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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Thrusters are the unsung heroes of the engine world. They make the small adjustments that help orient a spacecraft. NASA is testing out some next-gen thrusters for its future lunar landers, and they are glowing.
NASA and Frontier Aerospace, which is developing the thrusters, put two prototypes through 60 hot-fire tests in a vacuum chamber in March. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted an animated GIF on Wednesday of one of the prototypes glowing during a test. It looks like the world's most awesome night light.
We’re developing next-gen thrusters to be used on @Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander. The vacuum chamber hot-fire tests of a thruster prototype were the first in a series of tests to ready this lightweight, cost-saving technology for space: https://t.co/0gYfRzJC3K pic.twitter.com/Nud3Qq2Vum
— Jim Bridenstine (@JimBridenstine)
The thrusters, which are part of the agency's Thruster for the Advancement of Low-temperature Operation in Space (TALOS) project, use a propellant called MON-25, which should work well in the extremely low temperatures in space. NASA said it will make spacecraft systems smaller, lighter and less expensive.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday March 26 2020, @06:32PM (1 child)
We all realize that the instant you light a torch within an enclosed space, there is no longer a vacuum, right? So lighting up in the chamber is not the same as lighting up in the vacuum of space. But, smoke 'em if you got 'em.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 26 2020, @08:36PM
Typical for Runaway and classic MAS response.
A little digging turned up this NASA page https://www.nasa.gov/centers/marshall/news/releases/2020/moon-thrusters-withstand-over-60-hot-fire-tests.html [nasa.gov] which mentions the test site -- Moog-ISP near Niagara Falls. I'm familiar with Moog (mostly known for hydraulic servo controls) because I worked on some personal projects for Bill Moog the founder, c.1980.
Here's a brochure on the history of Moog-ISP, https://www.moog.com/content/dam/moog/literature/Space_Defense/spaceliterature/brochures/Moog_ISP_Overview.pdf [moog.com] It's been through a bunch of different owners, started as part of Bell Aircraft/Aerospace in 1945--this is the company that made the Agena engines that always worked, many launches in '50s and '60s (I believe there was one failure in testing?)
This article has a picture of one of the test chambers, https://www.space-travel.com/reports/Moog_Conducts_More_Than_7900_Hot_Fire_Tests_on_400_Engines_in_2012_999.html [space-travel.com] They run hundreds of hot fire tests every year on thrusters and larger engines. The test chamber is huge compared to the tiny thruster, and being precise they do call it "high altitude/vacuum testing".