Summer 2024 Internship - Blue Origin Texas Test Engineering

Photo: Blue Origin

From Amateur to Professional:

First, a special thanks goes to Ty Walsh, Homero Gonzalez, and Mark Luke (intern mentors), as well as the entire XEEx BE-4 test team (Caitlin BenVau, Austin Prior, Steven Bellefontaine, Dillon Vance, Huey Martin, Frank Rodriguez, and so so so many more). As well, I'd like to thank my intern cohort - Sabrina Mayor (Georgia Tech), Adam Ben Youssef (University of Maryland), Ben Cook (Embry-Riddle Daytona), Penelope Nieves (University of Puerto Rico), and Mollie Valek (University of Alabama Huntsville). I miss you all, and could not have done what I did without you.

As someone heavily interested in the confluence of space exploration and fire, I was incredibly excited to hear that I had been placed at Blue Origin Texas' BE-4 test site, XEEx, supporting the BE-4, a 550k-lbf LOx/LNG oxygen-rich staged combustion engine, the largest of its kind ever flown. During the internship, I was fortunate to carry over the skills and ways of thinking that I had developed in school building, testing, and flying rockets and rocket engines, to a system orders of magnitude more high-stakes and complex, supported by one of the best propulsion test teams in the country. My thoughts were pretty much encapsulated by "what on earth, test stand but biggg!!" I had the honor of playing a very, very small part in the massive effort to launch New Glenn Mission 1, with XEEx testing all but 1 of the flown first-stage BE-4s, several of which were tested during my time there.

Photo: Mollie Valek - Approved by Blue Origin trade compliance for public release

Valve Automation Project:

About half of my time at the XEEx site was spent working on a valve automation project, started by the last intern, Will Putaansuu. This project was to take 8 GN2 and 2 hydraulics manual isolation valves for supplies going to the BE-4 engine, ranging from 100psi to 3000psi, and convert them to remote shut-off valves (RSV), which then could be included in automated operations, saving valuable test time.

The main value of these modifications are the isolation and de-isolation of individual test cells at the test stand, which helps to be able to rapidly switch between different engines being tested simultaneously while still keeping full isolation to the inactive engine. This has the potential to save technician time, and potentially hours of system downtime since the manual valves require parts of the site to not be under prohibited entry status, which is triggered during most hotfire operations.

On this project, I was responsible for the mechanical and electrical integration of the new system, which largely occurred during short periods of downtime, when the test stand was not in constant operation. During these times, it was a sprint to get tubes bent and flared, wiring harnesses fabricated and run, and the entire system re-activated before the next time it was needed to be used. During these times, I was fortunate to get to help technicians mechanically install valves and actuators, a fascination of mine since well, who doesn't love valves and actuators? On the back-end, this work for me included writing system safing instructions and work instructions for technicians, procuring components, and writing instructions and operating procedures for test stand reactivation, which included leak checks, valve cycle checks, and failstate tests.

The outcome of the project was that all 8 GN2 valves were completed, with the hydraulics system unable to be taken down during the summer due to engine testing in too-close proximity. The hydraulics system was later completed by full-time XEEx employees during a lull in testing, after my internship. All 8 GN2 valves were used during BE4 hotfire testing before the completion of my internship.

Unfortunately, photos of my work during this time are not approved for public release, so here's a NG M-1 photo instead.

Photo: Blue Origin / John Krause

Test Operations:

During the other half of my time at Blue, I was tasked with a variety of day-to-day operations, learning the ins and outs of how a test stand of this complexity functioned. During my first weeks, this was a large amount of shadowing, from engineering operations, to technician methods and work, to hotfire operations. Additionally, a majorly steep learning curve was learning the various fluid systems on the stand, across LOx, LNG, hydraulics, water, GN2, GH2, GOx, and GHe, by performing P&ID (plumbing and instrumentation diagram) walkdowns.

After a few weeks, I was able to start contributing to the work, with my first tasks including day-to-day work such as cryogenic LNG (liquified natural gas) sampling, hydraulic sampling, system leak checks and function checks, audits of critical components requiring spare parts to protect from anomalies, and much, much more. Though console hours for trainees came few and far between in the midst of some of the most critical testing in Blue Origin history, I was still able to get some time in, especially on facility startup and shutdown, and early stages of hotfire operations such as system checkouts, purges, and system chill-in.

Photo: Blue Origin

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