AbstractA pressure-fed system is leading to a stage easy to operate, reliable, needing no costly solutions (expander engine, boost pumps).On the other hand, many R&D programs are going on all ceramic liquid engines, engines cooled by “effusion” (DLR), Transpiration (PTAH-SOCAR from MBDA), Film or Trim (Astrium, Snecma), so very light engine may be offered on the market in the close future.Operating to relatively low pressure the specific impulse is slightly lower than a conventional one with a turbomachine (expander type or other) and the structural index lightly less interesting: a concept with the LOX tank nested inside the fuel tank with a scrolling common bulkhead appears easily usable for LOX/methane stage due to the fact that the two propellants are liquids in the same range of temperature and may lead to an interesting mass saving.Even if such an upper stage may lead to a dramatic increase of the performance of a small launch vehicle such as Vega (replacement of Z9 and AVUM), the aim of this presentation is mainly to show the interest of special tools to make the very first evaluation of the interest of a new solution.The Inner Arch developed for the CNES DLA two softwares:One dedicated to solid propulsion projects: APSOL.One dedicated to liquid propulsion projects: ELIS.A third one, PERFOL, is used to optimize the trajectory and the propulsion parameters.The paper will describe the main software used for this study and illustrate the interest of the approach.


    Access

    Check access

    Check availability in my library

    Order at Subito €


    Export, share and cite



    Title :

    New upper stage propulsion concept for future launchers


    Contributors:

    Published in:

    Acta Astronautica ; 63 , 1-4 ; 357-366


    Publication date :

    2008-01-01


    Size :

    10 pages




    Type of media :

    Article (Journal)


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English