Advanced Regeneratively Cooled LOX/methane Rocket Engine with Innovative Injector Design

XCOR proposes an innovative LOX/methane engine with regenerative cooling and novel, low cost injector, which provides a relatively high specific impulse engine with safer, environmentally friendly propellants, and reliable, responsive operations. This engine is designed for use with self pressurizing propellants, and has no associated pumps or propellant tank pressurization system. XCOR has experience developing rocket motors with many of these features and it is now time to combine these techniques. We have used a variety of fuel and oxidizer combinations with consistently safe and reliable startup and shutdown during over 13,000 seconds of engine test and flight operations. XCOR will also test a new configuration of injector. The proposed engine design has four specific advantages. First, it uses non-toxic LOX/methane propellants with inherently high specific impulse. Second, it has a new injector design that is inherently low cost to manufacture. Third, it is optimized to operate with self pressurizing propellants, which eliminate the need for either pumps or a propellant tank pressurization system. Fourth, use of LOX/methane means that the main engines, OMS and RCS can all use the same propellants, thus simplifying the overall system and reducing weight.