# Preliminary Results from the "Hot Head" Rocket Engine Test | bluShift Aerospace

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- Published at: 2026-07-18 18:59:05 UTC
- Updated at: 2026-10-09 00:16:54 UTC

## Author
Sascha Deri

## Subject
bluShift Aerospace

## Content
I wanted to quickly give you all a sneak peak into the preliminary findings of the test results from Thursday evening's "Hot Head" test fire of the MAREVL hybrid rocket engine.But first, I wanted to the thank the 200 folks - most of them were you guys - our investors who came and cheered us on through the delays. There were folks that came from near and far. We had Anne and Tom travel from Indiana, George (our retired NASA technical advisor) and his wife fly from Huntsville, AL, and our patent attorney Kelly fly her own turboprop from Detroit and land at the very runway where we operate our test facilities. We were blown away how she stuck the landing despite the insane wind storm that suddenly swept in.The long delay to the actual test was alleviated, in part, to great food, drink (including beer from Flight Deck) and 300+ oysters (provided by our very Luke Saindon) but equally as exciting were the 9 other innovative hard-tech co's and aerospace related researchers showcasing their tech under a tent. We had: Latis Materials, Evergreen Additive, Peppin & Associates, Atlas, RISE Robotics, BlueSonde, University of Maine, the Roux Institute, and the Maine Space Corporation.It was wonderful to see so many folks who have been with us since the beginning, as well as so many new folks. I only wished that I had more time during the event to talk to everyone.Preliminary ResultsFirst, let me share with you the unadulterated view by one of our camera's that were just outside the test cell that evening. You guys will be the first to see this - it's unlisted on YouTube:So what do we see? We had significant instabilities in the first 36 seconds of our burn and then the rest purred very nicely.We made 6 significant changes to the MAREVL engine for this test. While in an ideal world we'd make only one change at a time, we carefully choose what those changes will be so that we can maximize the knowledge learned from the test.What have we learned so far? Let's start with the good and we'll move to the less so.One of the biggest wins was our thermal protection system. It held up very nicely without any burn throughs and despite the rough initial ride. This accomplishment is key for going to a thinner walled, lighter combustion chamber soon.A major overhaul of the ignition system and the many sub-system tests for it, proved to be a solid win for the engine test this time around.The full analysis hasn't been done yet, but it does visually look promising that we did increase combustion efficiency thanks to two important modifications. This simply means we can go farther with this booster.The instabilities from the get go were interesting. We zoomed in on that data and noticed that it the instability mode appeared to be nearly singular. While it was one big instability mode, it wasn't the 2-3 of them at once that we've seen in the past. As our hybrid rocket advisors tell us, this is the normal path for improving any hybrid (or any?) rocket engine - one by one you knock down the instability modes until at last you're good. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the dissection of the engine and the analysis that follows reveals. We had placed a very unique and innovative solution into place for that test to iron out potentially all instabilities - it was a high risk/high reward option and, at this time, it appears it at least didn't work in the first 36 seconds.RV Mission Control loading the oxidizer and preparing the MAREVL engine test fire (July 16, 2026)I'm incredibly thankful for and impressed with our hard-working team. They spent about two weeks of coming in at 7AM and many nights not leaving until 11PM or later at night. Incredible dedication.As we get into the analysis of this test we'll share more and let you know what's next for the next test as we push towards the full flight-ready, commercialized MAREVL rocket engine!Onwards and Upwards!Sascha