Skyrora
Thread Starter
Joined: Nov 2009
Posts: 670
Likes: 128
From: London
Skyrora
Last week I went to the British Interplanetary Society lecture at their HQ in Vauxhall for a lecture about Skyrora, a Scottish-Ukranian rocket company with a small rocket design with a 400kg payload that's powered by HTP and Kerosene.
https://skyrora.com/
BIS Evening Lecture: Engines of a Space Nation: Skyrora’s Propulsion Innovations and the Future of UK Launch, with Dr Mykhailo Andriievskyi
I tried to take some notes but I'm not an expert and everything will probably come out slightly wrong.
The main focus for now is their Skyrora XL rocket. They have 3 engines, one for each stage of the XL. Two of these are at TRL 8 and one is at TRL 9 because they have flown it in their Iceland launch attempt. The XL can launch 400kg to (.....missed it....) and is too small to be worth reusing but they do have plans for a follow on reusable craft in the 4-6 ton range.
They developed their engines from smaller to larger and this was essential because there was very little experience in the UK with High test peroxide+Kerosene engines so they had to build that experience up.
The engines for each stage are different but components of them are the same such as the combustion chambers and a number of other components. They're all 3D printed and the initial prints were very reliable but as they moved to more sophisticated processes they had some leak issues. One of their printed engines had 15 different leaks which they tig welded and it worked in a number of firing tests. Obviously they sorted this out. Dr Andriievskyi described how at one point they realised they had problems with HTP decomposing in the cooling jacket at the throat of the engine and how they fixed it by adjusting the speed of flow and the wall thickness.
A bit like RFA Augsburg they use automotive components sometimes - particularly for valves. It turned out that the automotive valves were faster and better and much cheaper than the aerospace certified ones and the only difference was the testing for certification. So in the end they certified the automotive ones in-house.
Testing is obviously a major issue and they have done all sorts of things to reduce the cost and effort. They tried to come up with lots of small tests to do before the big ones which Dr Andriievskyi considered to be most important as they caught lots of problems before they had expensive failures. They chose to use a testing method which found the efficiency of all their turbines together rather than each one and he said that while this was inconvenient at times it saved a great deal of money. Some of their initial tests with fuel tanks needed bladders to ensure the fuel pushed out and they found that the cost of designing aerospace certified ones would be GBP 200k so for their tests they adapted yoga balls. Operational flights will of course have the correct ones but they were able to get their tests done without waiting for this.
He described how the design of Rockets is almost easier than getting launch licenses and finding locations to test (in the United Kingdom). Their current license took 7 years to get and this was mainly because when they started, no government department considered itself responsible - not the MOD OR the CAA.
They had a great deal of trouble with testing sites - getting them and then being forced to move for one reason or another. As a result they have a testing stand which is containerised, built in the factory, which they can erect almost anywhere very quickly. The bits which have humans in them are heated and pre-configured and this is all essential in the Scottish weather. He told us one funny story about an inspector at a current site finding a "newt" which he claimed might be a protected species (Royal newt or something like that). They spent 1000s searching the area to prove that there were no "Royal Newts" there and the whole company would probably have been in great difficulty now without the site as they're so hard to come by.
They were also forced to use 87.5% Hydrogen Peroxide rather than 91% because the cost of moving it around with fire engines and escorts was excessively high. So in essence they are partially engineered not for absolute performance but for being practical and flexible in operations.
As a result of being forced to be mobile, they were able to attempt a launch in Iceland and that was at least helpful for testing the first stage although the avionics aborted the rocket incorrectly.
There was a lot more that I missed. I didn't try to ask "right so when are you going to launch again?
" but they do have a license now and 17 engines so I can't see a big reason other than them trying to sort out their software and/or negotiating a payload.
Of course they have payloads and cannot tell us anything about them.
From this point propulsion is not the main area of risk. Things like avionics are more difficult in that one cannot test them truly realistically without a full flight.
https://skyrora.com/
BIS Evening Lecture: Engines of a Space Nation: Skyrora’s Propulsion Innovations and the Future of UK Launch, with Dr Mykhailo Andriievskyi
I tried to take some notes but I'm not an expert and everything will probably come out slightly wrong.
The main focus for now is their Skyrora XL rocket. They have 3 engines, one for each stage of the XL. Two of these are at TRL 8 and one is at TRL 9 because they have flown it in their Iceland launch attempt. The XL can launch 400kg to (.....missed it....) and is too small to be worth reusing but they do have plans for a follow on reusable craft in the 4-6 ton range.
They developed their engines from smaller to larger and this was essential because there was very little experience in the UK with High test peroxide+Kerosene engines so they had to build that experience up.
The engines for each stage are different but components of them are the same such as the combustion chambers and a number of other components. They're all 3D printed and the initial prints were very reliable but as they moved to more sophisticated processes they had some leak issues. One of their printed engines had 15 different leaks which they tig welded and it worked in a number of firing tests. Obviously they sorted this out. Dr Andriievskyi described how at one point they realised they had problems with HTP decomposing in the cooling jacket at the throat of the engine and how they fixed it by adjusting the speed of flow and the wall thickness.
A bit like RFA Augsburg they use automotive components sometimes - particularly for valves. It turned out that the automotive valves were faster and better and much cheaper than the aerospace certified ones and the only difference was the testing for certification. So in the end they certified the automotive ones in-house.
Testing is obviously a major issue and they have done all sorts of things to reduce the cost and effort. They tried to come up with lots of small tests to do before the big ones which Dr Andriievskyi considered to be most important as they caught lots of problems before they had expensive failures. They chose to use a testing method which found the efficiency of all their turbines together rather than each one and he said that while this was inconvenient at times it saved a great deal of money. Some of their initial tests with fuel tanks needed bladders to ensure the fuel pushed out and they found that the cost of designing aerospace certified ones would be GBP 200k so for their tests they adapted yoga balls. Operational flights will of course have the correct ones but they were able to get their tests done without waiting for this.
He described how the design of Rockets is almost easier than getting launch licenses and finding locations to test (in the United Kingdom). Their current license took 7 years to get and this was mainly because when they started, no government department considered itself responsible - not the MOD OR the CAA.
They had a great deal of trouble with testing sites - getting them and then being forced to move for one reason or another. As a result they have a testing stand which is containerised, built in the factory, which they can erect almost anywhere very quickly. The bits which have humans in them are heated and pre-configured and this is all essential in the Scottish weather. He told us one funny story about an inspector at a current site finding a "newt" which he claimed might be a protected species (Royal newt or something like that). They spent 1000s searching the area to prove that there were no "Royal Newts" there and the whole company would probably have been in great difficulty now without the site as they're so hard to come by.
They were also forced to use 87.5% Hydrogen Peroxide rather than 91% because the cost of moving it around with fire engines and escorts was excessively high. So in essence they are partially engineered not for absolute performance but for being practical and flexible in operations.
As a result of being forced to be mobile, they were able to attempt a launch in Iceland and that was at least helpful for testing the first stage although the avionics aborted the rocket incorrectly.
There was a lot more that I missed. I didn't try to ask "right so when are you going to launch again?
" but they do have a license now and 17 engines so I can't see a big reason other than them trying to sort out their software and/or negotiating a payload.Of course they have payloads and cannot tell us anything about them.
From this point propulsion is not the main area of risk. Things like avionics are more difficult in that one cannot test them truly realistically without a full flight.
Last edited by t43562; 9th April 2026 at 09:34. Reason: Don't mix the names of 2 different rockets.
