An aerospike engine is a type of
rocket engine that maintains its
aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of
altitudes. A rocket engine directs a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid in one direction, generating thrust in the opposite direction. An aerospike engine differs from a conventional one in that, instead of firing the gases out of a small hole in the middle of a bell-shaped nozzle extension, it fires them along the outside edge of a wedge-shaped protrusion, the "spike". This 2001 photograph shows a
Rocketdyne XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine for the
Lockheed Martin X-33 program being tested at the
Stennis Space Center in
Hancock County, Mississippi.Photograph credit:
NASA; retouched by
Papa Lima Whiskey
An aerospike engine is a type of
rocket engine that maintains its
aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of
altitudes. A rocket engine directs a high-speed propulsive jet of fluid in one direction, generating thrust in the opposite direction. An aerospike engine differs from a conventional one in that, instead of firing the gases out of a small hole in the middle of a bell-shaped nozzle extension, it fires them along the outside edge of a wedge-shaped protrusion, the "spike". This 2001 photograph shows a
Rocketdyne XRS-2200 linear aerospike engine for the
Lockheed Martin X-33 program being tested at the
Stennis Space Center in
Hancock County, Mississippi.Photograph credit:
NASA; retouched by
Papa Lima Whiskey