Rutherford (rocket engine)

Rutherford is a liquid-propellant rocket engine designed by aerospace company Rocket Lab and manufactured in Long Beach, California. The engine is used on the company's own rocket, Electron. It uses LOX (liquid oxygen) and RP-1 (refined kerosene) as its propellants and is the first flight-ready engine to use the electric-pump feed cycle. The rocket uses a similar engine arrangement to the Falcon 9; a two-stage rocket using a cluster of nine identical engines on the first stage, and one vacuum-optimized version with a longer nozzle on the second stage. This arrangement is also known as an octaweb. The sea-level version produces 24.9 kN (5,600 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 311 s (3.05 km/s), while the vacuum optimized-version produces 25.8 kN (5,800 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 343 s (3.36 km/s).

First test-firing took place in 2013. The engine was qualified for flight in March 2016 and had its first flight on 25 May 2017. As of August 2023, the engine has powered 40 Electron flights in total, making the count of flown engines 399, including one engine flown twice.