Just Look at the Spiral Exhaust Flame Thrown by This Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no rocket scientist. Then again, I don’t think you have to be to gaze in wonder at this rotating detonation rocket engine from aerospace company Astrobotic. It boasts some crazy specs, which we’ll get to in a minute, but first, we have to talk about the spiraling exhaust flame it throws. What the heck even is that?

Well, it has everything to do with the nature of the engine itself. The Astrobotic rep in the video below explains it this way:

“You have these supersonic detonation waves that travel in circles around the outer part of this rocket engine. In fact, we didn’t add just one of these supersonic waves; we had three detonation waves chasing each other around the outside of t …