French manufacturer Snecma has successfully completed ground firing tests on the fifth development model (M5) of the Vinci rocket engine.
Fuelled by liquid hydrogen and oxygen, the Vinci is a new-generation cryogenic rocket engine being designed for the Ariane 5 Midlife Evolution (ME) and Ariane 6 launch vehicles.
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Snecma is the prime contractor for the development of these launchers and leads a team of European partners, while Airbus Defence and Space is the industrial prime contractor.
The Vinci M5 development engine features subsystems similar to flight configuration and has completed 16 firing tests, equivalent to six times its operating time during an Ariane mission, from September 2013 to August 2014.
Tests were conducted at the German space agency Deutsches Zentrum für Luft und Raumfahrt’s (DLR) Lampoldshausen facility on the P4.1 test rig, which replicates the space environment.
Data accumulated from these tests and the upcoming hardware evaluation will enable the static configuration for qualification engines, which are planned to undergo a critical design review in November this year.
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By GlobalDataSnecma Space Engines head David Quancard said: "The dynamic and firing tests of the fifth Vinci development model enabled us to confirm the engine’s maturity and endurance, as well as its expected performance using subsystem configurations very close to flight models.
"The development of Vinci is continuing in line with the technical and schedule objectives set by the European Space Agency, in particular engine qualification in early 2017."
Vinci engines have to date logged more than 21,500 seconds of firing tests.
Tests of the M6 and M7 development engines is set to begin in 2015 on the PF52 test rig at Snecma’s Vernon facility, and on the DLR’s P4.1 test rig in Lampoldshausen respectively, after then series of engine qualification tests will be carried out on these two rigs.
Image: An artistic view of next-generation Ariane 6 launch vehicle. Photo: courtesy of ESA-D. Ducros.
