• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.119-143
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• 2021

Selecting liquid methane as fuel is a prevailing trend for recent rocket engine developments around the world, triggered by its affordability, reusability, storability for deep space exploration, and prospect for in-situ resource utilization. Given years of time required for acquiring a new rocket engine, a national-level R&D program to develop a methane engine is highly desirable at the earliest opportunity in order to catch up with this worldwide trend towards reusing launch vehicles for competitiveness and mission flexibility. In light of the monumental cost associated with development, fabrication, and testing of a booster stage engine, it is strategically a prudent choice to start with a low-thrust engine and build up space application cases.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.47 no.7
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• pp.517-524
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• 2019

A system design has been performed for a vacuum thrust 88 ton staged combustion cycle rocket engine. Previous research has been used to estimate the performance of the engine components. And the algorithm has been proposed to evaluate the converged engine system performance. The present methodolgy has been verified by comparing the published data for RD-180. The present work adopts the most of the previous KSLV-II engine heritage for both performance improvement and cost competitiveness. The combustion pressure has been decided as 12MPa considering manufacturing difficulty, cost and performance improvement, and as a result the vacuum specific impulse has increased by 23.4s.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.37 no.7
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• pp.717-728
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• 2009

In the field of rocket propulsion system hydrogen peroxide has been used as mono-propellant and as the oxidizer of bi-propellants. At the beginning, hydrogen peroxide was used as mono-propellant for thrusters, but later it had been replaced by hydrazine, which has better specific impulse and storability. On the other hand, to drive turbo-pumps, hydrogen peroxide is still being utilized. As the oxidizer of bi-propellants it was used until 1970's and from 1990's hydrogen peroxide once again got back to developer's interest, because one of the recent development purposes of rocket propulsion system is low-cost and ecologically-clean. Until now the storability of hydrogen peroxide has been remarkably improved. The combination of Kerosene/$H_2O_2$ also shows similar accelerating performance to Kerosene/$LO_x$ combination because of higher propellant density and higher O/F ratio, even though the propulsion performance is not as good as the combination of Kerosene/$LO_x$. Moreover, its combustion products are much cleaner than Kerosene/$LO_x$ combination.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.49-57
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• 2023

The autogenous pressurization has been widely adopted for propulsion systems of next-generation reusable rockets due to its low cost and high reliability. The autogenous pressurization has a simple structure, but an understanding of the heat and mass transfer occurring inside the tank is essential. For this reason, a simulation test of the autogenous pressurization was conceived. The experiment equipment was constructed based on overseas pressurization test facilities cases and expert advice. Unlike the actual autogenous pressurization system, the propellant tank was insulated to exclude external influences. The pressurized gas supply line and the propellant pipe were separated. Using the manufactured autogenous pressure experiment equipment, it is possible to evaluate the condensation phenomenon of pressurants in cryogenic propellants, comparison of the efficiency of pressurization using helium and evaporated gas and the pressurization capacity according to the temperature of pressurant.