Rocket Lab completes first static fire test of new more powerful rocket engine
Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite
Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has successfully completed the first static fire test of its new Archimedies rocket engine, designed to be used on its new larger Neutron rocket scheduled for launch next year.
Archimedes performed well and ticked off several key test objectives, including reaching 102% power, anchoring the engine’s design ahead of Neutron’s first flight scheduled for mid-2025 – a schedule that would make Neutron the fastest a commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle has been brought to market. With the hot fire complete and full qualification campaign now underway, the Rocket Lab team is moving into full production of flight engines.
The design of Neuton is clever, as shown in the graphic to the right. In order to reuse as much as possible, the fairing encloses both the payload and upper stage. Before stage separation, the fairing will open, allowing the upper stage and its payload to be deployed. Afterward it remains with the first stage, which will land vertically back at the launch site.
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Neutron first stage deploying second stage with satellite
Rocket Lab yesterday announced it has successfully completed the first static fire test of its new Archimedies rocket engine, designed to be used on its new larger Neutron rocket scheduled for launch next year.
Archimedes performed well and ticked off several key test objectives, including reaching 102% power, anchoring the engine’s design ahead of Neutron’s first flight scheduled for mid-2025 – a schedule that would make Neutron the fastest a commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle has been brought to market. With the hot fire complete and full qualification campaign now underway, the Rocket Lab team is moving into full production of flight engines.
The design of Neuton is clever, as shown in the graphic to the right. In order to reuse as much as possible, the fairing encloses both the payload and upper stage. Before stage separation, the fairing will open, allowing the upper stage and its payload to be deployed. Afterward it remains with the first stage, which will land vertically back at the launch site.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in the past two weeks has the mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuses to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Fairings doubling as something like grid fins?
Nope. Those fins just below the fairing do the steering when the Neutron is inbound.
From the Rocket Lab announcement:
Taking a new staged combustion liquid rocket engine from cleansheet design to hot fire in just a couple of years is industry-leading stuff.
Rocket Lab has learned the advantages of rapid development. Congratulations to them for getting their engine running so quickly.
Gemini 9 ‘Angry Alligator’.
https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-gemini-ix-and-the-angry-alligator/