ASCI - 602 Updated Blog Post (Mod 6.3)

Aaron Stone – Blog 

(Update, September 12, 2018)

Hi Class, 

This post brings us to New Zealand and will review a growing company called Rocket Lab. Peter Beck founded Rocket Lab in 2006 following a decade and a half of propulsion research and market development in the international space community and serves as CEO & CTO. Rocket Lab’s mission statement is to open access to space to improve life on Earth and develop and launch advanced rocket technology to provide rapid and repeatable access to orbit for small satellites. This blog will focus more on what makes the company’s Electron rocket stand-out among other rockets used today. The Electron is a two-stage rocket with an optional apogee kick-stage. The first stage consists of nine Rutherford engines, the second stage is powered by a variant of the Rutherford engine, and the optional apogee kick-stage powered by the Curie engine. The Rutherford engine is named after New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford, a Nobel laureate famous for his work in discovering radioactive half-life and being the first to split the atom.

What has made Rocket Lab so unique is that the Rutherford engine is the first oxygen/kerosene engine to use 3D/AM printing for all primary components. The Rutherford engine is an oxygen/kerosene pump-fed engine specifically designed in-house for the Electron rocket using an entirely new propulsion cycle. It’s unique high-performance electric propellent pumps reduce mass and replace hardware with software. Weighing just 35 kg each, nine Rutherford engines propel Rocket Lab’s Electron launch vehicle to space powered by a fuel mixture of highly refined kerosene and liquid oxygen. Rutherford uses an entirely new propulsion cycle to create outstanding efficiency for a kerosene-oxygen engine.

Development of the 3D printed, electric turbo-pump fed Rutherford engine began in 2013, with the first test fire taking place in December of the same year. The engines attained flight heritage during Rocket Lab’s first test flight in May 2017. On January 31st, 2018 Rocket Lab successfully completed the 500th test fire of the orbital-class Rutherford rocket engine. The 500th Rutherford test fire burned for a duration of 100 seconds. The milestone firing brings the Rutherford engine series to 19,000 seconds of cumulative firing time since the first hot fire test in December 2013.

The Rutherford engine was designed from the beginning to be both high performing and fast to manufacture on a mass scale. By enabling faster, scalable engine production Rocket Lab is able to speed up production of the whole vehicle. Rocket Lab claims they can print an entire engine in as little as 24 hours, thus allowing the build and launch at unprecedented frequencies to democratize access to space, enabling the creation of crucial orbital infrastructure. Rocket Lab has produced a total of 40 flight-ready engines to date and aims to produce another 100 engines by the end of 2018. The Rutherford engine’s production scalability is facilitated by three-dimensional/additive manufacturing (3D/AM) printing primary components. With a 3D printed combustion chamber, injectors, pumps, and main propellant valves, Rutherford has the most 3D printed components of any rocket engine in the world.

For further information please follow the link provided. Also, to see more of Rocket Lab please enjoy the following video.

References

https://www.rocketlabusa.com