60 Years of Rocket Engine Test Facilities at SNECMA Moteurs
- Paper ID
1744
- author
- company
Snecma
- country
France
- year
2005
- abstract
Snecma Moteurs and its forebears have been designing and building high performance rocket engine test facilities for sixty years. From the eraly pioneering test benches of the late 1940\'s up to the the highly sophisticated and computerized facilities developed for the Ariane 1 program in the mid-70\'s, this paper will provide an outline of the technical and process evolution of these facilities. The described facilities will encompass : the early mobile facilities of the mid-1940\'s, the rotating aitbase rocket engine benches for the Mirage III rocket engine, the versatile and enduring PF-2, the Company\'s longest running test stand (1961-2002), theBC08 Europe\'s first cryogenic engine facility with horizontal engine, the PF 4, first large-scale stage facility, used also for some solid-propellant rocket tests, the PF-7, pioneer of vacuum engine tests, the PF-9, the fluor engine component test facilities, the PF-41, Europe\'s first multi-cell engine facility, the PF-42 and PF 43, Europe\'s first cryogenic propulsion system and full stage test facilities and the PF-52, turbopump test facility eventually converted into an engine test stand. With these facilities, Snecma Moteurs\' Space Engines Division gained a unique know-how and demonstrated that \"routine\" rocket engine test operations were feasible.