A comparison is made between the storable-propellant engine and an equivalent dual-expander engine using oxygen, propane, and hydrogen propellants. The propane and hydrogen dual-expander engine is then compared with previous results with separate propane and hydrocarbon engines. It is shown that the dual-expander reduces vehicle dry mass from 94 to 89 Mg, or 5%. The hydrogen-only thrust of the dual-expander is 0.4 MN, while the separate hydrogen engines have a thrust of 2.3 MN. The low thrust level increases the difficulty of cooling the dual-expander engine, and additional hydrogen flow is added for transpirational cooling. This additional hydrogen flow leads to an increase in the hydrogen tank size. It is also shown that storable propellants increase the dry mass of single-stage earth-to-orbit vehicles by about 20% and the gross mass by about 54%. It is concluded that dual-expander engines should be studied with several thrust splits and thrust levels.
Effect of storable propellants on single-stage earth-to-orbit vehicles
1982-06-01
Miscellaneous
No indication
English
Earth-storable propellants for spacecraft.
NTRS | 1965
|Earth-storable propellants for spacecraft
Engineering Index Backfile | 1965
|Current trends in STORABLE PROPELLANTS
SAE Technical Papers | 1960
|Survey of current storable propellants
Engineering Index Backfile | 1962
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