For decades, an engine concept known as aerospike has been an elusive rival to the traditional bell-nozzle rocket. Although capable of delivering higher payloads while decreasing overall rocket ...

Along with sufficient gains in efficiency, the aerospike engine also promises advantages when it comes to control. Bell-nozzle rockets use mechanical systems called gimbals to produce differential ...

The aerospike engine offers a different approach ... While it may not surpass a bell nozzle at its peak performance, the aerospike offers reliable efficiency from launch to space.

The conventional rocket engine uses a bell-shaped nozzle at the bottom of the apparatus. This allows the rocket to ignite and funnel the force of its burning fuel downward in a linear direction.

Developed from old plug-nozzle engines, the idea behind the aerospike engine is that it takes the conventional rocket bell nozzle and cuts away one side of it. A rocket bell nozzle works by ...

a 200 kN aerospike engine, and the Noyron XRB-2E6, a 2000 kN bell-nozzle engine. Both new reference rocket motors are conceived as complete propulsion systems, including the turbomachinery required to ...

The successful testing of what the company called India’s first aerospike engine could complement efforts to increase the efficiency traditional bell-nozzle engines provide. R Krishnakumar Last ...

As the engine technology is unique ... oxidizing agent that was used in the third experiment, as well as a bell-shaped nozzle, to keep the variables consistent in the new test.

One example is this new copper aerospike engine. [via Fabbaloo] Aerospikes are interesting as their geometry isn’t pressure dependent like more typical bell-shaped rocket nozzles meaning you ...

To avoid this trap, Lissner suggested they should focus on creating a radically different—and extremely challenging—engine like the aerospike. Unlike the conventional bell-shaped nozzle we are ...