Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Celebrating 60 Years - and Counting - of Flight for a Trusted National Workhorse

27/11/2023

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - What does the world's most prolific upper-stage rocket engine have in common with the Lava Lamp, the smiley face and instant coffee?

They all debuted in 1963 and are still around 60 years later.

It's probably safe to say, however, that the similarities - aside from perhaps enduring popularity - end there. Built by Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company, the RL10 upper stage rocket engine is the world's first-ever liquid-hydrogen-fueled rocket engine with well over 500 flights under its belt and occupies a class by itself.

Although it has been continuously upgraded over the years to improve performance and reduce cost, the RL10 features the same basic design today as when it debuted Nov. 27, 1963. The mission launched aboard an Atlas rocket and featured two RL10 engines powering the Centaur upper stage during the successful test. Over the next six decades, the powerful combination of Centaur and RL10 helped deliver hundreds of satellites to orbit and sent spacecraft to explore every planet in our solar system - a relationship that continues to this day.

Since its first successful flight, the RL10 has flown hundreds of missions, been integrated onto more launch vehicles, and sent more spacecraft to more places than any other rocket engine ever built.

When you look at most rocket engines out there, they're integrated with a launch vehicle and when that vehicle goes away, the engine goes away, said George Prueger, Aerojet Rocketdyne senior director of RL10 programs. The RL10, by contrast, has flown on a diverse array of vehicles including Saturn I, Atlas, Titan, Delta and even the DC-X, an experimental suborbital vehicle flown by the Defense Department and NASA that was the first to demonstrate vertical rocket landing.

It continues to be sought after by the space launch community because of its performance and demonstrated reliability, Prueger said. Put an RL10 engine on top of your vehicle and you can be confident in its unmatched reliability and performance.

Just a few of the notable exploration missions that the RL10 helped launch are the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers currently plying the surface of Mars, the Parker Solar Probe, the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, and the twin Voyager spacecraft that have left the solar system to become the first human-made objects to reach interstellar space. The RL10 also has supported hundreds of missions to different Earth orbits for customers including the Department of Defense, National Reconnaissance Office, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and several satellite communications companies.

Although it was not part of the Saturn V rocket stack that launched astronauts to the Moon, the RL10 did pave the way for the liquid-hydrogen-fueled J2 engine that was used extensively on the Apollo flights. Modern variants of the RL10 are used on NASA's super heavy-lift Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which will return astronauts to the lunar surface later this decade as part of the NASA's Artemis deep-space exploration program.

The RL10 engine's enormously rich legacy is not even close to being complete: it is used today on multiple vehicles and the latest variant, still in development, will be flying well into the future on SLS and the new United Launch Alliance (ULA) Vulcan rocket that is set to make its inaugural flight later this year.

Early RL10 variants weighed less than 300 pounds and generated roughly 15,000 pounds of thrust in the vacuum of outer space, and typically flew in a dual-engine configuration on the Atlas rocket with a Centaur upper stage. That said, six RL10s powered the upper stage of NASA's Saturn I S-IV rocket, which was used to launch prototypes of the Apollo Moon capsule.

The different RL10 models flying today weigh closer to 600 pounds and generate around 25,000 pounds of thrust. Aerojet Rocketdyne has been able to boost engine thrust over the years by increasing the size of the turbomachinery and related plumbing, Prueger said.

But the key aspect that has been at the heart of the RL10's incredible longevity is its simple implementation of the highly efficient expander rocket engine cycle. The expander cycle eliminates the need to burn propellants to turn the turbines that drive the fuel pumps that other, less efficient engine configurations employ. The RL10 uses cryogenic liquid hydrogen to cool the combustion chamber and nozzle, where it picks up heat and turns into hydrogen gas. This expansion of hydrogen gas drives the turbine, which powers the pump.

There is another critical engine performance metric that is just as important as thrust: Specific impulse, or Isp, which is a measure of fuel efficiency like gas mileage in a car. Defined simply as the ratio of the thrust produced by a rocket engine to the rate of fuel consumption, an engine with higher specific impulse is capable of producing more thrust from the same amount of propellant.

