Self-eating rocket wins UK MoD support

An effort to develop a ‘self-eating’ rocket that burns its own structure as propellant has won £90,000 of financial support from the UK MoD’s Defence & Security Accelerator (DASA). It is claimed that the autophage engine, which is being built at the Glasgow University’s James Watt School of Engineering – could be used to launch payloads from spaceports across the UK.Autophage engines have already been test-fired by the Glasgow team using all-solid propellant. The new funding will underwrite the research required to use a more energetic hybrid propellant. The engine will be test-fired at Kingston University’s new rocket laboratory in London next year.Harkness explained that the body of a hybrid autophage rocket will be a tube of solid fuel, containing a liquid oxidiser. The entire assembly will be consumed, from the bottom up, by an engine which will vaporise the fuel tube, add the oxidiser, and burn the mixture to create thrust. The engine will have consumed the entire body of the rocket by the time the assembly reaches orbit, and only the payload will be left.The technical development of the engine is being conducted by Krzysztof Bzdyk, who recently joined Glasgow University from NASA.Harkness claimed that the technology holds great promise for launching small payloads from the UK, getting around the problem of sometimes having to wait years for a space on the kind of large rockets currently launched from the USA or Kazakhstan.