BT-4 (rocket engine)
| Country of origin | Japan |
|---|---|
| Designer | IHI Aerospace |
| Associated L/V | HTV, Cygnus |
| Status | In production |
| Liquid-fuel engine | |
| Propellant | N2O4 / Hydrazine |
| Mixture ratio | 1.69 |
| Cycle | pressure fed |
| Configuration | |
| Chamber | 1 |
| Performance | |
| Thrust (vac.) | 500 N (110 lbf) |
| Dimensions | |
| Length | 80 cm (31 in) |
| Dry weight | 4 kg (8.8 lb) |
The BT-4 is a pressure-fed liquid rocket engine designed and manufactured by IHI Aerospace of Japan. It was originally developed for the LUNAR-A project, but it has been used as a Liquid Apogee Engine in some geostationary communications satellite based on the Lockheed Martin A2100 and GEOStar-2 satellite buses. It has also been used on the HTV and Cygnus automated cargo spacecraft.
During the 1970s, Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries had built under license the Rocketdyne MB-3 for the N-I rocket, for which it had also developed the second stage attitude control system. In the 1980s it also developed the thrusters for ETS-4 (Kiku-3), the first to be built in Japan. In 2000 it acquires and merges with the aerospace division of Nissan and becomes IHI Aerospace.
IHI Aerospace started developing the BT-4 for the later cancelled LUNAR-A mission to the moon. While the mission was cancelled, the thruster has seen success as a Liquid Apogee Engine on the Lockheed Martin A2100 and Orbital ATK GEOStar-2 platforms. Two other Orbital ATK products that use the BT-4 due to their leverage of the GEOStar-2 platform are the Cygnus spacecraft and the Antares Bi-propellant Third Stage (BTS).
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