The main launching company of the army chooses the new Blue Origin engine for the future rocket

The main launching force of the army, United Launch Alliance, has chosen the main engine of its next generation rocket, the Vulcan. The company – a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin – will use an engine manufactured by Blue Origin, an aerospace company led by Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, announced today the ULA. The news of the decision was reported this morning by The Wall Street Journal.

Known as BE-4, the rocket engine has been in development since 2011. It uses liquid oxygen and liquid methane, making it the first engine to use such propellants. And once finished, each engine will generate supposedly 550,000 pounds of thrust on takeoff. Blue Origin plans to use the BE-4 to power its future orbital rocket, the New Glenn. However, the company has also stalled over the last four years to obtain a contract with ULA to use the Vulcan engine.

"We are excited to enter into this partnership with Blue Origin and look forward to the successful first flight of our next-generation launcher," said Tory Bruno, CEO of ULA in a statement. Blue Origin did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, but CEO Bob Smith made a statement with the announcement: "We can not thank Tory Bruno and any l & # 39; United Launch Alliance team having entrusted our engine to the first stage of the Vulcan rocket. "

Such a selection is not surprising. ULA announced in 2014 its partnership with Blue Origin to partially finance the development of the BE-4. Since then, ULA CEO Tory Bruno has said that the company was the leader of the concert. But while Blue Origin is working on the BE-4, another engine manufacturer, Aerojet Rocketdyne, has also sought to use its material on Vulcan. This company has developed its own engine, AR1, specifically for Vulcan and ULA has been waiting to officially choose the company with which it would be partner.

The writing was on the wall that Aerojet would lose the offer. Blue Origin was more advanced in the development process, despite an incident last year that resulted in a loss of hardware during testing. Recent financial documents filed by Aerojet Rocketdyne have shown that the company could soon stop funding the development of the engine with its own funds and that it would have no equipment ready to fly by the end of 2019, Ars Technica reported.

Image: United Launch Alliance

The move to the BE-4 is great news for ULA, as the company tries to switch from using the RD-180, a Russian engine used to power the ULA main rocket, the Atlas V. After the invasion From Russia in 2014, tensions escalated and Congress decided to ban the use of Russian-made engines to launch national security satellites. Since ULA has almost monopolized the launch of the national security payloads over the last decade, the ban had big implications for the company and it began looking for possible replacements for the engine. Ultimately, ULA decided to create a brand new rocket that would exploit the capabilities of its two main vehicles, the Atlas V and the Delta IV. The ban was amended in 2016, allowing Congress ULA to buy up to 18 RD-180 to use until 2022.

ULA plans to fly the Vulcan for the first time by 2020, while Blue Origin also plans to launch its new vehicle, the New Glenn, before the end of the decade. These delays can however change considerably. The fact that both companies are developing similar rockets was a concern for ULA, according to the WSJbecause they could potentially compete. This would have led to months of negotiations.

Meanwhile, Aerojet Rocketdyne having lost the offer for its AR1, the engine is in a difficult situation. ULA's Vulcan may soon become the company's main rocket, and supplying the main engines on the vehicle could be a lucrative deal worth hundreds of millions, even billions. Aerojet Rocketdyne still has contracts to manufacture the main engines of NASA's next big rocket, the Space Launch System, and is currently supplying ULA with the main engines of its Delta IV rocket, as well as the engines on the upper stage of its fleet. other vehicles. It will also provide engines for the upper floor of the Vulcan.

"Aerojet Rocketdyne is excited to be part of the Vulcan team with our RL10 upper stage engine," said Steve Warren, a spokesman for Aerojet Rocketdyne, in a statement. The edge. "It's our big thing: this RL10-CX is a great engine. We are really excited about it. "

Warren said that Aerojet Rocketdyne would continue to work on the AR1 no matter. "The AR1 is also an excellent engine, and we will build this engine," he said. "And it's going to be ready for hot-fire testing in 2019. So we will continue to build this engine."

Update of September 27 at 12:15 ET: This article has been updated to include statements of Rocketdyne Aerojet.

Update September 27 at 4:15 pm ET: This article has been updated to confirm that Blue Origin has been selected.