Jacob Joseph Nunez-kearny

NASA NTRS2023

Reliable Ignition of LOX Methane Propellants in Thermal Vacuum Environment

The goal of this project is to demonstrate reliable ignition of liquid oxygen-liquid methane at thermal vacuum conditions using a coil-on-plug (COP) sparking exciter. Testing will be performed using EP’s Frost-Mint cryogenic propellant test stand, using an engine updated based on data collected from previous engine testing at Plum Brook Station, to determine conditions under which the cryogenic propellants will consistently and reliably ignite. In FY22 the project successfully completed the following milestones. The cryogenic test stand Frost-Mint was upgraded to include an integrated vacuum tube and liquid nitrogen cooling system enabling cold vacuum ignition testing. The Integrated GN2/LN2 Ultra-Low-temperature Enclosure (IGLUE), a custom-built close-coupled heater exchanger shroud was designed, fabricated, tested and integrated into the test stand. The vacuum tube and IGLUE enabled the thruster body and propellants to be conditioned to temperatures and pressures desired. This work recreated the no-light conditions experienced during vehicle-level thermal vacuum testing and obtained thruster performance data and ignition imagery.

liquid oxygen↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

R5-S2 and R5-S4 Preliminary On-Orbit Performance

The Realizing Rapid, Reduced-cost high-Risk Research (R5) project is a series of CubeSats that are intended to rapidly and affordably enable technology demonstrations in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). By accelerating the on orbit demonstration of technologies, it’s hoped that NASA programs and others will be able to infuse them more quickly and affordably. R5 is using an incremental development philosophy, where each spacecraft will feature improved performance over the previous. Each evolution of the spacecraft bus will be suitable for a variety of payloads. While each spacecraft will be built around a primary payload and mission, the intent is to then add on as many secondary payloads and objectives as possible.

Sam Pedrotty↗