Low Cost, High Performance Liquid Divert and Attitude Control Systems (DACS)

The most significant hardware costs on a missile interceptor propulsion system are associated with the thrusters, for which there are typically four divert thrusters and four, six, or eight attitude control thrusters per interceptor. Reducing the cost of the valve/injector for the bipropellant thrusters will result in a significant reduction of the interceptor propulsion system. Current high-performance divert and attitude control thrusters have integrated valve/injectors, which currently have long lead-times and high cost because of the serial manufacturing steps inherent with the valve and injector sharing a common body. Cost reduction of the valve/injector can be accomplished through design without sacrificing thruster performance. While maintaining the benefits of the integrated valve/injector, a study is proposed to design, build, and test hardware where the valve body and injector face are fabricated in parallel. The integration of the injector to the valve will occur after the valve and injector bodies have completed their individual fabrication steps, including drilling the injector orifices. In addition to the cost savings afforded by the parallel manufacturing steps, this design will allow laser-drilling of the injector orifices, which will reduce injector drilling times significantly.