{"id":23758,"date":"2025-07-30T00:08:46","date_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/how-pangea-is-reshaping-rocket-propulsion-by-reigniting-the-aerospike-design\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T00:08:46","modified_gmt":"2025-07-29T16:08:46","slug":"how-pangea-is-reshaping-rocket-propulsion-by-reigniting-the-aerospike-design","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/how-pangea-is-reshaping-rocket-propulsion-by-reigniting-the-aerospike-design\/","title":{"rendered":"How Pangea is reshaping rocket propulsion by reigniting the aerospike design"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Spanish and French company Pangea is positioning itself as a go-to propulsion company within the aerospace industry. It first drew attention in 2021 with a successful demonstration of an aerospike engine in Germany. Four years on, testing is already underway for its larger, reusable Arcos engine, which is on course to become the first flight-ready aerospike engine in the world.<\/p>\n<p>NSF spoke with Pangea\u2019s founder and CEO, Adri\u00e0 Argem\u00ed, to learn more about the technical journey and how the company is overcoming many historic hurdles to turn this long theorized engine concept into reality.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Aerospikes are considered by many to be the \u201choly grail\u201d of propulsion. While the aerospike concept promises to deliver greater performance than conventional bell nozzles, designing one is not without its challenges, from cooling the engine to reducing the cost of manufacturing to make it viable. Whereas conventional engine nozzles are optimized for either sea-level or vacuum, aerospikes adapt naturally to changing atmospheric pressure and maintain efficiency at all altitudes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"European Aerospikes - Pangea Aerospace - NSF Live: Europe's Future in Space\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/iNY8c9BR6iI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" name=\"fitvid0\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-14=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Theoretically offering efficiency benefits of up to 15% over traditional rocket engines, aerospikes have been studied since the mid-20th century, when they were seen as the future of highly efficient propulsion. Early designs, however, were complex, costly, and didn\u2019t integrate well with the cylindrical shape of most rockets.<\/p>\n<p>Lockheed Martin\u2019s VentureStar program and X-33 prototype made notable progress in the 1990s using a linear aerospike, but were cancelled amidst technical issues and escalating costs. The wedge shape of the X-33\u2019s XRS-2200 engine is an example of how aerospike designs don\u2019t all follow the classic toroidal design with a central spike. More recent advances in materials, additive manufacturing, and a growing demand for reusable, high-performance engines have since revived interest and look set to give aerospikes a second wind.<\/p>\n<p>Reusability is key to the design of Pangea\u2019s flagship Arcos aerospike engine. It\u2019s even reflected in the company\u2019s original logo, which used the stylised \u201cA\u201d from the Pangea name to suggest both an aerospike and the path to orbit and back. Formed in 2018, the company takes its name from the ancient Greek word for the single landmass supercontinent of the late Paleozoic Era and roughly translates to \u201call lands.\u201d&nbsp; This interpretation also acknowledges the fact that the six co-founders hail from different countries, and reflects the multi-cultural nature of the company. Within its team of 70 people and counting, Pangea currently employs talent from around 16 countries.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108196\" class=\"wp-image-108196 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"839\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-350x245.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-501x350.jpeg 501w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-768x537.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/The-Demo-P1-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-1170x818.jpeg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108196\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pangea\u2019s Demonstrator Propulsion 1 aerospike engine, known as Demo P1. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>Argem\u00ed draws his expertise from a wealth of experience, working previously at Airbus and then Avio \u2014 the makers of the Vega rocket family. It was there that he met some of Pangea\u2019s other co-founders, and a plan was forged to build a reusable micro-launcher with a better propulsion system. Over time, the plan was refined to specialise as a propulsion company, making highly efficient products which could then be supplied to rocket manufacturers.<\/p>\n<p>Arcos will be the company\u2019s first commercial product and is designed for upper-stage applications. It is significantly larger and more powerful than the company\u2019s first Demonstrator Propulsion 1 engine \u2014 more commonly referred to as Demo P1.<\/p>\n<p>Many lessons were learnt with this first aerospike demonstrator, and, with no playbook to refer to, new tools, software, and models had to be created. With a toroidal design, the Demo P1 was the world\u2019s first aerospike engine to use liquid methane and liquid oxygen as propellants.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do believe it\u2019s the propellant of the future,\u201d Argem\u00ed notes, \u201cand we\u2019re seeing a lot of companies now switching to it. For us, it was a no-brainer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108198\" class=\"wp-image-108198 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1908\" height=\"968\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace.png 1908w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace-350x178.png 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace-630x320.png 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace-768x390.png 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Pangea-test-fires-the-worlds-first-methalox-aerospike-engine-in-November-2021-Pangea-Aerospace-1170x594.png 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1908px) 100vw, 1908px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108198\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pangea test fires the worlds first methalox aerospike engine, the Demo P1, in November 2021. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>The Demo P1 engine is capable of generating 20 kilonewtons of thrust and successfully ignited on its first attempt in November 2021 at the German Space Agency\u2019s (DLR) Lampoldshausen test facility. The engine measured less than 25 cm in diameter, or roughly the size of an outstretched hand. By contrast, Arcos represents a massive scale-up from the Demo P1. Measuring around 3.5 m in diameter \u2014 a little under the diameter of a Falcon 9 \u2014 it is a 750 kilonewton engine with a mass of 75 tonnes.<\/p>\n<p>Pangea has built reusability into the design of the Arcos from day one. \u201cBeing reusable is hard,\u201d Argem\u00ed notes, \u201cthere are so many things that you have to take into account. In our case, we already introduced some variables to make sure, for example, that the chambers could withstand several cycles, as the Merlin on Falcon 9 is doing. There\u2019s a lot of innovation in these engines. There were a lot of challenges and a lot of firsts.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Initially, Pangea will target 10 missions for its reusable Arcos engine, which will introduce a number of complexities. \u201cYou have to do a lot of material characterization, a lot of analysis on low-cycle fatigue and how it would behave,\u201d Argem\u00ed says.<\/p>\n<p>Demo P1 has a single-chamber design, whereas Arcos has multiple chambers around its perimeter. The current design layout has 20 \u201cthrusters\u201d in a circle, which compromises a little efficiency but delivers a performance that\u2019s close to the ideal aerospike concept. \u201cOf course, you want to augment the number of chambers you have,\u201d Argem\u00ed points out. \u201cThe more uniform the flow would be, the more like the theoretical perfect one [chamber design] you would actually get to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108200\" class=\"size-full wp-image-108200\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1366\" height=\"911\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg 1366w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-350x233.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-525x350.jpeg 525w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-768x512.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-1170x780.jpeg 1170w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-585x390.jpeg 585w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Render-of-the-Arcos-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-263x175.jpeg 263w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1366px) 100vw, 1366px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108200\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Render of the Arcos engine design (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>The Arcos engine uses differential throttling across the ring for thrust vectoring, which could allow the engine to throttle down to around 50%. Differential throttling also avoids heavy gimballing hardware or moving parts in the design. \u201cIt\u2019s directly attached to the second stage,\u201d Argem\u00ed points out, adding that the thrust loads go directly to the stage, rather than through the gimbal and thrust mount first. \u201cThis interface ring could be more or less adaptable to be as \u2018plug and play\u2019 as possible because not every rocket has the same diameter,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n<p>Stoke Space similarly arrived at an aerospike-like design for its Nova upper stage, which powered the first \u201chop\u201d of the company\u2019s Hopper 2 in September 2023. The design doesn\u2019t adopt a continuous plug or toroidal shape, using a ring of around 30 thrust chambers around the perimeter of the full-size design. On Stoke\u2019s design, exhaust from these chambers expands inward and downward along the actively cooled heat shield base, producing an altitude-compensating effect similar to an aerospike, without the need for the full plug.<\/p>\n<p>While Pangea\u2019s initial focus is on successfully sending the engines to orbit and validating their performance, the company is already testing the engine\u2019s ability to also act as a heat shield for re-entry. From the outset, the design has accounted for many re-entry loads using computational fluid dynamics (CFD), simulations, and, more recently, tests in a supersonic wind tunnel.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108199\" class=\"wp-image-108199 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace.webp\" alt=\"\" width=\"1650\" height=\"960\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace.webp 1650w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace-350x204.webp 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace-602x350.webp 602w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace-768x447.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Testing-the-Arcos-engine-components-in-Germany-Pangea-Aerospace-1170x681.webp 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1650px) 100vw, 1650px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108199\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Testing the 3D-printed combustion chamber and injection heads for the Arcos engine components in Germany in 2023. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>Because aerospikes adapt to ambient pressure, they are efficient at a wide range of altitudes. Argem\u00ed points out that the Arcos\u2019 aerospike nozzle has a high expansion ratio of around 180:1. This would give very high performance in a vacuum, even more so than the Merlin vacuum engine, which has an expansion ratio of around 165:1. For comparison, a sea-level Merlin 1D would perform at around 16:1.<\/p>\n<p>Pangea is targeting 360 seconds of specific impulse in vacuum \u2014 a standard measure of engine efficiency also known as ISP. This would compare favorably against the Falcon 9\u2019s Merlin Vacuum engines, which are understood to have an ISP of 348. \u201cCompared to the classical two-stage to orbit design, the more vacuum-optimized you want to be, the longer your vacuum nozzle. With our engines, you could get very compact and still retain all the performance.\u201d Argem\u00ed adds.<\/p>\n<p>He describes the aerospike as a performance generator rather than a thrust generator, emphasizing that on conventional two-stage orbital vehicles, the focus on the first stage is thrust. \u201cYou just want to cluster bell engines, and it\u2019s way better because the thrust density \u2014 the amount of kilonewtons per square meter \u2014 is larger,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n<p>The aerospike, by comparison, places thrust generation only around the engine\u2019s perimeter, thus making a lower thrust density. This makes the engine more appropriate for a micro-launcher\u2019s first stage but less so for larger vehicles, where Argem\u00ed notes it would be better to cluster more traditional bell engines and let the aerospike shine on the upper stage. \u201cYou could cluster aerospikes,\u201d he adds, \u201cbut then the diameter of the full rocket would become gargantuous!\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108201\" class=\"wp-image-108201 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2326\" height=\"1118\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace.png 2326w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-350x168.png 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-630x303.png 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-768x369.png 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-1920x923.png 1920w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Side-view-of-Pangeas-October-2023-tests-of-the-bi-material-combustion-chamber-at-DLR-Lampoldshausen-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-1170x562.png 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2326px) 100vw, 2326px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108201\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Side view of Pangea\u2019s October 2023 tests of the bi-material combustion chamber at DLR Lampoldshausen. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>A key design challenge with aerospikes is cooling them down. The throat of an aerospike is the large circumference, whereas on a traditional bell shape, it\u2019s a far smaller circle, Argem\u00ed explained. The throat is where you have the largest heat flux, and combining this with a large diameter means that a high mass flow rate will be needed to actively cool the central plug.<\/p>\n<p>Pangea\u2019s solution to this thermal management is to implement a dual regenerative cooling system. \u201cWe\u2019re using both propellants to cool it down because, historically, rocket engines are just cooled with fuel,\u201d Argem\u00ed said. \u201cNormally, you have way more oxidizer \u2014 which is not the best coolant in the world \u2014 but you have a lot, so let\u2019s use it.\u201d The Arcos inherited this learning from the P1 and cools several parts of the engine using both propellants.<\/p>\n<p>Thermal management aside, another key challenge is to reduce the manufacturing cost of an aerospike engine to make it commercially attractive. Using 3D printing, the Demo P1 was constructed using just two parts. Scaling up to a commercial engine with several tonnes of thrust added manufacturing complications, however. Despite this, 60% to 70% of the Arcos engine still benefits from combining certain parts into single units.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108204\" class=\"wp-image-108204 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-P1-engine-during-its-testing-campaign-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-P1-engine-during-its-testing-campaign-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-P1-engine-during-its-testing-campaign-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-350x197.jpg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-P1-engine-during-its-testing-campaign-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-622x350.jpg 622w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-P1-engine-during-its-testing-campaign-Credit-Pangea-Aerospace-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108204\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Demo P1 engine during its testing campaign. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne of the advantages of the aerospike is [that] it\u2019s so big but it\u2019s hollow inside, so you have a lot of space where you put stuff,\u201d Argem\u00ed explains. \u201cIn our case, all the engine control unit (ECU), the valves, and, of course, the power pack. It\u2019s a conventional gas-generator cycle to start with. We have plans to close the cycle later on Arcos, but \u2026 one thing at a time \u2013 we already have several products ongoing in parallel!\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"widget-title penci-border-arrow\">See Also<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Commercial spaceflight section<\/li>\n<li>European spaceflight articles<\/li>\n<li>NSF Shop<\/li>\n<li>Click here to join L2<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>For now, there are no plans to explore a different propellant mix, such as hydrogen and oxygen, which offers even greater performance, but also presents challenges.<\/p>\n<p>One distinct advantage of aerospikes is that ground testing can serve as a good indicator of later performance in a vacuum, thereby saving the effort of shipping and testing it in a more expensive vacuum test facility. The real test, of course, will be onboard an upper stage while in flight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re targeting our first flight before the end of this decade,\u201d Argem\u00ed announced as Pangea\u2019s more conservative goal. He emphasized that the company hopes to move to an integrated test with an undisclosed client by the end of next year, with a first flight sometime after that on the roadmap.<\/p>\n<p>The company continues to test the Arcos engine at the Lampoldshausen facility in Germany. Early testing in October 2023 verified the regeneratively cooled combustion chambers that were constructed using additive manufacturing to bond two different materials together \u2014 the first demonstration of its kind in Europe. It also tested two different 3D-printed single-piece injector heads designed for rapid reusability, easy inspection, and minimal refurbishment.