Blue Origin’s New Shepard
Step by Step, Ferociously!
Just as the Virgin Group founder and Billionaire Sir Richard Branson ventured off into space on his suborbital Space Plane VSS Unity, air launched by Eve (the Mother Ship) on 11th July, marked the beginning of a whole new chapter in space tourism. Now, his competitors are racing against time to prove that their launch experience will be worth it. Today we take a look at Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and specifically their New Shepard launch vehicle that is next in line to launch a crew of 4 into space.
The Company
Blue Origin was founded by the world’s richest man and former CEO of Amazon group Jeff Bezos in the year 2000 (even before SpaceX, which was founded in 2002). Blue Origin’s motto is “Gradatim Ferociter” which is Latin for: Step by Step, Ferociously. The Feather being their logo is a symbol of perfection of flight. Unlike Elon Musk’s idea to colonize Mars, Bezos believes that orbital habitats are the future of humanitarian existence and to give Earth enough time to recover from the already caused damage rather than colonizing other planets.
Blue Origin decided to perfect sub orbital launch and recovery of launch vehicles before going orbital. It began tests on low altitude experimental test beds like Charon and Goddard(named after Pluto’s largest moon and Robert Goddard: Pioneer in liquid fueled rocketry respectively). Charon was powered by 4 Rolls-Royce Viper Mk. 301 engines and was used to test and evaluate the autonomous guidance and control technologies. Goddard on the other hand was a larger test bed powered by 9 in house designed and built BE-1 engine that ran on Hydrogen Peroxide for PM-1 and 5 BE-2 Kero-lox pump fed engine on PM-2(PM-2 was terminated mid flight due to loss of contact from ground station). Testing was completed by 2006 and development of a completely new reusable suborbital commercial launch vehicle was pursued later on which would be built on this foundation.
The New Shepard
New Shepard is a VTVL (Vertical Take-Off and Vertical Landing) human certified single stage sub orbital launch vehicle that uses a conventional capsule on booster configuration. It has completed 15 missions till date including 3 missions specifically to test its incredibly reliable Crew Escape System(CES). The CES was successfully tested under: NS1 — Pad Abort test(2012), NS6-At max-Q (2016)and NS9 — In Space(2018), thereby granting New Shepard full envelope abort capability. (It is important to note that the sub orbital rockets do not reach orbital velocity, which means they simply cross the Karman line and fall back to earth). A total of 4 Boosters and 3 capsules have been manufactured and the latest booster (RSS First Step) and capsule which have been flown and recovered 2 times, reached an apogee of 105km. The rocket is 18m in height and 3.8m in diameter. Thanks to the New Shepard, Blue Origin team also won the 2016 Collier Trophy for demonstrating re-usability.
The Engine
The BE-3 is a cryogenic hydro-lox pump fed engine capable of deep throttle(17% — 100%). It uses a combustion tap-off power cycle where in the working fluid to run the turbo pumps is extracted directly form the combustion chamber and is then thrown over board (One may wonder why can’t the working fluid(s) be injected back to the combustion chamber to increase specific impulse, well… ,you can’t drive a fluid between 2 points at same pressure, this is one of the disadvantages of the Tap-off cycle). The BE-3 has a burn time of 110s and a thrust of 490kN and can throttle to as low as 110kN during landing. A single Thrust Vector Control actuated BE-3 is responsible for the entire flight profile. Blue Origin had successfully completed acceptance testing of BE-3 way back in 2015.
Flight profile and Aerodynamics
The New Shepard operates from Launch Pad 1 located at Blue Origin’s West Texas launch site which is 12KM above sea level. The engine propels the booster-capsule to 50KM at around Mach 3 before MECO (Main Engine Cut-Off) and the vehicle coasts up till it reaches apogee (105KM). Eighty seconds before apogee, the crew capsules separates from the booster. The booster contain ring fins that supports the mounting interface for the capsule, the ring fin along with deployable wedge fins provide necessary stability margins during descend. Drag brakes are also deployed at the same time to increase the drag on the booster . The booster lands at designated landing site before the capsule even begins its descent, positioning itself using drag devices and performs a landing burn. It deploys 4 landing legs and hovers for a couple of second before touch down.
Note: This is not the same as a Falcon 9 booster, as the Merlin 1D engines aren’t capable of deep throttle and thus SpaceX has to opt for the riskier hover-slam maneuver, but this will not be the case with Starship.
The Capsule descends slower as it creates drag which is result of it blunt design. The capsules employ a combination of parachutes and retro-thrusters to slow down and cushion the touch down respectively. At an altitude of 3KM from the ground the pilot/drogue chutes are deployed that inturn deploy 3 main chutes. It boasts a 15 cubic meter of pressurized internal volume for 6 passengers and is fully automated, has windows for each passenger and are said to be the largest windows to ever fly into space. The CCE-SRM (Crew Capsule Escape-Solid Rocket Motor) provided by Aerojet Rocketdyne (Now apart of Lockheed Martin Corp.) is installed in a pusher configuration at the center of the capsule. The time from lift-off to touch down is about 10mins that includes 4mins of zero gravity experience (same as Virgin Galactic flight).
Who are on board NS-16?
NS 16 will be the first time humans will be on board the capsule and the passengers include Jeff Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, legendary American aviator Wally Funk and an unnamed passenger, whose flight will now be on a later mission, auctioned for 28mil USD. Blue Origin announced that the 18 year old Oliver Daemen will be the final passenger on this spaceflight, replacing the anonymous bidder.
A whole new era of space tourism is on the rise and these first steps in making life break the barriers of gravity is set to inspire a whole new generation of engineers and dreamers. Catch the event live on 20th July.
