The heat exchanger (HX) thruster concept uses a lightweight (up to 1 MW/kg) flat‐plate heat exchanger to couple laser energy into flowing hydrogen. Hot gas is exhausted via a conventional nozzle to generate thrust. The HX thruster has several advantages over ablative thrusters, including high efficiency, design flexibility, and operation with any type of laser. Operating the heat exchanger at a modest exhaust temperature, nominally 1000 C, allows it to be fabricated cheaply, while providing sufficient specific impulse (∼600 seconds) for a single‐stage vehicle to reach orbit with a useful payload; a nominal vehicle design is described. The HX thruster is also comparatively easy to develop and test, and offers an extremely promising route to near‐term demonstration of laser launch.


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    Title :

    Near‐Term Laser Launch Capability: The Heat Exchanger Thruster


    Contributors:

    Conference:

    BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: First International Symposium on Beamed Energy Propulsion ; 2002 ; Huntsville, Alabama (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 664 , 1 ; 442-453


    Publication date :

    2003-05-14


    Size :

    12 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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