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Roush Will Build An Engine For A Rocket, It's Not A V8

Roush has been selected to team up with Lockheed Martin and Boeing to send astronauts to a space station by the year 2045.
Roush 427 R engine 3 photos
Photo: Roush
347 cui Roush V8 engine427 cui Roush V8 engine
The project is part of the United Launch Alliance, which builds rockets for the ambitious plan. Its goal is to send up to 1,000 astronauts to the said space station, which will hover between the Earth and the Moon.

Roush will not build rocket engines per se, and they will not build powerful Mustangs to send the astronauts into space. Instead, they will make a unique engine which will be used by these rockets.

Instead of the tuning company and the NASCAR team with the same name, Roush Industries will handle this deal. They also build Google’s autonomous cars, so they are good with corporate customers with big ambitions.

The engine that will be made by Roush is an inline-six unit that will only develop 26 horsepower. The motor is a flathead design, just like the one introduced on Ford cars in the 1930s, and its total cubic capacity is of 600 ccs, just like on a sport bike. Each rocket will have one of these units, called Integrated Vehicle Fluids engine by scientists.

A Roush IVF is 27.5 inches long, and weighs approximately 100 pounds. It has been devised from the start to use as many off-the-shelf parts, so that development and engineering will be as simple as possible, as well as cheaper than with custom parts.

As The Drive explains, the IVF will be placed in the upper stage of the Advanced Cryogenic Evolved Stage rocket, which is currently undertaking development. The six-cylinder motor is used by the rocket to pressurize its fuel tanks, recharge onboard batteries, and provide altitude control. Thanks to this engine, ACES will be able to operate in space for weeks at a time.

By using an IVF engine, the ship does not require helium, hydrazine, solar panels, or other complex systems usually employed. The flathead design is appreciated for the heat it generates, as its warmth can be used to pressurize propellant tanks. Initially, engineers wanted an air-cooled Wankel, but it had lubrication issues and did not run hot enough.

Once this engine is launched into orbit, it will become the first internal-combustion engine to leave Earth’s atmosphere. The coolest part about this flathead inline-six is that it runs on liquid oxygen and hydrogen, and the ship loses zero of these elements by gathering the propellants usually lost to boil-off and sending them into this motor.
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About the author: Sebastian Toma
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Sebastian's love for cars began at a young age. Little did he know that a career would emerge from this passion (and that it would not, sadly, involve being a professional racecar driver). In over fourteen years, he got behind the wheel of several hundred vehicles and in the offices of the most important car publications in his homeland.
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