Successful First Launch of Aerospike Engine

ScottKin writes "CSULB announced that on September 21st they achieved a milestone in aerospace engineering when they successfully launched their 'Prospector 2' rocket powered by an 'Aerospike' engine. What makes this remarkable is that even NASA had trouble with testing their incarnation of an Aerospike engine - but the Linear Aerospike Engine is quite a different beast. More info on this definitely-newsworthy even can be found at the California Space Authority website."

Comments

Sadly

[panurge]

The article has more spin than a British Government press release.

The motor worked except that, well actually it went badly wrong very soon after launch. Combustion gases went the wrong way and caused the engine to malfunction.
Result: crash. Destruction of payload.

I guess the definition of success came from the people who defined "interception" of Scuds by Patriots in Gulf war 1 as meaning more or less that both missiles were in the air at the same time.

Meanwhile, relatively primitive Russian rockets continue very reliable and Ariane just put up another two comms satellites last night, plus the European moon mission which is aiming for some sort of record as the slowest trip to the Moon ever. Far from being an endorsement of private research versus NASA, it suggests that caution and extensive testing remains the norm in anything to do with rocketry. Even if the next flight is successful, I guess a huge amount of further work would be needed before anyone would risk a real commercial payload on a rocket using this nozzle technology.