An original launch vehicle from Ukraine should allow for cheaper launches.

With everything going on in Ukraine, you would think that experiments with original space concepts would not be too high on the priority list for a while. Nevertheless, the start-up Promin Aerospace has conducted a number of tests in recent months with an ultra-light launcher that is ‘autophagous’. In other words: a rocket that eats itself during launch.

More efficient and cheaper

The idea comes from Vitali Jemets, co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Promin Aerospace† Judging by the rather sketchy site of the start-up, the Promin rocket appears to have fuel tanks made entirely from a solid fuel. In the rocket engine, that fuel is first converted into gas and then burned. Other sites report that the missile itself going to eat it all†

Thanks to this principle, Ukrainian space journalist Olha Ozjohina writes space.com, the rocket needs to take less mass ‘up’, which makes launches more efficient. Also, according to the Promin site, no waste remains in orbit around the earth.

And, reports the Ukrainian version of the site Forbes: this method should be cheap by space terms. According to this report, a launch with an autophage launcher will cost about 200,000 dollars (more than 190,000 euros). “Thanks to Promin Aerospace, it will be possible to launch a rocket from almost anywhere on the planet, faster and cheaper than with current providers. This will democratize access to space for small businesses and ordinary people,” said Denis Valvasjev of investor QPDigital in the Forbes post.

Different designs

Jemets himself has been working on the idea of ​​an autophagous missile since at least 2015. And he is by no means the first to think about it. A scientific article his and others from 2018 mention patents in the same direction from the thirties (!), sixties, seventies and eighties of the last century. According to Jemets and colleagues, nothing concrete has ever come of this.

That seems to be different now. In the piece on Space.com, Ozjohina outlines six tests that Promin Aerospace recently conducted. Different engine and nozzle designs were tried out, as well as different combinations of fuels.

First commercial flight

The concept is too vaguely defined to be able to pass judgment on it at this point, says Barry Zandbergen, rocket and propulsion expert at TU Delft. His group did, however, in the past, together with TNO, carry out experiments with polyethylene and Plexiglas as solid fuels, without a casing around them. In doing so, they made sure that enough of these fuels remained on the outside “to avoid the danger of burnout”. In other words: this rocket did not get the chance to eat itself completely.

In the meantime, Promin Aerospace says it is aiming for a first commercial flight at the beginning of 2023, after a number of tests and a test launch. That seems ambitious – especially given the current situation in the start-up’s home country – but we help the Jemets and associates hope. It would be nice if in a year’s time we would only be talking about these kinds of missiles when it comes to Ukraine.