Students test rotating rocket engine with 20,000 blasts per second for space missions

The Pegasus team from the Aris student space initiative has generated a stable detonation wave with its engine. Robin Wyss / Aris Space ========================================================================= Students in Switzerland have recently tested an experimental rocket engine that is capable of generating 20,000 detonation waves per second, the same propulsion concept explored by NASA and Japanese researchers for future space missions. The so-called rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) is powered by propane and liquid oxygen. It was built by the Pegasus team, a student project within the ARIS (Academic Space Initiative Switzerland) at ETH Zurich. The third-year students spent nearly a year developing...