July 2021
Nitrous oxide – a green propellant for commercial space exploration
...developed. A small thruster, Hecht used nitrous oxide as an oxidizer in combination with aqueous methyl alcohol (28 percent methanol) fuel. It was intended for military applications. The small bipropellant engine was never used in a weapon due to two...
June 2022
Protecting crews in interplanetary ships and space colonies from the space environment
... a squadron assembled in a package has an additional advantage. Testudo allows a single cooling centre for cryogenic components of rocket fuel and, due to the effects of scale, will provide the maximum specific power unattainable for a single rocket...
June 2014
X-51A Waverider, hypersonics, and the potential of airbreathing engines
...accelerated the craft to a final speed of Mach 5.1 before all fuel was exhausted and X-51A coasted to a programmed impact in the ... longlived engine that burns a petroleum-based jet fuel while surviving the intense heat and extreme aerodynamic forces...
December 2014
From the green economy to green space
... further developed (there were only five satellite launches using solid-fuel rockets) and by order of the Russian President it was ... have been mooted and developed, for example non-toxic rocket fuel, or using energy from laser rays to move rockets. ...
October 2015
Japan’s H-IIA rocket: beautiful, accurate, and on-time
...around 15 years. Given its short life to begin with, the fuel consumed for a change in orbital plane is a considerable drawback ... heating by solar input during the coast. To minimize fuel consumption for engine chill-down before the third combustion, ...
July 2020
Key technologies for space exploration
...hellish combustion temperatures and pressures (often in excess of 3500 Celsius and hundreds of atmospheres) characteristic of high-energy fuels and oxidisers such as hydrogen and oxygen (as used in the Space Shuttle main engine, for example). Another...
