News Blue Origin Completes First Hot-Fire Test of BE-4 Engine

[Nicholas Kang]

[ame="https://twitter.com/blueorigin/status/921095318669873154"]Blue Origin on Twitter: "First hotfire of our BE-4 engine is a success #GradatimFerociter https://t.co/xuotdzfDjF"[/ame]

ATLANTA — Blue Origin announced Oct. 19 that it conducted the first successful test of its BE-4 engine, a major milestone for both the company’s launch vehicle plans as well as for United Launch Alliance.

Blue Origin, in a tweet, said its first hotfire test of the BE-4 engine was a success. The company included a six-second video, taken from several angles, of the engine firing on a test stand, but provided no other information, including the date, duration or thrust level of the test.

The BE-4 is an engine that uses liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas propellants and is capable of generating 550,000 pounds-force of thrust. The engine was developed in-house at Blue Origin primarily with its own funding, with some support from ULA.

ULA spokesperson Jessica Rye said the company congratulated Blue Origin on the successful test, but gave no indication of when ULA might make a decision on the engine for Vulcan.

“Congratulations to the entire Blue Origin team on the successful hotfire of a full-scale BE-4 engine,” she said in an Oct. 19 email. “This is a tremendous accomplishment in the development of a new engine.”

Source: Spaceflight101.com, Spacenews.com

 

[MaverickSawyer]

Looks like they ran the engine at 50% power for this test.