A University of Central Florida researcher and his team have developed an advanced new rocket-propulsion system once thought to be impossible.
The system, known as a rotating detonation rocket engine, will allow upper stage rockets for space missions to become lighter, travel farther, and burn more cleanly.
The results were published this month in the journal Combustion and Flame.
“The study presents, for the first time, experimental evidence of a safe and functioning hydrogen and oxygen propellant detonation in a rotating detonation rocket engine,” says Kareem Ahmed, an assistant professor in UCF’s Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering who led the research.