Although today’s rocket engines are advanced and powerful, they rely on traditional – and naturally volatile – fuels such as hydrazine or liquid oxygen and kerosene. Firehawk Aerospace has a safer and more stable new fuel, new engines and millions in new funding to launch the next round of tests.
Firehawk appeared on the scene two years ago with new hybrid engines – which use solid and liquid quality fuel. The breakthrough, developed by CEO Will Edwards and Chief Scientist Ron Jones, is to structure that fuel and 3D print it with a specially engineered matrix.
Structured, semi-solid fuel is more stable and easier to transport than other fuels, and burns in a more predictable way. The company has designed engines around this concept and tested them on a small scale, but has recently launched an engine that you could use if you were going to space.
“It’s a unique engine with its drag capability, low cost and parametric design, so we can design it for a missile interception system or a secondary booster,” Edwards said.
The company recently conducted full-engine combustion tests at the Stennis Space Center under NASA supervision, and they’re ready to fly — the final step before the company reaches a level of technology readiness that will allow it to grow revenue.
Firehawk CEO Will Edwards (left) and Chief Scientist Ron Jones hold 3D-printed fuel pipes.
In addition to better safety, printing fuel grains in a different way makes it possible to create different pressure characteristics. And the whole thing can be safely slowed down, stopped and restarted multiple times – not something you see very often in a rocket engine. Normally after burning those you’ll blast 100% until you run out of fuel, which means you only get one shot and your force vector options are limited – more like a drag racer than a normal car.
“Our engine can replace solid rocket engines at a lower cost with comparable fuel performance, but you can control the burn — something that the industry has found incredibly compelling,” Edwards said.
Firehawk engine being tested by Stennis. Image Credits: Firehawk Aerospace
Not first-stage launch vehicle engines, for which high-thrust, full-throttle fire is required, but for systems that receive less complexity: second-stage thrust (eg, raising a payload to a certain orbit once it’s ‘out of the atmosphere’) and missile interception systems, for which Accuracy is very important.
Because of fuel volatility, low-pressure methods such as ion engines are often used, Edwards pointed to satellite propulsion as a potential application. The Firehawk’s fuel is “inherently inert”, making it far less capable of handling, for example, multi-car loads. Do you want your satellite to be stored next to a barrel of kerosene?
The new Series A funding round will allow for more testing, more R&D and production of more engines to meet demand – although predictably with a company like Raytheon, NDAs prevent the nature of demand from being revealed in any detail. So far, they have collected 15.5 million dollars, but recently they raised 17 million dollars.
The list of investors is a bit long, but for the record: Star Castle VC led the round, with participation from Raytheon, Draper & Associates, Goff Capital, Cathexis Ventures, Plain VC, Victor Capital, Stellar VC, Capital Factory, Eco Investments. , and Hemisphere Ventures.
Although the engines currently being tested are close to being ready for customer use, Edwards stressed that this is just the beginning. New applications are probably just a few keystrokes away:
“We can create a really unique fuel grain geometry, and by changing the design we can improve the performance. We just have to rewrite some code and load that into our 3D printers,” the new funding allowed them to buy and customize their own printing, CNC machines, and deploy them in a new Addison, TX location. He said.- “We can go through our next testing campaign much faster.”
Here’s the happy team at the new headquarters:
Image Credits: Firehawk Aerospace
More tests should come next month, which should clear the way for some sort of launch soon (but still unspecified).
