maybe just one that won't explode first....

[@noli-timere-crede-tantum]

0:47 "Remove before flight" - I bet you this was the "human error" that caused the prior explosion: someone forgot to remove that tag :(

[@jamescobban857]

Why are BO factories always completely inactive? They look like movie sets. If BO are building rocket engines why do we not SEE them building rocket engines. From one assembly line SpaceX is already producing engines at almost an order of magnitude higher rate than BO plans to produce in 2024 from two factories. The Raptor has already been enhanced to have greater thrust than BE-4 with greater fuel efficiency. SpaceX has announced that it intends to build 36 Starship upper stages in 2024. Those alone will require between 216 and 324 Raptors, plus however many boosters. Every operational medium to heavy lift booster is at end of life: Ariane5, Delta IV Heavy, Soyuz, Atlas-Centaur, Antares, and all of the proposed replacements: Ariane6, Vulcan-Centaur, Firefly's Antares replacement, and New Glenn, have been delayed to first flight in 2024 or 2025. By the end of 2023 SpaceX clearly intends to have launched Starship *five times* and two of those flights will deliver the first tranches of the Starlink V2 heavy satellites, while BO and ULA are months, if not over a year away from delivering the first Kuiper satellites. We need competition in space launch capability but BO and ULA do not show any signs of urgency.

[@bobjoatmon1993]

Very good post, covering everything I thought of

[@joansparky4439]

Nah, you're just a SX fanboy. ^^ that's sarcasm 🙃

[@joansparky4439]

_"We need competition in space launch capability but BO and ULA do not show any signs of urgency."_ Right now it looks like (with Elon at the helm) SX is not needing any (outside) competition at all.. the drive to innovate and optimize their systems and operations economically is as high (or maybe even higher) as any serious competitor would be able to apply to them. This request for 'competition for competitions sake' also misses the point for WHY we (as a society) need competition among suppliers (ignoring redundancy for assured access to space for a moment there). Competition in a market has only ONE job - increasing the supply to be able to meed demand at current cost of technological creation of that supply. SX is already doing that - increasing the supply to meet demand at cost. This is why they do not need any competition right now. The moment SX needs competition is when they turn into ULA - trying to restrict the supply so that the existing demand is FORCED to pay above cost to get its supply - which is where economic profit comes from. Economic profit (revenue > cost) is nothing else than an incentive for competition to join in on the supply side to increase the supply as demand obviously outstrips that at current cost of production (which is why there is profit to be made). Once competition has increased the supply to meet demand (at prod cost) that profit VANISHES and the market is working as efficiently as possible. SX is doing this right now all on its own. This is why ULA/BO are so lifeless - ULA is propped up by the governmental demand of assured access to space, bringing redundancy to the table and BO is living of Jeff's nest-egg - neither of them is hungry and incentivized to earn economic profits from a market where supply

[@beloved_lover]

Have you thought about the possibility that ULA and BO operate differently than Spacex? Sure it's nice that SpaceX is rather open to media, and there's a lot of content made by fans, which build up huge following. BO mostly operates behind closed doors, showing us what they want. ULA has largely been launch provider for national security launches and they've liked to keep low profile, while Tory is still doing great job being the face for ULA.* And the whole point of BE-4 is to make it stupid reliable. That's why it's a high power design that's limited to much low performance. While Raptor is pushed to its limits. Again two different approaches and both can work fine. Raptor has had its issues also as we've seen on the two Starship test flights. And it is good to remember that Raptor has not done any missions yet, and the initial plan to launch first ships to Mars is already delayed by several years also.

[@bobjoatmon1993]

@@beloved_lover of course I've considered that the different companies have different cultures and approaches but ULA has the deep military - industrial complex roots whereas Jeff Bezos company is risk adverse like NASA. SpaceX is open and transparent for good and bad so I believe this will result in more success in the long run

[@richardh8082]

Does it even work?

[@ChristLink-Channel]

Ask again in 2026, and we might know by then. Maybe...

[@Bingqilinghenhao]

It flew on the centaur jan 8 2022

[@HChandler2010]

That's all Blue Origin does is prepare

[@scoobiesnatches]

We shall see, they just laid off half their recruiting team. So growth and hiring aren’t a priority anymore.

[@rpereira1973]

If Amazon shifts the satellite launch to space X, I wonder what will be of blue origin and ULA!!!

