Professional Documents
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AIAA-02-4184
Copyright 2002 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. All rights reserved.
develop a formal Aerospace System Design The opportunity was given to students to develop or
curriculum. Over the span of two semesters, improve vehicle subsystems and come up with
students go through the product development cycle, projects in their various disciplines. The base K-V
from requirement definition to the actual vehicle was powered by a 500 lbf thrust ablative
manufacturing and test of an aerospace product. engine and a group of students decided to develop a
This is accomplished using a Systems Engineering 1000 lbf thrust engine with a flat head injector in
approach in an integrated product team order to increase the thrust-to-weight ratio at take-off.
environment. Section 3 describes the Aerospace This is a pressure-fed system with the tanks
System Design curriculum in more detail. pressurized at 390 psi and a typical pressure drop of
For the 2001-02 academic year, the objective 90 psi across the face of the injector, resulting in a
was to develop and test a gimbaled 500 lbf thrust chamber pressure of 300 psi.
aerospike engine. This engine, if successfully The engine, developed over four months, was
developed and tested, was to power in May 2002 successfully static-fire tested on May 20th (Fig. 1) at
the third liquid-propelled rocket developed by the Mojave Test Area (MTA), site owned and
CSULB students, Prospector-3 (P-3). These project operated by the Reaction Research Society. The
topics were selected because of the renewed engine was tested on the Vertical Test Stand
interest during the now-defunct X-33 program for number 1 (VTS-1) and a thrust of 920 lb was
developing aerospike engines. Unlike the bell measured. Two weeks later, P-1 took flight and was
shaped nozzle, which is optimized for only one successfully recovered (Fig. 2). For the flights, the
altitude, the aerospike nozzle allows the flow vehicle tanks are only half filled and the system
expansion to adjust with altitude, thus leading to operates in a blow down mode.
higher efficiency at altitudes below the design point.
See Ref. 1 for a partial list of publications
addressing aerospike nozzle research and
development. This increase in thrust coefficient
below design altitude is particularly important for
Single-Stage-To-Orbit (SSTO) vehicles such as the
then-planned VentureStar which was to be based on
the technologies developed during the X-33 program.
As part of this program, Boeing Rocketdyne
developed the RS-2200, a linear aerospike, which
was static fired several times. However, no
aerospike engine is known to date to have powered
a rocket in flight after more than four decades of
research. The application of the curriculum, results
of tests and current project status are discussed in
Sect. 4. Section 5 presents a summary of the
Fig. 1. Student engine static fire test, May 20, 2001
lessons learned from the program.
2. Previous rocket engine development 2.2. Improved 1000 lbf engine and P-2 flight
This section presents experience gained by the Using a similar approach, another engine, this
team during the development of two conventional time using a pintle injector, was designed (Fig. 3),
1000 lbf rocket engines. These were designed, manufactured and tested during the Fall 2001
manufactured, and tested by CSULB students. In semester. The P-2 airframe and new engine were
contrast with the formal Aerospace System Design fitted to the VTS-2 at the MTA and successfully
curriculum where formal reviews, etc. take place, tested in Dec. 2001. The P-2 vehicle was then flown
these were developed in the framework of typical and recovered in Feb. 2002 (Figs. 5, 6).
student projects.
2.1. First 1000 lbf engine development
As part of the initial CSULB-GSC collaboration,
students assembled their first vehicle, the
Prospector-1 (P-1) during the Spring 2001 semester.
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Fig. 5. P-2 before flight, Feb. 2001
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through the entire product development cycle, albeit member or industry advisor who is a specialist in
at a faster pace and in less depth as would be done his/her area.
in industry. Yet, most formal steps of an aerospace Faculty and industry advisors complement the
program are included, following a systems basic aerospace curriculum by lectures specific to
engineering approach. the problem at hand. They also play the role of
The outcome of the first semester is a consultants to the student team.
preliminary design review. From top-level system
4. Application to gimbaled aerospike engine
requirements defined by the customer (e.g. faculty,
or alternatively some industry partner interested the During the 2001-02 academic year, the
system being developed and willing to provide curriculum of Sect. 3 was applied to the development
expertise and mentoring on the topic), the students of a gimbaled annular aerospike engine. This section
perform functional analysis, define the various presents the project scope, main outcomes and
subsystems and derive their requirements. These deliverables. Thrust vector control system and
are presented at the Systems Functional and aerospike engine are treated separately.
Requirement Reviews (SFR & SRR). The methods 4.1. Scope
used for validation and verification are determined.
Specifications and Interface Control Documents The gimbaled annular aerospike engine project
(ICD) are generated by the student team(s). Several was selected by the faculty for two main reasons.
concepts are identified for meeting the First, the basic Prospector rockets are passively
requirements. Trade studies are identified and stabilized and their trajectory depends on wind force
conducted. The most promising concept is rapidly and direction. Removing this dependency would
selected and refined, leading to the Preliminary greatly enhance the performance of the vehicles.
