Mark is currently printing a preliminary version of the 10k nozzle. Later he will make a time laps video.

Video

We welcome Devis Tonon as a new team member. He holds a PhD in Applied Physics Technical University of Eindhoven) and a MSc in Aerospace engineering (Polytechnic University of Turin). He has experience in aeroacoustics, thermoacoustics and fluid dynamics. He will be a great help for us solving the thermoacoustic issues in one of our engines.

Short summary: The engine ran on Ethanol/LOX, O/F about 1.95, thrust nearly a metric ton and we got a (measured!) ISP of about 232s at a chamber pressure of 21 bar... which is quite a good number! We pushed the chamber pressure further, but ended up with a molten nozzle (for optimizing combustion, short burning times are sufficient... so we only use mild steel nozzles at this state of the tests). More below...
Some history: Some months ago we further modified our test stand to improve the sound suppression of the sound suppressing tunnel to be prepared to test the new 10 kN engine. For this we added a water injection ring into the movable tube in which we fire the engines. This cools the tube and reduces the noise level about 10 dBA:

(At the end of the tube you can see the injector with removed nozzle) At the downstream end of the tube we additionally mounted a pair of water cooled wedges. They produce a shock in the supersonic exhaust, slowing down the gas speed to subsonic. This reduced the sound level for nearly 20 dBA!. Now we can fire our 10 kN engine even at night ;-) This was also used in the silos of US-ICBM's and is covered in several patents like US5422443.

Then we fired the engine the first time (The date in the movie is wrong). Ignition happens at the time 15:40:30. In the upper right frame you see starting the water injection into the tube prior ignition.

Video

We noticed a poor O/F of about 1.0 and found the source of the problem in a collapsed LOX-Filter upstream of the LOX-main valve. We removed it and fired the engine without it yesterday.

Video

We increased the chamber pressure further and further and finally hit the limit what the steel nozzle can handle: High speed video with 600 frames/s.

The nozzle showed some nice patterns of molten metal:

No damage to the rest of the engine or test stand. Only damage to the engineers ego :-) We had a lot of fun yesterday!

On the 28 May, SPL run the one ton thrust liquid propelled rocket engine (SLR 10k-I) for three times successfully.
We also tested our new water cooling system, which reduces sound emissions and the temperature inside the sound absorber. The first tests are part of a longer test programme of the SLR 10k-I. Have also a look on our media page with press release and articles.

SPL bought a Swiss Mirage III SEPR rocket engine from a private collector for a symbolic price. It was handed over on the 15th January in La Brévine (Jura). The engine had been developed by the SEP (Société Européenne de Propulsion) and was first tested in February 1962. It was used by the Mirage III as an additional booster for tactical maneuvers like zoom climbs. On the 15th of May 1963 a prepared French Mirage III reached 26.06 km altitude and set an official record for France, still standing today. Swiss pilots flew the fully equipped Mirage III S up to 24 kilometers until the 1980s. The Swiss Air Force had used twenty engines from May 1969 to April 1990. They were license built by Hispano-Suiza and had performed 2'170 rocket flights. SPL has one of them, now.

The liquid cooled engine could develop 15kN thrust for nearly two minutes and could be re-ignited in flight. It operated with nitric acid and aircraft supplied kerosene. The ignition was made with a hypergolic nitric acid TX2 combustion. The chamber was fed by two centrifugal pumps driven by an shaft coming from the aircraft turbojet engine. The chamber is a saddle design made of aluminum which can be completely disassembled for maintenance. The chamber is cooled by the nitric acid.

Records:

• Holding the altitude record of France: 15.05.1963, a Mirage III reached 26.06 km
• most built aircraft rocket engine (275 built)
• most used man-rated rocket engine (over 20'000 flights)
• world record of manned rocket flights (over 20'000 flights)
• world's most reusable rocket engine (average of 35 flights between general overhaul)
• round trip times < 15 minutes has been demonstrated.

