McGREGOR, Texas - Central Texas shook Saturday morning as a rocket engine rivaling even those from the Apollo program roared through a successful third test.
Scientists and technicians from Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc. fired the second stage engine dubbed BA 810 for a 21-second test at a former Navy rocket engine test facility near Waco, Texas.
"That was a success," exclaimed Andrew Beal, founder and owner of the private company. "What a milestone!"
At about 11:30 a.m., the engine fired and sent a plume of smoke downrange followed by a bright orange fireball shooting out about 200 feet (60 meters). The deafening roar from the engine drowned out all sound, even at the viewing area about one-half mile (0.8 kilometers) away.
About 600 people including Beal employees, friends and families, along with space industry insiders and politicians, gathered for the engine test in a horizontal stand built by the company in 1998.
Beal said he was pleased with the results so far and wasn’t concerned about delays in development and testing components of the heavy lift BA 2 rocket now scheduled to fly in 2002, rather than 2001 as originally planned.
"The devil is in the details," Beal said. "I’m not worried about the timeframe."
Beal, a Dallas banker and real estate developer, has financed the company from his own pocket and hopes to enter the lucrative satellite launching market. He employs about 200 people in a factory in Frisco, Texas -- near Dallas.
The three-stage BA 2 rocket will stand about 236 feet (72 meters) tall and lift payloads of 13,200 pounds (5,988 kilograms) into geostationary orbit and 37,400 pounds (16,965 kilograms) to low Earth orbit, according to the company. Both the first and second stages are planned to be reusable.
The second stage engine fired Saturday is designed to produce 810,000 pounds of thrust in a vacuum. In comparison, the F 1 engine used on th Saturn 5, produced 1.7 million pounds of thrust. Each of the three space shuttle main engines produces 513,250 pounds of thrust at 109 percent power.
The engine used in Saturday’s ground test was more than 12 feet (3.7 meters) long, but the flight engine will be 26 feet (8 meters) long.
Program manager Scott Frazier was happy with the kerosene-and-hydrogen peroxide-powered engine’s performance. "I can relax now," the former Orbital Sciences Corp. and McDonnell Douglas Corp. engineer said. "We’ve had a string of successes now, so I’m pretty happy."
The company previously tested its third stage engine in 1998 and plans on testing its first stage engine late this year. The first stage engine is expected to produce 4.1 million pounds of vacuum thrust.
Beal is currently looking at several launch sites, including ones in Florida, Guyana and Sombrero Island, Antigua. The company has received opposition from residents in Antigua, but negotiations continue.
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