SpaceX Testing: Merlin 1D Engine Firing

SpaceX's Merlin 1D engine has achieved a full mission duration firing and multiple restarts at target thrust and specific impulse (Isp). The engine firing was for 185 seconds with 147,000 pounds of thrust, the full duration and power required for a Falcon 9 rocket launch. The tests took place at SpaceX's rocket development facility in McGregor, Texas. The Merlin 1D builds on the proven technology of the Merlin engines used on the first three flights of Falcon 9, including the recent historic mission to the International Space Station.

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• Category

  Science & Technology

[CyclonicTuna023]

Nasa's yearly budget vary's between 15 and 20 billion dollars. The total defense budget for the United States military this year was 851 billion and climbing. What have they done with that? Most of that money gets lost in prototypes that never see the light of day, and they still rely on gunpowder to win them the battle, which has been around for nearly 3000 years. Infact, most military innovation comes from earospace engineering. Just imagne where we could be now with a defense budget.

[AlexanderVulpes]

That's the gas generator. It's basically a small (relatively speaking) burner which turns the fuel pump.

Rocket engines have very high-pressure combustion, and so it takes quite a bit of power to continually push fuel into the combustion chamber. And to do this, you need... another combustion chamber! (The pump then provides fuel to both combustion chambers.) And that's where the black gas comes from--it's the exhaust from that smaller combustion chamber.

(Yeah, rockets are weird.)

[nick Claridge]

The F1 engine in a saturn V did have the pre-burner feed in to the main chamber. The exhaust from this also helped protect the main chamber from the extreme temperatures. Great article on this and possible future development on Arstechnica

[atomosphysica]

How do the Pre-Burners work?

[sayrith]

Have you seen a Saturn V launch? I think the turbine engine exhaust is also fed into there.

[AlexanderVulpes]

Yup. Same as RP-1.

(Although from what I know, hydrogen engines tend to use a closed cycle more often... same as a gas generator except the exhaust feeds into the main combustion chamber to increase efficiency.)

[AlexanderVulpes]

Closed cycle is more efficient, but it's more difficult to do. I think for SpaceX it just wasn't worth it. (But they *have* talked about building a closed cycle engine in the future.)

[atomosphysica]

Why didn't they use a closed cycle?

[Aaron Lundquist]

SpaceX Rules

[nooper]

Need one of these for my rice rocket.

[juggis]

Depends on the design. For example SSME (RS-25) used hydrogen/oxygen as propellants and staged combustion cycle and the design is more elegant than just gas generator cycle but it has hot-gas turbine. Then J-2X used hydrogen/oxygen as propellants and gas generator cycle.