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being tested at NASA's Stennis Space Center, note the relatively transparent exhaust, this is due to this engine's use of hydrogen fuelA rocket engine is a reaction engine that takes all its reaction mass from within tankage and forms it into a high speed Jet engine, thereby obtaining thrust in accordance with Newton's third law. Rocket engines can be used for spacecraft propulsion as well as terrestrial uses, such as missiles. Most rocket engines are internal combustion engines, although non combusting forms also exist.

Principle of operation Most rocket engines produce thrust by the expulsion of a high-temperature, high-speed gaseous exhaust. This is typically created by high pressure (10-200 bar) combustion of solid or liquid Rocket propellant, consisting of fuel and oxidiser components, within a combustion chamber.

Liquid rocket typically pump separate fuel and oxidiser components into the combustion chamber, where they mix and burn. Solid rocket propellants are prepared as a mixture of fuel and oxidising components and the propellant storage chamber becomes the combustion chamber. Hybrid rocket engines use a combination of solid and liquid or gaseous propellants. Alternatively, a chemically inert reaction mass can be heated using a high-energy power source.

The hot gas produced escapes through a narrow opening (the "throat"), into a Rocket engine nozzles. The nozzle dramatically accelerates the gas, converting most of the thermal energy into kinetic energy. The large bell or cone shaped expansion nozzle gives a rocket engine its characteristic shape. Exhaust speeds as high as ten times the speed of sound at sea level are not uncommon.

A portion of the rocket engine's thrust comes from the unbalanced pressures inside the combustion chamber but the majority comes from the pressures against the inside of the nozzle. As the gas expands (Adiabatic process) the pressure against the nozzle's walls forces the rocket engine in one direction while accelerating the gas in the other.

The highest exhaust speed possible is highly desirable for rocket engines to minimise propellant usage. For aerodynamic reasons the flow goes sonic ("Choked flow") at the narrowest part of the nozzle, the 'throat'. Since the speed of sound in gases increases with the square root of temperature, the use of hot exhaust gas greatly improves performance. By comparison, at room temperature the speed of sound in air is about 340m/s while the speed of sound in the hot gas of a rocket engine can be over 1700m/s; much of this performance is due to the higher temperature, but additionally rocket propellants are chosen to be of low molecular mass, and this also gives a higher velocity compared to air.

Expansion in the rocket nozzle then further multiplies the speed, typically between 1.5 and 4 times, giving a highly collimated hypersonic exhaust jet. The speed increase of a rocket nozzle is mostly determined by its area expansion ratio—the ratio of the area of the throat to the area at the exit, but detailed properties of the gas are also important. Larger ratio nozzles are more massive but are able to extract more heat from the combustion gases, increasing the exhaust velocity.

Nozzle efficiency is affected by operation in the atmosphere because atmospheric pressure changes with altitude. For optimal performance the pressure of the gas at the end of the nozzle should just equal the ambient pressure; if lower the vehicle will be slowed by the difference in pressure between the top of the engine and the exit, if higher then this represents pressure that the bell has not turned into thrust. To maintain this ideal the diameter of the nozzle would need to increase with altitude, which is difficult to arrange. A compromise nozzle is generally used and some reduction in performance occurs. To improve on this, various exotic nozzle designs such as the plug nozzle, stepped nozzles, the expanding nozzle and the aerospike engine have been proposed, each having some way to adapt to changing ambient air pressure and each allowing the gas to expand further against the nozzle, giving extra thrust at higher altitude.

Performance Rocket technology can combine very high thrust (meganewtons), very high exhaust speeds (around 10 times the speed of sound at sea level) and very high thrust/weight ratios (>100) simultaneously as well as being able to operate outside the atmosphere.

Rockets can be further optimised to even more extreme performance along one or more of these axes at the expense of the others.

Net thrust Below is an approximate equation for calculating the gross thrust of a rocket engine:

F_g = \dot{m}\;V_{e} + A_{e}(P_{e} - P_{amb})Rocket Propulsion Elements seventh edition eq-2-14

where:

\dot{m} = \,exhaust gas mass flow

V_{e} =\,jet velocity at nozzle exit plane

A_{e} =\,flow area at nozzle exit plane

P_{e} =\,static pressure at nozzle exit plane

P_{amb} =\,ambient (or atmospheric) pressure

Since, unlike a jet engine, a conventional rocket motor lacks an air intake, there is no 'ram drag' to deduct from the gross thrust. Consequently the net thrust of a rocket motor is equal the gross thrust.

