The BE-3 (Blue Engine 3) is a liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen rocket engine developed by Blue Origin .
108-539: The engine began development in the early 2010s and completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The engine is being used on the New Shepard suborbital rocket, for which made its first test flight on 29 April 2015 and had its first crewed flight on 20 July 2021. A variant will be used in the 2nd stage of the New Glenn launcher. In 2015, the engine was under consideration by United Launch Alliance (ULA) for use in
216-445: A laboratory or in space . In engineering and applied physics on the other hand, vacuum refers to any space in which the pressure is considerably lower than atmospheric pressure. The Latin term in vacuo is used to describe an object that is surrounded by a vacuum. The quality of a partial vacuum refers to how closely it approaches a perfect vacuum. Other things equal, lower gas pressure means higher-quality vacuum. For example,
324-429: A 'celestial agent' prevented the vacuum arising. Jean Buridan reported in the 14th century that teams of ten horses could not pull open bellows when the port was sealed. The 17th century saw the first attempts to quantify measurements of partial vacuum. Evangelista Torricelli 's mercury barometer of 1643 and Blaise Pascal 's experiments both demonstrated a partial vacuum. In 1654, Otto von Guericke invented
432-517: A NASA lunar landing technology demonstration, on two separate flights in October 2020 (NS-13) and August 2021 (NS-17). New Shepard 3 rocket was destroyed during the NS-23 mission once it impacted the ground on 12 September 2022 after a rocket engine anomaly led to the activation of the in-flight abort system. The capsule made a successful landing under parachutes. This was the ninth flight of NS3, and
540-577: A boost profile to 93,500 meters (307,000 ft) altitude on 29 April 2015. In April 2015, United Launch Alliance (ULA) was considering the BE-3 for use in a new second stage , the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES), which was planned to become the primary upper stage for ULA's Vulcan orbital launch vehicle in the 2020s. The Vulcan was planned to begin orbital flights in 2019 with an existing Centaur upper stage, and
648-443: A booster or propulsion module . The New Shepard is controlled entirely by on-board computers , without ground control or a human pilot. The launch rocket is powered by one BE-3PM engine with thrust vector control, fueled by liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen . Aft fins stabilize the rocket during ascent, steer it back to the landing pad during descent, and guide it effectively at speeds up to Mach 3. Ring and wedge fins near
756-460: A combination of both. The launch rocket is powered by one BE-3PM engine, which sends the capsule above the Kármán line , where passengers and cargo can experience a few minutes of weightlessness before the capsule returns to Earth. The launch vehicle is designed to be fully reusable, with the capsule returning to Earth via three parachutes and a solid rocket motor. The rocket lands vertically on
864-454: A few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter on average in intergalactic space. Vacuum has been a frequent topic of philosophical debate since ancient Greek times, but was not studied empirically until the 17th century. Clemens Timpler (1605) philosophized about the experimental possibility of producing a vacuum in small tubes. Evangelista Torricelli produced the first laboratory vacuum in 1643, and other experimental techniques were developed as
972-416: A geometrically based alternative theory of atomism, without the problematic nothing–everything dichotomy of void and atom. Although Descartes agreed with the contemporary position, that a vacuum does not occur in nature, the success of his namesake coordinate system and more implicitly, the spatial–corporeal component of his metaphysics would come to define the philosophically modern notion of empty space as
1080-540: A landing pad 3.2 km north of the launch pad. The company has successfully launched and landed the New Shepard launch vehicle 26 times with 1 partial failure deemed successful and 1 failure. The launch vehicle has a length of 19.2 meters (63 ft), a diameter of 3.8 meters (12 ft) and a launch mass of 75,000 kilograms (165,000 lb). The BE-3PM engine produces 490 kilonewtons (110,000 lb f ) of thrust at liftoff. The first development vehicle of
1188-432: A mass spectrometer must be used in conjunction with the ionization gauge for accurate measurement. Vacuum is useful in a variety of processes and devices. Its first widespread use was in the incandescent light bulb to protect the filament from chemical degradation. The chemical inertness produced by a vacuum is also useful for electron beam welding , cold welding , vacuum packing and vacuum frying . Ultra-high vacuum
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#17327795669301296-479: A measurable vacuum relative to the local environment. Similarly, much higher than normal relative vacuum readings are possible deep in the Earth's ocean. A submarine maintaining an internal pressure of 1 atmosphere submerged to a depth of 10 atmospheres (98 metres; a 9.8-metre column of seawater has the equivalent weight of 1 atm) is effectively a vacuum chamber keeping out the crushing exterior water pressures, though
1404-434: A naturally occurring partial vacuum, the heavens were originally thought to be seamlessly filled by a rigid indestructible material called aether . Borrowing somewhat from the pneuma of Stoic physics , aether came to be regarded as the rarefied air from which it took its name, (see Aether (mythology) ). Early theories of light posited a ubiquitous terrestrial and celestial medium through which light propagated. Additionally,
1512-466: A new second stage, the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage , in ULA's Vulcan orbital launch vehicle with first flight in the 2020s. Following Aerojet’s acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2012, Blue Origin president Rob Meyerson saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the defense industrial base. Blue Origin publicly entered the liquid rocket engine business by partnering with ULA on the development of
