Low-Cost and Light-Weight Transpiration-Cooled Thrust Chambers

The proposed effort aims to evaluate the feasibility of using transpiration-cooled Titanium as the primary material in small-scale thrust chambers for in-space chemical propulsion applications in the 25-5,000lbf thrust class. This approach would allow for bipropellant thrust chambers that are almost 10-times lighter and significantly less expensive than current state-of-the-art radiatively-cooled refractory metal (e.g. Iridium / Rhenium) systems. In addition, since they are actively cooled, the proposed approach will allow for higher chamber pressures, thereby providing further reductions in thruster size and mass for performance improvement.