History
The Vulcain rocket engine is named in French for Vulcan, the ancient Roman god of fire. Its development, carried out by a European partnership, began in 1988 with the Ariane 5 rocket program. [11] It first flew in 1996 powering the ill-fated flight 501 without being the cause of the disaster, and had its first successful flight in 1997 (flight 502).
In 2002 the upgraded Vulcain 2 with 20% more thrust [12] first flew on flight 157, although a problem with the engine turned the flight into a failure. [13] The cause was due to flight loads being much higher than expected, as the inquiry board concluded. [14] Subsequently, the nozzle was redesigned to include mechanical reinforcement of the structure and improvement of the thermal situation of the tube wall through enhancing hydrogen coolant flow as well as applying a thermal barrier coating to the flame-facing side of the coolant tubes. [14] The first successful flight of the (partially redesigned) Vulcain 2 occurred in 2005 on flight 521. [13]
Further development
On 17 June 2007 Volvo Aero announced that in spring of 2008 it expected to hot-fire test a Vulcain 2 nozzle manufactured with a new "sandwich" technology. [15]
The development of the future version for Ariane 6, Vulcain 2.1, began in 2014. First flight-configuration engine nozzle was delivered in June 2017, reducing parts count by 90%, cost by 40% and production time by 30% comparing to the engine nozzle of Vulcain 2. [16] The first launch of Vulcain 2.1 took place on 9 July 2024.
Ariane 5 is a retired European heavy-lift space launch vehicle developed and operated by Arianespace for the European Space Agency (ESA). It was launched from the Guiana Space Centre (CSG) in French Guiana. It was used to deliver payloads into geostationary transfer orbit (GTO), low Earth orbit (LEO) or further into space. The launch vehicle had a streak of 82 consecutive successful launches between 9 April 2003 and 12 December 2017. Since 2014, Ariane 6, a direct successor system, first launched in 2024.
Ariane is a series of European civilian expendable launch vehicles for space launch use. The name comes from the French spelling of the mythological character Ariadne. France first proposed the Ariane project and it was officially agreed upon at the end of 1973 after discussions between France, Germany and the UK. The project was Western Europe's second attempt at developing its own launcher following the unsuccessful Europa project. The Ariane project was code-named L3S.
The expander cycle is a power cycle of a bipropellant rocket engine. In this cycle, the fuel is used to cool the engine's combustion chamber, picking up heat and changing phase. The now heated and gaseous fuel then powers the turbine that drives the engine's fuel and oxidizer pumps before being injected into the combustion chamber and burned.
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket utilizes a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.
The RS-25, also known as the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME), is a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine that was used on NASA's Space Shuttle and is used on the Space Launch System (SLS).
The J-2, commonly known as Rocketdyne J-2, was a liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine used on NASA's Saturn IB and Saturn V launch vehicles. Built in the United States by Rocketdyne, the J-2 burned cryogenic liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) propellants, with each engine producing 1,033.1 kN (232,250 lbf) of thrust in vacuum. The engine's preliminary design dates back to recommendations of the 1959 Silverstein Committee. Rocketdyne won approval to develop the J-2 in June 1960 and the first flight, AS-201, occurred on 26 February 1966. The J-2 underwent several minor upgrades over its operational history to improve the engine's performance, with two major upgrade programs, the de Laval nozzle-type J-2S and aerospike-type J-2T, which were cancelled after the conclusion of the Apollo program.
Volvo Aero was a Swedish aircraft, guided missiles and rocket engine manufacturer. It became GKN Aerospace Engine Systems following the company's acquisition by British engineering conglomerate GKN during 2012.
The gas-generator cycle, also called open cycle, is one of the most commonly used power cycles in bipropellant liquid rocket engines.
Vinci is a restartable, cryogenic, liquid-propellant rocket engine that powers the upper stage of Ariane 6. While development began in 1998 for the planned Ariane 5ME upgrade, funding for that programme shifted in 2014 to prioritize the development of Ariane 6, making Vinci the engine for the new launcher.
