Additive Manufacturing to get missile engines in 24 hours

The design, development and manufacturing of the 3D Printed, electric turbo-pump fed Rutherford Engine began in 2013, with the first test fire taking place in December of the same year.

Rutherford is produced by Rocket Lab via EBM (Electron Beam Melting), an advanced form of 3D Printing. Its engine chamber, injector, turbopumps, and main propellant valves are all printed and assembled into a lightweight shape.

Rocket Lab has produced a total of 40 flight-ready engines to date, and aims to produce another 100 engines by the end of this year. The Rutherford engine’s production scalability is facilitated by Additive Manufacturing, or 3D Printed primary components.

With a 3D printed combustion chamber, injectors, pumps, and main propellant valves, Rutherford has the most 3D printed components of any rocket engine in the world. Actually, Rutherford has two versions weighing just 35kg and offering 24 kN (5,500 lbf) thrust / 311 s (3.05 km/s) specific impulse (First Stage Engine) or 24 kN (5,500 lbf) thrust / 343 s (3.36 km/s) specific impulse (Second Stage)

As said, Rutherford features the use of electrically driven propellant pumps, rather than turbomachinery, further reducing complexity and build-time. This unique approach allows unmatched precision and control of propellent flow and a significant increase in performance through mass savings: “The Rutherford engine was designed from the beginning to be both high performing and fast to manufacture on a mass scale,” said Lachlan Matchett, Vice President of Propulsion. “By enabling faster, scalable engine production we speed up production of the whole vehicle. We can print an entire engine in as little as 24 hours."