1620-426: A proposed propulsion system for interplanetary travel . All of the observable universe is filled with large numbers of photons , the so-called cosmic background radiation , and quite likely a correspondingly large number of neutrinos . The current temperature of this radiation is about 3 K (−270.15 °C ; −454.27 °F ). The quality of a vacuum is indicated by the amount of matter remaining in
1728-460: A quantified extension of volume. By the ancient definition however, directional information and magnitude were conceptually distinct. Medieval thought experiments into the idea of a vacuum considered whether a vacuum was present, if only for an instant, between two flat plates when they were rapidly separated. There was much discussion of whether the air moved in quickly enough as the plates were separated, or, as Walter Burley postulated, whether
1836-482: A result of his theories of atmospheric pressure. A Torricellian vacuum is created by filling with mercury a tall glass container closed at one end, and then inverting it in a bowl to contain the mercury (see below). Vacuum became a valuable industrial tool in the 20th century with the introduction of incandescent light bulbs and vacuum tubes , and a wide array of vacuum technologies has since become available. The development of human spaceflight has raised interest in
1944-456: A small amount of combustion gases from the main combustion chamber in order to power the engine turbopumps . Blue Origin has developed an open expander cycle variant of the BE-3, the BE-3U . Two of these engines will be used to power the New Glenn second stage. In November 2015, the engine was projected to have a vacuum thrust of 670 kN (150,000 lbf). Development had begun on
2052-435: A solid rocket motor. The crew capsule can also separate in case of a vehicle malfunction or other emergency using solid propellant separation boosters, then perform a parachute landing. The total flight duration of the rocket is over 7 minutes, while the total flight time for the crew capsule is around 10 minutes. "New Shepard offers flights to space over 100 kilometers for payloads inside our cabin or with direct exposure to
2160-421: A thing as a vacuum can exist. Ancient Greek philosophers debated the existence of a vacuum, or void, in the context of atomism , which posited void and atom as the fundamental explanatory elements of physics. Lucretius argued for the existence of vacuum in the first century BC and Hero of Alexandria tried unsuccessfully to create an artificial vacuum in the first century AD. Following Plato , however, even
2268-401: A typical vacuum cleaner produces enough suction to reduce air pressure by around 20%. But higher-quality vacuums are possible. Ultra-high vacuum chambers, common in chemistry, physics, and engineering, operate below one trillionth (10 ) of atmospheric pressure (100 nPa), and can reach around 100 particles/cm . Outer space is an even higher-quality vacuum, with the equivalent of just
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#17327795669302376-430: A vacuum is called outgassing . All materials, solid or liquid, have a small vapour pressure , and their outgassing becomes important when the vacuum pressure falls below this vapour pressure. Outgassing has the same effect as a leak and will limit the achievable vacuum. Outgassing products may condense on nearby colder surfaces, which can be troublesome if they obscure optical instruments or react with other materials. This
2484-411: A void. In his Physics , book IV, Aristotle offered numerous arguments against the void: for example, that motion through a medium which offered no impediment could continue ad infinitum , there being no reason that something would come to rest anywhere in particular. In the medieval Muslim world , the physicist and Islamic scholar Al-Farabi wrote a treatise rejecting the existence of the vacuum in
2592-516: Is a non-SI unit): Vacuum is measured in units of pressure , typically as a subtraction relative to ambient atmospheric pressure on Earth. But the amount of relative measurable vacuum varies with local conditions. On the surface of Venus , where ground-level atmospheric pressure is much higher than on Earth, much higher relative vacuum readings would be possible. On the surface of the Moon with almost no atmosphere, it would be extremely difficult to create
2700-485: Is a spatial location and t is time. In quantum mechanics and quantum field theory , the vacuum is defined as the state (that is, the solution to the equations of the theory) with the lowest possible energy (the ground state of the Hilbert space ). In quantum electrodynamics this vacuum is referred to as ' QED vacuum ' to distinguish it from the vacuum of quantum chromodynamics , denoted as QCD vacuum . QED vacuum
2808-482: Is a state with no matter particles (hence the name), and no photons . As described above, this state is impossible to achieve experimentally. (Even if every matter particle could somehow be removed from a volume, it would be impossible to eliminate all the blackbody photons .) Nonetheless, it provides a good model for realizable vacuum, and agrees with a number of experimental observations as described next. QED vacuum has interesting and complex properties. In QED vacuum,
2916-538: Is connected to the region of interest. Any fluid can be used, but mercury is preferred for its high density and low vapour pressure. Simple hydrostatic gauges can measure pressures ranging from 1 torr (100 Pa) to above atmospheric. An important variation is the McLeod gauge which isolates a known volume of vacuum and compresses it to multiply the height variation of the liquid column. The McLeod gauge can measure vacuums as high as 10 torr (0.1 mPa), which
