Abdolrahim Rezaeiha
(Sharif University of Technology, Iran)

Cold gas propulsion system is one of the best choices to perform an orbit maneuver, with a small velocity change, for a microsatellite when the main criteria are simplicity, low-cost, and short time of development. The system main disadvantage may be low specific impulse which makes its application limited to low total impulse tasks. Therefore to increase the orbit altitude of a microsatellite, with a mass of less than 50 kg, for about 150 km with a velocity change slightly less than 50 m/s, cold gas propulsion system has been chosen. The system is designed to produce 1 N of thrust using N2 as propellant discharging from a nozzle located at the satellite center of mass. The system total mass is about 14 kg and it carries 5 kg of propellant in a full-composite tank. All the different parts of the system including thruster, tank, pressure regulator, fill/vent valve, isolation valve, etc have been designed and developed and are on the process of passing various functional and enviromental tests to qualify the space standards. In this paper, the design and the development of the flight-model cold gas propulsion system is reviewed in brief.

George Ianus
(The University of Tokyo, Japan)

With the purpose of determining the optimum injection configuration in the afterburner chamber of a pre-cooled turbo jet engine (PCTJ), CFD simulations are used to predict the combustion behaviour of H2-Air mixtures. By the use of experimental results obtained in evaluating the optimal injection configuration with regards to the optimum use of fuel, simulations are performed to determine the flame shape, ignition points, combustion efficiency and the minimum emission of pollutants for various angles of injection. A complex chemistry model is used to account for the H2-Air mixtures comprising 187 elementary reactions with 28 chemical species. PHOENICS is used as the CFD base with a RANS k-e turbulence model adapted to the advanced chemistry system of reactions via the CHEMKIN interface. Experimental data is recorded via CCD cameras on a small-scale afterburner model used in the Kashiwa hypersonic wind tunnel experiments of the University of Tokyo. Flame formation and combustion behaviour are observed in lean and rich injection cases. Detailed discussion on effects of injection configuration on the combustion and NOx emission characteristics are followed by combustion efficiency vs. experimental data plots for the various configurations with emphasis on the injection angles for upstream and downstream holes.

Takayuki Yamamoto
(JAXA, Japan)

IKAROS (Interplanetary Kite-craft Accelerated by Radiation of the Sun) was injected into the Venus transfer orbit by H-IIA rocket as a piggy-back spacecraft on 21st May 2010. IKAROS has newly developed Reaction Control System called Gas-Liquid Equilibrium thruster. Gas-Liquid Equilibrium thruster loads propellant as liquid state and eject as gas state. Gas-Liquid separation is important technology to satisfy the energy efficiency. This paper shows the development and operation result that this new thruster system work on good conditions at interplanetary trajectory compared to the prospect of performance.

Makoto Yoshida
(JAXA, Japan)

To reduce the transportation cost drastically and to expand the future space activity, innovative technologies are necessary such as reusable transportation system or highly reliable design technology. In order to realize this concept, the engines installed on the rocket should be characterized by reusability, long life, deep throttling and health monitoring features which have not yet been established in Japanese rocket engines. In this paper, concept of the reusable engine and other future engine technologies, and the current status of the research and development of the future rocket engines are described.

Sunil Kang
(Korea Aerospace Research Institute, Korea)

The first space launch vehicle of Korea, KSLV-1 NARO, had been conducted flight test twice in 2009 and 2010. The launch complex of KSLV-1 was also established and used for these flight tests. One of the important roles of launch complex is supplied propellants and gases under the operating conditions of launch vehicle. Launch complex for KSLV-1 can be supplied kerosene for fuel and liquid oxygen for oxidizer to the operation of launch vehicle. Also other gases, liquid nitrogen, gas nitrogen, gas helium, and air can be used to the operation of the launch vehicle and launch complex itself. All propellants and gases are controlled its quality critically through produce, transport, storage and finally supplied to launch vehicle under the quality management plan which was developed for launch operation based on KSLV-1 launch vehicle system requirements. In this paper, the authors introduce the quality control activities including quality requirements, quality management plan and quality management organization of high pressure gases regarding to KSLV-1 launch operations. Particularly, kerosene, fuel of launch vehicle, is not considered this paper because it has liquid appearance and need different quality management plan.

Hideo Sunakawa
(JAXA, Japan)

JAXA has begun to study the post H-IIA/B launch vehicle, called H-IIA/B evolution, which aims significantly reduced cost and higher reliability comparable to the man-rated mission, and it will carves out the future space transportation. LE-X is the booster liquid rocket engine for the H-IIA evolution, with high reliability, high performance and low cost The expander bleed cycle will be applied to the LE-X engine. In this cycle, hydrogen pumped by the fuel turbopump is partly directed to the main combustion chamber cooling channels and then used to drive the turbines. The turbine drive hydrogen bleeds outside of the engine. The LE-X engine will be the first booster engine in the world with an expander cycle. And in the LE-X program,we are trying to estimate the quantitative reliability of the liquid rocket engine based on the failure mode abstraction in the early design phase and the high fidelity computational simulation. The uncertainty of the simulation is confirmed mainly by the subscale elemental test to minimize the full scale engine system test. This approach will leads to less development cost for the high reliability rocket engine for the man-rated mission.