Leap71 fire up their powerful AI designed rocket engine

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By Matthew Griffin Industrial Revolution 28th March 2025

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

Increasingly AI is designing more sophisticated products and this is the second rocket engine its designed.

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Years after I reported that Hyperganic, a German company, had used an Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create a revolutionary new kind of rocket engine a Dubai company has test-fired a 3D-printed space rocket engine that was also designed by AI.

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LEAP 71 fired the engine for 3.5 seconds, producing 500kg of thrust and roughly 20,000 horsepower. It is the first liquid rocket engine to be developed in the UAE and uses computational modelling developed by the organisation.

The test, carried out at the Airborne Engineering site in Wescott, UK late last year marks a significant step forward for the AI-based engineering industry in the Emirates.

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Lin Kayser, co-founder of LEAP 71, told The National that the data collected will help train and improve their computational models.

“The goal is to be able to autogenerate engines across a range of thrust/propellant ranges, so each engine can be customised,” he said.

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The AI model, called Noyron, involves an algorithm that can generate rocket engines, including software codes that command the engine how much thrust and propellent it needs to have. It then powers the engine without any human intervention. In this test, it powered the rocket using cryogenic liquid oxygen and kerosene fuels.

“We chose them (the fuels) because they are ‘hard’ propellants to use – so many start-up companies try to get by with simpler fuels,” explained Mr Kayser.

So proud of @LissnerJosefine – steely-eyed rocket woman. We just test fired a 5kN kerolox thruster, designed completely in-house at @leap_71 – it performed flawlessly and reached steady state. Kerosene regeneratively cooled and cryogenic liquid oxygen as oxidizer. Koaxial swirl… pic.twitter.com/dZFCIjvk7v

— Lin Kayser (@linkayser) June 15, 2024

“Liquid oxygen is not easy to handle because it is cryogenic. It can, for example, freeze kerosene in the cooling channels and then the rocket explodes.

“We wanted a challenging combination that is quite common in larger rockets, like the SpaceX Falcon 9, but unusual for smaller chambers like ours. Smaller chambers are very hard to cool because you have little surface area.”

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Kayser said Noyron is close to market-ready, but they will carry out more tests on engines that different companies are developing.

“From our side, the computational model is market-ready and can be used to produce functional rocket engines. This is what the test showed,” he said.

LEAP 71 has a partnership with Europe’s The Exploration Company, which is developing and manufacturing a reusable space capsule called Nyx.

It marks a big win for the start-up as it looks to sell its AI model to more players in the space industry.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.