Firing up Arcos – the European aerospike engine

Scenes from testing Pangea Aerospace’s Arcos aerospike rocket engine at the German Aerospace Center, DLR, test centre in Lampoldshausen Germany in October 2023.  

Aerospike engines don’t have bell-shaped nozzles like most rocket engines in operation but have spike-shaped nozzles. This allows the engine to be more efficient at different altitudes, offering theoretical benefits of up to 15% more efficiency. Aerospike engines have stayed theoretical for decades and a few were built in the 1980’s but new 3D-printing techniques have made them more economically viable. 

The tests in this video were part of verifying Arcos’ combustion chambers that are made of two different additively manufactured materials bonded together – a first in Europe – as well as validating two types of 3D-printed injector heads developed through aid and funding from ESA and the Spanish Center of Technological Development and Innovation.  

Arcos runs on liquid methane and liquid oxygen – often abbreviated to methalox – that is cooled down to around –170°C before being mixed and burnt in the engine, where the mixture then heats up to temperatures above 3000°C. To prevent the engine from melting, Pangea Aerospace’s design runs both the cryogenic oxygen and methane fluids around the engine to cool it.  

The Arcos engine is being designed to be adaptable to multiple uses and for different customers, it runs on bio-methane and should be reusable up to ten times in addition to reducing environmental impact by up to 50% compared to traditional rocket engines – all while using 15% less propellant.