[@mikedicenso2778]

They won't. Despite what you may hear, even SpaceX has its limits. They only few a couple OneWeb launches while ISRO and GSLV-MKIII flew the others. The Globalstar launches are two years at least in the future. And Kuiper is not going to send money to its biggest rival. On top of that, the first launches for Kuiper are scheduled to fly on 9 Atlas Vs. The contract is structured so that Atlas flies first with Kuiper, then Vulcan, then Ariane 6, and then New Glenn. And New Glenn only has 12 launches compared to Altas and Vulcan with 47 and Arian 6 with 18.

[@carlbrown5150]

It would be nice to see one get off the freaking ground. How many years has it been in production 15?!!🙄

[@jamesolson9498]

I'm watching this the day after BE-4 took ULA to the moon. This simple act makes a lot of the comments BO I've seen to this post seem really dumb now.

[@ricmrodrigues]

This a trolling video?

[@mbj__]

Been to orbit yet?

[@benyomovod6904]

Fly to space before you increase production

[@WWeronko]

The United States needs another launch provider to compete with massively dominant SpaceX. The first half of 2023, SpaceX launched more tonnage to orbit than all the world's providers times four. I greatly admire SpaceX, however, even the most innovative companies need competition nipping at their heels for motivation. At the present no company or country can give SpaceX even a semblance of competitive pressure. Hopefully, Blue Origin's New Glenn, ULA's Vulcan, ESA's Ariane VI, JAXA's H-III, and Northrop Grumman's Antares 300 series rockets can offer competitive pressure on SpaceX.

[@wva5089]

I agree competition is good.. but competition is only required when they don't provide the value they could.. no need to have two cows when the one produces milk just fine. besides.. if you had two.. one might slack in typical government fashion.

[@Snookers_]

@@wva5089 It's less about competition and more about risk mitigation. Sure, the reason monopolies have been illegal for more than a century has largely served to promote competition, however, there is another key thing the Sherman Act accomplishes (which you kind of hinted at): it protects consumers. If the US allowed/encouraged SpaceX to monopolize the launch industry, they would essentially be allowing SpaceX to be one of the most powerful entities on Earth. Sure, it's probably unlikely for SpaceX to ever act maliciously, but if they have a monopoly on space, they are at least able to, and the US won't take that risk. Unrelated to your comment, another reason I think the launch industry has so much (and growing) competition is lobbying. Politicians which are paid by the defense industry are encouraged to try and grow the defense industry to be paid more. Why would they ever try to defund something which helps to line their pockets?

[@iamaduckquack]

​@@wva5089and what if something unforseen happens to your one and only good cow?

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Difference is that SpaceX is motivated to press on and develop and breakneck speed, even without the competition or customers. Musk's goal is Mars and he means it, with or without NASA. Other launch providers are there for the jobs and money.

[@machineman7806]

That's not happening or going to happen

[@plainText384]

I wonder what will happen to these reusable rocket engine factories, once their launch vehicles become reusable. SpaceX might only need 2 or 3 boosters and maybe half a dozen Ships to cover all the demand for Starship. So once those engines are produced, they'd only need new ones for occasional non-reusable extra-planetary missions and then after a couple years to replace vehicles that reach end of life. Similarly BlueOrigin might only need a handful of New Glenn booster (depending on turn around time and demand for its weight class) and New Glenn might only need a handful of engine sections, that they can keep reusing over and over. So these factories might have to go from producing hundreds of engines per year, to producing only a couple spare parts and maybe producing a couple engines years later when the first engines reach end of life.

[@mikedicenso2778]

Same thing with what happened with Merlin production or with aircraft engines. There will need to be a stock piling of ready to go engines, just in case and Huntsville is also producing the BE-3U engine for New Glenn's 2nd stage, which for now is expendable. So, they will throttle down in production for BE-4, but it's not as bad as you might think, especially as new boosters will be needed from-to-time to fulfill launch cadence surges as has been the case with Falcon 9 and Merlin.

[@plainText384]

@mikedicenso2778 Well Falcon9/ Falcon heavy often expend boosters to deliver heavier payloads and every launch needs at least one new Merlin engine. Another significant difference is scale, Falcon9 is much smaller than Starship, New Glenn and even Vulcan. As such, it needs to be launched more often to to deliver the same amount of payload, and there are lots of customers that can't go with a smaller rocket. For these new larger rockets there will probably not be enough demand to justify launching multiple times per week as there will be many payloads that will prefer a dedicated F9, Neutron, Soyuz, VegaC or Electron instead of waiting for a rideshare on a larger rocket. Additionally, Starship (and New Glenn) are designed for faster turnaround and more reuses compared to F9, meaning their fleet can be significantly smaller than SpaceX's fleet of Falcon9 boosters. Furthermore, a large part (more than half, I believe) of the demand for Falcon9 is already launching Starlink. Similarly, much of New Glenn's and Vulcan Centaur's demand comes in the form of Kuiper satellites. Once these constellations are done, demand and launch frequency will drop of massively, as they will only need to replace failed satellites, and there will be a couple years of break between the completion of constellation and the end-of-life of the first satellites to be delivered.

