Blue Origin New Shepard

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The location of Van Horn, Texas
The location of Van Horn, Texas

The Blue Origin New Shepard reusable launch vehicle is a manned rocket which is being developed by Blue Origin, a company owned by Amazon.com founder and billionaire Jeff Bezos, as a commercial system for suborbital space tourism. The New Shepard makes reference to the first United States astronaut in space, Alan Shepard.

The launch vehicle is assembled at the Blue Origin facility near Seattle, Washington. Blue Origin is starting the process to build an aerospace testing and operations center on a portion of the Corn Ranch, a 165,000-acre land parcel Bezos purchased 40 km north of Van Horn, Texas.[1] Blue Origin Project Manager Rob Meyerson has said that he selected Texas as the launch site particularly because of the state's historical connections to the aerospace industry, although that industry is not located near the planned launch site, and the vehicle will not be manufactured in Texas.[2]

A sub-scale demonstration vehicle made its first flight on November 13, 2006.

Contents

[edit] Design

Liftoff of a  DC-X, the reported design inspiration for the New Shepard
Liftoff of a DC-X, the reported design inspiration for the New Shepard

The New Shepard craft is planned to be a vertical take-off/vertical landing (VTVL) system. Its appearance and technical concept are similar to the DC-X. The overall shape is circular in cross-section and ogive (bullet shaped) from nose to tail, the base being somewhat rounded. It is powered by a cluster of nine engines powered by High test peroxide (HTP) and RP-1 kerosene, arranged in a 3 by 3 grid on the bottom. Four landing legs containing shock absorbers also extend from the edges of the bottom. The existing demonstrator vehicle has a diameter of 7 metres and a height of 15 metres. The total mass of the propellant is 54 tons and the thrust is 1000 kN.

In comparison to the DC-X, the New Shepard looks very "short and squat". The DC-X was designed in order to allow it to maneuver hypersonically for increased "crossrange" during re-entry, an important quality for a military mission that would be launched into a polar orbit. When such a spacecraft returns to the vicinity of its launch pad after one orbit, the Earth's rotation will have made the spacecraft seem to drift to the east, upwards of 750 miles for a launch from the southern US mainland assuming a 90 minute low-Earth orbit. The DC-X's forebody was shaped to allow a lifting re-entry to maneuver back to its launch site.

A passenger and cargo spacecraft has considerably less need for cross-range. In these cases the need for a polar orbit is eliminated, and launches generally take place due east in order to take advantage of the Earth's rotation. In this case when the spacecraft returns to its launch area after one orbit, it is generally moving along the same "line" and little correction is needed. For instance, a launch directly east from the equator into a 90 minute orbit will complete in a little under 90 minutes because the launch site is rotating toward the spacecraft, and when it reaches the re-entry point the site will be directly under its flight path. For launches from the US the orbit is also "cut off" as the site rotates towards the spacecraft, but in this case the spacecraft will only return to the same north-south point after one complete orbit. This means that a small amount of crossrange maneuvering is required, but considerably less than for a polar orbit, perhaps on the order of 100 miles.

As a result, the craft is much "rounder" than the DC-X, optimized for tankage and structural benefits rather than re-entry aerodynamics. It has not been stated if the vehicle is intended to re-enter base-first or nose first, but the former is most likely for a variety of reasons. For one, it reduces heat shield area, and thus weight, covering only the smaller bottom surface rather than the much larger upper portions. The area around the engines would likely require some sort of heat protection anyway, so by using the base as the heat shield the two can be combined. This re-entry attitude also has the advantage of allowing the spacecraft to descend all the way from orbit to touchdown in a base-first orientation, which would seem to offer some safety benefits as well as reducing aero-loading issues. The resulting craft looks something like a scaled-up version of the Apollo Command Module, which also used a base-first lifting re-entry profile. The rounded base may be further evidence of this re-entry mode.

None of its competitors in the nascent space tourism market have disclosed plans to use a similar design.[3] However, it does appear to be very similar to the Japanese Rocket Society's study effort, the Kankoh-maru, which also planned to produce a VTOVL base re-entry vehicle for space tourism. The Kankoh-maru was much larger, however, with a passenger capacity of 50.

[edit] Mission

The New Shepard is expected to be launched vertically from West Texas and then perform a powered flight for about 110 s and to an altitude of 40 km. The craft's momentum would continue to carry it upward in unpowered flight and would decelerate until culminating at an altitude of about 100 km. After reaching apogee the vehicle would perform a descent and restart its main engines a few tens of seconds before vertical landing, close to its launch site.[3] The total mission duration is planned to be 10 minutes.

The manned variant would feature a separate crew module that could separate close to peak altitude, and the propulsion module would perform a powered landing while the crew module would land under a parachute. The crew module can also separate in case of vehicle malfunction or other emergency using solid propellant separation boosters and perform a parachute landing.

[edit] Development schedule

Initial low altitude flight testing (up to 600 m) with subscale prototypes is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2006.[2] This was later confirmed in a press release by Blue Origin.[4] It could involve up to ten flights. Incremental flight testing to 100 km altitude is planned to be carried between 2007 and 2009 with increasingly larger and more capable prototypes. The full-scale vehicle is expected to be operational for revenue service in 2010, and could fly up to 50 times a year. Clearance from the FAA is needed before test flights begin, and a separate license is needed before commercial operations begin. The company held a public meeting on 15 June 2006 in Van Horn, as part of the public comment opportunity needed to secure FAA permissions.[5] Blue Origin says that once cleared for commercial operation, they would expect to conduct a maximum rate of 52 launches per year. The RLV would carry three or more passengers per operation.[6]

[edit] Initial flight tests

On the 7th of November 2006, the FAA issued a NOTAM[7](Notice to Airmen) for a series of test flights by Blue Origin between 10th to the 13th of November. The first test was reported to have taken place on November 13th at 6:30 am local time (12:30 UTC) [8]. This marks the first developmental test flights undertaken by Blue Origin. The tests are expected to reach a 2,000 feet altitude for less than a minute.

The first prototype vehicle, known as Goddard, flew for the first time on November 13, 2006, an earlier flight on the 10th being cancelled due to winds. The flight to 285 feet in altitude was successful.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Boyle, Alan. "Amazon founder unveils space center plans", MSNBC, 2006-01-13. Retrieved on 2006-06-28.
  2. ^ a b David, Leonard. "Public Meeting Details Blue Origin Rocket Plans", Space.com, 2006-06-15. Retrieved on 2006-06-28.
  3. ^ a b Draft Environmental Assessment for the Blue Origin West Texas Commercial Launch Site (PDF). FAA.gov. Retrieved on 2006-06-28.
  4. ^ "Blue Origin Flight Test Update", SpaceFellowship.com, 2007-01-02.
  5. ^ David, Leonard. "Public Meeting Details Blue Origin Rocket Plans", Space.com, 2006-06-15. Retrieved on 2006-06-28.
  6. ^ David, Leonard. "Blue Origin: Rocket plans spotlighted", Space.com, 2006-06-13. Retrieved on 2006-06-28.
  7. ^ FAA NOTAM 6/5575, Retrieved: 2006-11-11
  8. ^ Private Texas spaceport launches test rocket

[edit] External links

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