The HM7B was a European cryogenic upper stage rocket engine used on the vehicles in the Ariane rocket family. It was replaced by Vinci, which acts as the new upper stage engine on Ariane 6. Nearly 300 engines have been produced to date.
The Airbus Defence and Space Spaceplane, also called EADS Astrium TBN according to some sources, is a suborbital spaceplane concept for carrying space tourists, proposed by EADS Astrium, the space subsidiary of the European consortium EADS. A full-size mockup was officially unveiled in Paris, France, on June 13, 2007, and is now on display in the Concorde hall of the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace. The project is the first space tourism entry by a major aerospace contractor.
The YF-75 is a liquid cryogenic rocket engine burning liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen in a gas generator cycle. It is China's second generation of cryogenic propellant engine, after the YF-73, which it replaced. It is used in a dual engine mount in the H-18 third stage of the Long March 3A, Long March 3B and Long March 3C launch vehicles. Within the mount, each engine can gimbal individually to enable thrust vectoring control. The engine also heats hydrogen and helium to pressurize the stage tanks and can control the mixture ratio to optimize propellant consumption.
The YF-77 is China's first cryogenic rocket engine developed for booster applications. It burns liquid hydrogen fuel and liquid oxygen oxidizer using a gas generator cycle. A pair of these engines powers the LM-5 core stage. Each engine can independently gimbal in two planes. Although the YF-77 is ignited prior to liftoff, the LM-5's four strap-on boosters provide most of the initial thrust in an arrangement similar to the European Vulcain on the Ariane 5 or the Japanese LE-7 on the H-II.
The LE-5 liquid rocket engine and its derivative models were developed in Japan to meet the need for an upper stage propulsion system for the H-I and H-II series of launch vehicles. It is a bipropellant design, using LH2 and LOX. Primary design and production work was carried out by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. In terms of liquid rockets, it is a fairly small engine, both in size and thrust output, being in the 89 kN (20,000 lbf) and the more recent models the 130 kN (30,000 lbf) thrust class. The motor is capable of multiple restarts, due to a spark ignition system as opposed to the single use pyrotechnic or hypergolic igniters commonly used on some contemporary engines. Though rated for up to 16 starts and 40+ minutes of firing time, on the H-II the engine is considered expendable, being used for one flight and jettisoned. It is sometimes started only once for a nine-minute burn, but in missions to GTO the engine is often fired a second time to inject the payload into the higher orbit after a temporary low Earth orbit has been established.
The RL60 was a planned liquid-fuel cryogenic rocket engine designed in the United States by Pratt & Whitney, burning cryogenic liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. The engine runs on an expander cycle, running the turbopumps with waste heat absorbed from the main combustion process. This high-efficiency, waste heat based combustion cycle combined with the high-performance liquid hydrogen fuel enables the engine to reach a very high specific impulse of up to 465 seconds in a vacuum. The engine was planned to be a more capable successor to the Aerojet Rocketdyne RL10, providing improved performance and efficiency while maintaining the installation envelope of the RL10.
A cryogenic rocket engine is a rocket engine that uses a cryogenic fuel and oxidizer; that is, both its fuel and oxidizer are gases which have been liquefied and are stored at very low temperatures. These highly efficient engines were first flown on the US Atlas-Centaur and were one of the main factors of NASA's success in reaching the Moon by the Saturn V rocket.
The LR87 was an American liquid-propellant rocket engine used on the first stages of Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles and launch vehicles. Composed of twin motors with separate combustion chambers and turbopump machinery, it is considered a single unit and was never flown as a single combustion chamber engine or designed for this. The LR87 first flew in 1959.
Aestus is a hypergolic liquid rocket engine used on an upper stage of Ariane 5 family rockets for the orbital insertion. It features unique design of 132 coaxial injection elements causing swirl mixing of the MMH propellants with nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. The pressure-fed engine allows for multiple re-ignitions.
The HM4 was a first non-American cryogenic rocket engine. Developed in France between 1967 and 1969 it never flew into space, was used purely as a testbed for new technologies. Technologies developed in HM4 become a base for HM7 engine used in Ariane.
The Institute of Space Propulsion in Lampoldshausen is one of the eight research centers of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
