Spark Space's Electric-Run Lieyan-2 Engine Completes System-Wide Test
The electric-pump-fed engine is now claimed to be the world's most powerful of its kind, while still being the only one in China.
On March 3rd, new launch startup Spark Space (星火空间) announced that their electric-pump-fed cycle Lieyan-2 (烈焰二号) engine, the only one in China, had completed a system-wide test, quickly following on from a previous test.
For the test, Lieyan-2 burned rocket-grade kerosene and liquid oxygen to demonstrate its ability to smoothly start up, continue operating for over a dozen seconds, and then stably shutting down. The test had all systems integrated and running for the first time, verifying their ability to work simultaneously and proving Spark Space’s present designs for many components.
Through the recent test, Lieyan-2 was claimed to have generated 10 tons of thrust (quadrupling the world’s electric-pump-fed engine thrust record previously held by Rocket Lab’s Rutherford) with a specific impulse of 300 seconds. The engine’s pumps were also said to have delivered 414.6 kilowatts of power for a reliable delivery of propellant.
In a show of good initial development speed, almost three weeks ago Spark Space shared that their electric-pump-fed engine had been fired up for the first time, verifying ignition and vibrations from running afterwards. That test followed component-level testing without propellant in the months before.
As for how Spark Space is developing Lieyan-2 relatively fast, the company says they are leaning on China’s advanced battery technologies present in other industries, like those for electric cars and small unmanned aerial vehicles used in food and mail deliveries. Alongside that, metal 3D printing is being used as well to reduce the number of complex parts and to automate manufacturing.
Over the coming year, Spark Space will also develop its 27.5-meter-tall expendable Jinhua-1 (进化一号) launch vehicle to use the Lieyan-2 engine. Nine Lieyan-2’s will power the vehicle’s first-stage, while a single vacuum-optimized version engine will take the second-stage and up to 1,500 kilograms of payload into orbit.
To develop both Lieyan-2 and Jinhou-1, Spark Space has secured over 100 million Yuan (14.47 million United States Dollars, as of March 3rd) in funding so far. It is expected that more funds will be raised as development progresses.