Rocket Engine Vacuum Nozzle 3D Printing: Manufacturing, Weight, and Cost Savings

Metallic materials additive manufacturing is extremely challenging nowadays, while aircraft manufacturers are trying to adapt the newly developed technology to produce parts of complex geometry with minimum materials losses. Skyrora is a company focused on the production of several launch vehicles and rockets with the aim of becoming a commercial provider for access to space. One of the Skyrora goals is to develop innovative and long-term solutions for future growth, and, within the Horizon European project “MADE-3D”, aims to improve the rocket propulsion system of the launch vehicle Skyrora XL by exploiting multi-materials during the production phase by additive manufacturing. The main goal of the present investigation is to document the already existing production phases of the “conventional” Skyrora vacuum nozzle printed with Inconel 718 to provide a baseline in terms of weight, manufacturing cost, lead processing time and CO2 equivalent emissions of the under-development multi-material demonstrator.