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Printing the next generation of rocket engines

July 21, 2018 by Editor NetKumar

New technologies, when first introduced, often get applied in traditional ways. For the last several years, aerospace companies have been examining ways to use additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, to aid the production of rocket engines. A prime example of this is Aerojet Rocketdyne, which has been working on printing components of its venerable RL10 engine. In early June, the company announced that a printed copper thrust chamber successfully completed a series of hotfire tests.

For Aerojet, using additive manufacturing helps to reduce the number of parts in engine components, and thus speed up production and lower costs. “You reduce the time to produce that part well in excess of 50 percent,” said Eileen Drake, president and chief executive of Aerojet Rocketdyne, in an April interview. “There’s less labor content, less supplier content, [fewer] parts that you have to put together that could cause an issue.”

New technologies, when first introduced, often get applied in traditional ways. For the last several years, aerospace companies have been examining ways to use additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, to aid the production of rocket engines. A prime example of this is Aerojet Rocketdyne, which has been working on printing components of its venerable RL10 engine. In early June, the company announced that a printed copper thrust chamber successfully completed a series of hotfire tests.

For Aerojet, using additive manufacturing helps to reduce the number of parts in engine components, and thus speed up production and lower costs. “You reduce the time to produce that part well in excess of 50 percent,” said Eileen Drake, president and chief executive of Aerojet Rocketdyne, in an April interview. “There’s less labor content, less supplier content, [fewer] parts that you have to put together that could cause an issue.”

The use of additive manufacturing is a key element in Aerojet’s updated version of the engine, the RL10C-X, intended to lower its cost without compromising reliability or performance. Aerojet is developing that engine with United Launch Alliance, who plans to use it in the upper stage of its Vulcan rocket under an agreement the companies announced in May.

Ultimately, though, the RL10C-X, even with its additively manufactured components, is fundamentally the same engine that first flew on an Atlas Centaur rocket nearly 55 years ago. The same is true for many other engines that incorporate additive manufacturing: the goal is not to make them radically different, but instead cut costs and production times. Even startups like Rocket Lab, which uses 3D-printing for all the major components of the Rutherford engine that powers its Electron rocket, ends up with an engine that looks like most other engines.

Over time, though, as companies get familiar with new technologies, they find novel ways to take advantage of their capabilities. That’s what one startup hopes to be able to do with additive manufacturing as applied to engines.

“What additive manufacturing does is that it opens up the opportunities of design freedom and removes all the traditional barriers that engineers have to keep in mind,” said Andy Kieatiwong, co-founder and chief executive of Additive Rocket Corporation (ARC), during a presentation at the Space Tech Expo conference in Pasadena, California, in May.

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