SpaceX work on methane/LOX (methalox) engines is strictly to support the company's Mars technology development program. In November 2012, methalox engines came on the scene when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced a new direction for propulsion side of the company: developing methane/LOX rocket engines. Roll control – and attitude control during the coast phase – is provided by helium cold gas thrusters. Thrust vector control is provided by electro-mechanical actuators on the engine dome for pitch and yaw. Its nozzle was ablatively cooled in the chamber and radiatively cooled in the throat, and is fabricated from a high strength niobium alloy. It was built around the same pintle architecture as SpaceX's Merlin engine but does not have a turbo-pump, and is fed only by tank pressure. Kestrel was a LOX/RP-1 pressure-fed rocket engine, and was developed by SpaceX as the Falcon 1 rocket's second stage main engine. On 29 September 2013, the Falcon 9 Flight 6 mission successfully launched the Canadian Space Agency's CASSIOPE satellite into polar orbit, and proved that the Merlin 1D could be restarted to control the first stage's re-entry back into the atmosphere-part of the SpaceX reusable launch system flight test program-a necessary step in making the rocket reusable. The first flight of the Merlin 1D engine was also the maiden Falcon 9 v1.1 flight. The engine's 150:1 thrust-to-weight ratio is the highest ever achieved for a rocket engine. A new feature for the engine is the ability to throttle from 100% to 70%. The Merlin 1D, was in development in 2011–2012, also with a regeneratively cooled nozzle and combustion chamber, has a vacuum thrust of 690 kN (155,000 lbf), a vacuum specific impulse (I sp) of 310 s, an increased expansion ratio of 16 (as opposed to the previous 14.5 of the Merlin 1C) and chamber pressure of 9.7 MPa (1,410 psi). It was first fired with a full mission duty firing in 2007, first flew on the third Falcon 1 mission in August 2008, powered the "first privately-developed liquid-fueled rocket to successfully reach orbit" (Falcon 1 Flight 4) in September 2008, and subsequently powered the first five Falcon 9 flights - each flown with a version 1.0 Falcon 9 launch vehicle - from 2010 through 2013. The Merlin 1C was the first in the family to use a regeneratively cooled nozzle and combustion chamber. Merlin 1D rocket engines on a Falcon 9 v1.1 launch vehicle in SLC-40 hangar, April 2014. Merlin 1B had a somewhat more powerful turbo-pump, and generated more thrust, but was never flown on a flight vehicle before SpaceX's move to the Merlin 1C. Merlin 1A produced 340 kilonewtons (76,000 lb f) of thrust and was used to power the first stage of the first two Falcon 1 flights in 20. Merlin 1A and Merlin 1B utilized an ablatively cooled carbon fiber composite nozzle. Merlin 1 is a family of LOX/RP-1 rocket engines developed 2003–2012. The Falcon 1 second stage is powered by a Kestrel engine. Merlin 1 powers the first stage of the Falcon 1 launch vehicle, both the first and second stages of the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles, as well as the experimental technology-demonstrator Grasshopper VTVL rocket. SpaceX has developed two Kerosene-based engines through 2013, the Merlin 1 and Kestrel, and has publicly discussed a much larger concept engine high-level design named Merlin 2. īy mid-2015, SpaceX had developed a total of 9 rocket engines architectures in the first 13 years of the company's existence. These engines will use staged cycle combustion, for higher efficiency similar to the system used on the former Soviet Union's NK-33 engine. In November 2012, at a meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, United Kingdom, SpaceX announced that they plan to develop methane-based engines for their future rockets. Each main engine developed by 2012 has been Kerosene-based, using RP-1 as the fuel with liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer, while the RCS control thruster engines have used storable hypergolic propellants. (As of October 2012), each of the engines developed to date-Kestrel, Merlin 1, Draco and Super Draco-had been developed for initial use in the SpaceX Falcon family of launch vehicles-Falcon 1, Falcon 9, and Falcon Heavy-or for the Dragon capsule. In the first ten years of SpaceX, the company developed a variety of liquid-propellant rocket engines, with at least one more of that type under development.
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