Injector, Fuel, Cutaway, Rocket Engine, Lark Missile

Shown here is the fuel injector for the larger chamber of the two-chamber, liquid-fuel engine that powered the Navy's surface-to-surface Lark missile. Total thrust of the engine, which burned red fuming nitric acid and aniline, reached 620 pounds. Like the combustion chamber, the injector used regenerative cooling technology, visible on the inside walls of this cutaway. Pioneered by Reaction Motors in the late 1930s, regenerative cooling gained wider acceptance during and after World War II as Reaction Motors commercialized the technology.