sea level - the gasses are more tightly focused, so a bell nozzle with a narrow interior surface works best. The key to a conventional bell nozzle's level of performance is its width. The combustion gasses race along the inner wall (the ramp) and the outer wall (atmospheric pressure) to produce thrust. With the aerospike, the ramp serves as the inner wall of the virtual bell nozzle, while atmospheric pressure serves as the "invisible" outer wall. The linear aerospike features a series of small combustion chambers along the unwrapped bell, also called the ramp, that shoot hot gases along the ramp's outside surface to produce thrust along the length of the ramp, hence the name "linear aerospike." When the reconfigured bell is "unwrapped" and laid flat, it is called a linear aerospike. Unlike conventional rocket engines, which feature a bell nozzle that constricts expanding gasses, the basic aerospike shape is that of a bell turned inside out and upside down. The aerospike engine is being developed from groundwork laid in the 1960s and 1970s by the Rocketdyne Propulsion & Power unit of The Boeing Company in Canoga Park, Calif. The effort is managed by NASAs Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., NASAs Lead Center for Space Transportation Systems Development and Center of Excellence in Propulsion. NASA and its industry partner in the X-33 Advanced Technology Demonstrator program, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., of Palmdale, Calif., have taken a 30-year-old idea the linear aerospike engine and updated it for the 21st century by incorporating new technologies and materials. The propulsion system must also offer low-cost operations, improved reliability and short turnaround times. One of the key challenges in designing the next generation of launch vehicles is the development of an efficient propulsion system that is lightweight yet powerful enough to allow for flight.
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