Guy Norris/Colorado Springs

Challenge & Space, the Korean-based rocket maker, is planning to 'Americanize' its Chase 10 engine to overcome U.S. State Department roadblocks currently slowing plans for using the motor to power a space tourism project.

"We'd like to Americanize the engine, and run it through tests with more U.S. content to eventually make it a U.S.-certified engine," says C&S research engineer David Riseborough. The process is being led by Oklahoma-based TGV Rockets, which "will lead the marketing and is looking for government contracts for us over here," he said. The methane/liquid oxygen (LOX) fuelled engine was selected in 2005 by AirBoss Aerospace for the Proteus, a four-place sub-orbital space tourism vehicle, but progress has been hampered by State Department concerns over off-shore sourcing of the rocket technology.

With the fast-turnaround potential of the methane/LOX engine in mind, the Chase 10 is also baselined for the US Air Force Research Laboratory's $70 million Fully Reusable Access to Space Technology (FAST) program. This is developing technologies for aircraft-like space access operations. As currently configured, however, this phase of the FAST effort is aimed at ground tests only.

The first flight-weight version of the 22,000.lbs-thrust Chase 10 completed its initial test phase on March 7 at the company's Yongin City test site near Seoul. C&S says the Chase 10 is the world's first methane/LOX fueled, regeneratively-cooled motor to use a turbo-pump fed design. Methane is seen as an attractive propellant because it offers higher performance relative to other storable fuels, is easier and cheaper to handle because of its lower toxicity, and is easier to store long-term than liquid hydrogen

Unlike other methane/LOX developers, notably XCOR Aerospace which last year successfully demonstrated the pressure-fed XR-5M15 engine with ATK and NASA, the engine developed by C&Space has not gone that route. "We are the only company that has methane technology that's not pressure-fed," says Robert Schultz, president of CH4 Aerospace, a Colorado-based company teamed with C&S to help market the Chase 10.

Following its display at the symposium, the engine is being shipped back to Korea for more tests but could return within months to the US, complete with its mobile ground-test facility. The timing for this move depends on the outcome of on-going talks with other potential users, the company said..

Development work is also getting underway on two new members of the Chase rocket family aimed at space applications. The CH250 will be a methane/LOX fueled, regeneratively-cooled engine rated at 250,000.lbs. thrust with a specific impulse (ISP) of 359 seconds, while the far smaller CH5 is a 5,500.lbs thrust, pressure-fed engine with an ISP of 364 seconds aimed at a potential Lunar lander application.