The Disappointing Truth About The Blue Origin BE-4 Rocket Engine!

The Disappointing Truth About The Blue Origin BE-4 Rocket Engine!

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[michaelfink]

There are quite a few errors in this video. The video states that a liquid methane fuelled rocket has never reached orbit but in fact, a Chinese company achieved this recently (before the publication date of the video). The images show failures in engine testing for many engines other than the BE4 when he is talking about BE4. The graphic shown when chamber pressure are being discussed highlights the nozzle, not the chamber. LNG is not exactly the same as methane. LNG contains hydrocarbons other than methane. Autogenus pressurisation is not unique to methane rockets. Methane fuelled rockets are not the only ones that are "relatively clean burning". The product of combustion of hydrogen fuelled rockets is water. Hydrogen has its own issues, of course, including low density, requiring large tanks and easy leakage.

[jefffhaynes]

Saying the starship failure was troubling and dangerous is a weird take. SpaceX more or less expected Starship to fail and were mostly hoping to clear the launch stand.

[paulwilhelm]

Love your videos. However, a methane powered rocket (Zhuque-2) did make it to orbit last month (you said in your video that no methane powered rocket has flown to orbit). Also, the white cloud you see coming off the Starship when it is fueled / being fueled is not methane as you state, but is primarily water vapor (that has condensed from the air due to the cold temperature of the Starship).

[RodneyGraves]

Ah no. The clouds of vapor coming off of the Superheavy booster is atmospheric moisture (Boca Chica is incredibly humid) changing state from vapor to droplets in the very cold conditions of the outside the the tanks of cryogenic liquids. Vent gases are recaptured and used for either autogenous pressurization or shunted to the pool on the side of the launch tower. Small amounts of LOX and Liquid Methane are vented from the engine compartment via purge with liquid nitrogen (to prevent potentially explosive accumulations).

[blakedsm]

Didn’t China just recently make it into orbit with a methane engine? 🧐

[TallinuTV]

My biggest nitpicks are with the phrasing in some parts of this.

Saying that SpaceX is "having trouble with the Raptor, " particularly on the first test flight (which, by the way, was not even expected to reach orbit, just to gather some flight data to guide work on the next prototype which, no, _also_ is not really expected to reach orbit), and going "oh, they used this prototype version of this engine that they're still in the process of _deliberately_ pushing to its limits to see just how far they can go and is nowhere near a locked-down full production run, on a prototype version of this rocket for an early test flight that they knew full well was not likely to go to orbit and, as expected, there were problems, which was the whole point, they wanted to see the problems so that they could gather data and learn from them"... and then waving hands in the air going "Oh no, this is a huge problem"... Uh, no. No, it _really_ isn't. (Sorry if this seems like an overreaction, but this kind of knee-jerk reporting on Starship is _everywhere, _ it's outright false, and that annoys the crap out of me.)

It's still early development. SpaceX just does a lot of their development in _physical hardware, _ rather than on paper like most previous rocket companies. You really can't look at issues with development prototype hardware and then make any worthwhile claims about how well the final production hardware will work. And SpaceX has proven that they are capable of making rockets that are not just reliable, but reliably _reusable_ as well, which is something many people in the space community literally thought was never going to happen.

Additionally, you are incorrect about no methane-fueled rocket having reached orbit. China actually leapfrogged to it first, not long ago (July 11). Quoting Elizabeth Howell article on the website Space: "Zhuque-2 is the first 'methalox' rocket to successfully reach Earth orbit."

[josephastier]

I am soooo glad that the Vulcan flight succeeded.

[tazerface]

Man… I wish some private American company would build orbital rockets. This is a crazy thought but maybe they can land the boosters and reuse them! Novel idea, I know. It would just be great if an American company besides Blue Origin could revolutionize spaceflight. They could name something simple yet catchy like… the Space Exploration company or something.

[dave]

I almost spit out my coffee with the rich people/penis rocket joke. Well played.

[haydenwatson]

So let me get this straight. The Atlas-5 is a spectacularly successful rocket with 97 launches over a 20-year span. Isn't that how many Falcons launched last month? ;>)

[wadewilson]

I’ll take Blue Origin seriously when they actually get something into orbit. “Fully reusable” assumes something has been used…

[-danR]

9:00 "... methane is nothing new, it's been around since the beginning of the universe..."

I think you mean hydrogen. Methane depends on carbon, which hadn't been around until the first cohort of stars formed, grew up, got old, and blew up... spreading their elemental guts into the first galaxies.

[frhyuhy]

NASA has released images of SpaceX new, larger, fairings. There is now nothing that Delta Heavy / Atlas could launch that SpaceX can't. The big question is, how did ULA get the largest share of government launches, in the last cycle, if they didn't have an operational rocket that would be available for the period of the contract?

[schrodingerscat]

BE4's main problem appears to be complexity of manufacture, it is taking insane amounts of time to build each engine and even then there can be problems like the one that exploded on the test stand. It is also quite a lot more expensive than BO originally planned meaning they are currently losing money on every engine they supply to ULA. SpaceX having so many iterations of their engines means they can design out problems after the engine is tested meaning that not only are they constantly improving reliability and performance with each iteration but also reducing cost. Raptor 2 currently costs about $500 thousand per engine to build compared to $14million for a BE4 with Raptor 3 set to halve the cost again to £250 thousand. While BO is taking months to build each engine SpaceX is currently producing one engine a day on average showing the benefit of design changes to simplify manufacture.

