"Michael M. Butler" wrote:
>
> Doug Jones wrote:
>
> > I'll have to show up at an Extro conference with a briefcase engine just to
> > show off sometime.
>
> You better be ready to light it, or we'll all be sad.
That's the idea of the "briefcase" engine- it's a small (15 pounds thrust)
liquid fuel rocket engine with augmented spark ignition, running on nitrous
and isopropyl alcohol. A complete static test stand with propellant tanks,
feedlines, controller and valves is packed into a large hard sided
briefcase, and we'll just unfold it, open a few manual cutoff valves, turn
on the power, and fire it up. We have a prototype on the bench in our
workshop, and I'll be doing more test firings tomorrow. I'm still working
on some details of the portable unit, but we plan to demo it at the Space
Access conference in April.
Even though it's quite small, it's a noisy beast- 126 dB at 3 meters from
the nozzle, at right angles to the jet. Earplugs are mandatory.
-- Doug Jones Rocket Plumber, XCOR Aerospace http://www.xcor-aerospace.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:03:32 MDT