Jeff Bezos' Rocket Engine Nears Debut, Ending US Reliance on Russia
An engine made by Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin LLC appears on track to show it can power heavy payloads to space for the Pentagon after several years of delay, bringing the US closer to ending its politically fraught dependence on a Russian-made model.
Blue Origin predicted in 2014 that its BE-4 engine would be ready by 2017 to launch the new Vulcan rocket built by the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of top Pentagon contractors Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp. But the Government Accountability Office as recently as June cited “continued technical challenges in developing a US-produced rocket engine.”
Now, the US Space Force is expressing optimism, saying in a statement that “Vulcan launch system development activities continue to make progress” toward a first test launch by December because “ULA and Blue Origin have completed originally planned BE-4 development testing, and have successfully demonstrated full engine performance.”
United Launch Alliance used the dependable Russian-made RD-180 engine to launch its Atlas V heavy rocket on about 80 successful civil, commercial and national security launches since 2000, according to the Congressional Research Service.
But Congress demanded a replacement for the Russian engines after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, and that argument has only gained force since President Vladimir Putin's military invaded Ukraine in February.
Elon Musk, Bezos's fellow billionaire and competing space entrepreneur, ripped into that Russian connection in his successful fight to compete with what he called the Boeing-Lockheed monopoly for Pentagon satellite launches.
Musk's Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX, has received final certifications to fly its Falcon Heavy rocket
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