Laboratoire Reaction Dynamics
Development of Enabling Technologies for a High-Performance Upper Stage for an Orbital Launch Vehicle — The growing small satellite market calls for reliable, affordable launch services to get spacecraft to orbit quickly and safely, but the current availability of these services is limited and expensive. To address this issue, Reaction Dynamics (RDX) is developing a launch vehicle, based on a novel approach to hybrid rocket propulsion, to provide dedicated orbital launch services for small satellites at a quarter of the price of current competitors. This project aims at developing technologies required for a lightweight high performance upper stage, namely a light composite combustion chamber and a refractory alloy nozzle extension. These subsystems will allow RDX to maximize the payload mass of its launcher, while advancing the state of the art in high performance composites and metal 3D printing in Canada, technologies which are applicable to the aerospace sector as whole.