Blue Origin Engine For NSSL Behind Schedule, But SecAF Kendall Isn’t Worried
Blue Origin BE-4 rocket engine CREDIT: Blue Origin
COLORADO SPRINGS: The United Launch Alliance’s crucial engine for National Security Space Launch is late and “causing problems,” but Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall believes the choice of launch providers lessens the risk for the service.
Speaking to reporters Tuesday night at the annual Space Symposium, Kendall said he had sit-downs earlier that day with executives from ULA and Blue Origin, the maker of the BE-4 engine. “They still hope to be able to execute. But there’s obviously risk in that schedule,” Kendall said.
The NSSL program is designed to replace replace the Atlas V and its Russian-made RD-180s engines. Congress has mandated that DoD stop buying the Russian engines by 2022.
Kendall did not sound very worried, from a service perspective. “I’m actually pretty happy with the way things have played out,” he said. “But we have another option. And the way the contracts, I think, have been set up is to allow us to go to that option if we have to. So, we’ll see what happens.”
That “option” Kendall mentioned is to rely more on SpaceX for military launch requirements, should ULA not be ready to go with its Vulcan launch vehicle. SpaceX already handles a fair share of the Pentagon’s missions.
“Hopefully we’ll be all right and they won’t have any additional scheduled steps,” Kendall added. “But I think the strategy has actually been demonstrated to be a good thing.”
The race to replace the reliable and cheap RD-180 started shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014, as members of Congress sought ways to strike economically at the Putin government and raised questions about why American space assets were reliant on Russian-made engines.
ULA CEO Tony Bruno said in a tweet yesterday: “I expect engines before the end of the year. If there are any unforeseen challenges, they could move past that. At present, the engine is performing well and is in prequel testing. Flight engines have begun fabrication.”
“I’ll say it again,” Bruno said during a Wednesday morning briefing here. “The performance of the engine is exceeding our expectations,
Blue Origin’s engine is several years behind schedule. Bruno said at his briefing this morning that he “knew it would take longer than they [Blue Origin] thought it would.”
He told the symposium audience that the engine has “thousands of seconds of test time on it” and it is producing “more thrust than expected.”