NASA Test Rare Supersonic Rocket Engine With Circular Combustion!

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Indiana-based aerospace firm IN Space LLC have started to analyze data from the tests of a remarkable rocket engine design. The tests are of a rotating detonation rocket engine that uses waves of combusted fuel and oxidizer to generate thrust by creating supersonic shockwaves. These engines are more powerful than the chemical engines used to transport humans and cargo to space, and NASA's tests covered more than a dozen runs and generated the most thrust for this engine design. The space agency aimed to test material strength through these tests, and it plans to test a higher-powered variant soon.

NASA Generates More Than 4,000 Pounds Of Thrust With Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDNE)

A typical rocket engine, like the one that powers NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket or SpaceX's Falcon lineup, uses a standard combustion chamber to generate thrust. This chamber feeds the propellant (fuel) and oxidizer (combustive material) with high pressure into the chamber where they are lit up. The resulting thrust is then directed through a meticulously crafted nozzle - and the balance of the exhaust gasses and the products in the chamber (chamber pressure)  is critical in determining whether the engine will work or if it will simply send the exhaust back into the tanks.

This process is called deflagration, a technical term in which the exhaust or the by-products of a combustion reaction travel slower than the speed of sound. In a similar vein, detonation is when the by-products travel faster than the speed of sound or supersonically. This lends them an added kick, as the gasses excite the particles of the medium they are traveling in. As a simple illustration, a Trinitrotoluene (TNT) explosion on Earth is a detonation, as the by-products of water, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and others travel faster than sound can in air. This also results in a characteristic shockwave that is observed with the explosions.

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A rotating detonation engine also uses the principle of detonation to build a self-sustaining pressure inside the combustion chamber, which leads to more fuel efficiency and higher power. In such an engine, the combustion products travel around inside a cylindrical combustor, or what is technically called an annulus. The shape of this combustor allows pressure waves from the detonation to revolve around the engine, with the waves 'chasing' themselves in a remarkable process.  Their high speed leads to the waves covering tens of thousands of revolutions per second, and the process of detonation is better at converting the energy of fuel into thrust when compared to deflagration.

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NASA says that its RDNE went through several hot fire tests at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and the agency is analyzing the data from these in partnership with In Space, LLC. The pair conducted more than a dozen tests that saw the engine fire up for more than ten minutes cumulatively. Additionally, a full-throttle test of the RDNE saw it generate 4,000 pounds of thrust with a chamber pressure of 622 pounds per square inch (psi), with the psi reading being the highest for the rotating detonation design. Conventional engines, such as those currently used by NASA and SpaceX, have chamber pressures of thousands of psi.

The aim of the tests, according to the space agency, was not to set new chamber pressure records. Instead, NASA aimed to evaluate whether the engine's build materials could withstand the high stresses of detonative combustion - particularly one used for rocket propulsion. These materials were built through 3D manufacturing, with the precise material being "NASA-developed copper-alloy GRCop-42," according to the space agency. The 4,000-pound thrust engine also successfully throttled and demonstrated internal ignition, with NASA now aiming to test a much more powerful 10,000-pound version.

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