[@snake88ification]

Wow . 😂 You live in fantasy land. First of all, you assume SpaceX and Blue Origin will achieve an orbital reusable heavy lift Rocket. Secondly, you assume they'll be reliable. LoL. Take a few steps back.

[@Starshipsforever]

@@plainText384 Vulcan Centaur is a "dial-a-rocket" design, hence the ability to add or subtract SRBs as is needed. Without them, Vulcan by itself, just the core, is a couple tons less capable than a recoverable F9.

[@bobjoatmon1993]

If, and I say again if SpaceX does get the investors to start the Mars colonization effort (and I'd invest in a heartbeat) then SpaceX will need over 300 Superheavy boosters and between 600 to 800 Starships depending on task / purpose (freighters, fuel tankers, planetary shuttles and finely Mars landers. Some of these aren't going to get used but once... Like a max load to Mars where land and get cannibalized (example payload: a small nuclear reactor then on another flight the generator because solar cells just won't hack it on Mars at night or in the winter)

[@michaelmurphy6195]

The BE-4 hasn't flown yet, and preparing is like thinking about doing something!

[@thomasackerman5399]

The title for the video is a bad one and it's one they often go to, interestingly enough "So-and-so Prepares to do X". It really should be something more like "Signs That Blue Origin is Ramping Up BE-4 Production" or "BE-4 Production is Ramping Up".

[@michaelmurphy6195]

@@thomasackerman5399 Well, I don't think they had any more ramp to go down!

[@markmaz56]

Maybe get one to actually fly before mass producing them! 🤦🏻‍♂

[@ryanpeeples6998]

I sure hope their ramp up goes well, but I’ll believe it when I see it. BO has not done well with engine/ new glen development tbh

[@Nowhereman10]

The ramp up has already happened and is increasing, that's what the point of the video and mentioning how one factory is overtaking and replacing the other in providing engines.

[@ryanpeeples6998]

@@Nowhereman10 I just do not believe BOs word that everything is ramping up and going smoothly. I want to see proof of the ramp up, and this means many, many successful flights of the BE-4, and there have been zero.

[@Nowhereman10]

@@ryanpeeples6998 Nothing has been said by Blue about that. Where did you ever get that idea from? Tory Bruno said it and the photos and video show that many engines are in work is proof of it.

[@kokomo9764]

Hahahaha. Good luck with that. 😂😂

[@hypercomms2001]

Go Blue!

[@alanhart9992]

LOL.

[@michellamontagne4600]

Lol

[@timestampterrysassistant7638]

BE-4 production will make or break BO/ULA 🎰

[@juliancrooks3031]

Only if it works

[@MaxStax88]

No it won’t lol, BO has enough money to produce thousands of these engines then scrap all of them and push plans back to late 2050’s and still be relevant lol. So don’t expect anything to happen to BO ever

[@timestampterrysassistant7638]

@@MaxStax88 surely 🙂

[@SyntheticSpy]

@@MaxStax88by 2055 the person funding blue origin, Bezos, will be 91, assuming he lives to that age. If they delayed until then I don’t believe they would still have any form of funding

[@hughwitherington7956]

Blue Origin to date has been all bark and no bite ! It's really disappointing to continually hear about progress when in fact the only thing going upward is cost! The BE4 does seem a promising engine from design concept but so far that's all we have seen, promise ! At the current rate of progress Elon will be on Mars before Blue Origin takes flight.!

[@plainText384]

Elon will never personally land on Mars in his life. And Blue Origin has already taken flight with one of their vehicles, New Shepard.

[@Starshipsforever]

There's no hint that SpaceX will reach Mars with Starship anytime soon. Elon Time put it at 2022-2024, but that obviously hasn't happened and even if Starship successfully flies on the next attempt, it'll be many years before they even attempt an unmanned landing on Mars with it. And New Shepard has flown almost two-dozen times since 2015 and before that, they flew Goddard, Charon, and PM2.

[@SyntheticSpy]

@@Starshipsforeverwhile you are correct about New Shepard, they meant an orbital class rocket, which is a whole different beast

[@erics6592]

I doubt if BO/ULA can fly consistently. Just too many problems over too many years.

