Sep 20 2003
From The Space Library
A team of engineers from academia and industry conducted the first known flight test of a powered, liquid-propellant, aerospike engine, which they had developed under the California Launch Vehicle Education Initiative (CALVEIN). The X-33/VentureStar single stage-to-orbit rocket plane, which NASA and Lockheed Martin had shelved, had been a prototype for aerospike-motor technology. Students at California State University at Long Beach had designed and developed the research vehicle Prospector 2 to use a mixture of liquid oxygen and ethanol. The rocket pitched after several seconds of stable flight, crashing to the floor of the Mojave Desert in California and destroying student payloads on impact. However, the aft section of the vehicle, which contained the aerospike, remained mostly intact. The mission achieved its single objective: to lift the vehicle into the air using the liquid-propellant aerospike engine. The test revealed several areas of the aerospike-engine design that needed improvement. (Space News, “Rocketeers Fly Aerospike Engine,” 24 September 2003.
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