Aerojet AJ26 Engine Tested at NASA Stennis for Orbital Sciences Taurus II Launch Vehicle

Test firing of the Aerojet AJ26 engine  on Stennis 

Space Center E-1 test stand Dec. 17, 2010.

Image Credit: NASA

Aerojet AJ26 Rocket Engine Arrives at Stennis

Image Credit: NASA

Aerojet AJ26 Engine Test
Image Credit: Aerojet

Aerojet AJ26 Engine
Image Credit: Aerojet

Artist rendering of Taurus II on the
 launch pad at the Wallops Flight Facility
Image Credit: Orbital

Artist rendering of Taurus II Launch
Image Credit: Orbital

The second test 55-second test firing of the liquid-fueled Aerojet AJ26 engine at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi on December. 17, 2010. Test firing of 55 seconds on E-1 test stand and into 27-foot-deep flame deflector trench. One in sequence of development tests performed by NASA Stennis. Next hot fire test to verify tuning of engine control valves. Stennis has a long history of rocket engine testing going back through all the space shuttle engine tests and the Apollo Lunar program.

Taurus II
Two Aerojet AJ26 engines each with independent thrust vectoring will be used for first stage propulsion of Orbital Sciences Corp.'s Taurus II launch vehicle.The Aerojet AJ26 engine is an oxidizer-rich, staged-combustion LO2/Kerosene engine that achieves very high performance in a lightweight compact package. It is based on the NK-33 engine originally designed and produced in Russia for the Russian N1 lunar launch vehicle. Aerojet has developed and delivered over 1300 bipropellant engines typically using either monmethyl hydrazine (MMH) or hydrazine (N2H4) as fuel with nitrogen tetroxide (NOT) as oxidizer. Oxidizer and fuel streams meet and react to produce thrust. The Taurus II medium-class space launch vehicle is being developed to boost payloads into a variety of low-Earth and geosynchronous transfer orbits and to Earth escape trajectories. Taurus II will also be capable of supporting mid-inclination and polar orbiting spacecraft weighing 10,500 lbs. and 5,500 lbs., respectively.

Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation of Dulles, Va. is under a $1.9 billion commercial contract with NASA to provide eight cargo missions to the International Space Station from 2011 through 2015. NASA Stennis tests the rocket engines in the partnership agreement.  The first Taurus II mission will be flown in support of NASA's Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) cargo demonstration to the International Space Station. Taurus II Initial Launch Capability (ILC) is expected in the third quarter of 2011.

Aerojet Engine History in the News

Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 were launched in 1977, and are the oldest operational spacecraft. At launch, each spacecraft carried two propulsion systems, a Delta-V system, including four 100 lbf and four 5 lbf monopropellant hydrazine thrusters made by Aerojet, and an attitude control system including 16 0.2 lbf monopropellant hydrazine thrusters. The Delta-V systems have long since been jettisoned, but the attitude control systems remain operational today. The 100 lbf thrusters are the original version of the thrusters intended for Orion’s crew module and the 0.2 lbf thrusters are the original version of the thrusters currently in use for the Global Positioning System Block IIR, and are similar to those newly in service for GPS Block IIF.

References:

NASA:
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/news/newsreleases/2010/HQ-10-266.html

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/stennis/news/newsreleases/2010/HQ-10-266-cptn.html

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/technology/features/aj26_test_fire.html


Orbital http://www.orbital.com


Orbital and Aerojet Complete Main Engine Lifetime Testing for Taurus II Space Launch Vehicle
http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/release.asp?prid=724

Orbital’s Taurus II rocket:
http://www.orbital.com/NewsInfo/ImagesMultimedia/Images/ExplorationSystems/index.shtml


Aerojet:
http://www.aerojet.com/


Aerojet AJ26 Rocket Engine Arrives at Stennis: 
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1716.html

Aerojet Propulsion Remains Operational as Voyager 1 Approaches Interstellar Space (Dec. 23, 2010)
http://www.aerojet.com/news2.php?action=fullnews&id=262