Methane Rocket Engine

Impressive!! Test firing of a 7500 pound LOX/methane engine

Liquid propellant engine that uses liquid methane as a fuel and liquid oxygen (LOX) as an oxidizer. The first working methane rocket engine was build and fired by the NASA contractor team Alliant Techsystem/XCOR Aerospace and remains in an early stage of development. In January 2007, XCOR announced that it had conducted a series of successful test firings of its new 7500 pound thrust methane rocket to characterize engine performance.

Surprisingly, methane has never been used to propel a rocket or spacecraft. One of the issues surrounding it is that methane needs an ignition source. So-called hypergolic propellants ignite spontaneously when mixed with the oxidizer, but methane must be ignited before it will burn. This may make it harder to use in the solar system where planetary temperatures drop to hundreds of degrees below zero. One of the challenges in using methane for deep space missions will be to ensure that the rocket can be ignited in all conditions.