With and Without Post-Burning Solar Thermal Rocket Engines: Three New Chances for Space Propulsion

Details With and Without Post-Burning Solar Thermal Rocket Engines: Three New Chances for Space Propulsion With and Without Post-Burning Solar Thermal Rocket Engines: Three New Chances for Space Propulsion

Jan 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002iaf..confe.818r&link_type=abstract

IAF abstracts, 34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly, The Second World Space Congress, held 10-19 October, 2002 in Houston, TX, USA.,

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This report studies and compares Solar Thermal Rocket Engines (STRE) with and without post-burning. In a STRE hydrogen is expelled at very high speeds after been heated up to 3000 K thanks to the concentrator-receiver system. In Solar Rocket Engines with Post-Burning (STREPB), this hydrogen is burnt inside a especial combustion chamber where the oxygen is introduced. In this paper the addition of another fuel, LiH, will be also studied. The simple STRE gives higher values for specific impulse than the other two cases. While these values for this configuration go to more than 1000 s, the STREPB reaches around 650 s for hydrogen temperatures of 1500 K. The solution using H2-LiH- O2 gives around 520 s at only 800 K. The consecution of a high temperature is linked to an increase of concentrator's accuracy and mass. For the expedient value of oxidizer-to-fuel ratio the difference of more than 500 K is enough to enable a reduction higher than 50% of the concentrator's area and mass. The calculations for obtained thrust can be approach by means of several thermodynamic equations. It will be less for the STRE, so the use of Post-Burning will be better for missions requiring higher thrust. These figures locate STRE and STREPB between Liquid Rocket Engines' high thrust, which reduce trip time, and the Ion Accelerating Rockets' high specific impulse, which increase the admitted payload's mass. This paper will also compare this kind of propulsion with existing ones by means of Tsiolkovsky equation, V = I spLn M 0 / M p to estimate its possibilities for different manoeuvres as orbit transfers and interplanetary missions.

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