LEAP 71 successfully tests innovative AI-designed Aerospike engine
January 6, 2025
LEAP 71, a developer of AI-based engineering technology headquartered in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, has successfully hot-fired an Aerospike engine with 5,000 Newtons (1,100 lbf) of thrust, powered by cryogenic liquid oxygen and kerosene. The engine was generated autonomously by the latest generation of Noyron, the company’s Large Computational Engineering Model.
By leveraging the power of Noyron’s computational AI, the thruster was developed in a matter of weeks, manufactured as a monolithic piece of copper through industrial Additive Manufacturing, and put on the test stand, where it worked successfully on the first attempt.
Aerospikes are more compact and significantly more efficient across various atmospheric pressures, including the vacuum of space. They forego the conventional bell-shaped nozzle by placing a spike in the centre of a toroidal combustion chamber. Since the spike is surrounded by 3,500ºC hot exhaust gas, cooling it is an enormous challenge.
Josefine Lissner, CEO and Co-Founder of LEAP 71, stated, “We were able to extend Noyron’s physics to deal with the unique complexity of this engine type. The spike is cooled by intricate cooling channels flooded by cryogenic oxygen, whereas the outside of the chamber is cooled by the kerosene fuel. I am very encouraged by the results of this test, as virtually everything on the engine was novel and untested. It’s a great validation of our physics-driven approach to computational AI.”
Lin Kayser, Co-Founder of LEAP 71, added, “Despite their clear advantages, Aerospikes are not used in space access today. We want to change that. Noyron allows us to radically cut the time we need to re-engineer and iterate after a test and enables us to converge rapidly on an optimal design.”
The Aerospike was manufactured using a Laser Beam Powder Bed Fusion (PBF-LB) process by industrial partner Aconity3D with an advanced aerospace copper alloy (CuCrZr). After it was cleaned of excess copper powder by Solukon, it underwent heat treatment at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology. The University of Sheffield’s Race 2 Space Team prepared the engine for the test site and provided active support during the campaign.
The Aerospike was fired on December 18, 2024, as part of a four-engines-in-four-days campaign conducted by LEAP 71 at Airborne Engineering in Westcott, UK.
The company will process the collected data to fine-tune Noyron for the next iteration of engines and continue testing in 2025, with the goal of making Aerospikes a viable option for modern spacecraft.
Download Metal AM magazine
