![]() Partnering with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., in Palmdale California, they took the original idea and brought it up to date with new technologies and materials. NASA’s Project X-33 is what really got the ball rolling in the late 90s and early 2000s. The Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power unit of Boeing laid the foundations in the 1960s and 70s for the same aerospike we’re writing about today. This is because the air pressure within our atmosphere inhibits the thrust generated by any given rocket-meaning they produce more thrust in space than on Earth.Ĭontrary to what you might think, the aerospike has actually been in the design phase for quite a while. The bell nozzle is actually more efficient in space compared to being near the Earth’s surface. It’s a notable disadvantage of the bell-nozzle design that forces engineers to make a calculated compromise with the size of the nozzle’s throat section. “Basically, you pick the best operating altitude…and then you realize when you get to high altitude, your efficiency is going to decrease as you’re not gaining all the momentum you could,” says Stephen Whitmore, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at Utah State University. This means that the size of the nozzle’s throat needs to be chosen to produce optimal performance during the burn cycle as the spacecraft climbs. The size of the convergent point (also known as the throat of the nozzle) can be altered to tune the amount of thrust the rocket produces this process is critically important, as this design produces varying levels of performance at different altitudes. Inherent in its name, the nozzle converges down to a pinch point and proceeds to diverge and expand towards the exit. Pictured above are conventional bell-shaped rocket nozzles-also known as a convergent-divergent nozzles-on the space shuttle Discovery. The nozzle itself is nothing more than a specially shaped tube, which hot gasses can flow through.Īll rocketry functions through Newton’s third law of motion: If it wasn’t already apparent, all rockets need to use a nozzle of some type to accelerate hot exhaust to produce thrust. In fact, just this year the German military recently awarded a contract to Polaris, a small startup testing out a new linear aerospike rocket engine.īefore we get started, let’s talk about how conventional rockets function-and how the aerospike can bring us to the next level. Engineers have been toying with the aerospike engine concept since the 1950s, but interest picked back up in the early 2000s with NASA’s Project X-33. This relatively innovative concept promises to capitalize on the shortcomings of the early bell-shaped nozzle rockets, which were inefficient, expensive, and heavy. Those behind the aerospike rocket engine certainly believe so. So this design is not only tried and true, but stout enough to sling spacecraft outside of Earth’s orbit. ![]() From Apollo 11 in 1969 to the SpaceX Falcon Heavy missions, which began in 2018, both were propelled by rockets with bell-shaped nozzles. Rockets have gone mostly unchanged since their introduction in the 20th century. ![]()
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