SBIR Phase II: Liquid Oxygen (LOX) - Methane Engine for Small Satellite Launch Vehicles

这个小型企业创新研究（SBIR）第二阶段项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是创建一个火箭发动机制造企业，为当前和未来想要向太空发射小型有效载荷的民用和军用火箭制造商提供现成的，廉价的和可重复使用的发动机。 目前只有两家老牌公司专门为其他大公司或军方提供大型发动机，生产成本超过100万美元。 越来越多的初创公司希望建造和发射小型火箭到太空，以提供气候传感，保护美国太空基础设施，并通过精确跟踪运输车队来加速全球贸易，以防止代价高昂的延误和事故。 然而，在许多情况下，需要进入太空的公司无法获得所需的发动机，因为它们对于这些目标来说太昂贵或太重。 拟议中的创新将通过以低十倍的单位生产成本提供轻型火箭发动机来缩小这一差距。 这些发动机的生产将推动制造业和技术人员的进步，提高经济竞争力，并支持美国国防。SBIR第二阶段项目建议对第一阶段建造的火箭发动机原型进行热点火测试，目的是证明该发动机的性能，可靠性，可重复使用性和可扩展性，以达到未来更高的推力水平。这项工作将证明和提高发动机在低/高功率水平和推进剂混合比下的性能，使迭代能够达到更高的性能。这项测试将首先进行燃烧装置测试（推力室组件和预燃室），然后是动力组（预燃室+涡轮泵）测试，以及完全集成的发动机测试。 这种测试和研发将导致部件级几何结构以及基础分析和计算流体动力学（CFD）非反应和反应模型的改进，包括CFD模型中的化学反应机制，在压力损失方面实现所需的部件级性能/该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project is to create a rocket engine manufacturing business that would supply off-the-shelf, inexpensive, and reusable engines for current and future civilian and military rocket builders that want to launch small payloads to space. There are currently only two established companies that offer large engines exclusively to other big companies or military at production cost of over $1 million. A growing number of startups wish to build and launch small rockets to space to provide climate sensing, secure U.S. space infrastructure, and accelerate global trade by precision tracking of transportation fleets to prevent costly delays and accidents. In many cases, however, companies needing access to space cannot acquire the required engines either because they are too costly or heavy for these goals. The proposed innovation will close this gap by offering a lightweight rocket engine at a ten-fold lower unit production cost. The production of these engines will advance manufacturing and the technical workforce, increase economic competitiveness, and support the U.S. national defense.This SBIR Phase II project proposes to conduct hot-fire testing of the rocket engine prototype built in Phase I with the goal of demonstrating performance, reliability, reusability, and scalability to future higher thrust levels for this engine. The work will demonstrate and improve engine performance at low/high power levels and propellant mixture ratios enabling iterations to higher performance. This testing will proceed with the combustion devices tested first (thrust chamber assembly and pre-burner), followed by powerpack (pre-burner + turbopump) testing, and full integrated engine testing. This testing and research and development will lead to improvements in part-level geometry and the underlying analytical and computational fluid dynamic (CFD) non-reacting and reacting models, including chemical reaction mechanisms in CFD models, to achieve required component-level performance in terms of pressure losses/rises and combustion temperatures.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.