USSF Launch Director Discusses BE-4 Rocket Engines Written 30 August 2021
The first BE-4 engine to be hotfire tested, 18 Oct. 2017. | Credit: N2e; Wikipedia; CC BY-SA 4.0
In an interview with Space News at last week’s Space Symposium, Col. Robert Bongiovi, director of the launch enterprise at the Space Systems Command, “said it is ‘unfortunate’ that Blue Origin is taking far longer than expected to complete the testing and production of BE-4 rocket engines for United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan Centaur launch vehicle.” However, according to Bongiovi, the engine is “performing as well as expected in pre-qualification tests and ULA’s current projections that Vulcan will have flight-qualified engines by year’s end seem ‘doable.’” Bongiovi said, “The BE-4 engine has been late for a long time. … Now we need to make sure we’ve got good focus on keeping it on track from here on out, and that’s what we’ve been working on.”
Full Story (Space News)