When it comes to Isp, the RL10 has no equal in conventional chemical propulsion, Prueger said. The high-performance combination of liquid hydrogen fuel and a liquid oxygen oxidizer generates more thrust per unit of fuel burned than any other propellant combination. Using this combination of propellants in a highly efficient expander cycle engine means a launch vehicle can carry less fuel, which keeps the weight down and allows more payload to be carried to orbit.

Another characteristic of the RL10 that makes it the preferred choice of the space launch industry is the engine's ability to make multiple restarts in space. Being able to restart the engine in the frozen vacuum of space, which is no easy feat, allows longer launch windows, increases the performance capability by enabling extended coast periods during a mission, and offers the potential to have a r
LINK: https://www.l3harris.com/newsroom/editorial/2023/11/celebrating-60-yea...
See more stories from harris

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

21/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During Internet Outages

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

Calif. Federal Judge Pauses Paramount-WBD Merger

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

AWARN Rebuts Weigel Claims of 3.0 EAS Problems

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for August Open Meeting

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

VIDA Introduces QC Manager for Collaborative Quality Cont...

New capability centralizes collaboration, feedback, security and status tracking within VIDA, providing a structured, auditable approach to master quality contr...

21/07/2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SIGGRAPH 2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SI...

21/07/2026

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Brie Clayton July 20, 2026 0 Comments Colorist blends vintage film looks to shape...

21/07/2026

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better?

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better? Graham Quince July 20, 2026 0 Comments Aargh, ever since @DarkRavenProductions posted a comment ask...

20/07/2026

SVG All-Stars: Rob Coons, Senior Director, StudentU, Big Ten Network

The former Northwestern broadcast-operations leader is helping train the next generation of live-sports-production talent across the Big Ten The sports-product...

20/07/2026

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Stacey Lee, the Filmmaker Behind Murder 101

By Lucy Spicer One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. Whi...

20/07/2026

Graph Tech Guitar Labs open UK Online Store

Product range now readily available in the UK Graph Tech Guitar Labs have just announced the launch of a new UK Online Store that makes it quicker and easie...

20/07/2026

Audeze launch the Maxwell 2 ANC

Popular headset gains active noise cancellation The Maxwell headet was Audeze's first foray into the gaming world, and thanks to its Dolby Atmos compati...

20/07/2026

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) Call for Public Screening funding applications for Cycle 1, 2026/27 financial year is Open

The NFVF, an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, has released t...

20/07/2026

Telemundo Inks Another Major U.S. Spanish-Language Soccer Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During An Internet Outage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

Starfish highlights flexible, scalable transport stream p...

Starfish Technologies will use IBC2026 to showcase the flexibility of its transport stream processing software, including the latest versions of TS Splicer (Win...

20/07/2026

Bitfocus makes the connections at IBC2026

Bitfocus, the specialist in media control and monitoring, will show at IBC2026 (Elgato stand 8.D31, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) how its Buttons control la...

20/07/2026

Mediagenix Introduces Trusted Agentic AI Operating Model...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced new AI capabilities that e...

20/07/2026

Big Blue Marble Cloud DRM nominated for Streaming Media R...

Big Blue Marble's Cloud DRM has been nominated in the DRM/Content Protection category of the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards. Only four pro...

20/07/2026

Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal customers when they choose Sky Mobile

Monday 20 July 2026 Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal custome...

20/07/2026

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communities to Amazon DSP

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communit...

20/07/2026

RT secures exclusive free-to-air Irish rights to the 2030 FIFA World Cup

FIFA World Cup Final sets new RT Player record as the most-streamed single event in the platform's history Over 1 million viewers watched live on RT 2 as ...

20/07/2026

At SIGGRAPH, NVIDIA Advances Graphics and Simulation With Agentic and Physical AI

At this year's SIGGRAPH conference, running through Thursday, July 23, in Lo...

20/07/2026

Bristol Myers Squibb Building Life Science Industry's Most Advanced AI Factory on NVIDIA Vera Rubin

Erin Davis calls it the SuperDuperPOD. That's two things in one name: phar...

