NK-33
Encyclopedia
| NK-33 | |
|---|---|
| Role: | 1st stage multi-engine |
| Propellants: | RP-1 RP-1 RP-1 is a highly refined form of kerosene outwardly similar to jet fuel, used as a rocket fuel. Although having a lower specific impulse than liquid hydrogen , RP-1 is cheaper, can be stored at room temperature, is far less of an explosive hazard and is far denser... /LOX Lox Lox is salmon fillet that has been cured. In its most popular form, it is thinly sliced—less than in thickness—and, typically, served on a bagel, often with cream cheese, onion, tomato, cucumber and capers... |
| Development year: | 1970's |
| Overall dimensions | |
| Height | 3.7 m (12.1 ft) |
| Diameter | 2 m (6.6 ft) |
| Weight, dry | 1235 kg (2,722.7 lb) |
| Thrust-to-weight ratio | 137 |
| Performance | |
| Specific impulse, sea level | 297 s |
| Specific impulse, vacuum | 331 s |
| Thrust, sea level | 1505 kN (1,505,000 N) |
| Thrust, vacuum | 1753.8 kN (1,753,800 N) |
| Combustion chamber pressure, | 145 bar (14,500,000 Pa) |
| Designer | |
| Manufacturer: | ??? |
| Lead engineer: | ??? |
| Design team: | Kuznetsov |
The NK-33 and NK-43 are rocket engine
Rocket engine
A rocket engine, or simply "rocket", is a jet engineRocket Propulsion Elements; 7th edition- chapter 1 that uses only propellant mass for forming its high speed propulsive jet. Rocket engines are reaction engines and obtain thrust in accordance with Newton's third law...
s designed and built in the late 1960s and early 1970s by the Kuznetsov Design Bureau. They were intended for the ill-fated Soviet N-1 rocket moon shot. The NK-33 engine achieves the highest thrust-to-weight ratio
Thrust-to-weight ratio
Thrust-to-weight ratio is a ratio of thrust to weight of a rocket, jet engine, propeller engine, or a vehicle propelled by such an engine. It is a dimensionless quantity and is an indicator of the performance of the engine or vehicle....
of any Earth-launchable rocket engine, whilst achieving a very high specific impulse. NK-33 is by many measures the highest performance LOX/Kerosene rocket engine ever created.
The NK-43 is similar to the NK-33, but is designed for an upper stage, not a first stage. It has a longer nozzle, optimized for operation at altitude, where ambient air pressure is low or perhaps zero. This gives it a higher thrust and specific impulse, but makes it longer and heavier.
In 2010 stockpiled NK-33 engines were successfully tested for use by the Orbital Sciences
Orbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation is an American company which specializes in the manufacturing and launch of satellites. Its Launch Systems Group is heavily involved with missile defense launch systems...
Taurus II
Taurus II
Taurus II is an expendable launch system being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation. It is a two stage vehicle designed to launch payloads weighing up to into low-Earth orbit...
light-to-medium-lift launcher.
Technology
NK-33 and NK-43 are derived from the earlier NK-15 and NK-15V engines, respectively.The engines are high pressure, regeneratively cooled staged combustion cycle
Staged combustion cycle (rocket)
The staged combustion cycle, also called topping cycle or pre-burner cycle, is a thermodynamic cycle of bipropellant rocket engines. Some of the propellant is burned in a pre-burner and the resulting hot gas is used to power the engine's turbines and pumps...
bipropellant rocket engines, and use oxygen-rich preburners to drive the turbopumps. These kinds of burners are highly unusual, since their hot, oxygen-rich exhaust tends to attack metal, causing burn-through failures. Oxygen-rich engines were never successfully built in the US. The Soviets however perfected the metallurgy behind this method. The nozzle was constructed from corrugated
Corrugated
The term corrugated, describing a series of parallel ridges and furrows, may refer to the following:*Corrugated fiberboard also called corrugated cardboard*Corrugated galvanised iron*Corrugated plastic*Corrugated Frog...
metal, brazed to an outer and inner lining, giving a simple, light but strong structure. In addition, since the NK-33 uses LOX
Lox
Lox is salmon fillet that has been cured. In its most popular form, it is thinly sliced—less than in thickness—and, typically, served on a bagel, often with cream cheese, onion, tomato, cucumber and capers...
and kerosene
Kerosene
Kerosene, sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage, also known as paraffin or paraffin oil in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland and South Africa, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid. The name is derived from Greek keros...
, which have similar densities, a single rotating shaft could be used for both turbopumps; the resultant engines are extraordinarily lightweight, with the highest vacuum thrust-to-weight ratio of any comparable engine- 136.66:1. Given its longer, heavier nozzle, the NK-43 ratio in vacuo is slightly heavier with a thrust-to-weight ratio of about 120:1.
The oxygen-rich technology lives on in the RD-170/-171
RD-170 (rocket engine)
The RD-170 is the world's most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine, designed and produced in the USSR by NPO Energomash for use with Energia launch vehicle...
engines, and their RD-180
RD-180 (rocket engine)
The RD-180 is a Russian dual-combustion chamber, dual-nozzle rocket engine, derived from the RD-170 used in Soviet Zenit rockets, and currently provides first-stage power for American Atlas launch vehicles.-Design and specifications:The combustion chambers of the RD-180 share a single turbopump...
and recently developed RD-191
RD-191
The RD-191 is a high performance single-combustion chamber rocket engine, developed in Russia. It is derived from the RD-170 originally used in the Energia launcher....
derivatives.
