NASA Successfully Static Tests It's New RS-25 Engine

January 9, 2015 NASA successfully completed a static test when it started and ran it's new RS-25
engine.

NASA Tests Revolutionary New Rocket Engine Component

On Aug. 22 NASA fired a new rocket engine that in many ways a milestone for one of many important advances the agency is making to reduce the cost of space hardware.  

The engine in question was capable of generating a record setting 20,000 pounds of thrust. which in many ways was 10 times more thrust than many previous components were able to deliver before.  

One component in particular that NASA was monitoring was a special injector that was responsible for delivering propellants to the engine's combustion chamber.  

The test injector passed with flying colors which caused a great deal of excitement.  The reason for the interest was the process by which the injector was manufactured.  The innovating process is called additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing which is hoped to bring about new and more cost-effective manufacturing processes in the agency.  

From the Article:

• The component was manufactured using selective laser melting. This method built up layers of nickel-chromium alloy powder to make the complex, subscale injector with its 28 elements for channeling and mixing propellants. The part was similar in size to injectors that power small rocket engines. It was similar in design to injectors for large engines, such as the RS-25 engine that will power NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket for deep space human missions to an asteroid and Mars.

Pic is of a Shuttle rs-25 main engine being test fired. 

full article here

Apollo Era Engines Recovered from the Depths?

From the Miami Herald via Xnewsman and others, is word that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has made good on his promise and has raised an engine thought to be from the Apollo Saturn rocket that launched American astronauts towards the moon. Bezos and NASA on Wednesday that the rusty relics fished from the bottom of the Atlantic may well be parts to two Saturn V F-1 engines of which the Saturn main stage had 5. Bezos says it is difficult to determine which mission they came from, as the serial numbers have corroded off most of the exposed surfaces. NASA is helping track down the information on the engines.

 NASA's Saturn V still holds the record for the only rocket to take humans beyond earth orbit as well as holding the record for largest payload. Fully fueled, the Saturn tipped the scale a 6.5 million pounds. It could loft 260,000 pounds to low Earth orbit (leo) of which 90,000 could be delivered to Moon orbit.

Read more at the WIKI site here And the Miami Herald here

Thanks to Xnewsman for the info

Static Test of the Largest Amateur Liquid Fuel Rocket Engine

Here is the text from the YouTube video that in a nutshell shows the firing on a static test platform of the biggest amateur built liquid fueled engine.

On May 20 2012 Copenhagen Suborbitals tested its liquid propellant TM65 engine running on LOX and 75% ethanol.

Also check the image gallery at: https://picasaweb.google.com/copsub

Ok all you liquid fueled rocket engine nuts out there, here is news on the new engine from SpaceX. Here is the video text:

• SpaceX successfully test fires SuperDraco, a powerful new engine that will play a critical role in efforts to change the future of human spaceflight. These engines will power a revolutionary launch escape system that will make Dragon the safest spacecraft in history and enable it to land propulsively on Earth or another planet with pinpoint accuracy. In a series of tests conducted at SpaceX's Rocket Development Facility in McGregor, Texas, the SuperDraco sustained full duration, full thrust firing as well as a series of deep throttling demonstrations.

Sending Humanity to the Stars?

From an article in the Daily Galaxy , I was reading about a theme that runs through science fiction - sending humanity to the stars.  Of course once you let this cat out of the bag, you find that there are more questions than answers and all of them good.  But really there are the three most important and therefor the most troubling.  Where would you send humanity to first, exactly what would you send and the multi-pronged question how long would it take.

First to save space you can't send people.  DNA and self replicating robots would keep the payload fairly small.  But most of the job to build more machinery to grow and nurture the new life falls on robotics much more advanced than we have today.  So where would you send humanities's "ark"?   The Daily Galaxy article really drops back to basics in it's choice, to the target that was always the darling child destination when I was younger and that was Alpha Centauri our nearest stellar neighbor is only four light-years distant.  Alpha Centauri A is the same type of star as our Sun and may well have planets in the habitable zone.

But the "closeness" is relative.  With the present engine tech it would take our "seed ship" 80,000 years to arrive at the Centauri system.  Even with some of the promising technology for thrust such as the ion drive, it will still take a vast amount of time to move even to, for all intents and purposes, next door.

arrow in pic at top of page, shows the Centauri a system

read the complete Daily Galaxy article

The QDrive: A Revolutionary Engine for Spacecraft

Boing Boing listed this article about an engine called The QDrive - which is a "radiation pressure imbalance" drive for space travel.

Over at Cannae LLC in Pennsylvania,they describe the QDrive as

• a resonating cavity with design features that redirect the radiation pressure exerted in the cavity to create a radiation pressure imbalance on the cavity. This differential in radiation pressure generates an unbalanced force that creates thrust. The cavity is accelerated without use of propellant.

You know what came to mind first? Remember that old cartoon with Wile E. Coyote and the Road-Runner, where Wile E. puts on skates, ties a water tub to the skates and a outboard engine to his waist with the prop in the tub of water. Pulling the starter string sends him off after the Road-runner. Remember? Even as a child I often wondered first, why the crazy Coyote wasn't dead and second it that rigging could really work! I get that feeling off this Q thing....

I honestly thought I was seeing a new type of electric razor head unit....hah

Nasa testing methane buring rocket engine

While most NASA rockets are powered by liquid oxygen and hydrogen or solid chemicals, NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is testing a methane engine. The technology is still in an early stage of development and isn't ready for space. But if the technology proves itself, methane engines like this one could eventually be key to deep space exploration.

For a short movie of the engine test - click on the article title and follow the instructions for viewing the short video. Its very impressive, just from the sound of the engine running!

submitted by Shaun Saunders