New Throttled Rocket

NASA is revamping an old workhorse of the 1960s to provide high-power throttle control for the next lunar lander rocket.

Says NASA: "The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) descent engine, the all-time throttling champ, did it perfectly on six landings in 1969-72. It could throttle from 10,125 lbs down to 1,250 lbs. It was also a simple engine, burning corrosive fuel and oxidizer that ignited on contact, and fed by pressurized tanks, eliminating the need for pumps."

However, the LM descent engine just do not have the efficiency and environmental friendliness required by NASA's new Lunar lander program. Hence the unthrottled Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne 'Common Extensible Cryogenic Engine'--"CECE" for short, also used in the 60s before the Apollo Lunar landing, is now being revised to provide the required thrust and throttle control.

Read the whole story in NASA's Throttling Back to the Moon article.