Raman Engine is a

bipropellant The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants (liquid-propellant rockets). They can consist of a single chemical (a monopropellant) or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into ...

rocket engine A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed Jet (fluid), jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stor ...

manufactured by

Skyroot Aerospace Skyroot Aerospace Private Limited is an Indian Privately held company, private aerospace manufacturer and commercial List of launch service providers#Corporate, launch service provider headquartered in Hyderabad, Telangana. The company was foun ...

that will be used in its Vikram family of rockets. It is named after Indian Nobel laureate Sir C.V. Raman.

Description

It uses

UDMH Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (abbreviated as UDMH; also known as 1,1-dimethylhydrazine, heptyl or Geptil) is a chemical compound with the formula H2NN(CH3)2 that is primarily used as a rocket propellant. At room temperature, UDMH is a colorle ...

and NTO

hypergolic propellant A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other. The two propellant components usually consist of a fuel and an oxidizer. The ...

s. Its injector plate is completely

3D printed 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, is the construction of a three-dimensional object from a CAD model or a digital 3D model. It can be done in a variety of processes in which material is deposited, joined or solidified under computer ...

. This engine will be used in a cluster of 4 in the fourth stage of the

Vikram 1 The Vikram (Sanskrit, ; Namesake: Vikram Sarabhai) is a family of small-lift launch vehicles being developed by Skyroot Aerospace, an Indian startup aerospace company. Before a full orbital launch, a suborbital flight of rocket designated Vikr ...

rocket, which can produce a thrust of 3.4 kN each producing 850 N of thrust, which is lower than many other rocket engines, but is required for precise orbit adjustments.

Development and Testing

* On 12 August 2020, Skyroot Aerospace successfully tested the engine for the first time. * Skyroot Aerospace tested the Raman-2 engine, designed for vacuum conditions, by firing it for 200 seconds on a ground test stand. The team used water injection to mitigate flow separation in the vacuum-optimized nozzle, allowing accurate testing at sea level. This test provided critical data for the Vikram-1 rocket's fourth stage, advancing India's private space efforts.

References

Rocket engines of India Rocket engines using hypergolic propellant {{Rocket-stub