Craig Nordeen (Air Force Research Lab, Pratt & Whitney) gives a lesson from three years ago on detonation engines. He describes the history and how they work and why they are more efficient. The work ...

GE and Lockheed Martin plan to get around this by accelerating the missile using a rotating detonation engine, which uses a supersonic wave of detonating fuel that runs about inside an open-ended ...

The Rotating Detonation Engine being developed by Pratt & Whitney has no moving parts, which reduces complexity and costs, and could help enable high-speed, long-range flight with increased efficiency ...

For years, the United States has trailed behind Russia and China in hypersonic weapons. A new engine prototype by Lockheed Martin and General Electric could help it catch up.

Essentially, it's a rotating detonation engine in which the detonation wave is stabilized within a high-speed rotor. A precisely shaped flow channel within the rotor compresses the air-fuel mixture to ...

A startup high-speed flight company from Houston, Texas, has successfully tested its Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE) ultimately aimed at allowing travel at four to six times the speed of ...

Detonation is a supersonic combustion wave, characterized by a shock wave driven by the energy release from closely coupled chemical reactions. It is a typical form of pressure gain combustion, ...

Researchers in China have introduced a new hypersonic engine concept by integrating a ramjet with a rotary detonation engine. A team at Tsinghua University in Beijing created a new design known as the ...

Rotating Detonation Engines (RDE) have been flown by Venus Aerospace. They use continuous detonation waves for propulsion and provide 15% efficiency gains (in specific impulse or fuel consumption) ...

A new type of rocket engine, one that could power a plane from Los Angeles to Tokyo in just two hours, has eluded scientists for decades. Houston’s Venus Aerospace says it recently solved the puzzle.

A US-based propulsion company has successfully launched and flown a new rocket powered by a unique rotating detonation engine. Although relatively small by rocket standards, the test could pave the ...

James is a published author with multiple pop-history and science books to his name. He specializes in history, space, strange science, and anything out of the ordinary.View full profile James is a ...