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2005 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and Concepts Enabling TechnologiesThe XR4A3 is a fully operational 1,780-newton(400-pounds-force), pressure-fed, regenerativelycooled, liquid oxygen and alcohol engine. Foursuch engines have been built and, combined, havebeen run 558 times for over 6,434 seconds. Theseengines have also been flown on the EZ-Rocket, amodified Long-EZ aircraft fitted with two of theengines. The EZ-Rocket has completed 15 successfulflight tests since July 2001, including twoflights at the Experimental Aircraft <strong>Association</strong>’sAirVenture 2002 air show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin,in July 2002.XCOR has built three smaller engines. A 67-newton (15-pounds-force) engine, designatedXR2P1, using nitrous oxide and ethane as propellants,was initially built to test the design of proposedlarger engines. With a cumulative burn timeof 103 minutes, this engine has completed in excessof 1,189 runs. It continues to serve as a workhorseengine for a wide variety of experiments, crewtraining activities, and educational demonstrations.The XR2P1 has run on oxygen and nitrous oxideoxidizers, with propane, ethane, kerosene, turpentine,and a variety of alcohols. The XR3A2 700newton (160 pounds-force) was the first LOX/alcoholengine, accumulating 61 brief runs in the courseof injector concept development, which led to laterengines. The XCOR XR3B4 regeneratively cooledengine is capable of a 220-newton (50-poundsforce)thrust, using nitrous oxide and isopropylalcohol as propellants. This engine has completed216 runs with a cumulative burn time of more than812 seconds. XCOR designed this engine for use asa maneuvering thruster on spacecraft. 29Propellant Production – AndrewsSpace, Inc.Andrews Space, Inc., ofSeattle, Washington, has proposeda propulsion/propellantsystem to generate LOX propellantfrom the atmosphere.The Alchemist TM Air CollectionGryphon with orbiterand Enrichment System (ACES)takes high-pressure air from turbofan jet enginesflying at subsonic speeds and liquefies it by passingthe air through a series of heat exchangers cooledby liquid nitrogen, liquid hydrogen, or both. Then,using a fractional distillation process, liquid oxygenis separated into its constituent parts and stored inpropellant tanks for use by liquid hydrogen and LOXrocket engines. Alchemist TM ACES allows horizontaltake-off and landing launch vehicles to leave theground without oxidizer, dramatically reducing theirtake-off weight, increasing payload capability, orboth. The company has proposed Alchemist TM ACESin conjunction with its two-stage-to-orbit RLV design– known as Gryphon – as well as for use in otherhorizontal take-off launch vehicles. Andrews Spacecarried out initial studies of the Alchemist TM ACEStechnology using internal funds, then under a NASASBIR contract. Detailed feasibility studies and riskanalyses were carried out under a NASA SLI contract.Andrews also participated on an integrated,cooperative NASA/industry team for the NGLTprogram to study the Gryphon architecture as oneof several promising concepts. The NGLT studiesincluded additional Alchemist ACES design andconfiguration studies. 30In April 2002, XCOR acquired selected intellectualproperty assets of the former Rotary RocketCompany. These assets included a 22,250-newton(5,000-pounds-force) LOX/kerosene engine developedand tested by the company as well as hydrogenperoxide engine technology. XCOR has completeddevelopment of their fourth-generation igniterwith integral valves and is now developing compositeLOX tank technology with inherent materialscompatibility and superior structural effectiveness.A piston pump suitable for use with LOX/kerosene,alcohol, or both, fuels is currently under developmentand will be merged with the XR4K5 engine.Federal Aviation Administration/Office of Commercial Space Transportation 29
