Aerospike attached to the air supply system
Oregon Tech’s Rocketry and Aerospace (OTRA) club, supported in part through an Oregon NASA Space Grant Consortium (OSGC) grant, moves forward with hands-on fabrication and testing of an aerospike a propulsion system for aircrafts, rockets and satellite launch vehicles.
While many people may be familiar with the bell-shaped nozzle traditionally used for the engine on rockets or planes, aerospike engines offer the advantage of less mass and lower fuel consumption. With the growing demand for Earth observation and space exploration, the market for this will only increase.
Aerospikes respond to lower atmosphere by allowing the flow to open up, allowing faster flow speeds, and achieving efficiency to go faster at higher altitudes - automatically. But these aerospikes are of less efficiency if they cannot be as controlled at different altitude conditions. Maneuvering the vehicle through differential thrust vectoring forcing gas to flow along