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Link....<br /><br /><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr /><p><b>SpaceX Completes Development of Merlin Regeneratively Cooled Rocket Engine<br /><br /><i>New, More Powerful Engine to Launch Both Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 Rockets</i></b><br /><br />HAWTHORNE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) announced today that it has completed development of its Merlin 1C next generation liquid fueled rocket booster engine. It is among the highest performing gas generator cycle kerosene engines ever built, exceeding the Boeing Delta II main engine, the Lockheed Atlas II main engine, and on par with the Saturn V F-1 engine.<br /><br />The Merlin 1C is an improved version of the Merlin 1A ablatively cooled engine, which lofted the Falcon 1 on its first flight in March 2006 and second flight in March 2007. The regeneratively cooled Merlin 1C uses rocket propellant grade kerosene (RP-1), a refined form of jet fuel, to first cool the combustion chamber and nozzle before being combined with the liquid oxygen to create thrust. This cooling allows for higher performance without significantly increasing engine mass.<br /><br />“We performed the final test in the development series, a 170 second long mission duty firing,†said Tom Mueller, Vice President of Propulsion for SpaceX, from their Texas Test Facility in McGregor, Texas. “This series of runs has verified the final design features. Total run time on this engine exceeded 3,000 seconds across 125 hot fire tests.â€<br /><br />“The SpaceX Texas test facility was critical to the rapid and efficient development of Merlin,†said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO of SpaceX. “In August alone, we ran twenty-one major Merlin test firings, nearly one per working day, a rate we could not equal anywhere else. The success of Merlin is really due to the joint funct</p></blockquote> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> </div>