The Astonishing Engineering of Rutherford Engine | Rocket Lab Electron Rocket Engine

Video from the channel Scientia Plus about Electron, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 8:54. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

Technical explanation of the Rutherford engine, which powers Rocket Lab's Electron, with a review of its testing and flight history.

Rocket Lab, founded in 2006 by Peter Beck, began developing the engine in 2013 and fired it for the first time in December of that year. Beck unveiled it on 14 April 2015 at the 31st Space Symposium, after more than 200 qualification firings, and in March 2016 it was qualified for flight. On the first flight, on 25 May 2017 from Launch Complex 1 at Mahia, the rocket was destroyed at about 224 km due to loss of telemetry. On 21 January 2018 Electron reached orbit. By July 2019 the company had produced 100 flight engines and exceeded 850 firings. By September 2020 Electron had flown 14 missions.

The engine uses RP-1 and liquid oxygen, weighs 35 kg and produces about 25 kN at sea level, with a specific impulse of about 311 s; the vacuum version reaches 26 kN and 343 s. Its cycle is electric pump-fed: two brushless electric motors of 37 kW at 42,000 rpm, powered by lithium polymer batteries that exceed 1 MW in the first stage. The chamber, injector, turbopumps and valves are manufactured by electron beam melting in Inconel and titanium, at a rate of one engine every 24 hours.