How NASA Reinvented the Rocket Engine

NASA has tested a 3D printed engine that could improve fuel efficiencies of rockets by up to 5% .

Rotating detonation engines use a supersonic flame front to produce thrust, and as a result can produce more thrust for the same volume of fuel.

Engines powered by detonations are not a new concept, they are powered by pulsed detonations.

The latest test of the technology saw the engine run 18 times, with a maximum firing duration of 113 seconds .

Detonation engines allow a shockwave to travel tangentially around a ring shaped combustion chamber.

These baffles effectively acted as acoustic dampeners, like the foam wedges we place in sound treated rooms.

The engineers of the F1 engine set off tiny bombs inside the combustion chamber during operation to induce small combustion instabilities.

NASA developed a 3D printed thrust chamber that was actively cooled using deionized water.

It also features an aerospike nozzle, which features a cone at the centre of the exhaust.

Aerospike nozzles allow the rocket to operate more efficiently at a range of altitudes.