Successful engine test brings Australian space launch capability a step closer:
An Australian research consortium has successfully tested a next generation propulsion system that could enable high-speed flight and space launch services.
The team's rotating detonation engine, or RDE, is a major technical achievement and an Australian first.
It was designed by RMIT University engineers and is being developed by a consortium led by DefendTex, with researchers from RMIT, University of Sydney and Universität der Bundeswehr in Germany.
How it works
While conventional rocket engines operate by burning fuel at constant pressure, RDEs produce thrust by rapidly detonating their propellant in a ring-shaped combustor. Once started, the engine is in a self-sustaining cycle of detonation waves that travel around the combustor at supersonic speeds greater than 2.5km a second.
Using this type of combustion has the potential to significantly increase engine efficiency and performance, with applications in rocket propulsion and high-speed airbreathing engines—similar to ramjets.
Benefits over existing engines include better fuel efficiency, simpler flight systems and a more compact engine, allowing for larger payloads and reduced launch costs.
[...] Although this technology is in its early stages, further development could support satellite launches from Australian soil and commercial opportunities for Australia's space industry, while indirectly supporting telecommunications, agriculture, transport, logistics and other industries.
YouTube video: What Is A Rotating Detonation Engine - And Why Are They Better Than Regular Engines
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Japan successfully tests rocket engine propelled by new technology
Japan on Tuesday successfully tested a rocket engine that was propelled by new technology using shock waves produced by burning a mixture of methane and oxygen gases, with the aim of applying the propulsion method to deep space exploration in the future, the country’s space agency said.
The No. 31 vehicle of the S-520 sounding rocket series, measuring 8 meters in length and 52 centimeters in diameter and carrying the engine, lifted off from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima Prefecture at around 5:30 a.m., according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
It reached an altitude of 235 kilometers four minutes and four seconds after the launch and landed in the sea southeast of Uchinoura about eight minutes later, with JAXA retrieving a capsule containing test data in nearby waters.
[...] Jiro Kasahara, a Nagoya University professor, jointly developing the technology with JAXA, said the test demonstrated that the engine maintained a propelling force in space as expected.
“We will aim to put the technology into practical use in about five years,” he said.
InterestingEngineering offers some numbers
The rocket began the tests after the first stage separated, firing the rotating detonation engine for six seconds. When the rocket was recovered from the ocean after the demonstration, it was discovered that the rotating detonation engine produced around 500 Newtons of thrust.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Immerman on Friday February 26 2021, @04:34AM (3 children)
For those who don't want to watch the "What Is..." video, here's the takeaway of why detonation engines are better:
You should be able to get a lot more delta-V out of the same amount of fuel - and any small increase in that specific impulse has rather dramatic effects when amplified by the exponential rocket equation.
In a detonation engine the flame front moves at supersonic speeds, meaning there's no time for gasses to expand out of the way, and you get a constant-volume combustion process, rather than a more typical constant-pressure combustion. That greatly increases the useful work (propulsion) that can be extracted from the same amount of fuel - by around 25% in theory. Compare that to the ~10% increase you get from going from a common staged combustion engine to a much more complicated full-flow staged combustion engine like the new SpaceX Raptor, which redirects the exhaust from the turbopumps into the main combustion chamber for use as propellant, rather than just dumping it overboard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @12:01PM
The benefit it obvious... send all of the poisonous animals in Australia to Mars where they can hunt down and kill all the invasive humans introduced by Elon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @10:48PM (1 child)
What I'd like to know is what the downside is. Everything has a cost and the question always comes down to two things: Are the benefits worth the price, and it is a price we can actually pay. Aerospike engines seem like a great idea until you actually build one and find out about the overheating problem, never mind the extra weight. This thing sounds like they are trying to take advantage of the combustion instability that all large rocket engines suffer from, usually fatally, and make it work for them instead of against. I give them props for trying and wish them well, but taking one of the hardest problems in rocket science and turning it into an asset is not a small undertaking by any measure.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday February 27 2021, @12:49AM
As is so often the case with major technological advancements, the biggest and most obvious cost is the difficulty in making it work in the first place. Just as the biggest cost to matches and lighters versus a fire bow is the technology needed to produce them. Master that technology, and they promise to be smaller, lighter, simpler, and more efficient than anything currently in use. (Okay, maybe not simpler than solid rocket boosters, but pretty much everything else)
Trying to sustain a stable supersonic flame front within your fuel flow is a major challenge that various people have been working on for decades. I imagine it could make throttling down far more challenging as well, if not impossible. And it might well have issues igniting properly with the back-pressure from a tail-first landing burn.
But really, those are very situation-specific problems -even if they can only make it work reliably in a vacuum it would be a HUGE boon to interplanetary space travel, and second stages in general.
(Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @04:46AM (2 children)
Are we on Weekend ultra slow news feed? Or just lack of editores and rejection of all aristarchus' submissions slow feed? Hard to tell. But seems not much news is flowing through the SoylentNews right now. Or is it only me?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday February 26 2021, @05:12AM
I've noticed most news aggregators seem to be slow and thin lately.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 26 2021, @06:30AM
It's about the same volume but the quality seems to have improved, including this article which was very interesting. Are you missing the stupid US political news coverage perhaps?
(Score: 4, Funny) by istartedi on Friday February 26 2021, @06:41AM
Finally, we'll get to see what's at the center of the Earth!
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