NASA Tests The XRS-2200 Engine And Its Amazing

this thing is INSANE…

Check out this test which may be used in future space missions by NASA.  In the last year or so, NASA has made a lot of headlines with the discussions and tests of new kinds of propulsion systems.  They even tested an EM Drive propulsion successfully which is a “microwave” based system although don’t use it to make popcorn 😉

Here is an intro on the XRS-2200:

This engine was designed to be modular and was going to power the long since cancelled X-33 Venture Star. I knew I had seen a video of this before but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Found it finally through a dead hotlink to a Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) news release still on their server but it doesn’t turn up under any Google or NASA site searches for Aerospike. This video is property of NASA so if they request it to be removed I will do so. It was filmed in late 2000 or early 2001 and I believe this is 80% of max thrust.

Let’s watch them fire this thing up in the video on page 2

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173 Comments

  1. Mark VanNoord said:

    The old space shuttles used a 500000 external tank tied into the two rocket boosters to get into space. If this uses less fuel then its a success.

  2. Nathan Payne said:

    That’s where I was going with this. One night while on a smoke break when we were on the South side of base, I saw a GREEN shooting star in the direction of Skunkworks…I’ve wondered what it was for years since.

  3. Scott Stanley said:

    There were things being flight tested through there that still have not been declassified. Now most of the focus has moved to satellite technology.

  4. Eric Brown said:

    It’s funny to read all these comments. You all are talking about magnetic propustion. MPD and VASMIR is what you guys are really talking about. You all just don’t have enough research to know any better. But the one thing I’m wondering is why everyone isn’t talking about the fact that Jim Meeks as no idea what categorizes a fossil fuel? Since when is Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) and Liquid Oxygen (LOX) which is used by the XRS-2200 a fossil fuel, and this is actually an old test video they tested it like in 2001 or somewhere in that period of time when they were working on the X-33 project.

  5. Eric Brown said:

    Eric Myers it’s more like the mid- 90’s early 2000’s this engine was going to be used on the X-33 which the fundings were cut in 2001

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