Advancing Europe’s Hybrid Rocket Engine Technology with Paraffin and LOX

Abstract

Hybrid rocket engine technology has been advanced enormously at European universities, research institutions and companies in the last decade. New fuels like paraffin-based mixtures have been developed in order to increase regression rate which enables more compact engine designs with high thrust density. With this, the application of hybrid rocket motors has become feasible in several fields like sounding rocket and smallsat launch vehicle propulsion systems. The start-up HyImpulse is developing a paraffin-based hybrid rocket engine with 75 kN thrust in order to power a hybrid propulsion sounding rocket and smallsat launch vehicle. To reach a design of a high performing launch vehicle, it was identified as crucial to choose the best performing oxidizer for hybrid rocket applications: Liquid oxygen. HyImpulse has successfully developed a 10 kN hybrid rocket motor using paraffin-based fuels and liquid oxygen.