A pulsed rocket motor is typically defined as a multiple-pulse solid-fuel rocket motor. This design overcomes difficulties shutting down and reigniting solid propellant motors. The pulse rocket motor allows the motor to be burned in segments (or pulses) that burn until completion of that segment. The next segment can be ignited on command by either an onboard algorithm or in a pre-planned sequence. All of the segments are contained in a single rocket motor case, as opposed to staged rocket motors. [1]
The pulsed rocket motor is made by pouring each segment of propellant separately. Between each segment is a barrier that prevents the other segments from burning until ignited. At ignition of a second pulse, the burning of the propellant generally destroys the barrier.
The benefit of the pulsed rocket motor is that, by the on-command ignition of the subsequent pulses, near-optimal energy management of the propellant burn can be accomplished. Each pulse can have a different thrust level and burn time, and achieve a different specific impulse depending on the type of propellant used, its burn rate, its grain design, and the current nozzle throat diameter. [2]
Solid rocket motors are prized in military for their long shelf lives, but at the same time some control of the burn is desired. For example, the range of a missile can be extended by separating the burn into two pulses, one starting at launch and the other much later in its journey. Doing so would reduce the velocity of the missile during the majority of the course, therefore reducing losses to drag. [3] The Chinese PL-15 air-to-air missile uses a dual-pulse motor. [4]
The American SM-3 surface-to-air missile uses a dual-pulse motor in its third stage, one before nosecone ejection, the other after. [5] The kinetic kill vehicle of the SM-3 also uses a multi-charge solid fuel design, though the fuel is used here to feed a gas generator. [6] [7]
A missile is an airborne ranged weapon capable of self-propelled flight aided usually by a propellant, jet engine or rocket motor.
A ramjet is a form of airbreathing jet engine that requires forward motion of the engine to provide air for combustion. Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds around Mach 3 and can operate up to Mach 6.
A solid-propellant rocket or solid rocket is a rocket with a rocket engine that uses solid propellants (fuel/oxidizer). The earliest rockets were solid-fuel rockets powered by gunpowder. The inception of gunpowder rockets in warfare can be credited to the ancient Chinese, and in the 13th century, the Mongols played a pivotal role in facilitating their westward adoption.
A hybrid-propellant rocket is a rocket with a rocket motor that uses rocket propellants in two different phases: one solid and the other either gas or liquid. The hybrid rocket concept can be traced back to the early 1930s.
Titan was a family of United States expendable rockets used between 1959 and 2005. The Titan I and Titan II were part of the US Air Force's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) fleet until 1987. The space launch vehicle versions contributed the majority of the 368 Titan launches, including all the Project Gemini crewed flights of the mid-1960s. Titan vehicles were also used to lift US military payloads as well as civilian agency reconnaissance satellites and to send interplanetary scientific probes throughout the Solar System.
A hypergolic propellant is a rocket propellant combination used in a rocket engine, whose components spontaneously ignite when they come into contact with each other.
A rocket engine is a reaction engine, producing thrust in accordance with Newton's third law by ejecting reaction mass rearward, usually a high-speed jet of high-temperature gas produced by the combustion of rocket propellants stored inside the rocket. However, non-combusting forms such as cold gas thrusters and nuclear thermal rockets also exist. Rocket vehicles carry their own oxidiser, unlike most combustion engines, so rocket engines can be used in a vacuum, and they can achieve great speed, beyond escape velocity. Vehicles commonly propelled by rocket engines include missiles, artillery shells, ballistic missiles and rockets of any size, from tiny fireworks to man-sized weapons to huge spaceships.
A propellant is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or another motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the engine that expels the propellant is called a reaction engine. Although technically a propellant is the reaction mass used to create thrust, the term "propellant" is often used to describe a substance which contains both the reaction mass and the fuel that holds the energy used to accelerate the reaction mass. For example, the term "propellant" is often used in chemical rocket design to describe a combined fuel/propellant, although the propellants should not be confused with the fuel that is used by an engine to produce the energy that expels the propellant. Even though the byproducts of substances used as fuel are also often used as a reaction mass to create the thrust, such as with a chemical rocket engine, propellant and fuel are two distinct concepts.
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.
The Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) was the first solid-propellant rocket to be used for primary propulsion on a vehicle used for human spaceflight. A pair of them provided 85% of the Space Shuttle's thrust at liftoff and for the first two minutes of ascent. After burnout, they were jettisoned, and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean, where they were recovered, examined, refurbished, and reused.
The Boeing AGM-69 SRAM was a nuclear air-to-surface missile. It had a range of up to 110 nautical miles, and was intended to allow US Air Force strategic bombers to penetrate Soviet airspace by neutralizing surface-to-air missile defenses.
The Titan IIIC was an expendable launch system used by the United States Air Force from 1965 until 1982. It was the first Titan booster to feature large solid rocket motors and was planned to be used as a launcher for the Dyna-Soar, though the spaceplane was cancelled before it could fly. The majority of the launcher's payloads were DoD satellites, for military communications and early warning, though one flight (ATS-6) was performed by NASA. The Titan IIIC was launched exclusively from Cape Canaveral while its sibling, the Titan IIID, was launched only from Vandenberg AFB.
The highest specific impulse chemical rockets use liquid propellants. They can consist of a single chemical or a mix of two chemicals, called bipropellants. Bipropellants can further be divided into two categories; hypergolic propellants, which ignite when the fuel and oxidizer make contact, and non-hypergolic propellants which require an ignition source.
Ullage motors are relatively small, independently fueled rocket engines that may be fired prior to main engine ignition, when the vehicle is in a zero-g situation. The resulting acceleration causes liquid in the rocket's main tanks to settle towards the aft end, ensuring uninterrupted flow to the fuel and oxidizer pumps.
A rocket engine nozzle is a propelling nozzle used in a rocket engine to expand and accelerate combustion products to high supersonic velocities.
Juno II was an American space launch vehicle used during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It was derived from the Jupiter missile, which was used as the first stage.
The Creative Research On Weapons or Crow program was an experimental missile project developed by the United States Navy's Naval Air Missile Test Center during the late 1950s. Intended to evaluate the solid-fueled integral rocket/ramjet (SFIRR) method of propulsion as well as solid-fueled ramjet engines, flight tests were conducted during the early 1960s with mixed success.
Rocket propellant is used as reaction mass ejected from a rocket engine to produce thrust. The energy required can either come from the propellants themselves, as with a chemical rocket, or from an external source, as with ion engines.
Aircraft engine performance refers to factors including thrust or shaft power for fuel consumed, weight, cost, outside dimensions and life. It includes meeting regulated environmental limits which apply to emissions of noise and chemical pollutants, and regulated safety aspects which require a design that can safely tolerate environmental hazards such as birds, rain, hail and icing conditions. It is the end product that an engine company sells.
The Solid Rocket Motor Upgrade (SRMU) was a solid rocket motor that was used as a booster on the Titan IVB launch vehicle. Developed by Hercules, it was intended to be a high-performance, low-cost upgrade to the UA1207 boosters previously used on Titan IV. Wound from carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer and burning a hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene-bound ammonium perchlorate composite propellant, it was an ambitious upgrade building on Hercules' experience developing a filament-wound case for the Space Shuttle SRB. Originally intended to fly in 1990, it instead first flew in 1997 due to a protracted development and lack of demand. The SRMU performed successfully on all of its flights.
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