Blue Origin, LLC, the American aerospace manufacturer, and spaceflight services company founded by the richest person on Earth, has completed groundbreaking for a mammoth plant in Alabama that will build its new Blue Engine 4, or BE-4, rocket engine.
Blue Origin executives, civic leaders and those from the space industry and the federal government attended the groundbreaking for the $200 million rocket engine factory to be built in Huntsville, Alabama. Blue Origin was founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos, who also founded Amazon.com.
Apart from the standard BE-4, the factory will also produce a vacuum-rated version of Blue Origin's hydrogen-fueled BE-3 rocket engine (called BE-3U), which will be the power plant on New Glenn's upper stage.
"Blue Origin is all in on Alabama," said Blue Origin CEO Bob Smith.
He said it was a great day in Rocket City (the other name for Huntsville) during the groundbreaking, "and it will be that way for years to come" because of the Blue Origin facility.
With a size of 200,000 square feet, the facility will open in March 2020 and manufacture BE-4 rocket engines for Blue Origin's "New Glenn" heavy-lift rocket. BE-4 will also be the engine that powers United Launch Alliance's next-generation, semi-reusable "Vulcan" launch vehicle.
Liquid oxygen, liquid methane engine, BE-4 will generate 2,400 kilonewtons (550,000 pounds force) of thrust at sea level. In 2014, it was announced the BE-4 will power Vulcan launch vehicle, the successor to the iconic Atlas V launch vehicle that landed American astronauts on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. Up until today, the Atlas V is the most powerful rocket ever built.
BE-4 will be the power plant on New Glenn, Blue Origin's large orbital launch vehicle. New Glenn has a diameter of 7.0-meters (23 feet). It's a two-stage orbital launch vehicle with an optional third stage and a reusable first stage. First flight and orbital test for New Glenn is planned for 2021 at the earliest.
Seven BE-4s with a total thrust of nearly 4 million pounds will power the reusable first stage of New Glenn. It can lift 45,000 kg to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and 13,000 kg to geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
On the other hand, Vulcan is a heavy-lift launch vehicle under development since 2014 by ULA. It can lift a 34,900 kg payload to LEO and 16,300 kg to GTO. Two BE-4 engines will power Vulcan's first stage.
BE-4 engines are currently being built at Blue Origin's headquarters in Kent, Washington, and tested at the company's facility in West Texas. It's' still in the final phases of testing, but production is expected to be accelerated in advance of the first launches for the New Glenn and Vulcan, both of which are scheduled for 2021.
