News, Biofuel rocket engine gets test run. (biodiesel, propane, California)

[JD59]

The U.S. aerospace industry is officially onboard the biofuel bandwagon, with the test fire of a small rocket engine that burns commercially available biodiesel.

California-based Flometrics did the honors and discovered the Rocketdyne LR-101 engine produced nearly the same amount of thrust burning biodiesel as it did chugging through a kerosene-based conventional rocket fuel.

Biofuel rocket engine gets test run - Discovery.com- msnbc.com

[fatchance2005]

Originally Posted by John1960

The U.S. aerospace industry is officially onboard the biofuel bandwagon, with the test fire of a small rocket engine that burns commercially available biodiesel.

California-based Flometrics did the honors and discovered the Rocketdyne LR-101 engine produced nearly the same amount of thrust burning biodiesel as it did chugging through a kerosene-based conventional rocket fuel.

Biofuel rocket engine gets test run - Discovery.com- msnbc.com

What a geat breakthrough! I don't know if you're familiar with this engine, but it was originally the vernier (steering) engines on the Atlas 1-A, like John Glenn rode. It's widely availably on the surplus market, and is a favorite of the many entrepreneurial space ventures out there in the private sector right now. It can be clustered for use in boosters, and has been used that way by the government and commercially. This is a major discovery for them, with the future of fossil fuels as uncertain as it is.

Aerocon Systems LR-101 Vernier Motor

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[GregW]

Rocket motors, like old tech diesels, will burn just about anything you can feed them.

I remember the difficulties I had making a compressed air/propane engine when I was a early teen with a machine shop. It didnt develop much, if any, thrust but made one heck of a weed burner.