The engine is a freshly refurbished one, just out of the arsenal. We will not fire it again, but we can learn a *lot* from its design and also from the instructions for the operatinal ground support. Most of it applies to the operations of nowadays and intended rocket planes.

Two AIAA Papers about the development:
The SEPR 844 Reusable liquid Rocket Engine for Mirage Combat Aircraft, AIAA-90-1835
Reusable Man-Rated Rocket Engines, AIAA-43160-765

A collection of pics when we inspected it (some are from the museum in Le Bourget) :

Eugen Reichl honored us with a visit of our facilities. He is a German aerospace author and employee at the EADS Astrium. He published several books and booklets, like the "Typenkompass; Bemannte Raumfahrzeuge; seit 1960" (see all books on www.amazon.de). He also writes for the German space magazine "Raumfahrt Concret". 

Have also a look on www.der-orion.com , the base-block of a multi-media spaceflight and astronomy portal operated by Maria-Pflug Hofmayr and Eugen Reichl.

The first ever signals sent from a Swiss satellite in space have been received in the Lausanne region. It’s a unique moment for students, professors and of course the whole nation.

The satellite was successfully launched by the Indian PSLV-C14 this morning (Swiss time). The first signals were heard at 12:20 from California and the Netherlands. The Space Center Lausanne recognized the call sign at 13:20 – so, all systems are running well.

SPL congratulates the SwissCube crew!

Related links:

• http://swisscube-live.ch
• http://swisscube.epfl.ch 
• http://blog.isilaunch.com
  

The certificate of cooperation brings the skills and networks of SPL, Talis Enterprise GmbH and STS-MC officially together. The goal is, to develop sophisticated products for science or spacetourism purpose. The roles are:

• SPL: Propulsion components
• Talis Enterprise GmbH: Airframes, simulators; aerodynamic and thermodynamic skills
• STS-MC: Merchandiser and operator of products; worldwide connections especially to universities.

Hans Ulrich Ammann, CEO SPL, and Adrian Mettauer, PR & Marketing, hold a lecture at the Volkshochschule in Basel. They presented the current state of all projects of SPL and gave a brief view into the world of propulsion..

Adrian Mettauer met the Space Tourism Society - Malaysian Chapter (STS MC) in Malaysia. They run a roadshow for the first Malaysian rocket plane, using an existing SPL rocket engine. It will be a scaled version of a suborbital spaceplane and will be controlled by remote. It is part of a research and development programme, which is also related to the governments vision 2020 (being closer to industry nations in 2020). The  purpose of the plane is to test the SPL propulsion system in flight, the trajectory for the suborbital spaceplane and the design. It will be equipped with cameras and sensors. Its name is M-R2D2.
The goal of the roadshow was, to keep stakeholders informed and to optain support from the government - which they got. Adrian Mettauer and the STS-MC crew met the chief minister of Perak state (see picture), the executive directors of the crown prince and executive directors of the ATSB (Astronautic Technology). Adrian Mettauer also hold a lecture at the Putra Malaysia University.  

Dr. Claude Nicollier honored us with as visit of our facilities. Claude Nicollier is the only Swiss ESA astronaut. As a veteran of four space shuttle flights, Claude has logged more than 1000 hours in space. He flew as a mission specialist on STS-46 in 1992, STS-61 in 1993, STS-75 in 1996 and STS-103 in December 1999. You can read his CV here. Have a look at his homepage.

We incorporated the portfolio of our products and services in the web page. Have a look what we can do for you here. We also added a media page with our appearance in the printed media and TV.

Our students at FHNW finished their work on the stage separation mechanism for the X-Bow I (which could also be used on AUSROC 2.5). See also the news of 26. January 2007 and the publications area for their report. Thanks to Prof. U. Bopp and his students.
Other activities: In the time frame of the next 2 months we will test a new 10 kN (~ 2000 lbs) engine. Project Enterprise is also progressing fast. Stay tuned...

