Location: Home > Space Propulsion
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Location: Home > Space Propulsion |
The modern flight proven rocket engines,thrust chambers and satellite thrusters featured in these pages were born from the theoretical analytical engineering skills of a highly specialised engineering team at Astrium's Ottobrunn and Lampoldshausen sites, Germany.
It is little known fact that the analytical engineering roots and heritage behind many western rocket engines can be traced to the Bavarian town of Ottobrunn. It was here, in 1959, that Ludwig Bölkow started the development of a staged combustion cycle rocket engine - the first rocket engine of its kind in the history of rocket development. This engine was also the first European engine to use liquid oxygen and kerosine propellants. By 1971, the Ottobrunn site had developed a diversity of rocket engines
designed for using high-energy cryogenic hydrogen and oxygen propellants.
It was this technology, derived from the HM-7
engine, that was licensed to the US Space Agency NASA for what formed the
basis of the world's first reusable rocket engine used on the US space
shuttle. The main theoretical disciplines for rocket engine design and engineering analysis applied at Ottobrunn include:
The above theoretical disciplines are supported by actual testing performed at Ottobrunn's sister site at Lampoldshausen, located within the German Aerospace Center, DLR, The Lampoldshausen team also supports the theoretical disciplines through the accurate and efficient simulation of propulsion systems for satellites, platforms, space probes and more recently, the Automated Transfer Vehicle.
Over the decades, actual test results have been a continuous input into the analytical models to yield highly accurate performance predictions for rocket engines using a variety of earth and space storable propellants. In turn, the accuracy of these models have been verified by actual test results and the repeated flight performance of commercial launch vehicles, satellites, platforms and interplanetary spacecraft. This heritage has enabled the design and analytical engineering of highly efficient rocket engines and satellite thrusters whilst minimising development effort and cost associated with overcoming such problems as combustion instability. The excellence of analytical engineering is supported by the design of rocket engine and thruster components using the latest state-of-art materials and production processes that assures a quality (performance, life and reliability) synonymous with 'Made in Germany'.
The introduction of Europe's Ariane launch vehicle programme gave additional impetus to the theoretical disciplines of the Ottobrunn and Lampoldshausen teams. The HM-7 upper-stage engine developed and produced in Ottobrunn contributed greatly to the successful maiden flight of Ariane 1 on Christmas eve in 1979. Otttobrunn's rocket engine heritage continued with Ariane's 2 to 4. Ariane 4 being noteworthy in having performed a total of 113 successful launches, placing 182 satellites into orbit. The last Ariane 4 flight number 159 was on 15 February 2003.
Preparatory to the retirement of Ariane 4, the Ottobrunn engineering teams continued their work into high performance rocket engines and thrust chambers, including the Vulcain main-stage cryogenic engine of Ariane 5 with a thrust of 135 tonnes (four million hp) and the upper-stage bipropellant engine - Aestus. Today, analytical activities at Ottobrunn continue into the latest state-of-art rocket engine thrust chambers. Such thrust chambers will be used for the future evolution of Ariane 5 with the Vulcain 2 main stage engine and the future Vinci rocket engine for the new cryogenic propellant upper stage of Ariane 5.
The skills of the analytical engineering teams at Ottobrunn have also been applied to the design and development of solar generators. These are used to produce satellite power from the sun. Today, Astrium Ottobrunn has become the market leader for solar generators. Using new production technologies, the company has not only succeeded in making these components more efficient, but also in making them less expensive to build. In series, Astrium, Ottobrunn has equipped 76 Globalstar mobile radiophone system satellites with a total of 152 solar generators as well as 365 Model CHT1 hydrazine thrusters.
As always, The Ottobrunn engineering teams, together with their colleagues at Lampoldshausen are continually working on space propulsion for tomorrow and beyond in such areas as electric propulsion, 'green' propellant rocket engines, advanced high performance propulsion using non-combustible propellants as well as reusable propulsion. Contact for Further Information
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