Propulsion Systems

Custom Fabrication

Working under contract with Rocket Development Company, and teamed with engine design company D&E engineering, the Laser Guidance team provided mechanical design, fabrication, and test support for this 40,000 lb thrust chamber. The LGI team provided all of the CAD drawings, mechanical designs, fabrication, and final test support. Shown in the first photograph is the 204 element co-axial injector. Liquid oxygen and hydrogen enter the thrust chamber through the coaxial injector elements. Additional hydrogen is forced through the porous faceplate to cool the face of the injector. The injector receives the liquid oxygen through a feed line that enters the injector through the LOX dome, while the

hydrogen is fed through the slotted cooper liner, which also forms the main body and nozzle of the thrust chamber. The slotted copper liner (shown in the second photo) is closed out with a nickel plate. The slots then form a heat exchanger, which cools the thrust chamber and heat the hydrogen to the proper injector fuel temperature. The third photo shows the thrust chamber in its complete form. The lower torus is the hydrogen inlet manifold, and the cylindrical section on top is a mating structure for mounting the thrust chamber to the reaction structure of the test stand.

Testing                                                Click to see a thrust chamber video clip (4.5 MB, MPEG)

This thrust chamber tested at EMARTC in Socorro New Mexico. During a series of cold flows and hot fires the thrust chamber demonstrated performance within 2% of the design point. The test article emerged from it test series with now noticeable damage to the thrust chamber. This successful hot fire testing sequence demonstrated that utility of the fabrication process and verified all the important design point. The last two photos show the test article during test in both the visible and IR spectrum. The hydrogen-oxygen engine has very little visible flame but the streamlines in the nozzle, and downstream shock diamond are clearly visible, the extreme heat of the operating thrust chamber is clearly seen in the IR image. While in design, this engine is significant in that the fabrication and design technique used where able to produce a flight type thrust chamber for approximately one-tenth of the cost using tradition methods. These types of fabrication breakthroughs are an import element in reducing the cost of access to space.