An animation of the mechanism. Click on the image to get a high resolution animation	A closeup of the mechanism. Click on the image to get a high resolution animation

Diamonds are beautiful, specially shock diamonds. We fired the 2.5 kN engine at full throttle and produced some spectacular pictures. We got a very smooth burning without any transients and a very clean and symmetric jetwash without any streaks. At the exit of the 70% bell nozzle the jet is almost transparent. Since we expanded to 0.7 bar the jet is slightly over expanded. We retracted the sound absorber tubus of the test stand to have a look at the fist four Mach diamonds. Click on the picture to get a high resolution image. High resolution DIVX Video of several firings (9 Mbyte)!:

• We finally inaugurated our test cell and its corresponding equipment. Everything works more or less perfect. We fired our 2.5 kN Engine several times. Some impressions of a typical working day at SPL (4.1 Mb)
• The official Swiss TV visited us and made a nice broadcast about our work (commentary in German though):
  
  

  	Official Real-Media stream from the Swiss Broadcast Station
  	Mpeg4 File, (10 Mb)
  	Windows wmv file, low res (5 Mb)

  
  

  Hot firing of the 2.5 kN engine. The engine is still running in heat-sink mode. Next step will be a regenerative cooled configuration as already tested in the late 2003

• The test cell and it's corresponding equipment are finally finished. We will fire in February :-)
• Two student projects ended with their thesis work. One project was the successor of the last year project "Designing and building of a stage separation mechanism" and the other project was the "design of a gas turbine to power turbo pumps":
  

  Turbine rotor and stator row. It's a Curtis impulse turbine with a constant pressure after the nozzle section. There is still lot of room for optimization though...	Turbine test stand. You see the gas generator on the top, the water break on the left.

Various projects in progress

• Standard AP/AL/HTPB
• Ditto, but containing 0.6 % CATOCENE burning rate catalyst to give the motor a good ignitability and a heavy boost during start of the rocket.

The motor under full thrust of 12 kN. Peak thrust was a bit more than expected, the thrust test stand jumped 3 cm (Note: The thrust test stand is bolted to a concrete block of 2.5 metric tons!). Click on the image to start a movie 800 kB, needs the latest Real-Player)	Test stand and motor after firing. More infos about the test stand can be found here and here.
One of the grain segments. The grain close to the igniter contains 0.6% CATOCENE burning rate catalyst to improve the ignitability and to give an initial boost during liftoff.	We also tested a new type of igniter made of sintered Magnesium/Teflon used in the actual test. After only 30 ms (!) the motor reached its full thrust of 12'000 N without any pressure peaks.

 

23. April 1999 SPL and FHBB (University of applied science Basel) have concluded their future cooperation. In the past semesters FHBB has analyzed the behaviour of various injection-systems in a high-pressure environment (see also the news entries 23. April 99, 16. November 1999, 26. November 2000 and 23. January 2001).
Today, we concluded a further partnership to design, build and test a regeneratively cooled combustion chamber. The students will analyze the heat flux through the chamber walls and the heat transfer into the coolant. They will also optimize the size and shape of the cooling channels. The combustion chamber will consist of a inner copper liner with machined cooling channels and an outer shell of electro plated nickel. We are very proud of gaining this partnership!

A rendering of the inner copper liner of the X-Bow I engine. At the ground of the cooling channels, the wall's thickness is only about 0.8 mm to get the best heat transfer into the cooling fluid and to minimize thermal stress	The combustion chamber consists of an inner copper liner with machined cooling channels and an outer shell of electro plated nickel. The picture shows a detail of a sample cutted out of of the electro plated combustion chamber wall.

Note: This will be the last news entry until February 2002 because of the webmasters trip to Australia. Among other things, he will also participate in the 11th conference of the Australian Space Research Institute ASRI (see also the presentation we gave there).