Mp-1, Kairos, & Firecrest

MP-1 was a project started by the Mercury Propulsion Capstone Project, class of 2018. It was the first liquid engine created within the Rocket Development Lab, which was named Eagle Aerospace at the time. It was tested in May 2018 by Will Carpenter, a member of Mercury Propulsion. He worked with Daniel Dyck, Ahmad Bahitham, and Cameron Kurtz to design the injector and complete water flow testing. The engine hard-started and from there, it remained unfinished until a new team picked it up.

This team was comprised of Anthony Bernard, Bekah Weigand, Ben Black, Charles Flaherty, Mac Boyle, and Zoe Brand. 

That test team redesigned the injector and added a new LOX stem and a pressure transducer to the fuel side of the engine. In addition, thermocouples were added to the cooling jacket and throat. They also added more injector elements to the injector plate. They named the redesigned injector, Kairos.

One of their hot-fires was on October 31st, 2022, which you can see here.

To replace Kairos, then freshman Miles Holt started working on a new coaxial swirl injector. The data collected from this new injector will allow for more accurate engine design and numerical analysis, which will lead to more efficient engines for the future of the Mountain Spirit Project and the Rocket Development Lab. They have named their new injector, Firecrest.

Firecrest is in the design and modeling stage and will soon move into manufacturing.