First firing of Protolaunch's HILBERT engine

AEL are pleased to announce hosting the first firing of Protolaunch's prototype HILBERT engine. Using an alternative cooling and pressurisation cycle, their engines are designed to have improved performance compared to traditional gas blowdown cycles, but without the costs and complexity associated with turbomachinery based cycles. Together with AEL, Protolaunch performed an initial commissioning and hot firing of its HILBERT prototype engine. This engine serves as a testbed to validate the engine design and will be used to further explore the performance envelope of the cycle in future campaigns.