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Novel Rocket Tech to Propel Small Satellites Across Space

Los Alamos National Laboratory researchers have created a rocket motor concept called a 'segregated fuel oxidizer' to enable CubeSat satellites to zoom across space. These small, low-cost satellites are an easy way for scientists to access space, but are lacking in one major area - on-board propulsion. The team has successfully tested a six-motor CubeSat-compatible propulsion array. In the new segregated fuel oxidizer system, the solid fuel and solid oxidizer are kept completely separate inside the rocket assembly. Mixed fuel and oxidizer systems are much more common and significantly more unstable. "Because the fuel and oxidizer are separate," says Bryce Tappan, an explosives chemist at Los Alamos, "it enables you to use higher-energy ingredients than you could use in a classic propellant architecture. This chemical propulsion mechanism produces very fast, high-velocity thrust, something not available with most electrical or compressed gas concepts."

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    Transcript

    00:00:04 Bryce Tappan: One of the things that's most interesting to me is the emergent CubeSat architecture, which is a revolutionary low-cost access to space that's available to not only research institutions like Los Alamos National Laboratory, but many universities and private entities. A CubeSat is a small satellite that comes in a unit called a U, which is a 10-centimeter cube, and it's typically in the range of around a kilogram to a kilogram and a half per U. It's launched off of a common architecture called a cube satellite bus, and these are typically what are known as rideshares, or piggyback payloads, which are very cheap to launch, because most of that launch is being paid for by a large satellite or some other mission. Taipan: The rocket propulsion that we've been developing is a solid-base technology, but it differs from classical solid propellants mainly in that it's a completely non-detonable,

    00:01:07 much less hazardous propulsion technology, we call it the segregated fuel oxidizer concept, relies on chemistry that's been developed at Los Alamos and other institutions over the last number of decades that enables high-hydrogen, high-nitrogen storage in a solid, compact, volume-efficient package. Sound of Rocket Burn. Taipan: These materials, however, are very energetic. I like to think of them as just an energetic hydrogen Storage mechanism. And when you ignite them, then they will burn like a classic propellant and release that fuel, that will go into a section that has your oxidizer grain, and that hot fuel will cause that oxidizer to decompose and releases oxygen gas or oxidizing components that will burn the fuel, creating the bulk of your propulsion.

    00:02:01 Propulsion is desirable on cube satellites because it's an enabling technology that greatly expands the mission space of these small satellites. The National Academies recently identified propulsion as one of the primary categories of technology that needs to be developed to really cause these cube satellites to be breakthrough in science missions and move them beyond just simple university class projects. One of the low-hanging fruits of propulsion that we see for cube satellites, or small satellites in general, is a deorbit capability. We're very much getting inundated with space junk. I think NASA tracks about five hundred thousand individual pieces of space junk. And at some point in the future, the small satellites like this, if it doesn't have a

    00:02:53 compelling mission to NASA, could be banned. So if you could demonstrate a deorbit capability within a satellite, then getting approval to fly it will be much easier. Sound of Rocket Burn. We had a very successful firing of this motor array, so I think we're very close to being able to put this propulsion system onto a satellite for a simple demonstration of propulsion capability in orbit. My greatest ambition for seeing this propulsion system actually being implemented is in actual space flight. And a stretch goal is even something like propulsion to the moon, getting a small spacecraft either landing on the moon, or orbit around the moon.