Word: turbopumps
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...make the Agena ignite a second time called for tricky engineering. A second charge of solid propellant to restart the turbopump was comparatively simple. But since the rocket would be fired while in orbit, when everything on a satellite is weightless, the fuel might be anywhere in the partly empty tanks-perhaps gathered in a ball in the center. To coax it into a position where the pumps could get hold of it, two small, solid-fuel rockets are fired, giving the main rocket a slight forward push. The fuel responds momentarily as if to gravitation, settles to the rear...
...knowledge to those who read newspapers." It is hard to make pump-fed engines much more powerful than they are now, and "the reliability of a single liquid-fuel engine is so low that even the most optimistic may quail at the idea of grouping more than a few turbopump systems into a clustered stage." Rocket engines using a solid propellant fire perfectly almost every time; they can be used in large clusters with expectation that all of them will do their duty...
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