Kestrel (rocket engine) | Wikipedia audio article
Channel: wikipedia tts
Date: 2019-05-17

This is an audio version of the Wikipedia Article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kestrel_(rocket_engine)


00:01:24 Kestrel 2
00:02:10 See also



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SUMMARY
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The Kestrel engine was an LOX/RP-1 pressure-fed rocket engine.  The Kestrel engine was developed in the 2000s by SpaceX for upper stage use on the Falcon 1 rocket. Kestrel is no longer being manufactured; the last flight of Falcon 1 was in 2009.
Kestrel was built around the same pintle architecture as the SpaceX Merlin engine but does not have a turbo-pump and is fed only by tank pressure.
Kestrel is ablatively cooled in the chamber and throat and radiatively cooled in the nozzle, which is fabricated from a high strength niobium alloy. As a metal, niobium is highly resistant to cracking compared to carbon-carbon. According to SpaceX, an impact from orbital debris or during stage separation might dent the metal but have no meaningful effect on engine performance. Helium pressurant efficiency is substantially increased via a titanium heat exchanger on the ablative/niobium boundary.Thrust vector control is provided by electro-mechanical actuators on the engine dome for pitch and yaw. Roll control (and attitude control during coast phases) is provided by helium cold gas thrusters.
A TEA-TEB pyrophoric ignition system is used to provide multiple restart capability on the upper stage.  In a multi-manifested mission, this design would allow for drop off at different altitudes and inclinations.