SBIR-STTR Award

The DOD needs new rocket systems to support Kinetic-Energy-Kill Vehicle development, primarily in the areas of vehicle-divert and vehicle-boost. Conventional rocket approaches use solid propellants or hydrazine based systems. Solid rocket based systems are very inefficient and have extreme technical challenges in the area of hot-gas valving. Developing new hydrazine systems is becoming very difficult and expensive because of environmental/toxicity concerns. As an alternative, rocket grade hydrogen peroxide (RGHP) and an hypergolic fuel, using conventional non-toxic hypergolic miscible fuels (i.e. alcohols and ketones) with a homogenous catalyst, gives higher performance than solids, equivalent performance with hydrazine bipropellants and avoids the many technical and environmental difficulties of both conventional alternatives. In fact, the combustion temperature of these propellants is substantially lower than hydrazine bipropellants, making development and fabrication simpler. We propose looking at the development of a family of engine systems using these propellants. We have a good approach for doing this development. In particular, we will look at injector, cooling, and manufacturing issues.

The DOD needs new rocket systems to support Kinetic-Energy-Kill Vehicle development, primarily in the area of terminal-intercept divert propulsion. Conventional rocket approaches use solid or hydrazine based propellants. Solid rocket systems are very inefficient and have extreme technical challenges in the area of hot-gas valving. Developing new hydrazine systems has become very difficult and expensive because of the environmental and toxicity concerns. As an alternative, rocket-grade hydrogen peroxide and an hypergolic fuel, using conventional non-toxic miscible liquids (i.e. alcohols and ketones) with an homogenous catalyst, give higher performance than solids, equivalent performance with hydrazine bipropellants and avoids many of the technical and environmental difficulties of both conventional alternatives. In Phase I, we successfully developed and test fired a sub-scale engine. This engine performed as predicted, indicating that scaling-up to larger engines is feasible.In this Phase II effort, we propose to scale the engine up to the thrust level desired by BMDO for divert systems and to develop an engine system that is flyable. This technology has the promise to readily solve the very difficult problem of divert propulsion for KKV applications as well as many other DOD problems requiring rocket propulsion. This can be done at a substantially lower cost than with conventional approaches. In addition, this technology has commercial applicability to launch vehicles, spacecraft, and other endeavours that benefit from a rocket propulsion system.

Keywords:
LIQUID ROCKET, MISCIBLE PROPELLANTS, HYPERGOLIC PROPELLANTS, DIVERT PROPULSION, BIPROPELLANT ROCKET