3024-434: Is equal to the displacement of a millimeter of mercury ( mmHg ) in a manometer with 1 torr equaling 133.3223684 pascals above absolute zero pressure. Vacuum is often also measured on the barometric scale or as a percentage of atmospheric pressure in bars or atmospheres . Low vacuum is often measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg) or pascals (Pa) below standard atmospheric pressure. "Below atmospheric" means that
3132-430: Is named after Alan Shepard , who became the first American to travel into space and the fifth person to walk on the Moon . The vehicle is capable of vertical takeoff and landings . Additionally, it is also capable of carrying humans and customer payloads into a sub-orbital trajectory. New Shepard consists of a launch rocket and a crew capsule. The capsule can be configured to house up to six passengers, cargo, or
3240-573: Is not used. High vacuum systems must be clean and free of organic matter to minimize outgassing. Ultra-high vacuum systems are usually baked, preferably under vacuum, to temporarily raise the vapour pressure of all outgassing materials and boil them off. Once the bulk of the outgassing materials are boiled off and evacuated, the system may be cooled to lower vapour pressures and minimize residual outgassing during actual operation. Some systems are cooled well below room temperature by liquid nitrogen to shut down residual outgassing and simultaneously cryopump
3348-419: Is of great concern to space missions, where an obscured telescope or solar cell can ruin an expensive mission. The most prevalent outgassing product in vacuum systems is water absorbed by chamber materials. It can be reduced by desiccating or baking the chamber, and removing absorbent materials. Outgassed water can condense in the oil of rotary vane pumps and reduce their net speed drastically if gas ballasting
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3456-454: Is the lowest direct measurement of pressure that is possible with current technology. Other vacuum gauges can measure lower pressures, but only indirectly by measurement of other pressure-controlled properties. These indirect measurements must be calibrated via a direct measurement, most commonly a McLeod gauge. The kenotometer is a particular type of hydrostatic gauge, typically used in power plants using steam turbines. The kenotometer measures
3564-443: Is used in the study of atomically clean substrates, as only a very good vacuum preserves atomic-scale clean surfaces for a reasonably long time (on the order of minutes to days). High to ultra-high vacuum removes the obstruction of air, allowing particle beams to deposit or remove materials without contamination. This is the principle behind chemical vapor deposition , physical vapor deposition , and dry etching which are essential to
3672-412: Is useful for flywheel energy storage and ultracentrifuges . Vacuums are commonly used to produce suction , which has an even wider variety of applications. The Newcomen steam engine used vacuum instead of pressure to drive a piston. In the 19th century, vacuum was used for traction on Isambard Kingdom Brunel 's experimental atmospheric railway . Vacuum brakes were once widely used on trains in
3780-578: The BE-2 (Blue Engine 2) which was a bipropellant engine using kerosene and peroxide, producing 140 kN (31,000 lbf) thrust. In January 2013, the company announced the development of the BE-3 (Blue Engine 3), a new liquid hydrogen / liquid oxygen (LH 2 /LOX) cryogenic engine. The engine was originally announced to produce 440 kN (100,000 lbf) thrust, with initial thrust chamber tests planned for mid-February 2013 at NASA Stennis. The thrust chamber tests were run sometime in 2013. The BE-3
3888-475: The Heading Indicator (HI) ) are typically vacuum-powered, as protection against loss of all (electrically powered) instruments, since early aircraft often did not have electrical systems, and since there are two readily available sources of vacuum on a moving aircraft, the engine and an external venturi. Vacuum induction melting uses electromagnetic induction within a vacuum. Maintaining a vacuum in
3996-485: The Kármán Line at 100 km (62 mi; 54 nmi; 330,000 ft). Near this peak altitude, the crew capsule separates from the rocket. As the rocket nears the ground, its air brakes deploy and the engines restart as onboard computers autonomously bring the rocket for a vertical landing at the landing pad, where it deploys its four landing legs . The crew capsule descends afterward under three parachutes and
4104-503: The Lamb shift . Coulomb's law and the electric potential in vacuum near an electric charge are modified. Theoretically, in QCD multiple vacuum states can coexist. The starting and ending of cosmological inflation is thought to have arisen from transitions between different vacuum states. For theories obtained by quantization of a classical theory, each stationary point of the energy in
4212-453: The Sun and the dynamic pressure of the solar winds , so the definition of pressure becomes difficult to interpret. The thermosphere in this range has large gradients of pressure, temperature and composition, and varies greatly due to space weather . Astrophysicists prefer to use number density to describe these environments, in units of particles per cubic centimetre. But although it meets
4320-431: The condenser is an important aspect of the efficient operation of steam turbines . A steam jet ejector or liquid ring vacuum pump is used for this purpose. The typical vacuum maintained in the condenser steam space at the exhaust of the turbine (also called condenser backpressure) is in the range 5 to 15 kPa (absolute), depending on the type of condenser and the ambient conditions. Evaporation and sublimation into
4428-541: The configuration space gives rise to a single vacuum. String theory is believed to have a huge number of vacua – the so-called string theory landscape . Outer space has very low density and pressure, and is the closest physical approximation of a perfect vacuum. But no vacuum is truly perfect, not even in interstellar space, where there are still a few hydrogen atoms per cubic meter. Stars, planets, and moons keep their atmospheres by gravitational attraction, and as such, atmospheres have no clearly delineated boundary:
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4536-452: The sixth crewed flight took place on 4 August 2022. In September 2022, an uncrewed mission of the New Shepard had an anomaly due to a failure of the BE-3PM main engine. The launch escape system triggered and the capsule landed safely. The remaining New Shepard launch vehicles were grounded pending an FAA investigation into the incident. After a six-month investigation, Blue Origin pinpointed
4644-469: The vacuum of free space , or sometimes just free space or perfect vacuum , is a standard reference medium for electromagnetic effects. Some authors refer to this reference medium as classical vacuum , a terminology intended to separate this concept from QED vacuum or QCD vacuum , where vacuum fluctuations can produce transient virtual particle densities and a relative permittivity and relative permeability that are not identically unity. In
4752-484: The 1 atm inside the submarine would not normally be considered a vacuum. Therefore, to properly understand the following discussions of vacuum measurement, it is important that the reader assumes the relative measurements are being done on Earth at sea level, at exactly 1 atmosphere of ambient atmospheric pressure. The SI unit of pressure is the pascal (symbol Pa), but vacuum is often measured in torrs , named for an Italian physicist Torricelli (1608–1647). A torr
4860-461: The 10th century. He concluded that air's volume can expand to fill available space, and therefore the concept of a perfect vacuum was incoherent. According to Ahmad Dallal , Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī states that "there is no observable evidence that rules out the possibility of vacuum". The suction pump was described by Arab engineer Al-Jazari in the 13th century, and later appeared in Europe from
4968-483: The 15th century. European scholars such as Roger Bacon , Blasius of Parma and Walter Burley in the 13th and 14th century focused considerable attention on issues concerning the concept of a vacuum. The commonly held view that nature abhorred a vacuum was called horror vacui . There was even speculation that even God could not create a vacuum if he wanted and the 1277 Paris condemnations of Bishop Étienne Tempier , which required there to be no restrictions on
5076-504: The BE-3U's thrust had been uprated to 765 kN (172,000 lbf) and that its isp is 445s. The reported thrust was later revised to 770 kN (173,000 lbf) in a press release while the isp was revised to 455s. The performance of the sea-level version of the BE-3, the BE-3PM, include: New Shepard New Shepard is a fully reusable sub-orbital launch vehicle developed for space tourism by Blue Origin . The vehicle
5184-631: The BE-4, and working with other companies. Meyerson announced the selection of Huntsville, AL as the location of Blue Origin’s rocket production factory in June 2017. The BE-3 follows the earliest rocket engine development efforts at Blue Origin in the 2000s. Blue Origin's first engine was a "simple, single-propellant engine" called the BE-1 (Blue Engine 1) which used peroxide propellant and generated only 8.9 kN (2,000 lbf) of thrust , and their second,
5292-498: The Blue Origin BE-3U. On 20 July, 2021, the engine design was used in its first crewed flight of the New Shepard . On September 12, 2022, New Shepard 3 with RSS H.G. Wells capsule suffered an un-contained engine failure that resulted in the triggering of a launch abort and the loss of the vehicle. The first stage variant of the BE-3, the BE-3PM, uses a pump-fed engine design, with a combustion tap-off cycle to take
5400-480: The Latin adjective vacuus (neuter vacuum ) meaning "vacant" or "void". An approximation to such vacuum is a region with a gaseous pressure much less than atmospheric pressure . Physicists often discuss ideal test results that would occur in a perfect vacuum, which they sometimes simply call "vacuum" or free space , and use the term partial vacuum to refer to an actual imperfect vacuum as one might have in
5508-536: The MFP of room temperature air is roughly 100 mm, which is on the order of everyday objects such as vacuum tubes . The Crookes radiometer turns when the MFP is larger than the size of the vanes. Vacuum quality is subdivided into ranges according to the technology required to achieve it or measure it. These ranges were defined in ISO 3529-1:2019 as shown in the following table (100 Pa corresponds to 0.75 Torr; Torr
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#17327795669305616-637: The New Shepard development program was a sub-scale demonstration vehicle named Goddard that was built in 2006 following earlier engine development efforts by Blue Origin . Goddard was assembled at the Blue Origin facility in Kent, Washington , United States and made its first flight on 13 November 2006. A second test flight was scheduled for 2 December, but never took place. According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records, two further flights were performed by Goddard . Blue Engine 1, or BE-1,
5724-626: The New Shepard launch vehicle. The company also announced that they intended to begin flight testing of the New Shepard later in 2015, with initial flights occurring as frequently as monthly, with "a series of dozens of flights over the extent of the sub-orbital test program [taking] a couple of years to complete". The same month, the FAA announced that the regulatory paperwork for the test program had already been filed and approved, and test flights were expected to begin before mid-May 2015. By February 2016, three New Shepard vehicles had been built. The first
5832-494: The Schmitt Space Communicator SC-1x, a three-pound device developed by Solstar that launched the first commercial wi-fi hotspot service in space and sent the first commercial Twitter message from space. NASA provided a part of the $ 2 million project's funding as a part of its Flight Opportunities program. On 12 September 2022,18 NASA payloads were flying on NS-23 when an in-flight failure of
