NASA hot-fire tests 3D-printed rocket injector

NASA hot-fire tests 3D-printed rocket injector
3ders.org, 12 July 2013
http://www.3ders.org/articles/20130712-nasa-hot-fire-tests-3d-printed-rocket-injector.html

NASA and Aerojet Rocketdyne recently finished testing a rocket engine injector made through additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. What you see below is the liquid oxygen/gaseous hydrogen rocket injector assembly built using 3D printing technology being hot-fire tested at NASA Glenn Research Center's Rocket Combustion Laboratory in Cleveland.

New Space Engine Could Turn Tiny CubeSats into Interplanetary Explorers

New Space Engine Could Turn Tiny CubeSats into Interplanetary Explorers
Space.com, 8 July 2013
http://www.space.com/21867-cubesat-deep-space-propulsion-kickstarter.html?cmpid=529593

CubeSats are cheap and tiny spacecraft that weigh just 11 pounds (5 kilograms) or so. At present, they're generally restricted to Earth orbit, where they circle passively until their orbits decay and they die a fiery death in the planet's atmosphere.

But the new propulsion system — which the team calls the CubeSat Ambipolar Thruster, or CAT — could change all that, turning such bantam spacecraft into interplanetary probes, Longmier and his colleagues say.