The aerospike engine is a unique type of rocket engine that uses liquid as a propeller and has performance advantages over regular or normal rocket engines. It uses a plug nozzle that makes it able to compensate for lower altitudes. This is because the aerospike engine belongs to a set of altitude compensating nozzle engine and this is something beyond other conventional rockets. According to Wikipedia,

The aerospike engine is a type of rocket engine that maintains its aerodynamic efficiency across a wide range of altitudes.

Just like I said earlier, they are liquid propellant and these liquids are liquid hydrogen which is the fuel and the liquid oxygen which is the oxidizer. Just in case I confused you with altitude. Altitude is the point an object is located in relation to the sea level or ground level sometimes.

The Principle with which the Aerospike works

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Firstly, the aerospike rocket engine aims at eliminating loss of efficiency. The aerospike engine disregards the concept of firing out exhaust from a small hole usually in the middle of the bell but rather it fires the exhaust outside edge of the spike which has same function of a traditional engine bell. Check the fig .b above in contrast to the fig. a. The major idea behind the aerospike is believed to be the ability of the ambient pressure to compress the exhaust against the spike at low altitudes.

"As the vehicle climbs to higher altitudes, the air pressure holding the exhaust against the spike decreases, as does the drag in front of the vehicle."

The aerospike are in different forms which the toroidal and linear aerospike. The toroidal aerospike having a bowl shaped spike firing exhaust in a ring around the outer rim. While the linear aerospike has its spike consisting of a wedge shaped plate and firing exhausts on either side as shown in the above picture.

Implementation

The aerospike was implemented in July 2014 by the firefly space systems. They announced their planned alpha launcher. Their planned alpha launcher uses an aerospike engine in its first stage. The firefly alpha is a payload carrier that can carry weight of about 400kg equivalent to 880 lb at maximum.

The alpha launcher was designed to launch satellites into low-Earth orbit (LEO) at a price of US$8–9 million, much lower than with conventional launchers.

Disadvantages

Known to us, no matter how good a thing is or appear to be, there are always disadvantages or at least a single disadvantage. The disadvantages of the aerospike are it vital which means they can be neglected. There are at least two that I know of:

• The spike is very heavy compared to other conventional rocket engines.

• It requires extra cooling due to extra heated area as most conventional rockets fire exhaust from a small

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Sources

• Source 1

• My big science encyclopedia.

References

• Ref 1

• Ref 2

• Ref 3