It's Insane How Much Rocket Fuel NASA's 3D-Printed Turbopump Spits Out

This is what 600 gallons per minute looks like.

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

NASA's experiments with 3D-printing are going great. Late last year, NASA successfully tested a prototype rocket engine that was made out of 75 percent 3D-printed parts and it passed its fiery test with flying colors. Next up? 3D-printed turbopump. Just look at that thing spew out oceans of liquid methane. 

Tested at the NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center back in March, this turbopump is just tops at firing out jets of super-cooled liquid methane and works with even colder liquid hydrogen too. With 600 horsepower turbines that drive the pump at 36,000 revolutions per minute, the turbopump puts out 600 gallons of -255 degree Fahrenheit liquid methane per minute. That's 10 gallons—or just under 20 two-liters—every single second. 


The performance is impressive, yes, but the pump's real superpower is subtler; 3D-printing makes these pumps much easier to make and much more robust. By using additive manufacturing techniques that do stuff like melt metal powder into solid metal parts, NASA can build complex single-piece components that would be impossible to make my traditional means, and it can make them fast. 

It's a lot like what GE is experimenting with at its new 3D-printing factory. This turbopump, for instance, has 45 percent fewer parts than a traditionally machined one would, according to propulsion engineer Nick Case, who led the testing. That makes it more robust, and easier to build.

A turbopump like this—which pushes enough fuel to feed an engine that could fire 22,500 pounds of thrust—could someday be put to use in a methane-powered Mars lander. You'd never see these serious streams dumping fuel right into the engine's fire, but now you'll know they're there. 

Source: NASA

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