[Vindictus]

Spacex blows up Raptor engines, pushing them to see how far they can go. BE-4 blows up, running within design specs...

[THX..]

Nope the US does not need the BE-4. Falcon9/Falcon heavy with it's merlin engine can do everything BE-4 can and do it cheaper. ULA needs the BE-4 to have any hope of surviving as a company and if Starship meets it's design goals not even BE-4 can save them.

[toddtrowbridge]

Sorry sir, but while there is some venting during the LOX & LNG filling process, the vast majority of the clouds you see coming off the rocket is just the moisture vapor from the ambient air around the rocket.
If that was all methane as you stated, it would be a very dangerous situation.

[Starshipsforever]

Showing video of the Centaur V failure is just dishonest. Also, there are two test cells at the XEEx facility in Texas, if one is damaged, the other can take its place. There's also a third test cell at Marshall Spaceflight Center that just came online at the old 4670 test stand with a test firing recently of a full with extended nozzle BE-3U.

[lorenbrown]

ok, the first flight of Starship did not have a "raptor blowing up in flight." Rather the gimbal system broke causing the rocket to tumble, then it was destroyed by SpaceX remotely.

[jamescobban]

You must do better research.

None of the Raptor engines on Starship IFT1 blew up. They automatically shut down when their control systems detected they were operating out of limits. The already obsolete hydraulic gimballing system caught on fire, but still did not explode. One of the biggest failures in IFT1 was that Starship did *not* blow up when instructed to. Even while gyrating madly because of the failure of the *already obsolete* hydraulic system it retained extraordinary structural integrity. The SpaceX engineers watching this were probably thinking "Maybe we could trim another half-millimetre off the thickness of the walls which would save 100kg of steel?"

Liquid natural gas is the standard way that methane is transported. It is transported at essentially the *same* temperature as liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, and liquid air. Indeed the fact that both fuel and oxidizer are kept at the *same* temperature means that methylox rockets can separate their tanks using only a thin sheet of metal. If you tried this with a kerolox rocket the kerosene would freeze solid. If you tried it with a hydrolox engine the liquid oxygen would freeze solid! IMHO after sixty years of studying space technology the *only* reason that methylox was not explored until very recently was an insane obsession with hydrolox by NASA and ESA. Hydrolox requires *five times* colder temperatures than methylox. Making seals an plumbing that works at that insane temperature is almost impossible. Liquid Hydrogen can literally leak straight *through* most metals because the molecules are so small. The incredibly low temperatures require the thick orange insulation which I remind your audience *KILLED* the crew of the shuttle Columbia and almost killed the crew of the shuttle Atlantis!

ULA had the humility to purchase *Russian* rocket engines for the launcher which it calls Atlas but is really just a Russian Proton rocket in a slightly different form factor. You do not explain why ULA cannot similarly have the wisdom to kick an unreliable business partner to the curb and buy much cheaper, and obviously more reliable, engines from a different *American* supplier. The Raptor 2 uses the same methylox fuel as Vulcan. The Raptor 2 has the same thrust as BE4. The Raptor 2 is more efficient in its use of fuel (higher ISP) because of the higher chamber pressure. The Raptor 2 has only half the mass of the BE4, and every kilogram taken off the mass of the launcher is another kilogram of payload. And the Raptor 2 costs less to manufacture than BE4 because it is produced on an assembly line which produces 365 engines a year while BO seems to be having difficulty producing *four* a year. The manufacturing cost of a Raptor 2 is less than that of a Merlin engine, and probably about *one tenth* the manufacturing cost of a BE4. So SpaceX can undercut the price of any competitor, just as Tesla can undercut the price of Eve from their competitors.

How about performing a service for American taxpayers and other American customers and find out what blackmail evidence Jeff Bezos has on ULA which prevents Tory Bruno from seeking the best economic advantage for his company and his customers by switching rocket engine suppliers? Why would *anyone* buy rocket engines from an online *bookstore*?

As you point out the West genuinely needs competition in the medium to heavy launch market. The blind obsession with maintaining existing supplier chains means that at the moment: Vulcan-Centaur will not have its first launch until 2024, and will not be a reliable alternative before 2025 at the earliest. Ariane6 will not have its first launch until 2024, and will not be a reliable alternative before 2025 at the earliest. The Neutron will not have its first launch until 2024, and will not be a reliable alternative before 2025 at the earliest. The Northrop-Grumman Antares rocket is no longer in production and the successor, from Firefly, will not have its first launch until 2025, and will not be a reliable alternative before 2026 at the earliest. And meanwhile Falcon 9 has launched more than twice as often as Atlas 5 and may achieve *three hundred* successful launches by the end of 2023, and SpaceX has launched one Starship and has *four more* under assembly at Boca Chica which it will, FAA permitting, launch by the end of 2023. Do you really believe that the same company which has lost *only one* Falcon 9 in 253 launches since 4 June 2010 will not be ready for external customers by the end of this year with that track record. If that works out then the SpaceX *Super-heavy* launcher will be operational before ULA, or Arianespace, even test fly their next generation medium to heavy lift boosters.