New Glenn Is Hoping To Reuse More Than Just Its Booster On Future Missions
In the time since New Glenn was first announced, plenty has changed. A lot of which is the result of Blue Origin trying to make sure this next generation launch vehicle is as effective and competitive as possible. As development of the rocket continues, other projects within the space industry also change and make progress. Something Blue Origin has to consider and is trying to actively work on.
In the last couple of weeks, we have seen some examples of additional reusability of this rocket. Right now, the company is working on reusing New Glenn’s fairings. The Falcon 9 fairings for example cost around $6 million. Based on the size and material used for Blue Origin’s, it likely costs a decent bit more. Enough to warrant a lot of tests and the implementation of new reuse strategies.
This comes in addition to New Glenn upper stage reusability testing or project Jarvis. Not to mention the booster, which will be a feat in itself for the company to safely land and refurbish. Here I will go more in-depth into New Glenn’s reusability plans, the changes that have been made over time, what to expect going forward, and more.
New Glenn Fairings
In the past couple of months, we have seen more work from Blue Origin regarding fairing recovery for New Glenn. Just last month in December Blue Origin began testing payload fairing recovery operations. Here the company placed the fairing half in the water which floats. They then picked it up with a large crane and placed it on a stand. Finally using two separate cranes, they flipped and twisted the fairing before being placed on the truck.
Even more recently, only a few days ago, a Marine Safety Information Bulletin (MSIB) was published on Jan 17 describing fairing drop test operations. A TFR for the operations accompanies it as well. Here they stated that “The Captain of the Port Jacksonville, FL, will activate a portion of the regulated navigation area located near Cape Canaveral Air Force Station for the launch of the Blue Origin fairing drop test. The zone will be activated two hours prior to the Blue Origin fairing being dropped and shall remain active until the evolution is complete and the fairing has been removed from the water.”
In addition to these documents describing the drop test requirements, a few images were taken of the fairing being carried in the air from a helicopter. Other details such as the results from the test and how they went are unknown as of right now. In terms of reusability for New Glenn, the fairings are a very big deal. New Glenn’s standard offering PLF measures 7 m (23 ft) in diameter and 21.9 m (72 ft) tall. The bi-sector assembly consists of two monolithic half shell composite sandwich panels manufactured in-house. Combine the size of these fairings with the material used and all of a sudden you have a rocket component that costs millions of dollars. The recent testing from Blue Origin is a prime example that the company is interested in lowering as many costs as possible and reusing as much as they can.
Not to mention, early last year around February, we watched more tests related to the fairings with a jettison test. Blue Origin expressed that they were quite happy with the result of this test and the progress on the system. The PLF halves are joined laterally by a thrusting rail assembly, and at the aft end by a circumferential frangible joint, which together provide rapid, debris-free separation of the halves from each other, the fixed adapter, and the second stage. The PLF halves jettison shortly after second engine ignition on the second stage, and they are designed to thrust away to preclude contact with both the second stage and the payload by more than the required 25.4 mm (1 in) clearance. When it comes to recovering fairings, SpaceX and the Falcon 9 have been trying somewhat frequently. At around $6 million per rocket fairing it’s easy to understand why the company has been working to capture and reuse. Something we can expect to see more of from Blue Origin in the coming years.
First & Second Stage Reuse
Now that we know more about New Glenn’s fairings and Blue Origin’s goal to recover them, we can take a closer look at the reusability of the first and second stage. Blue Origin began developing systems for orbital human spacecraft prior to 2012. A reusable first-stage booster was projected to fly a suborbital trajectory, taking off vertically like the booster stage of a conventional multistage launch vehicle. Following stage separation, the upper stage would continue to propel astronauts to orbit while the first-stage booster would descend to perform a powered vertical landing similar to its New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The first-stage booster was to be refueled and relaunched to reduce costs of access for humans to space.
Now in 2023, the plan is still to land and reuse New Glenn’s booster, only with a few changes. In 2018 Blue Origin bought a former roll-on/roll-off cargo ship to be transformed into New Glenn’s future sea landing platform. Over the next couple of years, up until 2022, the ship had been in port undergoing a refit to prepare for a novel role of landing launch vehicle first stages. The idea being, the rocket boosters were planned to be recovered downrange of the Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 36 (LC-36) in the Atlantic Ocean while the hydrodynamically-stabilized ship was underway. The ship stabilization technology was intended to increase the likelihood of successful rocket recovery in rough seas, as well as help to carry out launches on schedule. However, in August of last year, Blue Origin abandoned its plans to use the ship as a landing platform, and the ship was towed to the Port of Brownsville for scrapping.
As far as why the ship was scrapped and not turned back into a cargo ship, Clark Merritt, port director, highlighted that the process of converting the ship into a landing platform had gone too far to convert it back to a cargo vessel, but did not state why the conversion had stopped. As for Blue Origin’s reason, a company spokesperson said at the time, “Blue Origin is committed to safe and cost-effective access to space, and after careful consideration have made the decision to transition away from the Jacklyn as a landing solution.” While this is practically all that was said from Blue Origin about why the ship was scrapped, there are a few reasons we can infer. In reality, based on the project and the few comments from the company, the design likely became a big concern regarding cost, complexity, schedule, and even the use of humans on the vessel which was debated by the company. Specifically, Blue Origin had stated that the ship would not be crewed at the time the New Glenn booster was going to be landing; but rather would be autonomously or telerobotically controlled. All of which led to the decision to shift their focus to a drone ship just like SpaceX’s.
Specifically, based on all the information provided, it looks like Blue Origin has fully moved on from the ship option and has begun work on a drone ship. Comparing the size of SpaceX’s drone ships and the size of Falcon 9’s booster, we can try and get a better idea of what these future Blue Origin landing platforms will look like. Falcon 9’s booster is 3.7 meters wide and around 40 meters tall. The drone ships it lands on such as Just Read The Instructions for example is 170ft by 300ft or 52 meters by 91 meters. However, it’s important to point out that Falcon 9’s landing legs are very wide and feature a leg span of around 18 meters. This wide base helps stabilize the rocket during and after landing but also requires a bigger target in the process. With all things considered both boosters have a very similar footprint despite the size difference.
Lastly, information became public in July 2021 that Blue Origin had begun a “project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn,” under the name “Project Jarvis”, just as SpaceX is aiming to do with their Starship second stage. If Blue is able to realize such a second stage design and bring it into operational use, New Glenn would become a fully-reusable launch vehicle and would benefit from a substantial reduction in cost per launch. One part of the effort is focusing on developing a stainless steel propellant tank and main structure for the second stage rocket, and evaluating it as a part of a solution for a complete second stage system. By August 24th, Blue had rolled a stainless steel test tank to their Launch Complex 36 facility, on which ground pressure testing with cyrogenic propellants could begin as early as September.
By now in early 2023 it’s not very clear what exactly the company is working on with New Glenn as they keep a lot of information to themselves. Either way, the initial launches will most definitely have an expendable upper stage with the possible exception of the fairings. Currently, Blue Origin as a company is targeting 2024 for the first launch, however, a more realistic estimate would be later in 2025 as New Glenn still has a lot of work and testing necessary prior. On the bright side, its BE-4 engines are only months away from a vital first flight test on ULA’s Vulcan. An important step in the future of New Glenn’s operations.
Conclusion
Blue Origin has made a lot of changes to New Glenn throughout its decade long development. Recently we have seen an increase in fairing tests in hopes of recovering the multiple million dollar upper stage component. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.