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RocketLab's doing incredibly innovative things. They're using an entirely new kind of rocket engine power cycle. This is the first new power cycle invented sinc
by zik 9y ago
RocketLab's doing incredibly innovative things. They're using an entirely new kind of rocket engine power cycle. This is the first new power cycle invented since the Full Flow Staged Combustion Cycle in the 1960s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_pump-fed_engine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_pump-fed_engine
They're using entirely 3d printed rocket engines and also full carbon composite rocket bodies - another first for a rocket of this scale.
Where it comes to "doing things others haven't done before you" they're doing an amazing job. SpaceX is doing great but nothing close to this.
- soperj 9y agodon't know why this was down voted, it was informative. Thanks.
- schiffern 9y agoAgree with everything you said, except >SpaceX is doing great but nothing close to this. This isn't just false, it's unnecessary. It takes nothing away from RocketLab to acknowledge that SpaceX has also done "incredibly innovative things," such as propulsive first stage landings.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago> This is the first new power cycle invented since the Full Flow Staged Combustion Cycle in the 1960s Yes, battery pump engines aware new for this scale of a rocket. No, it’s not the first new cycle since the 1960s.
- zik 9y agoOk, I'm curious. What rocket engine power cycle was invented between the Full Flow Staged Combustion Cycle (1962) and the Electric Pump-Fed Cycle (2010)?
- mikeash 9y agoA new combustion cycle and new construction techniques are really cool, but nothing I’d expect average people to care about, thus nothing I’d expect to be reported on outside of specialty media.