The primary testing objective of this test was to collect data on a serious failure mode - failure of the pintle tip. The pintle was damaged from the two prior tests, so it was expected to fail on the third test. The team pushed the engine to a higher chamber pressure, and significantly increased the burn time to maximize the useful data. The pintle can be seen to fail as expected two seconds after ignition.

Unexpectedly, the cryogenic oxidizer (liquid oxygen) runs dry at four seconds after ignition. This was due to insufficient system chill-in before the test (a process still being improved on the operations side). All ejected fuel is burned post combustion chamber, and the test stand is easily safed thanks to the automated sequence. The depletion of liquid oxygen provided a second failure mode to be captured in this test.

Overall, this was a very successful test and provided the team with a lot of useful data to better understand the various failure modes of our engines. This will help influence design decisions in future developments, as well as improving our automated sequence and operating procedures to increase safety and protect hardware.

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