Launch Canada is going to be branching out into technology development. The organization, which hosts and organizes the Launch Canada Challenge student rocketry competition, will be working with students and industry professionals to design and build a made-in-Canada turbopump.
The turbopump is a crucial and difficult-to-engineer part of rocket propulsion systems, and if Launch Canada is successful, this will be the first time that one of them is built by a Canadian organization.
SpaceQ reached out to Adam Trumpour, founder and President of Launch Canada, and he provided more details on the project.
Building Canadian capabilities
Trumpour explained that this sort of project was a key part of Launch Canada’s organizational vision. “We take a much larger and more comprehensive view of how to foster the growth of a Canadian space launch ecosystem,” he said, and these kinds of “special projects” are a big part of that. These projects “bring together students from schools across the country with experienced industry professionals,” along with other partners and suppliers, to tackle “challenging, real-world rocket-related technology development projects that might exceed what a typical individual student team could manage.”
This helps give students hands-on and relevant experience, and can also aid in developing technologies that Canada hadn’t previously been capable of building.
This current project, a turbopump, is “arguably the most challenging element of any large rocket engine” according to Trumpour. He explained that as rocket engines burn propellants at extreme pressure and flow rates, it is an enormous challenge to feed fuel and oxidizers into the engine at the rate it needs. For rockets with liquid propellants, this requires “high power, yet very compact pumps.” Those pumps are usually turbopumps: a “high speed rotating pump driven by a gas turbine…basically a jet engine whose entire purpose is to pump fuel.”
Trumpour added that “to put it in perspective: the turbopumps on the three Space Shuttle Main Engines could empty an Olympic swimming pool in 25 seconds!”
These fuel-pumping jet engines are a critical and difficult-to-build part of many rockets’ propulsion systems, and can “account for as much as 50% of the cost” of the engine due to their complexity. Yet, Trumpour said, it’s a gap in Canadian rocketry capabilities: “Canada has never developed a turbopump before,” he said, and he believes that solving it is essential if Canada hopes to “achieve sovereign space launch capability.”
So the goal of this project, as much as anything else, is to “build the practical expertise in turbopump design, analysis, manufacturing and testing that Canada will need.” Since Trumpour is himself a turbomachinery designer, it’s a challenge that he’s personally suited to help solve.
Developing a smaller turbopump
This particular turbopump will be comparatively small. Trumpour said that it’s “sized for an engine about 1/10 the thrust of typical ‘small’ turbopump-fed engines,” one that’d already been test-fired without a pump back in 2021. It will also be “semi-cryogenic,” which will, he said, allow the team to build experience with both cryogenic and non-cryogenic (“storable”) propellants.
The smaller size will help make the logistics and cost easier to bear, but it also means that they’re charting new territory, as (according to Trumpour) “a turbopump this small doesn’t exist anywhere.” So their industry partners are helping them, he said, with “everything from cutting-edge software tools to 3D printing and advanced ultra high precision machining and manufacturing capabilities.”
If they succeed, there are a wide range of potential applications. Trumpour said that this could include “applications for ‘space tugs,’ Lunar and planetary landers and sample return missions.” It could become a critical technology in the Canadian space sector, which Trumpour credits for the $350,000 award they were recently awarded from the CSA’s Space Technology Development Program. “This”, he said, may be “why the CSA saw such value in our project.”
This is the first time that Launch Canada has received CSA support for this kind of project.
“Large network of suppliers and partners”
When asked about their progress, Trumpour said that the project is broken into three phases: developing and manufacturing a smaller electric motor-driven fuel pump, scaling up to the development of an electric liquid oxygen pump, and a “final phase” of developing and manufacturing the full turbopump. It “began in earnest” two years ago.
On the preliminary pump, which Trumpour said will “prove out our design and manufacturing approaches,” they’re already well into the manufacturing phase. He said that “we will begin testing in the new year.” They’ve begun design work on the liquid oxygen pump, and have “begun early conceptual design” on the full turbopump.
They expect that turbopump development will “be the major focus of 2027.”
When asked about other contributors to the turbopump project, he said that “we have about 50 active students & volunteers on the project.” This includes senior undergraduates and grad students, as well as “other active participants who now work at Canadian and international rocket companies,” including several from Pratt & Whitney (where Trumpour also works.)
Launch Canada also has “a large network of suppliers and partners” working with them on this, which have been “instrumental in making this project possible” according to Trumpour. He pointed to EOS, who are providing assistance with 3D printing of pump components, as well as “providing training on additive manufacturing and how to design for the process.”
He also mentioned SoftInWay, whose AxSTREAM suite of turbomachinery design and analysis software have been used on the project. “It’s an incredibly powerful tool,” he said, and the company has both provided access to the students as well as training, giving the students “the chance to learn state of the art tools for professional turbopump and turbomachinery development.”
Finally, he said that there have been a number of “incredible manufacturing companies” that have been assisting with machining parts, heat treating, surface finishing, and other difficult manufacturing challenges. Launch Canada has been “heavily emphasizing Canadian supply chains,” and that’s helped tremendously with the “incredibly intricate parts and very tight tolerances” needed to build their turbopump.
“It’s definitely the most complex development we’ve ever done,” Trumpour said, but he’s confident in his “dream team” and its ability to make it happen.