Nozzle Design
Complete
A closer look at the shell and ablative liner of Big Piggy, the engine for The Guinea Pig.
The nozzle design for Big Piggy, the engine that will fly The Guinea Pig, is complete. The renders show its two main parts: a 3D-printed Inconel 718 shell and an ablative liner.
A Simple First Engine
Big Piggy is pressure-fed and burns RP-1 and liquid oxygen. The shell is printed in Inconel 718 for strength at high temperature. Inside it, a sacrificial liner absorbs heat and carries it away as it ablates, so the engine needs no cooling channels. That keeps the first engine simple and cheap to build.
The current design target is 23.7 kN of sea-level thrust. That is a target from our simulations, not a measured hot-fire result.
From Design to Hot Fire
A finished design is not yet hardware. Next comes printing the engine, completing the test stand and firing Big Piggy on it. The Guinea Pig is targeting a late 2027 flight at the Friends of Amateur Rocketry launch site in the Mojave Desert.
Next Milestone:
The Test Stand
Engine design is complete and the engine test stand is being built. Hot fire comes next, then integration and Mission 001.
See the Roadmap