Mach-1: Engine Hot-Fire Campaign

Mach-1 is the first liquid-fuelled rocket engine designed and built entirely in-house at Allmacht Space. This campaign took the engine from component testing to a full-duration qualification burn — the milestone that clears it to power the first stage of our launch vehicle. Every run was instrumented end to end, with the propulsion, avionics and operations teams working side by side on a single test stand at our Torino facility.

Owning the full stack changed how fast we could move. Because the engine, its controller and the test infrastructure were built by the same team, we turned around design changes between firings in days rather than months — and captured the data needed to trust the hardware on flight day.

Mach-1 is the foundation of an integrated launch system designed to make orbit reachable for any team with a mission worth flying.

Category: Propulsion
Partners: European Space Agency
Location: Torino, Italy
Date: 02/22/2026
In-house
One team, full stack

Engine, controller and test stand built under one roof.

3D-printed
Additive build

Printed chamber and injector cut part count and lead time.

Dual-start
Restart-capable

Designed to relight in flight for stage and landing burns.

Qualified
Full-duration firing

Cleared for flight after a mission-duration hot-fire.

Technical Specifications

  • EngineMach-1
  • TypeLiquid bipropellant
  • Power cycleGas-generator
  • PropellantsLOX / RP-1
  • Thrust, sea level95 kN
  • Thrust, vacuum110 kN
  • Specific impulse, vac315 s
  • Chamber pressure90 bar
  • Expansion ratio16 : 1
  • Throttle range60–100%
  • RestartDual-start capable
  • Manufacturing3D-printed chamber & injector

Figures are representative of the current Mach-1 development configuration and will be updated as qualification continues.

Problem Statements

Before a new engine can fly, it has to be proven on the ground — safely, repeatably, and with enough data to trust it. The challenge for Mach-1 was to qualify a brand-new, in-house engine on an aggressive schedule, without the deep budgets of a legacy programme.

Challenges
  • Combustion Stability
  • Thermal & Cooling Loads
  • Turbopump Reliability
  • Ignition & Restart
  • Test Cadence & Turnaround
  • Flight-Relevant Data

Our Approach

The campaign followed a phased plan — component qualification, short-duration ignition tests, then progressively longer burns up to a full mission-duration firing — with a relentless focus on instrumentation, repeatability and flight-relevant data at every step.

  • Component-level qualification.
  • Igniter and start-sequence tests.
  • Short-duration hot-fires.
  • Progressively longer burns.
  • Full mission-duration firing.
  • Full instrumentation and telemetry.
  • Data review between firings.
  • Anomaly investigation and fixes.
  • Flight-configuration validation.
  • Qualification sign-off.

Implementation & Details

1. Test Stand & Instrumentation
  • Build and commission a fully instrumented hot-fire test stand, including propellant feed systems, load cells and high-rate data acquisition.
  • Use rapid in-house manufacturing — including 3D-printed engine components — to iterate hardware quickly and keep cost low.
2. Avionics & Flight Data
  • Build a clean, instrumented test stand and avionics stack that let the team capture every parameter of a hot-fire, iterate quickly between runs, and qualify hardware for flight.
  • Integrate flight avionics and the engine controller early, so the software and data on the stand are the same that fly the vehicle.
3. Qualification & Flight Readiness
  • Run progressively longer burns to a full-duration qualification firing, with continuous monitoring, abort logic and post-test inspection to confirm flight readiness.
  • Close out the campaign with a full post-fire teardown and inspection, feeding every finding straight back into the flight-engine design.

85

%
Plus

Rated Thrust Achieved

90

%
Plus

Test Objectives Met