Revolutionary Success: NASA’s 3D-Printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine Soars

The Marshall Space Flight Center of NASA has accomplished a significant milestone by conducting a successful test of a 3D-printed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) for a duration of 251 seconds, generating an impressive thrust exceeding 5,800 pounds. This achievement, realized in the autumn of 2023, holds great importance for the advancement of efficient propulsion systems in alignment with NASA’s ambitious Moon to Mars mission objectives.

NASA has reached a noteworthy achievement in the development of an innovative propulsion system known as the Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE). Skilled engineers at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, conducted a groundbreaking test of a novel, 3D-printed RDRE, demonstrating its capabilities for 251 seconds, equivalent to over four minutes, and generating more than 5,800 pounds of thrust.

This prolonged burn duration simulates the typical requirements for activities such as a spacecraft’s landing on a celestial body or executing a deep-space maneuver to set a course from the Moon to Mars. According to Thomas Teasley, the combustion devices engineer leading the RDRE test initiative at the center, this achievement represents a significant step forward.

The initial hot fire test of the RDRE was conducted at the Marshall Space Flight Center in the summer of 2022, in collaboration with In Space LLC and Purdue University, both based in Lafayette, Indiana. During this test, the RDRE produced more than 4,000 pounds of thrust for nearly a minute. The primary objective of the recent test was to gain insights into how to adapt the combustor for various thrust requirements, thus supporting a wide range of engine systems and enabling diverse missions, including landers, upper-stage engines, and supersonic retropropulsion—a deceleration technique with the potential to safely land larger payloads, and even humans, on the surface of Mars.

Thomas Teasley emphasized the transformative impact of the RDRE on design efficiency, noting that it brings us closer to the development of lightweight propulsion systems capable of carrying larger payloads deeper into space—a crucial element of NASA’s Moon to Mars mission.

Engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and researchers at Venus Aerospace in Houston, Texas, are collaborating with NASA Marshall to explore methods of scaling up this technology for enhanced performance.

The Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) project is under the management and funding of the Game Changing Development Program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. This groundbreaking achievement represents a significant advancement in NASA’s pursuit of cutting-edge propulsion systems for future space exploration endeavors.

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More about RDRE Propulsion

• NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center
• Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE)
• Moon to Mars Mission
• In Space LLC
• Purdue University
• Venus Aerospace