Astron Systems hosted students from Bristol University's Hypower rocketry team at their test site on Westcott Venture Park last week to test the Bristol team's SRAD liquid bipropellant rocket engine designed for the upcoming EuRoC student rocketry competition. It's a nitrogen pressurised nitrous and IPA 5kN class engine designed to launch their SRAD rocket at EuRoc.
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UK rocket company Astron Systems has released a video showcasing their 100% reusable rocket “Aurora” for small payloads. With Aurora, Astron Systems are aiming to lead the way globally in bringing 100% rocket reusability to small lift launch, with the goal of unlocking a step change improvement in the cost, speed, and flexibility of services for small payload orbital launch and return. The Aurora rocket is a two stage vertically launched vehicle designed for the orbital launch and return of small payloads.
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We helped out with hosting students for the UK's Race 2 Space 2025 competition at C-Site, our propulsion test facility. Race 2 Space is a national competition founded to boost practical skills and diversity among graduates entering the UK space sector. Over a two-week period, more than 300 students from 32 universities will have travelled to the Westcott Space Cluster and fired their rocket engines.
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We're excited to share that we've signed a first batch of 3 launches with Australian company Spiral Blue to help deploy their lidar technology into space. We love what they're building and what they've achieved already with their space edge computing technology currently in orbit and look forward to this first batch of launches with them from 2029.
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We performed first low cost and low pressure tests of our coaxial swirl injector element designs to further validate proper propellants mixing prior to fabrication of our full thrust chamber. The results matched the simulated expectations.
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Astron Systems completes an ESA funded contract studying hybrid expander electric cycle rocket engines. The design work was funded through ESA's GSTP (General Support Technology Program) to support the development of hybrid expander electric cycle rocket engines to unlock next-level reusability and lifetime within this size class of engine.
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We successfully demonstrated ignition of our first prototype torch igniter running with cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen. Special thanks to Airborne Engineering Ltd and Buckinghamshire council for their support using Airborne's test stand on Westcott Venture Park.
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Gregory Krauland helped turn into reality some of the most exciting aerospace projects in recent history. He led the design and development of Falcon 9's upper stage at SpaceX, worked as Chief Engineer at Boom Supersonic for the XB-1 vehicle, and worked on SpaceShipTwo at Scaled Composites.
That's a wrap on the Techstars Space Accelerator 2024! It's been an amazing 3 month program, culminating in the demo day at Google LA last Thursday! Momentum is definitely building, and we're excited for the months ahead and continuing to lead the way in bringing real commercially competitve launch for small payloads to Europe and beyond!
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We're excited to share some footage of gaseous testing of our first reusable rocket engine torch igniter prototype. This is a part of our highly reusable rocket engine in development, which in turn is a key technology within our fully reusable Aurora launch vehicle. The data from this testing is valuable for validating simulations and demonstrating survivability. We've run this igniter for multiple full flight duration burns, and it has been ignited cumulatively for over 2 hours demonstrating long expected lifetime.
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Rafal presented at the UK Magnetics Society's Cryogenic Electric Propulsion Systems seminar on Astron's innovative work designing, building, and testing high power non-superconducting cryogenic electric machines to power rocket engines.
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Astron receives investment from the prestigious Techstars Space and admission into their accelerator ran in partnership with the US Space Force and NASA JPL. They are the only European space company selected this year.
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Whilst combustion chamber and thrust chamber tests often catch people's eye, they are far from the most complex parts of rocket engines. The heart of an orbital rocket engine, and by far the most complex piece, is the pump system. We're excited to share this footage of testing with cryogenic liquid nitrogen this first prototype concept hardware fuel-side hybrid electric turbopump. This is a huge technical milestone towards development of our highly reusable rocket engine in development, which in turn is a key technology within our fully reusable Aurora launch vehicle.
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SFC Capital reinvests again in Astron Systems, following the UK government's increase to the SEIS cap, showing confidence in Astron and the great potential of the technology being developed.