5940-452: The UK but, except on heritage railways , they have been replaced by air brakes . Manifold vacuum can be used to drive accessories on automobiles . The best known application is the vacuum servo , used to provide power assistance for the brakes . Obsolete applications include vacuum-driven windscreen wipers and Autovac fuel pumps. Some aircraft instruments ( Attitude Indicator (AI) and
6048-424: The absolute pressure is equal to the current atmospheric pressure. In other words, most low vacuum gauges that read, for example 50.79 Torr. Many inexpensive low vacuum gauges have a margin of error and may report a vacuum of 0 Torr but in practice this generally requires a two-stage rotary vane or other medium type of vacuum pump to go much beyond (lower than) 1 torr. Many devices are used to measure
6156-506: The abstract concept of a featureless void faced considerable skepticism: it could not be apprehended by the senses, it could not, itself, provide additional explanatory power beyond the physical volume with which it was commensurate and, by definition, it was quite literally nothing at all, which cannot rightly be said to exist. Aristotle believed that no void could occur naturally, because the denser surrounding material continuum would immediately fill any incipient rarity that might give rise to
6264-422: The capsule from the launch rocket at any point during ascent . The Crew Capsule Escape Solid Rocket Motor (CCE-SRM) is sourced from Aerojet Rocketdyne . The interior volume of the capsule is 15 cubic meters (530 cu ft), containing 6 windows, 6 reclined seats, and handholds for ease of movement in zero-g . At the center of the capsule is a cylinder housing the crew escape system. After separation from
6372-463: The cause of the anomaly as a thermal-structure failure of the BE-3PM engine nozzle caused a thrust misalignment that triggered the capsule's emergency escape system to activate. Blue Origin said in its press release that New Shepard flights would resume as soon as possible. The return to flight mission happened on 19 December 2023. As of 2024 , there have been 5 propulsion modules built to date. They are: NS1, NS2, NS3, NS4, NS5. The first flight of
6480-415: The company has generated more than $ 100M from the New Shepard space tourism program. In 2024, rocket Scientist Aisha Bowe will be the first black woman to fly with Blue Origin on the New Shepard rocket. New Shepard is a fully reusable , vertical takeoff, vertical landing (VTVL) space vehicle composed of two principal parts: a pressurized crew capsule and a launch rocket that Blue Origin often calls
6588-494: The components of the stress–energy tensor are zero. This means that this region is devoid of energy and momentum, and by consequence, it must be empty of particles and other physical fields (such as electromagnetism) that contain energy and momentum. In general relativity , a vanishing stress–energy tensor implies, through Einstein field equations , the vanishing of all the components of the Ricci tensor . Vacuum does not mean that
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#17327795669306696-435: The concept informed Isaac Newton 's explanations of both refraction and of radiant heat. 19th century experiments into this luminiferous aether attempted to detect a minute drag on the Earth's orbit. While the Earth does, in fact, move through a relatively dense medium in comparison to that of interstellar space, the drag is so minuscule that it could not be detected. In 1912, astronomer Henry Pickering commented: "While
6804-475: The curvature of space-time is necessarily flat: the gravitational field can still produce curvature in a vacuum in the form of tidal forces and gravitational waves (technically, these phenomena are the components of the Weyl tensor ). The black hole (with zero electric charge) is an elegant example of a region completely "filled" with vacuum, but still showing a strong curvature. In classical electromagnetism ,
6912-523: The definition of outer space, the atmospheric density within the first few hundred kilometers above the Kármán line is still sufficient to produce significant drag on satellites . Most artificial satellites operate in this region called low Earth orbit and must fire their engines every couple of weeks or a few times a year (depending on solar activity). The drag here is low enough that it could theoretically be overcome by radiation pressure on solar sails ,
7020-404: The density of atmospheric gas simply decreases with distance from the object. The Earth's atmospheric pressure drops to about 32 millipascals (4.6 × 10 psi) at 100 kilometres (62 mi) of altitude, the Kármán line , which is a common definition of the boundary with outer space. Beyond this line, isotropic gas pressure rapidly becomes insignificant when compared to radiation pressure from
7128-427: The electric and magnetic fields have zero average values, but their variances are not zero. As a result, QED vacuum contains vacuum fluctuations ( virtual particles that hop into and out of existence), and a finite energy called vacuum energy . Vacuum fluctuations are an essential and ubiquitous part of quantum field theory. Some experimentally verified effects of vacuum fluctuations include spontaneous emission and
7236-403: The end of the second ground test nearly complete, the company completed all work envisioned under the phase 1 contract for the pusher escape system. They also "completed work on the other aspect of its award, risk reduction work on a composite pressure vessel" for the vehicle. Space vacuum A vacuum ( pl. : vacuums or vacua ) is space devoid of matter . The word is derived from
7344-530: The engine could produce 490 kilonewtons (110,000 lbf) of thrust at full power, and could successfully throttle down to as low as 110 kilonewtons (25,000 lbf) for use in controlled vertical landings if needed for that purpose on particular launch vehicles. The final engine specifications, released in April 2015 following the full test phase , included a minimum thrust of 89 kilonewtons (20,000 lbf), an even wider throttling capability by 20 percent than
