{"id":777039,"date":"2024-02-12T17:43:58","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T22:43:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=777039"},"modified":"2024-02-12T17:43:58","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T22:43:58","slug":"prototype-rocket-engine-burns-itself-up-for-fuel-as-it-flies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=777039","title":{"rendered":"Prototype rocket engine burns itself up for fuel as it flies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"\">\n<p>\n    <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Prototype rocket engine burns itself up for fuel as it flies\" width=\"1110\" height=\"624\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/9JtyUf7MVZ0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><br \/>\n    <\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p>Rockets that eat themselves may be on the way. To reach orbit, a rocket must hoist its own mass and the mass of its propellant as well as whatever payload it is trying to carry into space. But if a rocket could burn its own parts as fuel, it could free up capacity for transporting more important science projects and supplies. A team of engineers has built a prototype of one of these \u201cautophage engines\u201d for the first time.<\/p>\n<p>The concept of a rocket that eats its own parts was first patented in 1938, but a working prototype was never built because it would have been tough to execute with the enormous rockets that have historically performed most launches. In recent years, however, small satellites have risen in popularity, so there is increasing demand for smaller, more efficient rockets that are not limited by the need to carry their own enormous heft into space.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"js-content-prompt-opportunity\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Krzysztof Bzdyk at the University of Glasgow in the UK and his colleagues have built a small prototype of a rocket engine that eats its own fuel tank. It isn\u2019t powerful enough to loft anything into space but still demonstrates that the concept works. \u201cBecause we\u2019re burning the fuselage, we\u2019re getting rid of the problem of miniaturising the rocket, so when you want to send a small payload to space you can do it right away rather than waiting for a rideshare mission on a larger rocket,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"article-image-inline ArticleImage\" data-method=\"caption-shortcode\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImage__Wrapper\"><\/div><figcaption class=\"ArticleImageCaption\">\n<div class=\"ArticleImageCaption__CaptionWrapper\">\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Title\">Testing the prototype of the self-eating rocket engine<\/p>\n<p class=\"ArticleImageCaption__Credit\">Bzdyk et al.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>The researchers are presenting their work at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics SciTech Forum in Florida on 10 January. The engine is called the Ouroborous-3, named after the ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail.<\/p>\n<p>Like the emblematic snake, the engine is designed to devour its own back end as it uses up the rocket fuel contained there. \u201cAs you burn through your propellants, you have these empty tanks where you\u2019ve got all of this structural mass that\u2019s not being useful,\u201d says Bzdyk. \u201cSo what we\u2019re doing is consuming that dead weight so you don\u2019t have to carry it with you on the way up, and that allows you to carry more mass to space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In the prototype, as the oxygen and propane that make up the engine\u2019s main fuel are burned, the plastic tube that holds that fuel is also fed into the engine. That tube constitutes up to one-fifth of the total propellant used for the burn, which provides about 100 newtons of thrust \u2013 only about four times as much force as it takes to break an egg.<\/p>\n<p>The team is now working on a larger-scale prototype that could provide about 1000 newtons of thrust, which is about one-sixth as much as the engine will need to make it to suborbital space and about one-twentieth as much as it will need to make it to orbit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith added tests, they should be able to scale up the rocket\u2026 [but] sometimes scaling up is not trivial, easy or likely,\u201d says Haym Benaroya at Rutgers University in New Jersey. The challenges include making sure the plastic fuselage is burned and fed into the engine at a consistent speed, and testing how burning up pieces of the rocket alters its shape, and thus its flight path.<\/p>\n<p>Not only could autophage engines increase the efficiency of launches, they could also help mitigate the problem of space junk \u2013 leftover pieces of spacecraft that hurtle around in orbit and can endanger other satellites. If the spent fuel tanks that are normally dropped into the atmosphere or left in orbit are burned up instead, it could be a small step towards fixing that problem, says Hugh Lewis at the University of Southampton in the UK.<\/p>\n<section class=\"ArticleTopics\">\n<p class=\"ArticleTopics__Heading\">Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2411631-prototype-rocket-engine-burns-itself-up-for-fuel-as-it-flies\/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&#038;utm_source=NSNS&#038;utm_medium=RSS&#038;utm_content=space&#038;rand=772163\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rockets that eat themselves may be on the way. To reach orbit, a rocket must hoist its own mass and the mass of its propellant as well as whatever payload&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":777040,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-scientist"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/777040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}