Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Thirty years after the first flight of a pioneering reusable rocket ship known as the Delta Clipper Experimental, or DC-X, a commercial venture is aiming to bring its legacy to life in the Seattle area. Even its name — New Frontier Aerospace — is a callback to the earlier days of America’s space effort, going back to John F. Kennedy references to outer space as part of his “New Frontier.”
“We’re sort of like the grandson of DC-X,” New Frontier’s co-founder and CEO, Bill “Burners” Bruner, said at the startup’s headquarters in Tukwila.
But he doesn’t see New Frontier as a space launch venture in the strictest sense of the word. “We’re not doing the squat, or cylindrical or conical shapes that we were talking about in those days,” he told GeekWire. “We’re proposing to combine the hypersonic research of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and some of those geometries, with reusable rockets to attack the trillion-dollar air transportation market instead of the $11 billion space launch market.”
[...] The startup is one of several companies whose prospects are on the rise partly because of the U.S. military’s interest in hypersonic aerial vehicles that travel at more than five times the speed of sound. Like Stratolaunch — a company founded by the late Seattle billionaire Paul Allen more than a decade ago — New Frontier aims to help the Pentagon counter hypersonic threats from Russia and China.
Bruner said New Frontier is taking a step-by-step approach, starting with the Pathfinder, a hypersonic vehicle that could be used for weapons testing or suborbital point-to-point cargo transport. The company has been awarded $2.25 million to develop the craft’s 3D-printed Mjölnir rocket engine, which is named after the hammer wielded by Thor in Norse mythology (and in Marvel movies). In June, New Frontier received an additional $150,000 from NASA for Mjölnir development.
[...] The company aims to leverage several innovations that weren’t around when the DC-X flew. For example, the engine as well as the airframe would make use of 3D printing — a technology pioneered by Relativity Space, another aerospace startup with Seattle roots.
Bruner said the engine is designed to run on renewable natural gas, which makes use of the smelly gases produced by decomposition at landfills and water treatment plants, or by defecation in livestock facilities. “Renewable liquid natural gas is net carbon-negative, because you’re removing the methane that would otherwise have been dumped into the atmosphere,” he explained.
New Frontier could also take advantage of the work that’s being done to foster the return of commercial supersonic flight — including Boom Supersonic’s development of a new faster-than-sound passenger jet and NASA’s efforts to turn down the volume on sonic booms.
If New Frontier’s vision becomes a reality, its hypersonic aircraft could be used not only for weapons systems and cargo delivery, but for intercontinental passenger travel as well. Bruner has already called dibs on his preferred term for what New Frontier plans to build. “Just like in the ’50s — when everybody said, ‘Well, that’s a jetliner’ — people will call these ‘rocketliners,'” he said. “And on the chance that that happens, I trademarked it.”
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Tuesday September 12 2023, @07:02AM (5 children)
I wonder if they are using/licensing some of Reaction Engines' SABRE [wikipedia.org] technology?
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/Air-breathing_engine_precooler_achieves_record-breaking_Mach_5_performance [esa.int]
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday September 12 2023, @12:34PM (4 children)
Their website says they have their own rocket engine which is named after Thor's hammer.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Interesting) by pTamok on Tuesday September 12 2023, @01:21PM (3 children)
Hmm. Yes, it's a rocket engine. [pdf] Mjölnir - 3D-printed, full-flow staged combustion engine [nfaero.com]. It means you have to carry more liquid oxygen, and the use of methane means the specific impulse is lower. I'm not a rocket scientist, so the choices Frontier Aerospace are making could well be sensible. Obviously, the backers think so.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday September 12 2023, @02:39PM
If SABRE turned up in the US it would be subject to ITAR so they won't be using it. That would severely restrict what the Brits and other Europeans could do with it.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday September 12 2023, @02:44PM (1 child)
A rocket engine is mature, proven technology. It's simpler and cheaper. It's much less of a risk.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Tuesday September 12 2023, @04:12PM
> A rocket engine is mature, proven technology. It's simpler and cheaper. It's much less of a risk.
Agree - I get the rocket equation exists and I get that burning air is cute but in the end the benefits don't seem to justify the technical challenge. Which is a shame.