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NASA completes record sustained burn of revolutionary rocket engine

By David Szondy
December 28, 2023
NASA completes record sustained burn of revolutionary rocket engine
The RDRE fired for a record 251 seconds
The RDRE fired for a record 251 seconds
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The RDRE fired for a record 251 seconds
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The RDRE fired for a record 251 seconds

NASA has pushed forward a revolutionary new rocket technology at its Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Engineers at the facility fired the 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) for a record 251 seconds with 5,800 lb (2,631 kg) of thrust.

For over six decades, NASA has relied on chemical rockets to launch its vehicles into space. It works, but chemical rockets suffer from the fact that they've been operating in the neighborhood of their theoretical limit since 1942. This isn't helped by the fact that most liquid rockets are essentially unchanged in their basic design since the days of the German V2s.

To squeeze a bit more performance out of rocket engines, NASA is looking at a fundamentally different design with the RDRE.

Instead of a combustion chamber where fuel and oxygen are fed in to burn at subsonic speed, in an RDRE these are introduced into a gap between two coaxial cylinders. When this mixture is ignited, they form a closely coupled reaction and shock wave. That wave travels inside the gap at supersonic speed, generating more heat and pressure.

If this burn can be sustained, it can produce a rocket thrust that is much more efficient. In fact, NASA says that the latest test firing was powerful enough and long enough that it could meet the requirements for a lander touchdown or deep space burn required for a mission to the Moon or Mars.

However, NASA stresses that the technology is far from mature and that test firings like this one are needed to scale up the combustor for different thrust classes. If this is successful, RDREs could find work in landers, upper stage boosters, and retropropulsion to land large payloads on the surface of Mars.

"The RDRE enables a huge leap in design efficiency," said Marshall combustion devices engineer Thomas Teasley. "It demonstrates we are closer to making lightweight propulsion systems that will allow us to send more mass and payload further into deep space, a critical component to NASA’s Moon to Mars vision."

The video below recaps the test firing

RDRE

Source: NASA

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SpaceNASARotating Detonation EnginesRocket
10 comments
David Szondy
David Szondy
David Szondy is a playwright, author and journalist based in Seattle, Washington. A retired field archaeologist and university lecturer, he has a background in the history of science, technology, and medicine with a particular emphasis on aerospace, military, and cybernetic subjects. In addition, he is the author of four award-winning plays, a novel, reviews, and a plethora of scholarly works ranging from industrial archaeology to law. David has worked as a feature writer for many international magazines and has been a feature writer for New Atlas since 2011.

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vince
We need fusion engine to harness speeds needed to make planetary flights practical. With a fusion engine we coud have speeds up to a 6 million miles per hour although average speed would half that. This would make it possible to shoot for Mars as we orbit behind it and shoot straight it across about 40 million miles in about 4 days or less. Acceleration would.be about a sustained 1G for almost entire trip.
ash
@vince

and then hit the brakes?
sidmehta
@ash No. Reverse thrust.
clay
This article would be more interesting if it actually compared the RDE with current SOTA rockets (Merlin version 2).. in size, thrust potential, fuel weight v. lifting/distance.. etc.

Also, "basic rocket design" hasn't changed since Goddard invented liquid rockets and first flew them in ~1926... a decade and a half before Von Braun.
BMC2
Interesting though another example of NASA (government) spending taxpayer money to develop new technologies, which they are going to give away to the private sector.

The American people paid for this potential leap in engine technology, its use should be LICENSED to be the private sector, not given away.
essecj
Looks like a Dyson fan with flames.
A.L.
“For over six decades, NASA has relied on chemical rockets to launch its vehicles into space. It works, but chemical rockets suffer from the fact that they've been operating in the neighborhood of their theoretical limit since 1942. This isn't helped by the fact that most liquid rockets are essentially unchanged in their basic design since the days of the German V2s.”

They’re not “chemical rockets,” or “liquid rockets” (both made of solid matter, I can assure you), but chemically-FUELED and liquid-FUELED rockets. And efficiency of the rocket is largely a matter of thrust generated versus amount of fuel the rocket needs to carry in order to fulfill its mission. A rocket that can generate the same amount of thrust as one carrying a far larger load of fuel can carry a larger payload and/or send those payloads longer distances.
harry van trotsenburg
It should not be developed at all.

We are facing a climate disaster.

We should stop misusing our atmosphere...
Steve7734
is there a reason this design couldn't be used on a first stage ?
Kpar
Vince is right about 1G acceleration to the halfway point (of whatever destination)- it sounds like he's been reading Heinlein novels for a while (a truly excellent primer on space travel!) and then decelerate the rest of the way.

I find this article very interesting. Many years ago, I attended an airshow at Rockford (IL) Airport, where the Blue Angels were flying. NASA had their "pulse detonation demonstrator" on display. It was a four-valve-per-cylinder (double overhead cam) four banger cylinder head, with no pistons, just open pipes exiting the exhaust ports. I recall thinking, My God, how LOUD must that thing be?", but I understood the efficiency gains they were striving for.

What I would like to know... what is the specific impulse of this engine, and how does it compare to other, more conventional rocket engines, like the Merlin or Raptor?