7452-458: The engine was completed by April 2015, with over 450 engine firings and a cumulative engine test time of over 500 minutes. Blue Origin stated it would make the first test flight of its New Shepard vehicle later in 2015, with the BE-3PM engine. In the event, Blue Origin made the first flight test of the BE-3PM engine on the New Shepard suborbital vehicle before the month was out, flying
7560-435: The existence of the positron , confirmed two years later. Werner Heisenberg 's uncertainty principle , formulated in 1927, predicted a fundamental limit within which instantaneous position and momentum , or energy and time can be measured. This far reaching consequences also threatened whether the "emptiness" of space between particles exists. The strictest criterion to define a vacuum is a region of space and time where all
7668-549: The extendable nozzle for BE-3U by early 2016. By August 2018, BE-3U engine development had proceeded, test engines built, and had accumulated over 700 seconds of test time, confirming performance assumptions in the design. In February 2019, Blue Origin updated the thrust of BE-3U as used on New Glenn to 712 kN (160,000 lbf). In February 2020, Blue Origin opened up a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, to produce BE-3U and BE-4 engines. In August 2024 Jeff Bezos stated that
7776-701: The fabrication of semiconductors and optical coatings , and to surface science . The reduction of convection provides the thermal insulation of thermos bottles . Deep vacuum lowers the boiling point of liquids and promotes low temperature outgassing which is used in freeze drying , adhesive preparation, distillation , metallurgy , and process purging. The electrical properties of vacuum make electron microscopes and vacuum tubes possible, including cathode-ray tubes . Vacuum interrupters are used in electrical switchgear. Vacuum arc processes are industrially important for production of certain grades of steel or high purity materials. The elimination of air friction
7884-400: The first vacuum pump and conducted his famous Magdeburg hemispheres experiment, showing that, owing to atmospheric pressure outside the hemispheres, teams of horses could not separate two hemispheres from which the air had been partially evacuated. Robert Boyle improved Guericke's design and with the help of Robert Hooke further developed vacuum pump technology. Thereafter, research into
7992-432: The flexure of the diaphragm, which results in a change in capacitance. These gauges are effective from 10 torr to 10 torr, and beyond. Thermal conductivity gauges rely on the fact that the ability of a gas to conduct heat decreases with pressure. In this type of gauge, a wire filament is heated by running current through it. A thermocouple or Resistance Temperature Detector (RTD) can then be used to measure
8100-573: The flight was not carrying any people on board. New Shepard 4 (NS4), also called "Tail 4", which flies with capsule RSS First Step , was the fourth propulsion module to be built and the first to carry human passengers . Bezos himself was a passenger. The vehicle was manufactured in 2018 and moved to the Blue Origin West Texas launch facility in December 2019. The uncrewed maiden launch of NS4 occurred on 14 January 2021. NS4
8208-486: The flight, as well as a test dummy given the moniker "Mannequin Skywalker." Since the maiden flight, "Blue Origin has been making updates to the vehicle ... intended primarily to improve operability rather than performance or reliability. Those upgrades took longer than expected" leading to a several-month gap in test flights. The second test flight took place on 29 April 2018. The 10th overall New Shepard flight, and
8316-516: The fourth NS3 flight, had originally been planned for December 2018, but was delayed due to "ground infrastructure issues." Following a diagnostics of the initial issue, Blue Origin rescheduled the launch for early 2019, after discovering "additional systems" that needed repairs as well. The flight launched on 23 January 2019 and successfully flew to space with a maximum altitude of 106.9 km (66.4 mi). It has been used to test SPLICE ("Safe and Precise Landing – Integrated Capabilities Evolution"),
8424-433: The full-scale New Shepard vehicle was NS1, also called "Tail 1" and was conducted on 29 April 2015 during which an altitude of 93.5 km (58.1 mi) was attained. While the test flight itself was deemed a success, and the capsule was successfully recovered via parachute landing, the rocket crash landed and was not recovered due to a failure of hydraulic pressure in the vehicle control system during descent. The capsule
8532-426: The gas density decreases, the MFP increases, and when the MFP is longer than the chamber, pump, spacecraft, or other objects present, the continuum assumptions of fluid mechanics do not apply. This vacuum state is called high vacuum , and the study of fluid flows in this regime is called particle gas dynamics. The MFP of air at atmospheric pressure is very short, 70 nm , but at 100 mPa (≈ 10 Torr )
8640-416: The gases being measured. Ionization gauges are used in ultrahigh vacuum. They come in two types: hot cathode and cold cathode. In the hot cathode version an electrically heated filament produces an electron beam. The electrons travel through the gauge and ionize gas molecules around them. The resulting ions are collected at a negative electrode. The current depends on the number of ions, which depends on
8748-469: The impact of vacuum on human health, and on life forms in general. The word vacuum comes from Latin 'an empty space, void', noun use of neuter of vacuus , meaning "empty", related to vacare , meaning "to be empty". Vacuum is one of the few words in the English language that contains two consecutive instances of the vowel u . Historically, there has been much dispute over whether such
8856-512: The inclusion of new access panels for more rapid servicing and improved thermal protection. NS3 was the third propulsion module built. It was completed and shipped to the launch site by September 2017, although parts of it had been built as early as March 2016. Flight tests began in 2017 and continued into 2019. The new Crew Capsule 2.0, featuring windows, was integrated to the NS3. NS3 was only ever be used to fly cargo; no passengers were carried (as
