A liquid rocket engine cools a thruster body by pumping propellant through cooling channels integrated in the thruster body between internal and external surfaces. One or more of the cooling channel surfaces has a variable depth along a thrust axis to mix propellant flow and destroy thermal stratification, such as a depth that varies with a repeated contiguous sinusoidal form along the thrust axis. Fuel passed through the cooling channels injects from the combustion chamber wall towards a central portion of the combustion chamber to cross impinge with oxygen injected at the combustion chamber head so that a toroidal vortex forms to enhance propellant mixing.