The Japanese space industry has opened a potentially new chapter in its history by testing a prototype rocket engine. The peculiarity of the unit is that it runs on fuel obtained from cow manure.
The engine was designed by the Japanese startup Interstellar Technologies. The test took place on December 7 in the rural town of Taiki. In total, the burning lasted 10 seconds, during which a blue-orange flame 10 to 15 meters long burst out of the engine.
The liquid “biomethane” required for the test was made entirely from gas obtained from cow manure from two local dairy farms. According to Takahiro Inagawa, head of Interstellar Technologies, this is not only good for the environment but also beneficial. This fuel can be produced locally, which is very economical and does not require the use of third-party resources.
Interstellar hopes that, in the future, they will be able to launch satellites into space using this fuel. Currently, the company is working on creating a small carrier capable of putting up to 100 kg of cargo into low Earth orbit. As part of this project, several suborbital rockets were launched between 2017 and 2021. The maximum height they reached was 99 km.
Earlier, we talked about the astronauts of the Artemis II mission signing autographs on the SLS rocket.
According to https://phys.org
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