Blue Origin’s BE-4 rocket engine fails during testing

Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture confirmed that one of its BE-4 rocket engines suffered a significant anomaly during testing at its West Texas facility in late June.

The incident first came to light today in a report from CNBC, which quoted unnamed sources as saying that the engine detonated about 10 seconds into a test firing on June 30. CNBC said the engine was meant to be used for the second launch of United Launch Alliance’s next-generation Vulcan rocket. That launch, known as Cert-2, is meant to send Sierra Space’s Dream Chaser space plane on an uncrewed cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station.

Blue Origin already has delivered two BE-4 engines to ULA for the first Vulcan launch, Cert-1, which is tasked with deploying the first two prototype satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper broadband network into low Earth orbit as well as sending Astrobotic’s robotic lunar lander on its way to the moon.

In a statement emailed to GeekWire, ULA said the anomaly is “not expected to impact our plans” for Cert-1. “The Cert-1 engines successfully passed acceptance testing and the BE-4 engines are qualified for the Cert-1 mission,” ULA said.

The cause of last month’s anomaly is under investigation, Blue Origin said today in an emailed statement:

“In late June, we ran into an issue while testing Vulcan’s Flight Engine 3 at our West Texas facility. No personnel were injured, and we are currently assessing root cause. ULA was immediately made aware. The West Texas test facility is able to continue testing at the site. We already have proximate cause and are working on remedial actions. We will be able to meet our engine delivery commitments this year and stay ahead of our customer’s launch needs.”

Getting Blue Origin’s BE-4 engines ready for their first launch has already taken years longer than Blue Origin or ULA anticipated when they announced the rocket development project in 2014. The BE-4 is designed to use liquefied natural gas as fuel and provide 550,000 pounds of thrust with deep throttle capability.

The engines are to be used not only on Vulcan’s first-stage booster, but also on Blue Origin’s orbital-class New Glenn rocket, which is expected to have its first launch no earlier than 2024. Blue Origin has already struck deals for multiple satellite launches using New Glenn, and NASA plans to use New Glenn for the launch of twin spacecraft to Mars in late 2024. If it takes longer than Blue Origin anticipates to address the issues raised by last month’s test failure, that could have a domino effect on those missions.

Meanwhile, the first Vulcan launch has been delayed due to a completely different issue: a fiery anomaly that ULA experienced during testing of the Vulcan rocket’s Centaur V upper stage in March. ULA says it’s modifying the upper stage to address issues raised by that anomaly, which did not involve the BE-4 rocket engine.

ULA is a joint venture involving Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Update for 10:15 p.m. PT July 11: United Launch Alliance’s CEO, Tory Bruno, discussed the June 30 incident in a series of tweets. The failure of the engine’s acceptance test, or ATP, was “way less interesting than it sounds,” he said.

“They happen. That’s why we acceptance test each component coming off the line before accepting delivery,” Bruno said. He said he was “very” confident that the failure of the test was due to poor workmanship on that particular engine, rather than an overlooked flaw in the engine design.

Here’s a sampling of other tweets in the thread: