An array of current or next-generation boosters powered by methalox engines.

How Methane Took Over The Booster World

Go back a generation of development, and excepting the shuttle-derived systems, all liquid rockets used RP-1 (aka kerosene) for their first stage. Now it seems everybody and their dog wants to fuel their rockets with methane. What happened? [Eager Space] was eager to explain in recent video, which you’ll find embedded below.

Space X Starship firing its many Raptor engines.
Space X Starship firing its many Raptor engines. The raptor pioneered the new generation of methalox. (Image: Space X)

At first glance, it’s a bit of a wash: the density and specific impulses of kerolox (kerosene-oxygen) and metholox (methane-oxygen) rockets are very similar. So there’s no immediate performance improvement or volumetric disadvantage, like you would see with hydrogen fuel. Instead it is a series of small factors that all add up to a meaningful design benefit when engineering the whole system.

Methane also has the advantage of being a gas when it warms up, and rocket engines tend to be warm. So the injectors don’t have to worry about atomizing a thick liquid, and mixing fuel and oxidizer inside the engine does tend to be easier. [Eager Space] calls RP-1 “a soup”, while methane’s simpler combustion chemistry makes the simulation of these engines quicker and easier as well.

There are other factors as well, like the fact that methane is much closer in temperature to LOX, and does cost quite a bit less than RP-1, but you’ll need to watch the whole video to see how they all stack up.

We write about rocketry fairly often on Hackaday, seeing projects with both liquid-fueled and solid-fueled engines. We’ve even highlighted at least one methalox rocket, way back in 2019. Our thanks to space-loving reader [Stephen Walters] for the tip. Building a rocket of your own? Let us know about it with the tip line.

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A Space Walk Through ISS

The International Space Station (ISS) might not be breaking news, but this February, National Geographic released a documentary that dives into the station’s intricate engineering. It’s a solid reminder of what human ingenuity can achieve when you put a team of engineers, scientists, and astronauts together. While the ISS is no longer a new toy in space, for hackers and tinkerers, it’s still one of the coolest and most ambitious projects ever. And if you’re like us—always looking for fresh inspiration—you’ll want to check this one out.

The ISS is a masterpiece, built piece by piece in space, because why make things easy? With 16 pressurized modules, it’s got everything needed to keep humans alive and working in one of the harshest environments imaginable. Add in the $150 billion price tag (yes, billion), and it’s officially the most expensive thing humans have ever built. What makes it especially interesting to us hackers is its life support systems—recycling water, generating oxygen, and running on solar power. That’s the kind of closed-loop system we love to experiment with down here on Earth. Imagine the implications for long-term sustainability!

But it’s not just a survival bunker in space. It’s also a global science lab. The ISS gives researchers the chance to run experiments that could never happen under Earth’s gravity—everything from technology advancements to health experiments. Plus, it’s our testing ground for future missions to Mars. If you’re fascinated by the idea of hacking complex systems, or just appreciate a good build, the ISS is a dream project.

Catch the documentary and dive into the world of space-grade hacking. The ISS may be orbiting out of sight, but for those of us looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible, it’s still full of inspiration.

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A photo of a farmer in Kazakhstan wearing a balaclava mask standing in front of a farm house with a rusting piece of Soyuz space capsule used as part of the farm's animal feed trough

One Giant Steppe For Space Flight

In a recent photo essay for the New Yorker magazine, author Keith Gessen and photographer Andrew McConnell share what life is like for the residents around the launch facility and where Soyuz capsules land in Kazakhstan.

Read the article for a brief history of the Baikonur spaceport and observations from the photographer’s fifteen visits to observe Soyuz landings and the extreme separation between the local farmers and the facilities built up around Baikonur. A local ecologist even compares the family farmers toiling around the busy spaceport to a scene our readers may be familiar with on Tatooine.

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Sharkskin Coating Reduces Airliner Fuel Use, Emissions

The aviation industry is always seeking advancements to improve efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. The former is due to the never-ending quest for profit, while the latter helps airlines maintain their social license to operate. Less cynically, more efficient technologies are better for the environment, too.

One of the latest innovations in this space is a new sharkskin-like film applied to airliners to help cut drag. Inspired by nature itself, it’s a surface treatment technology that mimics the unique characteristics of sharkskin to enhance aircraft efficiency. Even better, it’s already in commercial service! Continue reading “Sharkskin Coating Reduces Airliner Fuel Use, Emissions”

Robot 3D Prints Giant Metal Parts With Induction Heat

While our desktop machines are largely limited to various types of plastic, 3D printing in other materials offers unique benefits. For example, printing with concrete makes it possible to quickly build houses, and we’ve even seen things like sugar laid down layer by layer into edible prints. Metals are often challenging to print with due to its high melting temperatures, though, and while this has often been solved with lasers a new method uses induction heating to deposit the metals instead.

A company in Arizona called Rosotics has developed a large-scale printer based on this this method that they’re calling the Mantis. It uses three robotic arms to lay down metal prints of remarkable size, around eight meters wide and six meters tall. It can churn through about 50 kg of metal per hour, and can be run off of a standard 240 V outlet. The company is focusing on aerospace applications, with rendered rocket components that remind us of what Relativity Space is working on.

Nothing inspires confidence like a low-quality render.

The induction heating method for the feedstock not only means they can avoid using power-hungry and complex lasers to sinter powdered metal, a material expensive in its own right, but they can use more common metal wire feedstock instead. In addition to being cheaper and easier to work with, wire is also safer. Rosotics points out that some materials used in traditional laser sintering, such as powdered titanium, are actually explosive.

Of course, the elephant in the room is that Relativity recently launched a 33 meter (110 foot) tall 3D printed rocket over the Kármán line — while Rosotics hasn’t even provided a picture of what a component printed with their technology looks like. Rather than being open about their position in the market, the quotes from CEO Christian LaRosa make it seem like he’s blissfully unaware his fledgling company is already on the back foot.

If you’ve got some rocket propellant tanks you’d like printed, the company says they’ll start taking orders in October. Though you’ll need to come up with a $95,000 deposit before they’ll start the work. If you’re looking for something a little more affordable, it’s possible to convert a MIG welder into a rudimentary metal 3D printer instead.

Magnesium: Where It Comes From And Why We’re Running Out

Okay, we’re not running out. We actually have tons of the stuff. But there is a global supply chain crisis. Most of the world’s magnesium is processed in China and several months ago, they just… stopped. In an effort to hit energy consumption quotas, the government of the city of Yulin (where most of the country’s magnesium production takes place) ordered 70% of the smelters to shut down entirely, and the remainder to slash their output by 50%. So, while magnesium remains one of the most abundant elements on the planet, we’re readily running out of processed metal that we can use in manufacturing.

Nikon camera body
The magnesium-alloy body of a Nikon d850. Courtesy of Nikon

But, how do we actually use magnesium in manufacturing anyway? Well, some things are just made from it. It can be mixed with other elements to be made into strong, lightweight alloys that are readily machined and cast. These alloys make up all manner of stuff from race car wheels to camera bodies (and the chassis of the laptop I’m typing this article on). These more direct uses aside, there’s another, larger draw for magnesium that isn’t immediately apparent: aluminum production.

But wait, aluminum, like magnesium is an element. So why would we need magnesium to make it? Rest assured, there’s no alchemy involved- just alloying. Much like magnesium, aluminum is rarely used in its raw form — it’s mixed with other elements to give it desirable properties such as high strength, ductility, toughness, etc. And, as you may have already guessed, most of these alloys require magnesium. Now we’re beginning to paint a larger, scarier picture (and we just missed Halloween!) — a disruption to the world’s aluminum supply.

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Image of detonation engine firing

Japanese Rocket Engine Explodes: Continuously And On Purpose

Liquid-fuelled rocket engine design has largely followed a simple template since the development of the German V-2 rocket in the middle of World War 2. Propellant and oxidizer are mixed in a combustion chamber, creating a mixture of hot gases at high pressure that very much wish to leave out the back of the rocket, generating thrust.

However, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has recently completed a successful test of a different type of rocket, known as a rotating detonation engine. The engine relies on an entirely different method of combustion, with the aim to produce more thrust from less fuel. We’ll dive into how it works, and how the Japanese test bodes for the future of this technology.

Deflagration vs. Detonation

Humans love combusting fuels in order to do useful work. Thus far in our history, whether we look at steam engines, gasoline engines, or even rocket engines, all these technologies have had one thing in common: they all rely on fuel that burns in a deflagration. It’s the easily controlled manner of slow combustion that we’re all familiar with since we started sitting around campfires. Continue reading “Japanese Rocket Engine Explodes: Continuously And On Purpose”