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108203\" class=\"wp-image-108203 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2507\" height=\"1368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped.jpeg 2507w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped-350x191.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped-630x344.jpeg 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped-768x419.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped-1920x1048.jpeg 1920w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Embossed-Pangea-logo-on-the-casing-of-the-Demo-P1-aerospike-engine-Pangea-Aerospace-cropped-1170x638.jpeg 1170w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2507px) 100vw, 2507px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108203\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Pangea logo on the casing of the Demo P1 aerospike engine. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe do not currently have our own cryogenic test facilities,\u201d Argem\u00ed explains. Pangea has its own infrastructure for other aspects of testing, and while such facilities can be expensive to build, it considers it a no-brainer for a propulsion company to eventually develop its own. Using the German DLR site enabled the company to more quickly conduct the month-long test campaign for its Demo P1 in the early days of development. The final test was intended to push the engine to destruction in order to discover its limits, but in a testament to its robust design, the engine outlasted the remaining propellant supply and survived.<\/p>\n<p>Pangea is set on becoming the \u201cgo-to\u201d company for a range of propulsion solutions, offering rocket and spacecraft developers an alternative to the cost and time required to design and build their own engines. To reinforce this, the company announced a rebranding from Pangea Aerospace to Pangea Propulsion on July 29. Its product range also covers in-space propulsion, with additional products suitable for cubesats, orbital transfer vehicles, or even landers.<\/p>\n<p>Nereus, previously known as U-Nyx, will provide in-space mobility and began as a tiny thumb-sized one-newton engine for cubesats. This uses a more conventional bell nozzle, as there would not be enough mass flow rate to cool down an aerospike design, Argem\u00ed notes. The name, like its Nyx predecessor and other Pangea product lines, draws inspiration from the names of mythological creatures from that supercontinental era.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-108202\" class=\"wp-image-108202 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/U-Nyx-bipropellant-cubesat-thruster-during-testing-April-2023-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"968\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/U-Nyx-bipropellant-cubesat-thruster-during-testing-April-2023-Pangea-Aerospace.jpeg 968w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/U-Nyx-bipropellant-cubesat-thruster-during-testing-April-2023-Pangea-Aerospace-350x195.jpeg 350w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/U-Nyx-bipropellant-cubesat-thruster-during-testing-April-2023-Pangea-Aerospace-630x350.jpeg 630w, https:\/\/www.nasaspaceflight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/U-Nyx-bipropellant-cubesat-thruster-during-testing-April-2023-Pangea-Aerospace-768x427.jpeg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 968px) 100vw, 968px\"><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-108202\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nereus (previously U-Nyx) bipropellant cubesat thruster during testing, April 2023. (Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/p>\n<p>The engine burns High-Test Peroxide (HTP), a concentrated form of hydrogen peroxide, and Jet 1A, a grade of aviation kerosene. Whereas other companies might use the more traditional hydrazine or even hall-effect thrusters, Pangea decided to capitalise on its expertise in liquid propellants. HTP has a very good performance and is scalable, Argem\u00ed notes, adding that the main desire was to remove the toxicity of hydrazine and align with the European Space Agency\u2019s (ESA) desire to move its ecosystem away from it. While hydrazine is proven and well-known, teams are required to suit up to handle it, such as loading it into satellites, whereas using HTP will simplify ground operations and therefore reduce costs.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s rebranding also introduced Cryox, a 30 kilonewton methalox engine for orbital missions based on the Arcos combustion chamber, which joins its engine family. Just over a year ago, Pangea was awarded several contracts to work with ESA and the French space agency, CNES, to begin the process of developing Europe\u2019s first full-flow stage combustion engine. Kronos will be purpose-built for heavy and super-heavy launch vehicles, and similar to SpaceX\u2019s Raptor engine when the project is finally realized.<\/p>\n<p>Until then, Arcos continues its journey to disrupt our assumptions about reusable propulsion, combining high efficiency, reusability, and sustainability in one product. For its customers, this could mean ultimately more payload into orbit, with a simpler and less costly route to market.<\/p>\n<p><em>(Lead image: Successful test of a bi-material combustion chamber with bio-methane and oxygen in Lampoldshausen, October 2023. Credit: Pangea Aerospace)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Spanish and French company Pangea is positioning itself as a go-to propulsion company within the aerospace industry. It first drew attention in 2021 with a successful demonstration of an aerospike engine in Germany. Four years on, testing is already underway for its larger, reusable Arcos engine, which is on course to become the first [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8052,8053,8054,8055,246,244,7790,8056,8057,8058],"class_list":["post-23758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-aerospike","tag-arcos","tag-demo-p1","tag-engine","tag-esa","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-pangea","tag-pangea-aerospace","tag-u-nyx"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23758"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23758\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}