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Rutherford is a liquid-propellant rocket engine designed by aerospace company Rocket Lab [8] and manufactured in Long Beach, California. [9] The engine is used on the company's own rocket, Electron. It uses LOX (liquid oxygen) and RP-1 (refined kerosene) as its propellants and is the first flight-ready engine to use the electric-pump-fed cycle.
Its Rutherford engines are the first electric-pump-fed engine to power an orbital-class rocket. [17] Electron is often flown with a kickstage or Rocket Lab's Photon spacecraft. Although the rocket was designed to be expendable, Rocket Lab has recovered the first stage twice and is working towards the capability of reusing the booster. [18]
The Rutherford engine uses pumps driven by battery-powered electric motors rather than a gas generator, expander, or preburner. [107] The engine is fabricated largely by 3D printing , using electron beam melting , [ 108 ] whereby layers of metal powder are melted in a high vacuum by an electron beam. [ 109 ]
Engine Origin Designer Vehicle Status Use Propellant Power cycle Specific impulse (s) [a] Thrust (N) [a] Chamber pressure (bar) Mass (kg) Thrust: weight ratio [e] Oxidiser: fuel ratio
Archimedes is presented as a highly reusable liquid-propellant engine using methane and liquid oxygen in an oxidizer-rich staged combustion cycle. [1] [2] There are both sea-level and vacuum variants. The engine is mostly 3D printed, [7] with some of the biggest 3D printers in the world. The rationale for the cycle change from the original gas ...
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SSFL was used mainly for the development and testing of liquid-propellant rocket engines for the United States space program from 1949 to 2006, [1] nuclear reactors from 1953 to 1980 and the operation of a U.S. government-sponsored liquid metals research center from 1966 to 1998. [3]
The Ares V was to use six RS-68B engines on a 10 metres (33 ft) diameter core stage, along with two 5.5-segment solid rocket boosters. It was later determined that the ablative nozzle of the RS-68 was poorly suited to this multi-engine environment, causing reduced engine efficiency and extreme heating at the base of the vehicle. [24]