Active Controls Injector and Chamber

One of the other PSP subteams, PSP Active Controls, was working on a liquid regen chamber and a pintle injector. They asked for my help in the machining of the injector and post-machining of the chamber. The injector manifolds were made from 321 stainless steel, and the pintle tip was made from copper. The injector required extensive machining time due to the material, and to get a smooth surface finish for the constant velocity manifold. The pintle tip had 66 holes which were made with the use of a 4th-axis on the CNC mill. The chamber was printed from 6061-RAM2 aluminum. To post-machine the top and bottom surfaces, torch igniter mounts, PT ports, and gimbal mounts, I had to create a set of fixture plates to grab onto the chamber. The set of 3 fixture plates was configurable in a number of different ways, so that we could rotate the part between different orientations to face the surfaces we needed to. The engine was recently successfully tested for up to 20-second burns with throttling from 100% to 40% thrust.