19/07/2026

Halftime Show at FIFA World Cup Final Joins a Litany of Firsts for the Quadrennial Event

Justin Bieber, Madonna, Shakira, BTS make for a diverse lineup, and the venue ad...

19/07/2026

More Than Just a Game: FIFA World Cup's Lance Brass Breaks Down Stadium Production and Entertainment

The stage is set: three-time champion Argentina will defend its World Cup title ...

19/07/2026

Acustica reveal Mystic 2

Channel strip plug-in gets upgraded Acustica Audio's vintage-inspired channel strip plug-in has just been treated to an update that expands its tonal ra...

18/07/2026

More Than Just a Game: FIFA World Cups Lance Brass Breaks Down Stadium Production & Entertainment

Topics include pre-match ceremonies, live performances, the tournament's fir...

18/07/2026

As the Final Approaches, FIFA and HBS Take Stock of a World Cup That Rewrote the Production Playbook

When FIFA and HBS set out to produce the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the numbers alone ...

18/07/2026

IK Multimedia add Brown Panel Signature Collection to TONEX

Captures nine sought-after Fender amps IK Multimedia's latest TONEX expansion captures a selection of nine rare Brown Panel' Fender amps that were ...

18/07/2026

Frap Tools update the Magnolia

Latest batch ships alongside firmware update Since being unveiled at Superbooth 2025, Frap Tools' debut polysynth has been met with widespread praise, a...

18/07/2026

Netflix Viewing Hit Record 97 Billion Hours in First Half of 2026

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

18/07/2026

YouTube's Creative Ecosystem Contributed $60 Billion to U.S. GDP

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

17/07/2026

SVG GameDay, Ep. 24: Mercedes-Benz Stadiums Cole Gallagher - Supporting Shows in the ATL

In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...

17/07/2026

Brooklyn Bowl Williamsburg Stagehands Vote to Join IATSE Local 4

Production workers at Brooklyn Bowl's Williamsburg location voted 15-1 to join IATSE Local 4. The bargaining unit covers 24 production workers at the venue,...

17/07/2026

DAZN and ADI Predictstreet Announce Exclusive Global Prediction Market Partnership

DAZN and ADI Predictstreet have announced an exclusive global strategic partners...

17/07/2026

Zixi and Comcast Technology Solutions Announce Integration for C-Band Satellite Replacement

Zixi and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) have announced a strategic integrati...

17/07/2026

Professional Fighters League Announces Multi-Year Partnership with ESPN in Brazil

Professional Fighters League (PFL) has announced a multi-year partnership with E...

17/07/2026

Spectrum Business Launches Spectrum TV Control Pro for Multi-Screen Venue Management

Spectrum Business has announced Spectrum TV Control Pro, a centralized app-based...

17/07/2026

Clark Wire and Cable Appoints Rick Fernandez as Latin American Representative

Clark Wire and Cable has announced that Rick Fernandez, Managing Director of Axxion Consulting, will serve as Independent Manufacturers Representative for Centr...

17/07/2026

TikTok, NBA, and WNBA Announce Multi-Year Global Content Partnership

TikTok, the NBA, and the WNBA have announced a multi-year global content partnership covering highlights distribution, creator access to marquee events, live-ga...

17/07/2026

MSG Entertainment Files Defamation Lawsuit Against Wired Over July 9 Article

Company alleges article contained false and misleading claims regarding customer data...

17/07/2026

Ratings Roundup: Argentina-England Semifinal Breaks Records for FOX; MLB All-Star Game Is Most Watched Since 2018

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...

17/07/2026

American Pachuco Gives a Legend of Stage and Screen His Due

(L-R) Edward James Olmos, Luis Valdez, Lou Diamond Phillips and Lupe Valdez attend American Pachuco: The Legend Of Luis Valdez Premiere during the 2026 Sundan...

17/07/2026

Sonuscore introduce Elysion Elements

Full engine access with reduced soundset Sonuscore have steadily been introducing a selection of reduced-cost and free versions of their flagship products r...

17/07/2026

Arturia AstroLab Silver & KeyLab Mk3 Ultra

Two new special-edition models revealed Over the past week, Arturia have launched special-edition versions of both their premium MIDI controller and stage p...