German startup The Exploration Company (TEC) has announced the completion of six weeks of hot fire testing of the oxygen-rich preburner of its Typhoon methane engine with a thrust of 250 tons. The tests were conducted at the P8 test facility of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Lampoldshausen and included 16 launches in four configurations. Engineers managed to eliminate early low-frequency oscillations and bring the stable mode to 85 seconds, which significantly exceeds the previous result at the beginning of the year.
Typhoon has been in development since 2024 with co-funding from the French space agency CNES. It is a reusable full-flow engine with a combustion rate similar to that of the American Raptor, but with a design thrust of 250 tons, which is twice that of the Merlin 1D for Falcon 9. Despite the lack of a confirmed program, TEC is considering Typhoon as the basis for an application to the ESA’s European Launcher Challenge, where the European industry lacks its own super-powerful engine.
*An oxygen-rich preburner is a small chamber (gas generator) in which part of the fuel and oxidizer are burned with a large excess of oxygen prior to main combustion. Hot, oxygen-rich gases drive the turbine pumps and then enter the main combustion chamber. This design is a type of oxygen-rich staged combustion and is part of full-flow staged combustion.
An engine of this class paves the way for a European heavy and super-heavy launch vehicle capable of delivering large observatories, interplanetary probes, and space station modules in a single mission. Increased payload capacity and reusability reduce launch costs, enabling scientists to launch more sophisticated telescopes, satellite constellations for mapping the Universe, and missions to return samples from Mars or asteroids independently of non-European providers.
If the testing of The Exploration Company’s 250-ton Typhoon engine symbolizes a technical breakthrough, the broader context is a veritable space race, with Europe catching up with the US in heavy launches, reusable rockets, and deep interplanetary missions. Want to know what other initiatives and alliances are shaping the new balance of power in orbit, and how Typhoon fits into this strategy? Go to the article “Space race: how Europe is catching up with the US” to see the complete picture.
According to interestingengineering, The Exploration Company
