Zee Media Bureau\Philaso G Kaping
New Delhi: Aerospace company, Blue Origin has successfully test-fired its new hydrogen- and oxygen-fuelled rocket engine, NASA announced on Tuesday.
The BE-3 rocket engine was test fired at the company’s facility in West Texas on 20 November. It demonstrated a full suborbital flight cycle including a 2 ½ minute burn at 110,000 pound of thrust, a four-minute shutdown and a restart at 25,000 pounds of thrust for a minute to simulate a controlled vertical landing.
Phil McAlister, NASA`s director of Commercial Spaceflight Development, said the company has made a steady progress since the start of their partnership.
“We’re thrilled to see another successful BE-3 engine test fire.”
Blue Origin along with SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corporation and Boeing was selected for NASA’s Commercial Crew Development program in 2011.
Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos founded the company way back in 2000 and has been steadily developing next generation rockets and spacecraft to enable a safe, low-cost human access to space.
"Working with NASA accelerated our BE-3 development by over a year in preparation for flight testing on our New Shepard suborbital system and ultimately on vehicles carrying humans to a low-Earth orbit," said Rob Meyerson, President and Program Manager of Blue Origin. "The BE-3 is a versatile, low-cost hydrogen engine applicable to NASA and commercial missions."
