The successful hot fire test took place in August 2024 at Rocket Lab's Engine Test Complex, located within NASA's Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Mississippi. During the test, Archimedes achieved 102% power, meeting several key objectives and solidifying its design for Neutron's first flight, planned for mid-2025. This schedule positions Neutron to become the fastest commercially developed medium-class launch vehicle to reach the market. With the hot fire test now complete, Rocket Lab is moving forward with the full qualification campaign and has begun full-scale production of the flight engines.
Rocket Lab founder and CEO, Sir Peter Beck, commented, "Hot firing Archimedes is a major development milestone for Neutron, and our team has done it on an accelerated timeline. Taking a new staged combustion liquid rocket engine from cleansheet design to hot fire in just a couple of years is industry-leading stuff.
"We've been consistently impressed with the performance of Archimedes in test, including with this hot fire, so with this critical milestone completed, we move into production of flight engines confidently and begin to close out the qualification test campaign in parallel to really hone performance for launch next year. From the day we started designing Archimedes, we focused on delivering a flight engine, rather than an early-stage prototype destined for multiple reworks and adjustments, so it's gratifying to see this strategy bear fruit."
The Archimedes engine is set to power Rocket Lab's Neutron rocket, a reusable medium-lift vehicle designed to provide cost-effective and reliable launch services for commercial and government missions. Neutron's advanced design features carbon composites for major structures and an innovative upper stage optimized for complex satellite deployments, including satellite mega-constellations.
Archimedes is an oxidizer-rich staged combustion cycle engine intended for use in Neutron's reusable first stage and the second stage, which is capable of carrying up to 13,000 kilograms of payload to space. Each Archimedes engine can generate up to 165,000 pounds of thrust (733 kilonewtons) and operates under lower stress levels than other engines to ensure rapid and reliable reusability.
Neutron's first stage, powered by nine Archimedes engines, will reach a combined thrust of 1,450,000 pounds-force (lbf). The engine uses a cryogenic propellant mix of liquid oxygen and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for enhanced reusability and performance, with many critical components, such as the turbo pump housings, pre-burner, main chamber components, valve housings, and structural elements, produced using 3D printing.
The production of Archimedes engines is underway at Rocket Lab's Engine Development Complex in Long Beach, California.
Related Links
Rocket Lab
Rocket Science News at Space-Travel.Com
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