The \dot{m}\;V_{e}\, term represents the momentum thrust, which remains constant at a given throttle setting, whereas the A_{e}(P_{e} - P_{amb})\, term represents the pressure thrust term. At full throttle, the net thrust of a rocket motor improves slightly with increasing altitude, because the reducing atmospheric pressure increases the pressure thrust term.

Throttling Rockets can be throttled by controlling the propellant rate \dot{m}.

Note that because rockets choke at the throat, and due to the supersonic exhaust the pressure at the exit is ideally exactly proportional to the propellant flow \dot{m}, provided the mixture ratios and combustion efficiencies are maintained. It is thus quite usual to rearrange the above equation slightly:

F_g = \dot{m} . V_{e(vac)} - A_{e} P_{amb}

Where: V_{e(vac)} =\, the effective exhaust velocity in a vacuum of that particular engine.

In principle rockets can be throttled down to an exit pressure of about one-third of ambient pressure (due to flow separation in nozzles) and up to a maximum limit determined only be the mechanical strength of the engine.

In practice, the degree to which rockets can be throttled varies greatly, but most rockets may be throttled by a factor of 2 without great difficulty; the typical limitation is combustion stability, as for example, injectors need a minimum pressure to avoid triggering damaging oscillations (chugging or combustion instabilities); but injectors can often be optimised and tested for wider ranges.

Energy efficiency Rocket engine nozzles are surprisingly efficient heat engines for generating a high speed jet, as a consequence of the high combustion temperature and high compression ratio in accordance with the carnot cycle. For a vehicle employing a rocket engine the energetic efficiency is very good if the vehicle speed approaches or somewhat exceeds the exhaust velocity (relative to launch); but at low speeds the efficiency asymptotically approaches 0% at zero speed (as with all jet propulsion.) See Rocket#Energy efficiency for more details.

Cooling The reaction mass's combustion temperatures can fairly typically reach ~3500 K (~5800 °F) which is often far higher than the melting point of the nozzle and combustion chamber materials, two exceptions are graphite and tungsten (~1200 K for copper). Indeed many construction materials can make perfectly acceptable propellants in their own right. It is important that these materials be prevented from combusting, melting or vapourising to the point of failure. Materials technology could potentially place an upper limit on the exhaust temperature of chemical rockets.

Alternatively, rockets may use more common construction materials such as aluminum, steel, nickel or copper alloys and employ cooling systems that prevent the construction material itself becoming too hot. Regenerative cooling, where the propellant is passed through tubes around the combustion chamber or nozzle, and other techniques, such as curtain cooling or film cooling, are employed to give longer nozzle and chamber life. These techniques ensure that a gaseous thermal boundary layer touching the material is kept below the temperature which would cause the material to catastrophically fail.

The coolant methods include:

uncooled (used for short runs mainly during testing)

ablation walls (walls are lined with a material that is continuously vapourised and carried away).

radiative cooling (the chamber becomes almost white hot and radiates the heat away)

dump cooling (a propellant, usually hydrogen, is passed around the chamber and dumped)

regenerative cooling (uses the propellant to cool the chamber via a cooling jacket before being injected)

curtain cooling (propellant injection is arranged so the temperature of the gases is cooler at the walls)

film cooling (surfaces are wetted with liquid propellant, which cools as it evaporates)

In all cases the cooling effect that prevents the wall from being destroyed is caused by a thin layer of insulating fluid (a boundary layer) that is in contact with the walls that is far cooler than the combustion temperature. Provided this boundary layer is intact the wall will not be damaged.

Disruption of the boundary layer may occur during cooling failures or combustion instabilities, and wall failure typically occurs soon after.

With regenerative cooling a second boundary layer is found in the coolant channels around the chamber. This boundary layer thickness needs to be as small as possible, since the boundary layer acts as an insulator between the wall and the coolant. This may be achieved by making the coolant velocity in the channels as high as possible.

Mechanical issues The combustion chamber is often under substantial pressure, typically 10-200 bar (1 to 20 MPa), higher pressures giving better performance. This causes the outermost part of the chamber to be under very large hoop stress.

Worse, due to the high temperatures created in rocket engines the materials used tend to have a significantly lowered working tensile strength.

Safety Rocket engines are tested at a rocket engine test facility before being put into production.

