The Churchill Mk3 is the latest rocket engine to be developed by Starchaser, and with a design thrust of 147,000 Newtons (33,000lbs) it will qualify as the largest engine of its kind to have been built in the UK since the British government scrapped the national space programme more than 30 years ago.

The groundbreaking Churchill Mk3 uses a combination of JetA1 aviation fuel and cryogenic liquid oxygen, a similar propellant combination to that which powered the Apollo / Saturn V rockets to the moon.

The new engine will propel Starchaser's next generation of rockets into space from a custom built New Mexico launch site over the coming decades.

Starchaser's programme includes the development of a reusable sounding rocket with enhanced performance to that of the recently retired British built Skylark which carried out it's final mission on 2 May 2005.

Starchaser's new sounding rocket will pave the way towards ultra low cost satellite and space tourism launches.

The Starchaser space programme demonstrates that British space engineering is still at the forefront of innovation.

"We plan to open the frontier of space using British engineering and design expertise," said Steve Bennett CEO of Starchaser Industries who is also Director of the Space Technology Laboratory at Salford University.

Starchaser's rocket engine, together with the record breaking Nova rocket ship, all built in Britain, will be on display at the Newton building to mark the opening of the new Joule Physics Laboratory at Salford University by Professor Sir John Enderby, president of the Institute of Physics.

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