When we reported last June on Aspire Space’s ambition to develop a fully reusable launch vehicle powered by computationally engineered, 3D-printed engines, it was a compelling roadmap. Today, it is hardware.
UAE-headquartered launch company Aspire Space completed the manufacturing of the XRA-2E5, its 200 kN aerospike engine designed to power the upper stage of its Oryx spacecraft; also claimed to be the “world’s largest 3D-printed aerospike engine ever produced”.
Why an aerospike?
The choice of nozzle geometry is not incidental. Conventional bell-nozzle engines are optimized for a fixed altitude, which means they lose efficiency as atmospheric pressure changes during ascent. An aerospike works differently: the exhaust expands along a central spike and self-adjusts as external pressure drops, maintaining high efficiency from sea level through the upper atmosphere and into orbit.
That performance profile makes it particularly well-suited to the upper stage of a reusable vehicle that must complete its burn efficiently before returning to the launch site.
Aerospikes are often described as the holy grail of space propulsion. The problem has always been manufacturing them. Their complex geometry has historically made them prohibitively difficult to design, build, and operate at scale.
From computation to hardware
The XRA-2E5 was designed using Noyron, LEAP 71’s Large Computational Engineering Model, which generates fully manufacturing-ready designs from first-principles physics and engineering logic, without manual design steps. The engine design builds on two earlier LEAP 71 aerospike engines that have been hot-fired over the past 15 months, validating the core architecture at smaller thrust classes before scaling up to the thrust level required for Aspire’s second stage.
The one-metre-tall cryogenic methalox engine was printed as a monolithic Inconel 718 structure by HBD (Shanghai Hanbang United 3D Tech Co., Ltd.) on the HBD 800, a ten-laser powder-bed fusion system operating one of the largest build volumes in commercial metal additive manufacturing. The build ran for 289 continuous hours, and is reported to be completed successfully on the first attempt.
The engine uses a regenerative cooling architecture: cryogenic methane cools the outer chamber, while liquid oxygen cools the central spike, managing the thermal loads generated during combustion.
What comes next
Unveiled at TCT Asia in Shanghai last week, the XRA-2E5 will now proceed through acceptance checks and integration into a dedicated test stand. A full hot-fire campaign is scheduled for later in 2026, with results informing the final engine configuration for the Oryx second stage.
The XRA-2E5 is the first engine delivered under the multi-year propulsion development agreement between Aspire Space and LEAP 71 announced in November 2025, under which LEAP 71 is developing propulsion systems for both stages of the Oryx vehicle.
For Aspire Space, this marks the first major propulsion hardware milestone in its program to provide reliable, high-cadence orbital access for commercial, institutional, and sovereign customers, built around a reusable architecture designed to substantially reduce the cost of reaching orbit.
Hot-fire testing of the XRA-2E5 is scheduled for later in 2026.
Images: Aspire Space. *We curate insights that matter to help you grow in your AM journey. Receive them once a week, straight to your inbox. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
