 A BE-3PM engine undergoing testing | |
| Country of origin | United States |
|---|---|
| First flight | April 29, 2015 (2015-04-29) |
| Designer | Blue Origin |
| Manufacturer | Blue Origin |
| AssociatedLV | New Shepard |
| Status | Active |
| Liquid-fuel engine | |
| Propellant | LOX /LH2 |
| Cycle | Pump‑fedcombustion tap‑off |
| Performance | |
| Thrust, sea-level | 490 kN (110,156 lbf)[1] |
| Throttle range | 18–100%[1] |
| Country of origin | United States |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Blue Origin |
| AssociatedLV | New Glenn |
| Status | In production |
| Liquid-fuel engine | |
| Propellant | LOX /LH2 |
| Cycle | Expander |
| Configuration | |
| Chamber | 1 |
| Performance | |
| Thrust, vacuum |
|
| Throttle range | 75–100%[3] |
| Thrust-to-weight ratio | 90:1 |
| Specific impulse, vacuum | 445 s (4.36 km/s) |
BE-3 (Blue Engine 3) is acryogenic rocket engine usingliquid hydrogen andliquid oxygen as propellants.Blue Origin began BE-3 development in the early 2010s and the engine completed acceptance testing in early 2015. The BE-3PM variant is used on theNew Shepard suborbital rocket, which made its first test flight on April 29, 2015, and had its first crewed flight on July 20, 2021. The BE-3U variant is used on the second stage of theNew Glenn orbital rocket, which made its inaugural flight on January 16, 2025.
Following Aerojet’s acquisition of Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne in 2012, Blue Origin presidentRob Meyerson saw an opportunity to fill a gap in the defense industrial base.[4] Blue Origin publicly entered the liquid rocket engine business by partnering with ULA on the development of the BE-4, and working with other companies.[4] Meyerson announced the selection of Huntsville, AL as the location of Blue Origin’s rocket production factory in June 2017.[4]
The BE-3 follows the earliestrocket engine development efforts at Blue Origin in the 2000s. Blue Origin's first engine was a "simple, single-propellant engine" called theBE-1 (Blue Engine 1) which usedperoxide propellant and generated only 8.9 kN (2,000 lbf) ofthrust, and their second, theBE-2 (Blue Engine 2) which was a bipropellant engine usingkerosene and peroxide, producing 140 kN (31,000 lbf) thrust.[5]
In January 2013, the company announced the development of the BE-3 (Blue Engine 3), a newliquid hydrogen/liquid oxygen (LH2/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.[6] The thrust chamber tests were run sometime in 2013.[7]
The BE-3 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 andreliable restart all in a single-test sequence."[8] NASA has released a video of the test.[7]
By December 2013, Blue Origin updated engine specifications following engine tests conducted on test stands at ground level, near sea level. This demonstrated that the engine could produce 490 kilonewtons (110,000 lbf) of thrust at full power, and could successfullythrottle down to as low as 110 kilonewtons (25,000 lbf) for use in controlledvertical landings if needed for that purpose on particular launch vehicles.[8] The final engine specifications, released in April 2015 following the fulltest phase, included a minimum thrust of 89 kilonewtons (20,000 lbf), an even wider throttling capability by 20 percent than the preliminary numbers, while maintaining the previously released full power thrust spec.[9]
As of December 2013[update], 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."[8][10] Additional testing of the BE-3 was completed in 2014, with the engine "simulating a sub-scale boostersuborbital mission duty cycle."[11] Test stand testing of 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 itsNew Shepard vehicle later in 2015,[9] with the BE-3PM engine.[12][13]
In the event, Blue Origin made the firstflight test of the BE-3PM[13][12] engine on theNew Shepard suborbital vehicle before the month was out, flying a boost profile to 93,500 meters (307,000 ft) altitude on April 29, 2015.[14]
In April 2015,United Launch Alliance (ULA) was considering the BE-3 for use in a newsecond stage, theAdvanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage (ACES), which was planned to become the primary upper stage for ULA'sVulcanorbital launch vehicle in the 2020s. The Vulcan was planned to begin orbital flights in 2019 with an existing Centaur upper stage, and was considering three engines from various manufacturers for the ACES stage which would putatively begin flight in 2023, with selection expected before 2019.[15]
While development of a sea-level version of the engine, BE-3PM,[13] was completed and fully qualified by early 2015, Blue Origin said then that they intend to develop avacuum version of the engine to operate in space.[16]
In January 2016, theUS Air Force provided partial development funding toOrbital ATK to develop an extendablenozzle for the Blue Origin BE-3U.[17][18]
On July 20, 2021, the engine design was used in its first crewed flight of theNew Shepard.[19]
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.
On January 16, 2025, a variant of the engine was used in its inaugural orbital flight of theNew Glenn.
The first stage variant of the BE-3, the BE-3PM,[13] uses apump-fed engine design, with acombustion tap-off cycle to take a small amount of combustion gases from the maincombustion chamber in order to power the engineturbopumps.[11][10]
Blue Origin has developed an openexpander cycle variant of the BE-3, theBE-3U. Two of these engines are used to power theNew Glenn second stage.[20]
In November 2015, the engine was projected to have a vacuum thrust of 670 kN (150,000 lbf).[21] Development had begun on the extendable nozzle for BE-3U by early 2016.[17] By August 2018, BE-3U engine development had proceeded, test engines built, and had accumulated over 700 seconds oftest time, confirming performance assumptions in the design.[20] In February 2019, Blue Origin updated the thrust of BE-3U as used on New Glenn to 712 kN (160,000 lbf).[22]
In February 2020, Blue Origin opened up a factory in Huntsville, Alabama, to produce BE-3U and BE-4 engines.[23]
In August 2024Jeff Bezos stated that the BE-3U's thrust had been uprated to 765 kN (172,000 lbf) and that itsspecific impulse is 445s.[24] The reported thrust was later revised to 770 kN (173,000 lbf) in a press release.[25] In April 2025,Dave Limp announced a static fire had been conducted on the New Glenn second stage which increased the maximum thrust of the BE-3U to 778 kN (175,000 lbf).[26]
In November 2025,Dave Limp announced another demonstrated performance increase for BE-3U, this time increasing maximum thrust to 941 kN (211,500 lbf).[27]
The performance of the sea-level version of the BE-3, the BE-3PM,[13] include:
We've recently completed acceptance testing, meaning we've accepted the engine for suborbital flight on our New Shepard vehicle, [the end of a] very, very long development program [of] 450 test firings of the engine and a cumulative run time of more than 500 minutes. The completion of those tests sets the stage for Blue Origin to begin test flights of the vehicle later this year at its facility in West Texas [where they] expect a series of flight tests with this vehicle … flying in autonomous mode… We expect a series of dozens of flights over the extent of the test program [taking] a couple of years to complete.
The BE-3 engine is flying. The engine that powers the New Shepard suborbital vehicle today will be upgraded with a larger nozzle to operate in the vacuum of orbital space.
Specifically, Orbital ATK will combine the Air Force money with at least $31 million, and as much as $124 million, of its own to develop [..., including] an extendable nozzle for Blue Origin's BE-3U upper stage engine. Blue Origin uses the BE-3 for its New Shepard suborbital rocket. The BE-3 also is one of three upper-stage engines United Launch Alliance is considering for Vulcan, the Denver company's next-generation rocket. 'We are proud to provide the BE-3U high energy upper stage solution for Orbital ATK's next generation launch vehicle,' Rob Meyerson, Blue Origin's president, said in an email to SpaceNews. 'The BE-3U is a variant of our BE-3 engine that powers our New Shepard space vehicle for both launch and landing.'
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