Rutherford is a liquid-propellant rocket engine designed by American-New Zealand aerospace company Rocket Lab[7] and manufactured in California.[8] It uses LOX and RP-1 as its propellants and is the first flight-ready engine to use the electric-pump feed cycle. It is used on the company's own rocket, Electron. The rocket uses a similar engine arrangement to the Falcon 9; a two-stage rocket using a cluster of nine identical engines on the first stage, and one vacuum-optimized version with a longer nozzle on the second stage.[5][6] The sea-level version produces 24 kN (5,400 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 311 s (3.05 km/s), while the vacuum optimized-version produces 24 kN (5,400 lbf) of thrust and has a specific impulse of 343 s (3.36 km/s).[2]

Project time ~70-90 hours