NASA 3D-printed Deep Space Rocket Engine Passes Long Duration Test

NASA 3D-printed Deep Space Rocket Engine Passes Long Duration Test

A full-scale 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) was successfully tested for 251 seconds, producing more than 5,800 pounds of thrust, at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. According to NASA, “the RDRE differs from a traditional rocket engine by generating thrust using a supersonic combustion phenomenon known as a detonation. This design produces more power while using less fuel than today’s propulsion systems and has the potential to power both human landers and interplanetary vehicles to deep space destinations, such as the Moon and Mars.” 

This kind of sustained burn emulates typical requirements for a lander touchdown or a deep-space burn that could set a spacecraft on course from the Moon to Mars, said Marshall combustion devices engineer Thomas Teasley, who leads the RDRE test effort at the center.

RDRE’s first hot fire test was performed at Marshall in the summer of 2022 in partnership with In Space LLC and Purdue University, both of Lafayette, Indiana. That test produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The primary goal of the latest test, Teasley noted, is to better understand how to scale the combustor to different thrust classes, supporting engine systems of all types and maximizing the variety of missions it could serve, from landers to upper stage engines to supersonic retropropulsion, a deceleration technique that could land larger payloads—or even humans—on the surface of Mars.

“The RDRE enables a huge leap in design efficiency,” he said. “It demonstrates we are closer to making lightweight propulsion systems that will allow us to send more mass and payload further into deep space, a critical component to NASA’s Moon to Mars vision.”

Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and researchers at Venus Aerospace of Houston, Texas, are working with NASA Marshall to identify how to scale the technology for higher performance.

RDRE is managed and funded by the Game Changing Development Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Video Credit: NASA/MSFC

Acknowledgement: SciNews

Duration: 4 minutes, 44 seconds

Release Date: Dec. 20, 2023

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