A Blue Origin rocket engine exploded during testing in June 2023. During a firing on June 30 at a West Texas facility, a BE-4 engine detonated about 10 seconds into the test, according to several people familiar with the matter. A dramatic explosion destroyed the engine and heavily damaged the test stand infrastructure.
NOTE: We only found out about the failed Blue Origin BE-4 rocket test 12 days after it happened. SpaceX engine and rocket tests results are immediately public and often live.
The engine that exploded was expected to finish testing in July. It was then scheduled to ship to Blue Origin’s customer United Launch Alliance for use on ULA’s second Vulcan rocket launch.
Which Vulcan and BE-4 Rocket Explosion?
There are other videos of earlier Vulcan rocket engine problems. These were different Vulcan, Centaur and BE-4 engine problems and explosions.
Please update me in the comments if anyone knows of FAA or civilian lawsuits to delay the development and testing of the Vulcan and other rockets. It looks like the Centaur and Vulcan rocket explosions destroyed test facilities. I would think the same groups protesting the SpaceX Starship would be similarly critical of the Vulcan rocket and BE4 engines. I know that everyone in the US is fair minded and not hypocritical.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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How much fun to see SS take off from Earth ,with humans and land on the Moon just like the old films of the 50’s?
Then they do their work and take off for home.
Starship looks like Rocketship XM.
Per NSF, the BE-4 engine was Flight Engine #3 (1 and 2 already cleared ATP test firing and are mounted on the first Vulcan). Apparently #3 previously failed ATP and was sent back for rework. Tory Bruno mentions a burn through caused the explosion, and some wording might imply the rework was the cause. The cause seems to be quickly known, and does not implicate #1 or #2 apparently, suggesting workmanship issues and not a design flaw.
The Centaur V upper stage for Vulcan that failed showed that (after new FEA was done), the Centaur V has less stress margin than previously thought. This combined with weaker than expected welds (Centaur V uses laser welds, Centaur 3 used arc welding), meant it wasn’t strong enough. Why the welds were under spec, and insufficient FEA done on the structural design is problematic. The fix for that is apparently reinforcing the top dome of the first Vulcan Centaur, adding about 300 lbs or so. Not clear if the same weight would be added on a pure new build Centaur V.
Talk of Mars is premature, lets get to the Moon. Mars needs Nuclear propulsion for humans. Go get thiose samples we have on Mars,that would be useful, we’ll give you $10 billion.
This is old news.
I suspect going to Mars is mostly a publicity campaign. Normies, which includes most politicians, celebrities, and podcasters can imagine colonizing a “nearby” planet much more easily than exoindustrialization, and rotating habitats in cislunar space, and beyond.
Additionally, travel to Mars is much less disruptive to current industries than exoindustrialization would be. Exoindustrialization is also a more practical way to lessen environmental degradation on earth than any other, other than mass extermination of humans.
Despite having a degree in physics, Musk is an eminently practical engineer. He realizes that colonizing Mars after developing an industrial base in cislunar space will be orders of magnitude easier than without that industrial base.
The starship will be fine for exploring mars, and setting up the first permeant bases on Phobos, Deimos, and Mars. For delivery of serious tonnage of industrial equipment to Mars Orbit, purpose made, built in cislunar space, largely automated vehicles will need to be developed. Remember, all the life support infrastructure will need to be ready before the average colonist gets there. It will be much easier to build it in cislunar space, and ship it to mars, than to build it on Mars. Likely a purpose built system, like an orbital tower, or rotavator will be needed for colonization. Both would be much easier on Mars than earth, because of the shallow gravity well, and thin atmosphere.
Depending on their composition, Phobos, and Demos could become transportation, and manufacturing hubs. They are much easier than the surface of Mars to reach from interstellar space. Use of tethers to lower cargo in landers would greatly reduce the speed needing to be shed. Other tethers would give cargos to Earth, or other places free energy, and momentum, and could reel in interstellar vehicles, or cargo saving reaction mass.
Using a rotating habitat in a cycling orbit between earth, and mars solves the problems of radiation exposure, and zero gee, delivering relatively healthy colonists to mars, and bringing back whatever is of value to earth. They are also the key to Martian tourism. The cycler(s) also serve as emergency evacuation should something go wrong. Building this, and other habitats from lunar, and asteroidial materials makes it cheaper, and easier. I would suggest the first cycler be named “Aldrin station” in honor of his discovery of the cycler concept, and following stations be named after ground breaking astronauts, and cosmonauts, particularly Yuri Gagarin, and Neil Armstrong. Eventually, a cycler might come by Mars every monthly.
I agree a cycler is a great way to move humans between Earth and Mars. I also agree that the equipment for a Mars colony won’t be built by humans, and won’t be shipped from Earth. It will be built by robots.
But it isn’t clear that the robots should mine and manufacture that equipment on the moon or asteroids. It might be simpler for them to mine and construct it on Mars itself. That has the downside of longer communication delays, but the upside of not needing to transport anything. They just build it directly where it’s needed.
