Novel Upper Stage Engine Cycle

ABSTRACT:Exquadrum, Inc. proposes to develop an innovative and advanced, low-cost, high-performance, cryogenic upper stage engine cycle.The SLATE engine is a modified dual-bleed expander cycle that maintains state of the art performance while enabling significantly reduced weight, size, and cost, increased reliability, improved operability, and scalability.The engine cycle enables lower pump discharge and system pressures for high-reliability and reduced weight.Additionally, the engine uses a thrust chamber and nozzle arrangement that overcomes the historical limitations of expander cycle engines inability to scale to high thrust.The proposed engine concept is significantly smaller and lighter than both historical and state-of-the-art engines.The low-cost thrust chamber provides improved stability over any existing conventional thrust chamber of comparable engine size.In Phase I, Exquadrum conducted trade studies to optimize the engine cycle, generated a vision engine conceptual design, and developed and manufactured the low-cost thrust chamber at full scale.In Phase II, Exquadrum will conduct full-scale engine testing of a section in pressure-fed mode in a systems engineering risk-reduction based development program to quantify performance and demonstrate the advantages of the engine cycle.BENEFIT:Anticipated benefits include significantly increasing the thrust-to-weight, while retaining high reliability and operability, and significantly reducing size and cost.Additionally, this engine cycle enables a scalability not possible with current engines enabling it to fulfill a wide range of applications.Potential commercial applications include the growing commercial launch industry, and their need for low-cost, high-performance upper stage engines.This engine cycle is ideal for the next generation of cost-optimized launch vehicles.