Blue Origin has announced its intention to carry out a series of upgrades to the New Glenn rocket.
The current rocket consists of two stages, one of which is reusable, and is able to lead to 45 tons of cargo to low orbit and to 14 tons of cargo to geotransitional orbit. The company plans to introduce a series of changes to the design of the rocket, aimed at increasing the payload and launch frequency, and also to improve reliability. Improvements concern engines, avionics and reusability and will be phased into future New Glenn missions, starting with the next flight. One of the key improvements will be fuel subcooling, which will increase the performance of engines. Additional missile improvements include a reusable main fairing, an updated tank design with a lower cost and a more efficient thermal protection system on the first stage, which will reduce the preparation time for relaunch.
The new rocket of the super-heavy class is planned to be named after the number of engines on each stage New Glenn 9×4. It will be able to bring into low Earth orbit more than 70 tons, over 14 tons - directly to the geosynchronous orbit and above 20 tons - for the orbit around the moon. in addition, the 9×4 rocket will be equipped with a longer fairing 8,7 meters. Therefore, according to its characteristics, it will be close to the SLS rocket, which will send American astronauts to the moon.
Blue Origin is counting, that a more powerful version of New Glenn will be used in lunar missions, projects on the study of deep space, as well as mega-satellite constellation deployments.
Source: https://universemagazine.com