LEAP 71, a Dubai-based AI engineering company, announced today the successful test firing of a liquid rocket engine created entirely through Noyron, the company’s Large Computational Engineering Model. The engine was designed autonomously without human intervention and then 3D-printed in copper. The rocket thruster was successfully hot-fired at a rocket test stand in the UK.
The engine with 5 kN (500 kg / 1124 lbf) of thrust, generated the expected 20,000 horsepower, and completed all tests, including a long duration burn.
Josefine Lissner, Aerospace engineer, and Managing Director of LEAP 71 said: “This is an important milestone for us, but also for the entire industry. We can now automatically create functional rocket thrusters and directly move to practical validation. From final specification to manufacturing, the design of this engine took less than 2 weeks. In traditional engineering, this would be a task of many months, or even years. Each new engine iteration takes only minutes. Innovation in space propulsion is hard, and costly. With our approach, we hope to make space more accessible for everyone.”
The generated engine uses cryogenic Liquid Oxygen (LOX) and Kerosene as propellants. The copper combustion chamber is regeneratively cooled and the injector head features state-of-art coaxial swirler to mix the propellants.
Lin Kayser, co-founder of LEAP 71 said: “Our company is at the forefront of the new field of Computational Engineering, where sophisticated machines can be designed without manual work. The paradigm significantly accelerates the pace of innovation for real-world objects. The fact that the Noyron thruster operated nominally on the first try, confirms that the approach is working. The method can be applied to any field of engineering.”
LEAP 71 worked with leading German metal 3D printing company AMCM on the production of the thruster. It was then post-processed at the University of Sheffield and prepared for the test. The hot fire was performed at Airborne Engineering, Ltd. in Wescott, UK.
LEAP 71 will use the data from the test to further advance Noyron. The company is working with leading aerospace companies in the US, Europe and Asia on the commercialization of the the resulting rocket engines.
About LEAP 71
LEAP 71 is a company based in Dubai, UAE, founded by aerospace engineer Josefine Lissner and serial entrepreneur Lin Kayser.
LEAP 71’s mission is to radically advance the progress in engineering through the new field of Computational Engineering. The company uses sophisticated software algorithms to build physical products. LEAP 71 has developed the Large Computational Engineering Model Noyron, which is considered the most advanced model available.
LEAP 71 works with customers all over the world, including the US, Korea, Europe, and China to design products in fields ranging from aerospace and electric mobility, to heat exchangers.
LEAP 71 has open-sourced a significant part of the technology stack, including PicoGK (“peacock”), a compact and robust geometry kernel, that enables the creation of very complex physical objects.
Most of LEAP 71’s parts are 3D printed on advanced industrial Additive Manufacturing machines.
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