8964-507: The interstellar absorbing medium may be simply the ether, [it] is characteristic of a gas, and free gaseous molecules are certainly there". Thereafter, however, luminiferous aether was discarded. Later, in 1930, Paul Dirac proposed a model of the vacuum as an infinite sea of particles possessing negative energy, called the Dirac sea . This theory helped refine the predictions of his earlier formulated Dirac equation , and successfully predicted
9072-409: The launch rocket, three parachutes deploy for a soft landing. In the event of a parachute failure, the capsule can still land safely with one of three parachutes deployed. Before touchdown, a retro-thrust system at the bottom of the capsule expels nitrogen gas to slow the landing to approximately 3.2 km/h (2 mph). Additionally, a crushable ring, 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) high, compresses upon impact on
9180-602: The museum. New Shepard 5 (NS5), which flies with capsule RSS Kármán Line , is Blue Origin's second crew-rated propulsion module. Manufactured to meet growing demand for New Shepard flights, it debuted on the NS-27 uncrewed flight, which flew on 23 October 2024 following aborted launch attempts on 7 October 2024 and 13 October 2024. As of 2024 , there have been 4 New Shepard capsules built to date. They are: RSS Jules Verne , RSS H. G. Wells , RSS First Step , and RSS Kármán Line . As of June 2022,
9288-459: The partial vacuum lapsed until 1850 when August Toepler invented the Toepler pump and in 1855 when Heinrich Geissler invented the mercury displacement pump, achieving a partial vacuum of about 10 Pa (0.1 Torr ). A number of electrical properties become observable at this vacuum level, which renewed interest in further research. While outer space provides the most rarefied example of
9396-530: The powers of God, led to the conclusion that God could create a vacuum if he so wished. From the 14th century onward increasingly departed from the Aristotelian perspective, scholars widely acknowledged that a supernatural void exists beyond the confines of the cosmos itself by the 17th century. This idea, influenced by Stoic physics , helped to segregate natural and theological concerns. Almost two thousand years after Plato, René Descartes also proposed
9504-426: The preliminary numbers, while maintaining the previously released full power thrust spec. As of December 2013, the engine had "demonstrated more than 160 starts and 9,100 seconds (152 min) of operation at Blue Origin's test facility near Van Horn, Texas." Additional testing of the BE-3 was completed in 2014, with the engine "simulating a sub-scale booster suborbital mission duty cycle." Test stand testing of
9612-429: The pressure in a vacuum, depending on what range of vacuum is needed. Hydrostatic gauges (such as the mercury column manometer ) consist of a vertical column of liquid in a tube whose ends are exposed to different pressures. The column will rise or fall until its weight is in equilibrium with the pressure differential between the two ends of the tube. The simplest design is a closed-end U-shaped tube, one side of which
9720-631: The pressure in the gauge. Hot cathode gauges are accurate from 10 torr to 10 torr. The principle behind cold cathode version is the same, except that electrons are produced in a discharge created by a high voltage electrical discharge. Cold cathode gauges are accurate from 10 torr to 10 torr. Ionization gauge calibration is very sensitive to construction geometry, chemical composition of gases being measured, corrosion and surface deposits. Their calibration can be invalidated by activation at atmospheric pressure or low vacuum. The composition of gases at high vacuums will usually be unpredictable, so
9828-481: The rocket's main engine caused an emergency ejection of the payload capsule. The payload capsule landed safely and was recovered whilst the rocket was lost. Blue Origin received US$ 3.7 million in Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) phase 1 to advance several development objectives of its innovative "pusher" Launch Abort System (LAS) and composite pressure vessel . In February 2011, with
9936-835: The space environment. With minutes of high-quality microgravity or partial-G, access to the Kármán Line, and gentle return of payload, New Shepard is transforming access to space research." As of March 2011 , Blue Origin had submitted the New Shepard reusable launch vehicle for use as an uncrewed rocket for NASA's suborbital reusable launch vehicle (sRLV) solicitation under NASA's Flight Opportunities Program. Blue Origin projects 100 km (62 mi) altitude in flights of approximately ten minutes duration, while carrying an 11.3 kg (25 lb) research payload. By March 2016, Blue Origin noted that they are "due to start flying unaccompanied scientific payloads later [in 2016]." On 29 April 2018, during its eighth flight New Shepard carried
10044-439: The system, so that a high quality vacuum is one with very little matter left in it. Vacuum is primarily measured by its absolute pressure , but a complete characterization requires further parameters, such as temperature and chemical composition. One of the most important parameters is the mean free path (MFP) of residual gases, which indicates the average distance that molecules will travel between collisions with each other. As
10152-408: The system. Fluids cannot generally be pulled, so a vacuum cannot be created by suction . Suction can spread and dilute a vacuum by letting a higher pressure push fluids into it, but the vacuum has to be created first before suction can occur. The easiest way to create an artificial vacuum is to expand the volume of a container. For example, the diaphragm muscle expands the chest cavity, which causes
10260-455: The temperature of the filament. This temperature is dependent on the rate at which the filament loses heat to the surrounding gas, and therefore on the thermal conductivity. A common variant is the Pirani gauge which uses a single platinum filament as both the heated element and RTD. These gauges are accurate from 10 torr to 10 torr, but they are sensitive to the chemical composition of
