3 ms·
What I understood from the article: it's not the engine that rotates. Instead, the fuel mixture ignites in one spot, and the explosion spreads at Mach 5 around
by foobarian 7y ago
What I understood from the article: it's not the engine that rotates.
Instead, the fuel mixture ignites in one spot, and the explosion spreads at Mach 5 around the engine but once it reaches the end of the combustible fuel, more is injected behind it so the explosion can just keep traveling around in circles.
Judging by the article they managed to get that working, and also came up with a better way to take videos of this happening (high speed camera, tracer chemicals in the hydrogen, better signal strength).
- andrewljohnson 7y agoThanks, I feel enlightened. You could write press releases :)
- _Microft 7y agoHere is a video from the Technical University of Berlin where the transition from ignition to the continuous circular detonation was also filmed among other things. I'll link directly to the transition part: https://youtu.be/ERTei7D8LJs?t=28 https://youtu.be/ERTei7D8LJs?t=28
- beamatronic 7y agoThere used to be one, does anyone remember Rotary Rocket? They had a small vehicle they claimed could SSTO.
- randallsquared 7y agoThat was very different: conventional rockets for ground-to-orbit, but landing with folding helicopter-like rotors. I think the original concept was to use the helicopter rotors to get to high altitude before throttling up, which was supposed to save a lot of fuel, but that was dropped pretty early.
- m4rtink 7y agoI think they actually wanted to use some rotating set of engines and fuel tanks early on with the rotation taking care of propelant flow. IIRC they dropped that early on as well.
- boredgamer2 7y agoHow does it eject this energy to propulse through space, if it's just spinning in circles inside the engine?