[@goodgremlinmedia2757]

Still utterly moronic that they chose Vulcan to launch Keiper.

[@Hoopaball]

Switching production lines because your main line is being out performed by your prototype line is very bad. Dynetics had plans for an F-1B, with 2.2M lbs thrust, ready to go 10 years ago, and it still seems like a viable option today. How Bezos managed to screw over ULA while being in direct competition with them is beyond me. BO has never achieved orbit and neither have their engines.

[@Mentaculus42]

IFUSāSō! Let’s check back next year.

[@paulmichaelfreedman8334]

Some are good with words (Bezos + goons), some are good at deeds (Musk).

[@Hoopaball]

@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 "Acta non Verba." - Deeds not Words.

[@Mentaculus42]

@@paulmichaelfreedman8334 And some drink the Fool-Aid that is so generously dispensed. Some are adults and some are children!

[@mikedicenso2778]

Plans are plans and those never got past the testing of a single 3D-printed part. Aerojet Rocketdyne had plans for AR1, but sat on them waiting for more money from the Air Force, and never did more than test a few parts at time when Blue had tested full powerpacks, and then full scale engines.

[@clydecox2108]

Please slow down just a tad and riddle me this. When did Mars grow a magnetosphere?

[@dkd1228]

Yeah. I was always told that Mars lacks much of an atmosphere because the solar wind blew it off over the eons, due to the lack of a magnetosphere.

[@MaxStax88]

I don’t know what your getting at here but the planet doesn’t have one.

[@clydecox2108]

@Josh, that’s my point. In the video he says there’s one.

[@bosshog8844]

Expendable systems are so last century.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

You need to put that in perspective. It is only 8 years ago that Space X first landed the Falcon 9 booster. Every other rocket system Vulcan, New Glenn and Arienne 6 were already in development at time and did not foresee beforehand the leap in advancement that Space X made in relanding and reusing booster stages. So they will have to wait for the next generation of rockets to come along to include reusability. Now BO is talking about reusing its Be-4 engines down the road and Rocket Lab is aggressively working on reusable boosters. Progress is coming, some just slower than others.

[@Nowhereman10]

@@michaeldeierhoi4096 Um, New Glenn's 1st stage is reusable, been that way from the beginning, and Blue Origin has pushed the same reuse strategy as SpaceX. In fact, they were working on vertical landing of boosters long before SpaceX decided to go that route. New Shepard, remember that? Vulcan is starting off fully expendable, but is going to be worked into partial reuse with the SMART recovery of the engines. That's been a thing for many years since its inception as a program.

[@michaeldeierhoi4096]

@@Nowhereman10 That's all good news then. Of course we have to see New Glenn and Vulcan actually launch at some point to put that reusability plan into place. I am more confident that ULA will get Vulcan into orbit eventually maybe even by the end of this year.. New Glenn I'm not feeling the same confidence for because ULA has a track record of getting into orbit while BO does not. And BO has been rather opaque about their progress. I can wait.

[@iamaduckquack]

And I have a size 69 shoe.

[@paranaenselol]

Ol

[@pierredemontigny8154]

Why would anybody launch on a disposable rocket when there is a much cheaper option. Good luck catching up to SpaceX.

[@_mikolaj_]

Better performance and a cheaper rocket? Idk if you know, but in next NSSL-3 contracts Vulcan launches are beating out Falcons both in low costs and number of launches.

[@joansparky4439]

@ _mikolaj_ How come - if the first tranche of those "contracts" are out for bidding by late 2024 at the earliest?

[@Starshipsforever]

New Glenn is reusable, much in the same way as New Shepard and Falcon 9, just a lot bigger. Vulcan Centaur may become partially reusable by recovering the engine section.

[@pierredemontigny8154]

@@Starshipsforever greetings, new, Glen is supposed to be reusable, but so far it is just renders and hype. At the rate blue origin is going it will be another 10 years before they get to orbit.

[@pierredemontigny8154]

@@_mikolaj_ greetings, that remains to be seen. Vulcan has not even flown yet.

[@jimabbey9544]

Yeah riiight LMFAO took them forever getting just 2 (two) engines to ULA!

[@mushmouth]

Im gunna go with spacex.

[@hughwitherington7956]

I'm real pleased that Blue Origin got one rocket off. That's progress... I think that's progress. Something is definitely not working, not going to plan . We don't know what the problem is? Does anyone ?

[@roberthayes5037]

BO haven’t been in space yet. They aren’t even reliable for that matter. Oh well, who cares.