10368-475: The test, the capsule fired its pusher escape motor and launched from a launch vehicle simulator. The Crew Capsule traveled to an altitude of 703 m (2,307 ft) under active thrust vector control before descending safely by parachute to a soft landing 500 m (1,630 ft) downrange. In April 2015, Blue Origin announced that they had completed acceptance testing of the BE-3PM engine that would power
10476-465: The theory of classical electromagnetism, free space has the following properties: The vacuum of classical electromagnetism can be viewed as an idealized electromagnetic medium with the constitutive relations in SI units: relating the electric displacement field D to the electric field E and the magnetic field or H -field H to the magnetic induction or B -field B . Here r
10584-455: The top of the rocket provide aerodynamic stability and reduce fuel consumption during descent. Drag brakes are also deployed during descent to increase drag and reduce speed. The gimbaling engine nozzle and aft fins work together to steer the rocket, both using hydraulic actuators. The New Shepard crew capsule is a pressurized crew capsule designed to carry up to six people. It supports a "full-envelope" launch escape system that can separate
10692-420: The underside of the capsule and acts as a decelerator to absorb g-forces . New Shepard is launched 48 kilometres (30 mi; 26 nmi) north of Van Horn, Texas, at Launch Site One (LS1), and conducts a powered flight for about 110 seconds, up to an altitude of 40 km (25 mi; 22 nmi). The rocket and capsule then continue coasting upwards due to their momentum, reaching an apogee just above
10800-431: The vacuum in the steam space of the condenser, that is, the exhaust of the last stage of the turbine. Mechanical or elastic gauges depend on a Bourdon tube, diaphragm, or capsule, usually made of metal, which will change shape in response to the pressure of the region in question. A variation on this idea is the capacitance manometer , in which the diaphragm makes up a part of a capacitor. A change in pressure leads to
10908-577: Was approximately 10 minutes and crossed the Kármán line . New Shepard performed six crewed flights between July 2021 and August 2022, taking a mix of sponsored celebrities such as Wally Funk, William Shatner as well as paying customers. New Shepard ticket sales brought in $ 50 million through June 2022. The second and third crewed missions of New Shepard took place in October and December 2021. The Fourth crewed flight happened in March 2022. On 4 June 2022, New Shepard completed its fifth crewed mission launch and
11016-425: Was called RSS Jules Verne . The New Shepard 2 (NS2), also called "Tail 2", flight test article propulsion module made five successful flights in 2015 and 2016, being retired after its fifth flight in October 2016. New Shepard 3 (NS3), also called "Tail 3", along with capsule RSS H. G. Wells , was modified for increased reusability and improved thermal protection; it included a redesigned propulsion module and
11124-617: Was considering three engines from various manufacturers for the ACES stage which would putatively begin flight in 2023, with selection expected before 2019. While development of a sea-level version of the engine, BE-3PM, was completed and fully qualified by early 2015, Blue Origin said then that they intend to develop a vacuum version of the engine to operate in space. In January 2016, the US Air Force provided partial development funding to Orbital ATK to develop an extendable nozzle for
11232-749: Was lost in a test in April 2015, the second had flown twice (see below), and the third was completing manufacture at the Blue Origin factory in Kent, Washington, United States. In 2016, the Blue Origin team were awarded the Collier Trophy for demonstrating rocket reusability with the New Shepard human spaceflight vehicle. On 20 July 2021, the company successfully completed its first crewed mission, Blue Origin NS-16 , into space using its New Shepard launch vehicle, carrying passengers Jeff Bezos , his brother Mark Bezos , Wally Funk , and Oliver Daemen . The flight
11340-443: Was originally planned for NS3). Its initial flight test occurred on 12 December 2017. This was the first flight flown under the regulatory regime of a launch license granted by the FAA. Previous test flights had flown under an experimental permit, which did not allow Blue Origin to carry cargo for which it was paid for commercially. This made the flight of NS3 the first revenue flight for payloads, and it carried 12 experiments on
11448-579: Was successfully launched on 20 July 2021, with four passengers; Jeff Bezos was aboard this maiden crewed flight. On 13 October 2021, NS4 successfully launched and landed, carrying four passengers, including notable passenger William Shatner. On 11 December 2021, Blue Origin NS-19 successfully launched into space. This was the first time New Shepard carried six passengers, the full design passenger complement. In October 2024, National Air and Space Museum announced that Blue Origin had donated NS4 to be displayed in
11556-439: Was successfully tested in late 2013 on a full-duration simulated suborbital burn, with coast phases and engine relights, "demonstrating deep throttle, full power, long-duration and reliable restart all in a single-test sequence." NASA has released a video of the test. By December 2013, Blue Origin updated engine specifications following engine tests conducted on test stands at ground level, near sea level. This demonstrated that
11664-463: Was the first rocket engine developed by Blue Origin and was used in the company's Goddard development vehicle. On the path to developing the New Shepard launch vehicle, a crew capsule was also needed, and design was begun on a space capsule in the early 2000s. One development milestone along the way became public. On 19 October 2012, Blue Origin conducted a successful pad escape of a full-scale suborbital crew capsule at its West Texas launch site. For
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