The aerospike is a type of rocket nozzle that, unlike traditional designs, maintains its efficiency across a wide range of altitudes. For this reason it is sometimes referred to as the altitude-compensating nozzle as well, although that is a more general term that refers to a class of such designs. It has been studied for a number of years and is considered as the baseline for many SSTO designs, but remains a test article only.
A normal rocket engine uses a large "engine bell" to direct the jet of exhaust from the engine from the surrounding airflow and maximize its acceleration – and thus the thrust. However the proper design of the bell varies with external conditions, one that is designed to operate at high altitudes where the air pressure is lower needs to be much larger and more tapered than one designed for low altitudes. The losses of using the wrong design can be significant, for instance the Space Shuttle engine can generate a specific impulse of just over 450 seconds in space, but that number falls to just over 360 at sea level. Tuning the bell to the average environment in which the engine will operate is an important task in any rocket design.
The aerospike attempts to avoid this problem. Instead of firing the exhaust out a small hole in the middle of a bell, it instead exits on one side of a cone-shaped protrusion, the "spike". The spike forms one side of a "virtual bell", with the other side being formed by the airflow past the spacecraft – thus the aero-spike.
Annular aerospike test firing
The "trick" to the aerospike design is that as the spacecraft climbs to higher altitudes, the air pressure holding the exhaust against the spike decreases. This allows the exhaust to move further from the spike, and the virtual bell automatically expands in just the right way. In theory the areospike is slightly less efficient than bell designed for any given altitude, yet it vastly outperforms that same bell at all other altitudes. The difference can be considerable, with typical designs claiming over 90% efficiency at all altitudes.
RS-2200 linear aerospike test firing
Although this was a setback for aerospike engineering, it wasn't the end of the story. A milestone was achieved when a joint academic/industry team from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB) and Garvey Spacecraft Corporation successfully conducted a flight test of a powered liquid-propellant aerospike engine in the Mojave Desert on September 20, 2003. CSULB students had developed their Prospector 2 (P-2) rocket using a 1,000 lbf LOX/ethanol aerospike engine.
N.B. when used with regard to engine technology the term aerospike is unrelated to the frontally mounted drag reduction aerospike as fitted to the Trident missile.
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