Many of our products are pyrogen igniters. In this type of igniter solid propellant is used as a source for hot gas. The pyrogen type igniter finds its application in solid rocket motors, but also can be applied to liquid rocket engines. Since 1995 APP produces the igniters and starters for the Vulcain II engine of the Ariane 5 launcher. In 2001 we started the development of the igniters for the three solid rocket motors of the VEGA launcher.

A slightly different type of igniter is the spark torch igniter. This igniter generates hot gas by combustion of a fuel (e.g. hydrogen or methane) in combination with pure oxygen. The combustion is initiated with a spark plug. The spark torch igniter is used frequently at rocket engine test facilities as, in contrary to the pyrogen igniter, this igniter can be used for more than 1 ignition.

APP has developed many igniters for test purposes, for example for testing with hydrogen/oxygen at the P8 test facility of DLR (Lampoldshausen, Germany). We have also developed a methane/oxygen spark torch igniter for  testing at the facility of AVIO (Colleferro, Italy). Since 1999 we are responsible for the development of the ignition system of the Vinci engine. This engine is suitable for upper stages (e.g. Ariane 5 or VEGA) and has a unique restart capability.