Space

First Phantom Express spaceplane engine completed

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Aerojet Rocketdyne has completed assembly of its first AR-22 rocket engine, shown at its facility located at Stennis Space Center
Aerospace Rocketdyne
 The engine was built for Boeing as part of the DARPA Phantom Express program
Aerospace Rocketdyne
Aerojet Rocketdyne has completed assembly of its first AR-22 rocket engine, shown at its facility located at Stennis Space Center
Aerospace Rocketdyne
The Boeing-built Phantom Express will be powered by Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR-22 engine
Boeing
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Assembly has been completed on the first test engine that will power DARPA's Boeing-built, next generation spaceplane. Built by Aerojet Rocketdyne , the first updated AR-22 rocket engine for the Phantom Express project will be used in ground tests to demonstrate not only its performance capabilities, but its fast turnaround design.

DARPA's Phantom Express is designed to provide the US government with a fast way to put small payloads of 3,000 lb (1,361 kg) into low Earth orbit at short notice at a cost of only about US$5 million per flight. It consists of a self-contained vertical launch vehicle about the size of a business jet that lifts off from a launch pad, goes into a suborbital, hypersonic trajectory, and releases a small, expendable second stage at the edge of space before returning to base and landing like a conventional aircraft.

Key to this is the AR-22 engine, an updated version of the reusable main engines that propelled the NASA Space Shuttle into orbit. Burning a mixture of cryogenic liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, the AR-22 develops 375,000 lb of thrust, which should be adequate for the job, but its key selling point of the new version is that it's much more durable than its predecessor.

When the Space Shuttle first flew in the 1980s, it was envisioned as a workhorse ship that would launch on a regular basis with a turnaround time of only two weeks. Unfortunately, the Shuttle was really an early experimental craft that was pushed into service before the bugs were worked out, and the fortnight turnaround became months.

The Boeing-built Phantom Express will be powered by Aerojet Rocketdyne's AR-22 engine
Boeing

To prevent this from happening with Phantom Express, the new AR-22 is much more reliable and easier to refurbish. It can fly for 55 missions with servicing only every 10. To speed up turnarounds, the engines will be installed in a hinged nacelle for better access and the entire spacecraft will use an operations procedure similar to those developed for aircraft.

The first AR-22 engines will be used for daily hot-fire tests at Rocketdyne's Stennis Space Center facility in Mississippi to demonstrate that it can handle multi-mission conditions and that the fast turnarounds are both feasible and practical. In addition, Rocketdyne says that the test information will help spaceplane builder Boeing to improve the Phantom Express ground infrastructure.

"Phantom Express builds on our legacy of reusable space flight experience to provide the ability to quickly augment and replace on-orbit capabilities, which face an increasing array of threats from potential adversaries," says Eileen Drake, Aerojet Rocketdyne CEO and president. "Our immediate task is to demonstrate this rapid turnaround capability for this engine on the ground, paving the way for a demonstration program."

Source: Aerojet Rocketdyne

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2 comments
notarichman
instead of servicing the engine still in the plane; why not remove the engine, install a new one and do the servicing at leisure on the ground?
Kpar
notarichman, I had exactly the same thought. I recalled seeing an old F-86 having the engine replaced- a brilliant piece of engineering! It took only FOUR main bolts to pull the rear fuselage off, giving mechanics full access to the turbojet engine (of course, they had to disconnect the control wires for the empennage, but still...).
The main point, of course, is the less you have to do on a turnaround, the cheaper the whole thing runs.