History
The N-1 launcher originally used NK-15 engines for its first stage, and a high-altitude modification (NK-15V) in its second stage. After four consecutive launch failures and no successes, the project was cancelled. While other aspects of the vehicle were being modified or redesigned, Kuznetsov improved his contributions into the NK-33 and NK-43, respectively. The 2nd-generation vehicle was to be called the N-1F. By this point the Moon race was long lost, and the Soviet space program was looking to the EnergiaEnergia
Energia was a Soviet rocket that was designed by NPO Energia to serve as a heavy-lift expendable launch system as well as a booster for the Buran spacecraft. Control system main developer enterprise was the NPO "Electropribor"...
as its heavy launcher. No N-1F ever reached the launch pad.
When the N-1 program was shut down, all work on the project was ordered destroyed. A bureaucrat instead took the engines, worth millions of dollars each, and stored them in a warehouse. Word of the engines eventually spread to America. Nearly thirty years after they were built, disbelieving rocket engineers were led to the warehouse. Later, one of the engines was taken to America, and the precise specification of the engine was demonstrated on a test stand.
About 150 engines survived, and in the mid-1990s, Russia sold 36 engines to Aerojet
Aerojet
Aerojet is an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange, Gainesville and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet is owned by GenCorp. They are the only US propulsion company that provides both solid rocket...
General for $1.1 million each. This company also acquired a license for the production of new engines. Aerojet
Aerojet
Aerojet is an American rocket and missile propulsion manufacturer based primarily in Rancho Cordova, California with divisions in Redmond, Washington, Orange, Gainesville and Camden, Arkansas. Aerojet is owned by GenCorp. They are the only US propulsion company that provides both solid rocket...
has modified and renamed the updated NK-33 and NK-43 the AJ26-58 and AJ26-59, respectively.
Kistler Aerospace, now called Rocketplane Kistler
Rocketplane Kistler
Rocketplane Kistler was a reusable spacecraft firm originally based in Oklahoma before moving to Wisconsin. Formed in 2006 by Rocketplane Limited, Inc...
(RpK), designed their K-1 rocket around three NK-33s and an NK-43. On August 18, 2006, NASA announced that RpK had been chosen to develop Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services
Commercial Orbital Transportation Services is a NASA program to coordinate the delivery of crew and cargo to the International Space Station by private companies. The program was announced on January 18, 2006...
for the International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
. The plan called for demonstration flights between 2008 and 2010. RpK would have received up to $207 million if they met all NASA milestones, but on September 7, 2007, NASA issued a default letter warning that it would terminate the COTS agreement with Rocketplane Kistler
Rocketplane Kistler
Rocketplane Kistler was a reusable spacecraft firm originally based in Oklahoma before moving to Wisconsin. Formed in 2006 by Rocketplane Limited, Inc...
in 30 days because RpK had not met several contract milestones.
Proposals existed to retrofit the Soyuz launcher with NK-33s. Either one engine would replace the Soyuz's central RD-108, or five NK-33s would replace the RD-108 and four booster RD-107s. The lower weight and greater efficiency would increase payload; the simpler design and use of surplus hardware might actually reduce cost.
Future uses
Orbital SciencesOrbital Sciences Corporation
Orbital Sciences Corporation is an American company which specializes in the manufacturing and launch of satellites. Its Launch Systems Group is heavily involved with missile defense launch systems...
is developing a Taurus II
Taurus II
Taurus II is an expendable launch system being developed by Orbital Sciences Corporation. It is a two stage vehicle designed to launch payloads weighing up to into low-Earth orbit...
light-to-medium-lift launcher, planned to have two modified NK-33 in its first stage, a solid second stage and a hypergolic orbit stage. The Nk-33s are first imported from Russia to the United States and then modified into Aerojet AJ26s, which involves removing some harnessing, adding U.S. electronics, making it compatible with U.S. propellants, and modifying the steering system.
RSC Energia
S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia
OAO S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia , also known as RKK Energiya, is a Russian manufacturer of spacecraft and space station components...
is proposing an 'Aurora-L.SK' launch vehicle which would use an NK-33 to power the first stage and a Block DM-SL
Block D
Blok D is an upper stage used on Soviet and later Russian expendable launch systems, including the N1, Proton-K and Zenit. There were plans to use it for some other rockets as well ....
for the second stage. TsSKB-Progress also plans to use NK-33 as the main engine of the lightweight version of the successful Soyuz rocket family under development, called Soyuz-1
Soyuz-1 (rocket)
The Soyuz-1, also known as the Soyuz-2.1v is a proposed Russian expendable carrier rocket. It was derived from the Soyuz-2.1b, and is a member of the R-7 family of rockets. It will be built by TsSKB Progress, at Samara in the Russian Federation...
.
On June 17, 2011, Aerojet announced a strategic partnership with Teledyne Brown which would begin producing a US built version of the AJ-26, with its thrust increased to 500,000 lbf at sealevel and will be produced at Teledyne's factory in Huntsville, Alabama. Their hope is to utilize this new, upgraded AJ-26 for the next generation Space Launch System
Space Launch System
The Space Launch System, or SLS, is a Space Shuttle-derived heavy launch vehicle being designed by NASA, following the cancellation of the Constellation Program, to replace the retired Space Shuttle. The NASA Authorization Act of 2010 envisions the transformation of the Ares I and Ares V vehicle...
.