Porous Injector Concept for a Space Exploration Engine

Kurzfassung

Abstract. For soft landing on the moon or Mars deep-throttling rocket engines are an essential technology requirement. Highly reliable engines could be used for ascent as well as descent. A simple engine cycle with no required turbo machinery and without the thermal stresses of a regeneratively cooled combustion chamber can potentially achieve this reliability. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) currently develops a partially ceramic injector head. The current test bench version INJEX01 (INJector EXperiment) consists of concentric circular slits. The slits are alternating open (for use of gaseous fuel) and closed and filled with porous ceramics (for use of liquid oxidiser). The walls of the open slits can be axially moved, thus making the channel wider or narrower. Each slit may be operated individually. Thereby the mass flow through the injector can be regulated and the thrust can be modified. The paper focuses on the injector as a core component of an engine with deep throttling capability. It provides an overview over the current injector concept INJEX01. The current status and recent experimental results are described. This paper addresses near term feasibility and long term application scenarios of this engine concept, based on technology currently under development at the DLR.