Aerojet will continue to develop its multi-circuit liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen injector under a new contract from Nasa.

Aerojet will complete the detailed design, fabrication, acceptance testing and delivery of the 9,000lbf deep throttling injector (DTI).

The injector incorporates two separate liquid oxygen injector circuits to achieve deep throttling capabilities, while maintaining high performance of the 100% thrust conditions.

Aerojet has previously demonstrated this multi-circuit injector capability with a subscale (1,500lbf thrust) injector that had three separate circuits and achieved over 24:1 throttling ratio without measurable chamber pressure oscillations.

The contract is an Exploration Technology Development Program under which technologies will be used for flight systems in the Constellation Systems Program, such as the lunar lander project.

Nasa’s lunar lander aims for a descent engine that is a high-performance, deep-throttling engine using highly energetic propellants such as liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen.

Nasa is creating a deep-throttling lunar lander descent engine test bed system for risk reduction testing and maturation of deep throttling technology.

Aerojet’s deep throttling injector and chamber will be used in descent engine system tests that will provide risk reduction data for a lunar lander conceptual design phase.