Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Cost, according to another article I found. The article also mentioned that electric is 95% efficient while turbine-pumps are ~60%, but that is still definitely not worth the weight penalty.

I suppose it makes sense, as it is very difficult to have a turbo with rocket exhaust on one side and cryogenic oxygen on the other. Its quite creative if it is actually cheaper. It might also allow finer control over throttling back, but thats not useful unless you're spaceX.



The other factor with turbo pumps in open cycle designs is you end up burning a fair amount of your fuel and oxidizer in them, and throwing it overboard at fairly low pressures/velocities, which hurts your specific impulse.

Staged combustion motors run the exhaust of the turbo-pump into the main combustion chamber, and have far better specific impulse, but are much harder to design and build.

The the electric pump design, you can have the simplicity of and reliability of the open cycle main engine, with the efficiency inherent in not effectively throwing a percentage of your fuel overboard.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: