Demonstrator Engine
Roger Shawyer · 2023
The proposal for a second UK government grant is described, including the commercial justification of a significant cost reduction for geostationary orbit communication satellites. The subsequent award of the R&D grant enabled the demonstrator engine to be designed and built, which is fully described in this chapter. The additional funding enabled a comprehensive command and telemetry subsystem to be built to allow extensive data to be collected during the test programme. Alignment and tuning of the cavity were carried out on a small signal test bench, and this essential characterisation of the cavity, which included a thermal test, is described. This was followed by the initial high-power testing using the water-cooled 1.2 kW magnetron, which enabled calibration of all the microwave and thermal instrumentation.