Enabling Technologies2005 U.S. Commercial Space Transportation Developments and ConceptsIntegrated PowerheadDemonstrator – NASAIPD test at NASAStennis Space CenterThe Integrated PowerheadDemonstrator (IPD) is ajoint venture betweenNASA and the IntegratedHigh Payoff RocketPropulsion Technologies program,managed for DoD bythe AFRL at EAFB. Thisproject is the first phase of a full-scale effort todevelop a flight-rated, full-flow, hydrogen-fueled,staged combustion rocket engine in the 1.1 millionnewton(250,000-pounds-force) thrust class. TheIPD will employ dual preburners that provide bothoxygen-rich and hydrogen-rich staged combustion.Such combustion is expected to keep engines coolduring flight, achieve high system efficiency, andreduce exhaust emissions. Boeing’s RocketdynePropulsion & Power is developing the liquid-hydrogenfuel turbopump and the demonstrator’s oxygenpump, main injector, and main combustion chamber.Aerojet Corporation of Sacramento, California,designed and tested the oxidizer preburner, whichinitiates the combustion process with oxygen-richsteam. Aerojet also is responsible for development ofthe demonstrator engine’s fuel preburner, designed tosupply the fuel turbopump’s turbine with hot, hydrogen-richsteam. Boeing-Rocketdyne will lead overallsystem integration once component-level developmentand testing are complete. Integrated testing ofIPD is ongoing at Stennis Space Center from late2004 through September 2005.Hyper-X Series Vehicles – NASAOn March 27, 2004, fourdecades of supersonic-combustionramjet propulsionresearch culminated in a successfulflight of the X-43AX-43A/Hyper Xhypersonic technologydemonstrator, the first time a scramjet-powered aircrafthad flown freely. On November 16, 2004, anidentical scramjet-powered X-43A repeated this feat.Chemical rocket systems combust a fuel andoxygen mixture to produce thrust. By carryingeverything needed for combustion, these enginescan operate in the vacuum of space. Conventionalturbojets also burn fuel and an oxidizer, but the oxidizercomes from the atmosphere. Without the needfor oxidizer tankage, these engines are lighter thanrockets but cannot operate in rarified air or a vacuum.For vehicles intended to conduct powered flightfrom the Earth’s surface up to space and back, suchas RLVs, an engine capable of operating throughoutchanging atmospheric conditions is the idealpropulsion solution.NASA’s Langley Research Center inHampton, Virginia, has managed the Hyper-X programto develop air-breathing rocket technologysince 1997. The vehicle is the result of collaborationbetween ATK-GASL, which built the airframeand engine, and Boeing Phantom Works, whichconstructed the thermal protection system.Other technology efforts have flown scramjetengines, but those engines were permanentlyaffixed to the carrier rockets. Supersonic combustionramjets, or scramjets, are air-breathing engineswith no moving parts, similar to ramjets. Unlikeramjets, however, scramjets only operate at supersonicspeeds. The gaseous hydrogen burningengines of the X-43A were enclosed in a 3.7-meter(12-foot) long airframe and propelled the vehicle atvelocities of approximately Mach 7 and Mach 10.The 3.7-meter (12-foot) long vehicle is acceleratedto Mach 7 (for the first two flights) or Mach 10 (forthe third flight) by the first stage of an OrbitalSciences Corporation Pegasus XL launch vehicle.Then, the X-43A separates from the booster forindependent flight at high speed. 31 The whole stackwas dropped from NASA’s B-52B carrier aircraft.During this year’s successful flights, theNASA B-52 aircraft released the vehicle at an altitudeof 12.2 kilometers (7.6 miles) to reduce theaerodynamic loads on the control surfaces of thebooster. The X-43A was boosted to a test flight altitudeof 29 kilometers (18 miles) by a modifiedPegasus XL rocket. Then, it separated for a 10-secondperiod of scramjet-powered flight. The flightachieved a speed of Mach 6.83.The Hyper-X program not only proved thematurity of scramjet technology but also recordedvaluable environmental data on hypersonic flight.During the second and final X-43A flight inNovember 2004, a speed of Mach 9.8 was reached.The resulting vehicle skin temperatures of 3,600degrees Fahrenheit were far above the melting point30 Federal Aviation Administration/Office of Commercial Space Transportation
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