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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]
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
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 ]
Electrical pumps had been used in the secondary propulsion system of the Agena upper stage vehicle. [1] As of December 2020, the only rocket engines to use electric propellant pump systems are the Rutherford engine, [2] ten of which power the Electron rocket, [2] and the Delphin engine, five of which power the first stage of Astra Space's ...
The disconnect lead to power being cut from the electric turbopumps needed for the Rutherford engine leading the engine to be shut down. [71] No changes were made to the vehicle but changes were made to "work instructions and quality signoffs". [72] 14 "I Can't Believe It's Not Optical" 31 August 2020 03:05:47 [73] Mahia, LC-1A
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 ...
[2]: 172 The first engine fired successfully in September, and on August 16, 1942, a trial rocket stopped in mid-air and crashed due to a failure in the turbopump. [2] [4] The first successful V-2 launch was on October 3, 1942. [5] Starting from the 1938-1940, Robert H. Goddard's team also independently developed small turbopumps.