초록 ▼

A rocket propulsion system for spacecraft achieves greater economy, reliability and efficiency rocket by incorporating monopropellant RCS thrusters (1a-1f) for attitude control and bipropellant SCAT thrusters (5a-5c) for velocity control. Both sets of thrusters are designed to use the same liquid fu

A rocket propulsion system for spacecraft achieves greater economy, reliability and efficiency rocket by incorporating monopropellant RCS thrusters (1a-1f) for attitude control and bipropellant SCAT thrusters (5a-5c) for velocity control. Both sets of thrusters are designed to use the same liquid fuel, supplied by a pressurized non-pressure regulated tank, and operate in the blow down mode. In the propulsion system such station keeping and attitude control thrusters may function in conjunction with a large thrust apogee kick engine, which may also be of the SCAT thruster construction, that uses the same propellent fuel. Hydrazine and Binitrogen tetroxide are preferred as the fuel and oxidizer, respectively. The new system offers a simple conversion of existing monopropellant systems to a high performance bipropellant dual mode system without the extreme complexity and cost attendant to a binitrogen tetroxide--hydrazine bipropellant system.

대표청구항 ▼

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] An attitude and velocity control propulsion system for a space craft comprising:monopropellent thruster means, said monopropellant thruster means, including a fuel inlet, for producing thrust in response to fuel supplied at said fuel inlet;bipropellant secondary combustio

[ What is claimed is:] [1.] An attitude and velocity control propulsion system for a space craft comprising:monopropellent thruster means, said monopropellant thruster means, including a fuel inlet, for producing thrust in response to fuel supplied at said fuel inlet;bipropellant secondary combustion augmented thruster means, said bipropellant secondary combustion augmented thruster means including a fuel inlet and an oxidizer inlet for producing a thrust responsive to both fuel supplied at said inlet and oxidizer supplied simultaneously at said oxidizer inlet and for producing a lesser thrust responsive to fuel supplied at said fuel inlet;fuel tank means for storing propellant fuel in liquid form;oxidizer tank means for storing propellant oxidizer in liquid form;first valve means for coupling said fuel from said fuel tank means to said monopropellent thruster means;second valve means for coupling fuel from said fuel tank means to said bipropellant secondary combustion augmented thruster means;third valve means for coupling oxidizer from said oxidizer tank means to said oxidizer inlet of said bipropellant secondary combustion augmented thruster means;controller means for selectively operating said second and third valve means, wherein said secondary combustion augmented thruster means produces a thrust to change the velocity of said space craft, and for selectively operating said first valve means, wherein said monopropellant thruster means produces a thrust to change the attitude of said space craft.