We're excited to support Project Kepler! Keep up the great work, ICSS team!🚀
A huge congratulations to our Project Kepler team, who completed successful cold flow testing of the Kepler engine earlier this week as part of #race2space with Airborne Engineering Ltd (videos can be found in the comments below!). The team complete 4 separate cold flow tests on the fuel side of the injector, with peak mass flow rates of just under 2.2 kg/s - nominal for the fuel side of this engine. The highlight of the testing came when the chamber and nozzle were removed and slow motion footage of the injector elements could be captured, showing uniform mixing across the injector face (minus one injector element which seemed slightly blocked - investigation underway). The propellant was launched up to 13.5m down range of the test stand, which from a back of the envelope calculation requires a peak pressure drop of around 11 bar, with the average pressure drop measured during the period of peak mass flow being around 5.5 bar. Even with only a cold flow test, the engine produced an average thrust of over 50 N, achieving a thrust to weight ratio greater than 1 for the chamber without the need for combustion! This is testament to how much focus the team have put into making the engine lightweight as they aim for the thrust to weight ratio record for a rocket engine! We are also pleased to report that there were no leaks from the injector head, suggesting that the seals between different injector manifolds performed nominally! Following these successful tests, the team are eagerly preparing for an upcoming cold flow of the LOx side of the engine, as well as working on the Turbomachinery Stack, which should be tested independently of the main Thrust Chamber Assembly early next academic year! Lots of exciting things to come for this project as they work towards a full engine hot fire next year! A huge thanks to our sponsors including Additive Industries, DoraHacks and Onshape, a PTC Technology as well as everyone at Imperial College London who has helped support the project and get us to this point! #space #rocket #rocketengine
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