Design Review (PDR). Second, to date, no aerospike engine is known to
A detailed design follows, culminating in a have powered a rocket in flight and the potential of
Critical Design Review (CDR), a Test Readiness being the first to do so would further stimulate the
Review (TRR, e.g. prior to a static fire test), and a interest of all team members. Fig. 7 shows the
System Verification Review (SVR, e.g. after all tests scope of the aerospace system design project as it
have been completed) and prior to launch. relates to the launch system. Initially, the gimbaled
engine was to be integrated into the Prospector-3
3.2. Format vehicle. While the complete aerospike engine was to
CSULB is an urban university of over 30,000 be developed as part of the course, the scope of the
students in which most students finance their thrust vector control (TVC) system development was
education through at least part-time employment. restricted to designing the mechanical actuation
As such, times convenient for all team members to system and defining requirements of the avionics
meet are rare and the class must be formatted in system.
order to ensure contribution of all team members to System level Components
the project. Therefore, the course is organized to Launch GSE Prospector 3 Payload
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throat insert and the spike rod and nozzle were
machined out of a single piece of graphite. The spike
was held to the injector face through a rod
approximately 3 long.
Tests and status
A water flow test was conducted to verify proper
impingement of the various flows (Fig. 13), determine
the actual pressure drop across the face of the
injector, and trim the feedlines for proper mass flow
rates. The pressure drop was larger than anticipated
(150 psi instead of 90 psi) on the fuel side because
of the complex fuel flow pattern inside the injector
(the fuel enters the injector from the center and must
Fig. 11. Solid model of the aerospike engine also reach the outer rim of the injector). Trim orifices
were added to obtain the proper mixture ratio.
A series of 16 split triplets was selected for the
injector with additional outer and inner film cooling
holes in order to reduce the erosion rate at the
graphite throat (the design throat gap is
approximately 4.5 mm). The drilling of the film
cooling holes was particularly challenging because
of their small size (0.022 for the inside and 0.016
for the outside, see Fig. 12). Also, the many
grooves and manifolds added to the time needed to
machine the injector.
The combustion chamber was sized to ensure
proper burning of LOX and ethanol. Like for previous
engines, an ablative chamber was made (silica
fibers and phenolic resin) with a steel outer shell.
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more information as to what changes to make in the
next version of the engine.
The test, however, validated the ignition
sequence and, for a few ms, the soundness of the
design. Students are already at work machining the
next injector and preparing the revised engine. A
static fire test is planned for the Fall 02 and, if
successful, will be followed by a launch of the
previously-flown Prospector-2 vehicle.
Plug failure
Fig. 15. Aerospike engine 200 ms after ignition
location
Interestingly, the graphite did not break near the
base of the injector where bending moments would
have been larger nor near the end of the rod
supporting the spike suggesting that bending was
probably not the cause of failure. Instead, having Fig. 18. Location of spike failure
used a very brittle material like graphite in tension
without additional support through the entire length 5. Conclusions
of the spike was probably the cause of the failure. The paper describes the California Launch
Analyses are currently being conducted to gain Vehicle Education Initiative and focuses on rocket
engine developments as part of the program. These
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engines all produce around 1000 lbf thrust and burn educational institutions by getting them involved in
ethanol with LOX at 300 psi in an ablative the project. For industry, small and large businesses
combustion chamber pressure. To date, three alike, such projects help enhance technical
different engines have been developed, two of which capabilities by leveraging university assets, allow for
employ conventional bell-shaped nozzles. The third low cost technology development and/or validation,
one, a 1000 lbf thrust annular aerospike engine, was and give employers the opportunity to recruit
developed as part of the Aerospace System Design students who truly understand the product
Curriculum at CSULB. In this curriculum, students development cycle and pick among the best.
go from requirement definition to the manufacture
Acknowledgements
and test of an aerospace product. In the case of the
aerospike engine, it was designed, manufactured The authors would like to acknowledge the
and tested over a one-year period. The static fire California Technology Trade & Commerce Agency for
test was successful for 200 ms after which the partially funding CALVEIN. In addition, they would
engine spike nozzle structurally failed, resulting in like to recognize the work performed by the student
an explosion of the engine. Nevertheless, the team on the design of the aerospike engine, and
program met its educational objectives and the more particularly Seth Quitoriano, Jeffrey Lang,
students are now improving the baseline design to Collin Corey and Brandy Irish. Finally, they would
be able to test a new engine in a few months. The like to thank John Engberg and Stanley Baksi for
engine will then be static-fire tested and, if their contributions to the TVC system.
successful, the test will lead to the reuse of P-2 for References
the first flight of an aerospike engine in the history of
rocket propulsion. In addition, the thrust vector 1. E. Besnard, H.H. Chen, T. Mueller, and J.
control system described herein will be static-fire Garvey, Design, Manufacturing and Test of a
tested and flown in the next few months as well. Plug Nozzle Rocket Engine, AIAA Paper No.
One of the other outcomes of the program is a 2002-4038, July 2002.
series of lessons learned which can benefit any 2. G. Angelino, Approximate Method for Plug
type of hands-on student project. Some of these Nozzle Design, AIAA J,. Vol. 2, No. 10, 1964.
may seem obvious but have been included for 3. H. Greer, Rapid Method for Plug Nozzle
completeness. They are: Design ARS Journal, April 1961.
The goals should be achievable, not only in
terms of technical skills required and
capabilities available, but also cost and
schedule
Having a schedule with measurable
outcomes and sticking to those
milestones is paramount
Students need not design/build/test
everything
The focus should be on incremental
improvements
Teaming with industry and get a hardware
kit can help jump-start a program
Students need experienced mentors, for
both technical and managerial
aspectsStudents put more attention and
effort into a piece of hardware which they
truly believe is going to be operated or fly
Beyond benefiting the students, such programs
based on industry-academia collaboration add great
value in other ways as well. At the university, such
programs can help expand research and technology
capabilities and foster collaborations with other
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