• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.17 no.1
• /
• pp.1-8
• /
• 2013

A liquid-monopropellant hydrazine thruster has several outstanding advantages such as relatively-simple structure, long/stable propellant storability, clean exhaust products, and so on. Therefore hydrazine thruster has such a wide application as orbit and attitude control system (ACS) for space vehicles. A hydrazine thruster with the medium-level thrust to be used in the ACS of space launch vehicles (SLV) has been developed, and its ground firing test result is presented in terms of thrust, impulse bit, temperature, and chamber pressure. It is verified through the performance test that the response and repeatability of thrust are very excellent, and the thrust efficiencies compared to its ideal requirement are larger than 93%.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
• /
• v.3 no.1
• /
• pp.97-102
• /
• 2004

Propulsion System provides the required velocity change impulse for orbit transfer from parking orbit to mission orbit and three-axis vehicle attitude control impulse. KOMPSAT-2 propulsion system(PS) is an all-welded, monopropellant hydrazine system. The PS consists of the subassemblies and components such as Thrusters, Propellant Tank, Pressure Transducer, Propellant Filter, Latching Isolation Valves, Fill/Drain Valves, interconnecting propellant line assembly, and thermal hardwares for operation-environment control of the PS. This paper summarizes a development process of the liquid propulsion system from the design engineering up to the test and evaluation.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2017.05a
• /
• pp.838-842
• /
• 2017

The thruster valve, which is one of the key components applied to the mono-propellant system for the satellite, has a circular plate spring structure. It can be designed as a structure that does not have positional deformation and particles by friction and repetitive motion. In this study, finite element analysis and verification were performed by setting the width of the circular plate spring as a design parameter with the material, thickness and radius of the circular plate spring as fixed variables. The linearity of the spring constant is shown by the graph that is spring force with displacement. It is confirmed that the optimization design of the circular plate spring is possible by the spring force tendency according to the total area of circular plate spring.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.41 no.4
• /
• pp.299-304
• /
• 2013

The HAN which is an ionic liquid is a non-toxic monopropellant with high storability, and its specific impulse can be increased by blending methanol, thereby it can substitute the hydrazine. The HAN was synthesized by acid-base reaction of hydroxylamine and nitric acid, and the blending ratio of HAN and methanol is 8.2:1. The iridium catalyst was used to decompose the HAN, and 1 N class thruster with shower head type injector having one orifice was used to evaluate the HAN/Methanol propellant. The thermal stability of distributor was increased by using ceramic material to endure the high temperature of product gas. The preheating temperature of catalyst should be $400^{\circ}C$ at least for the complete decomposition. The feeding pressure should be increased to increase the $C^*$ efficiency, thereby the decomposition performance was decreased upstream catalyst, and the performance of thruster was decreased. The fine metal mesh was inserted after the injector to improve the atomization of propellant, thereby it can settle the performance decrease problem. The phenomenon of performance decrease was remarkably improved owing to the insertion of fine metal mesh.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.47 no.9
• /
• pp.649-657
• /
• 2019

Hydrazine, which is used as a representative monopropellant, is an extremely poisonous substance and has a disadvantage that it is harmful to the human body and is very difficult to handle. In recent years, research on the development of non-toxic and environmentally friendly propellants has attracted much attention. Ammonium dinitramide(ADN) based propellant developed by Swedish Space Corporation has superior performance to hydrazine and has been commercialized through performance verification in space environment. On the other hand, the exhaust gas from a thruster nozzle collides with a satellite while it is spreading in the vacuum space, thermal load and surface contamination may occur and may reduce the performance and lifetime of the satellite. However, a study on the effect of the exhaust gas of the green propellant thruster on the satellite has not been conducted in earnest yet. Therefore, the exhaust gas behavior in space was analyzed in this study for the ADN based green monopropellant using Navier-Stokes equations and the DSMC method. As a result, it can be expected to be used as design validation data in the development of satellite when using the ADN based green monopropellant.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.1
• /
• pp.50-57
• /
• 2014

A ground hot-firing test (HFT) was conducted to take out the optimal design configurations for the thrust chamber of 70 N-class liquid rocket engine under development. Monopropellant grade (purity: ${\geq}98.5%$) hydrazine was adopted as a propellant for the HFT, and three kinds of thrust chambers having characteristic lengths ($L^*$) of 2.79, 2.95, and 3.13 m were selected for their performance evaluation. It is revealed through the test and evaluation that the increase of the $L^*$ leads to a performance degradation in the test condition specified, and pulse response performance of the development model shows superior characteristics to commercialized hydrazine thrusters.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.18 no.6
• /
• pp.19-26
• /
• 2014

A ground hot-firing test (HFT) was carried out to make a close examination into the pressure instability for the 70 N-class hydrazine thruster under development. Monopropellant grade hydrazine was adopted as a propellant for the HFT, and catalyst-bed was filled with $Ir/Al_2O_3$ catalyst. In order to investigate the effects of thrust-chamber diameter on combustion stability, evaluation tests for the development models were performed on three kinds of lower thrust chambers having the length-to-diameter ratio (L/D) of 1.03, 1.13, and 1.26. As results, it was found that low frequency instability (~ 50 Hz) was inherent in the models, and in addition, increase of the L/D and decrease of the operating pressure led to an amplification of pressure oscillation in the test condition specified.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2008.11a
• /
• pp.72-77
• /
• 2008

The function of the Reaction Control System include roll, pitch and yaw control of the launch vehicles and fine control maneuvers and precision upper stage orientation before separation of one or more payload. This paper describes the overview of commercial launchers, current technology trend for RCS of launch vehicles, and development status of medium class thruster for RCS.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
• /
• v.12 no.5
• /
• pp.26-34
• /
• 2008

The performance of several catalysts to decompose the high test peroxide (HTP) was described in this paper. Manganese oxide, Platinum and Iridium were coated on the gamma alumina. The catalyst activity as active materials was measured at the flask reactor. The response time of various catalysts was also measured with a 50 Newton class thruster. $Ir/Al_2O_3$ that showed the best activity in the flask reactor and response time at the thruster, failed the reaction when continuous mode test was carried out with the thruster. $Pt/Al_2O_3$ and $MnO_2/Al_2O_3$ can be substitutes to decompose the HTP. In addition, for larger thruster, $MnO_2/Al_2O_3$ can be a good catalyst because its cost is below 5 % of $Pt/Al_2O_3$.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
• /
• 2009.11a
• /
• pp.101-104
• /
• 2009

KARI have been started development process of hydrazine decomposition catalyst for monopropellant thsuter from 2004 in cooperation with Chonnam National University and Hanwha Corps. Through the various trial and error, a catalyst that satisfies all the properties for space propulsion system was developed in 2009 and then the life firing test and qualification firing test was completed. In this paper, we will describe the development process of catalyst, the physical/chemical properties of final product and brief test results.