LEAP 71 and HBD Unveil 200 kN 3D Printed Aerospike Rocket Engine at TCT Asia

LEAP 71, a Dubai-based computational engineering company, and HBD, a Shanghai manufacturer of metal additive manufacturing systems, have produced a 3D printed aerospike rocket engine generating 200 kN of thrust. The one-meter-tall engine was exhibited at TCT Asia 2026 in Shanghai.

Single-Piece Metal Print

The engine, designated XRA-2E5, was designed using LEAP 71's Noyron computational engineering model and manufactured by HBD using its HBD 800 laser powder bed fusion system. The engine was printed as a monolithic part in Inconel 718 during a continuous build lasting 289 hours.

The HBD 800 features a ten-laser configuration and a build volume of 830 × 830 × 1250 mm, allowing production of large aerospace components in a single build.

Aerospike Architecture

The engine uses a cryogenic methane and liquid oxygen propellant system and incorporates regenerative cooling, with methane circulating through the outer chamber and liquid oxygen cooling the central spike.

The aerospike architecture differs from conventional bell-nozzle engines by maintaining efficiency across a wider range of atmospheric conditions — a key advantage for reusable launch vehicles.

First-Try Success

"The build was completed on the first attempt, which the company described as a validation of the stability of its large-format LPBF platform," said Kevin Chen, Director of Marketing at HBD.

Josefine Lissner, CEO of LEAP 71, said the project demonstrates how computational design combined with additive manufacturing enables propulsion geometries that are difficult to produce using conventional methods.

Link to Reusable Launch Systems

The 200 kN engine is intended for use in upper-stage propulsion for reusable launch vehicles and forms part of an ongoing propulsion development program conducted with Aspire Space for the Oryx spacecraft project.