LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor

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LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor
Part image
Liquid fuel engine by
Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spacecraft Parts Co

Radial size Small
Cost (total) 10 000.00 Funds
Mass (total) 3.00 t
Drag 0.2
Max. Temp. 2500 K
Volume  ?
Impact Tolerance 12 m/s
Research Tech tree nuclear propulsion.png Nuclear Propulsion
Unlock cost 45 000 Funds
Since version 0.17
Part configuration liquidEngineLV-N.cfg
Liquid fuel engine
Maximum thrust (1 atm) 13.88 kN
(vacuum) 60.00 kN
Isp (1 atm) 185 s
(vacuum) 800 s
Fuel consumption 1.53 Units of fuel/s

Thrust vectoring No
Testing Environments
On the surface Yes
In the ocean No
On the launchpad No
In the atmosphere Yes
Sub orbital Yes
In an orbit Yes
On an escape Yes
Docked No
Test by staging Yes
Manually testable Yes

The LV-N "Nerv" Atomic Rocket Motor is a low-thrust, high-efficiency rocket engine. It is modeled after the real-world theoretical nuclear thermal rocket, which uses a fission reactor to heat its propellant and force it out of the rocket nozzle to generate thrust (as opposed to a normal rocket, which ignites the propellant and uses the energy released by the resulting chemical reaction for that purpose).



However, when outside the atmosphere, its efficiency becomes superb with a vacuum Isp of 800 s, by far the highest of any liquid fuel engine. This remarkable efficiency makes it quite popular for upper stages as it is ideal for interplanetary travel. With the 1.0 update, this engine consumes only liquid fuel. As such, it is much more mass-efficient to build your craft with tanks that only contain liquid fuel and no oxidizer. This mass gain allows the LV-N to compete with the LV-909 "Terrier" engine in terms of heavy payloads.

Before version 1.1.3, this engine used to overheat when run at full throttle for the long burns typical of nuclear-powered craft (though it usually stabilized before completely filling the overheat bar)[1] but this is no longer the case and very long burns can be performed without fear of overheating. It is quite long, being almost exactly the same length as a Mainsail engine. LV-N engines on a landing stage require some interesting structure designs to get the landing gear low enough to clear the bottom of the engine.

Product description


Excerpt from the part.cfg pre-1.0


  • The description of this part contains a reference to Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, in which the Earth is described as "mostly harmless".


  • No longer has a gimbal.
  • Cost increased to 10000.
  • Mass increased from 2.25 to 3.
  • Cost increased from 1700 to 8700 (and made meaningful)
  • Initial release