Most of the mass of a colony on Mars would easily be native resources. Forget these fancy bespoke habitats Nasa likes, Martial colonists would likely live in plastic film balloons covered with protective sand bags. The plastic could be manufactured from water and CO2, and the dirt in the sandbags would be local.
The fittings would be imported at first, but most of the mass would be sand and polyethylene.
Musk has a perfectly understandable reason for picking Mars, though: He’s trying to build a “lifeboat” for Earth life, that requires it to be both self sufficient and far enough away from Earth that an extinction event on Earth probably wouldn’t take it out.
While the Moon is distinctly easier to reach, it is so close to Earth that it is unlikely to become self-sufficient for a very long time after being colonized, it just wouldn’t make economic sense to do it. And it’s close enough to Earth for most plausible extinction events to take out a Moon colony, too.
As far as general colonization prospects, leaving aside the lifeboat issue, the issues are mixed. The Moon is, of course, much easier to reach. OTOH, Mars is much richer in hydrogen and carbon, and certainly will have hydrothermal ore bodies, which the Moon will lack.
Mars has just enough atmosphere to be an annoyance for industrial purposes which require vacuum. So as a site for industrial work, the Moon is better.
A lot, IMO, comes down to an issue we have not yet established: How much gravity do humans really require for good health?
If 1/6 gravity is enough, then the Moon is very suitable for colonization as a site for off-Earth industry, but Mars doesn’t look bad as a place to live. Anything between 1/6 and 1/3 favors Mars.
If you need more that 1/3 gravity to be healthy, Mars looks much, much worse, because of that pesky atmosphere; you can’t build really large centrifuges on Mars easily, while building them on the Moon is actually easier than in orbit.
Really, before going too much further in the direction of Mars colonization, we need a long duration partial gravity research station, to settle this question. Musk’s plans may have to change drastically if humans need substantial gravity for health.
Elon does not care about lifeboats or humanity, still, SpaceX is the leader and will help development of LEO and the Moon.
Can someone,Brian,tell me what is the status of SX work with Ukrainian military? They used to use Starlink on Ukrainian drones ,but Elon has a fondness for genocidal dictators.So ,no more Starlink on drones.
I understand Elon’s need to get paid, but the US has deep pockets.and Starlink is really useful, just give us the bill.
President Xi has Musk by the balls. Tesla’s business in China depends on Musk kowtowing to Xi.
Word is, that it was caused by foreign object damage.
In other words, something that was not supposed to be there, was left in the engine during manufacture.
I know many people working for Big Blue, many of them I worked with before my retirement at KSC.
I hear very little that could be considered “Good” about Big Blue now a days.
Well, rocket engines do explode during testing occasionally, or else you’re not pushing the envelope. But that’s ordinarily during developmental testing, not during “test firing an engine you’re scheduled to ship to the customer” testing.
The best you can say here is that at least it exploded on the test stand, not under the rocket. If BO is doing proof testing, running the engines at a higher power level than would be used during normal operation, it’s not even a bad thing.
It does however underscore just how badly BO is doing compared to SpaceX, especially considering that they got started substantially sooner.
I’ll say it again: Slow and steady may win the race if you’re racing against a lazy hare who keeps taking breaks. It doesn’t win the race if you’re racing against a marathon running hare that barely slows down during hydration breaks and is lapping you repeatedly.
However, if the hare has as its goal a Marathon and the tortoise has as its goal a 5k, then the tortoise stands a good chance at winning.
Interpretation: Lunar settlement vs Martian settlement with Mars round trip 70X! greater than lunar round trip.
But SpaceX IS going to the Moon, they’ve got a contract with NASA to do it.
Meanwhile, how many tons has BO, which was founded earlier than SpaceX, put into orbit? Any tons at all?
The fact is, as things currently go, the only way BO is colonizing the Moon is if they hire SpaceX to get them there.
“I know that everyone in the US is fair minded and not hypocritical.”
Opps! Forgot the ‘/sarc’ mark.
Sigh.
SpaceX has sited Starbase in a wetland area. Which you pretty much have to if you want to launch anywhere but a polar orbit. Wetlands are protected areas for very good reasons. They are where many economically important denizens of the Gulf of Mexico go through at least part of their lifecycle. Texas coastal wetlands are especially valuable because Texas has a long coastline with plenty of freshwater influx and is relatively undeveloped. They are also important flyways for migratory birds. So yeah, it is going to attract the attention of environmentalists.
The BO test facility in question is near Van Horn, which is one of the places that BO tests their engines, is in far West Texas. It is a desert area and not a protected wetland area. It is nowhere near the same environmentally. And thus, won’t attract the same sort of attention, regardless of how people view Musk or Bezos. Besides, I’d be surprised if there are fewer Bezos haters than Musk haters.
Playing the victim card is not a good look for anyone.
SpaceX haters hit hardest.
I wonder if the green mob will respond?