Rockets have a reputation for unreliability and danger; especially catastrophic failures. Contrary to this reputation, carefully designed rockets can be made arbitrarily reliable. In military use, rockets are not unreliable. However, one of the main non-military uses of rockets is for orbital launch. In this application, the premium is on minimum weight, and it is difficult to achieve high reliability and low weight simultaneously. In addition, if the number of flights launched is low, there is a very high chance of a design, operations or manufacturing error causing destruction of the vehicle. Essentially all launch vehicles are test vehicles by normal aerospace standards (as of 2006).

The X-15 rocket plane Albert Scott Crossfield, with a single catastrophic failure during ground test, and the SSME has managed to avoid catastrophic failures in over 350 engine-flights.

Noise The Saturn V launch was detectable on seismometers a considerable distance from the launch site. As the hypersonic exhaust mixes with the ambient air, shock waves are formed. The sound intensity from these shock waves depends on the size of the rocket, and on large rockets can actually kill. The Space Shuttle generates over 200 dB(A) of noise around its base.

Generally speaking noise is most intense when a rocket is close to the ground, since the noise from the engines radiates up away from the plume, as well as reflecting off the ground. This noise can be reduced somewhat by flame trenches with roofs, by water injection around the plume and by deflecting the plume at an angle.

Chemistry Although rocket propellants require relatively high energy density (energy per unit mass) many common materials are more energetic. For example, petrol/gasoline or paraffin has as much energy as a typical rocket fuel and far more than the fuel/oxidiser mix used in a rocket engine. This is because the rocket propellant carries its own oxidiser. Fuels for automobile or turbojet engines, utilise atmospheric oxygen and can have much higher energy density.

Many rocket propellants use hydrogen in the propellant, as this gives the highest exhaust speeds (primarily due to the low molecular mass, but this is not the whole story) Newsgroup correspondence, 1998-99.

Computer programs that predict the performance of propellants in rocket engines are available. Complex chemical equilibrium and rocket performance calculations, Cpropep-Web.

Ignition With liquid and hybrid rockets, immediate ignition of the propellant(s) as they first enter the combustion chamber is essential.

Failure to ignite within milliseconds causes too much liquid propellant to be within the chamber, and if/when ignition occurs the amount of hot gas created will often exceed the maximum design pressure of the chamber. The pressure vessel will often fail catastrophically. This is sometimes called a Hard start.

Ignition can be achieved by a number of different methods; a pyrotechnic charge can be used, the propellants can ignite spontaneously on contact (hypergolic), a plasma torch can be used, or electric spark plugs may be employed.

Gaseous propellants generally will not cause hard starts, with rockets the total injector area is less than the throat thus the chamber pressure tends to ambient prior to ignition and high pressures cannot form even if the entire chamber is full of flammable gas at ignition.

Solid propellants are usually ignited with one-shot pyrotechnic devices.

Once ignited, rocket chambers are self sustaining and igniters are not needed. Indeed chambers often spontaneously reignite if they are restarted after being shut down for a few seconds. However, when cooled, many rockets cannot be restarted without at least minor maintenance, such as replacement of the pyrotechnic igniter.

Types of rocket engines {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-!water rocket is 582 [meters/1918 Foot (unit of length))|-!cold gas thruster|Ignitable, self sustaining solid fuel/oxidiser mixture ("grain") with central hole and nozzle|Simple, often no [moving parts, reasonably good mass fraction, reasonable Specific Impulse . A thrust schedule can be designed into the grain.|Once lit, extinguishing it is difficult although often possible, cannot be throttled in real time; handling issues from ignitable mixture, lower performance than liquid rockets, if grain cracks it can block nozzle with disastrous results, cracks burn and widen during burn. Refuelling grain harder than simply filling tanks, Lower specific Impulse than Liquid Rockets.|-!Hybrid rocket|Propellant such as Hydrazine, Hydrogen Peroxide or Nitrous Oxide, flows over catalyst and exothermically decomposes and hot gases are emitted through nozzle|Simple in concept, throttleable, low temperatures in combustion chamber|catalysts can be easily contaminated, monopropellants can detonate if contaminated or provoked, [Specific Impulse is perhaps 1/3 of best liquids|-!Bipropellant rocket|Rocket takes off as a bipropellant rocket, then turns to using just one propellant as a monopropellant|Simplicity and ease of control|Lower performance than bipropellants|-![Tripropellant rocket, improves payload for launching from Earth by a sizeable percentage|Similar issues to bipropellant, but with more plumbing, more R&D|-![Air-augmented rocket|A combined cycle turbojet/rocket where an additional [oxidizer such as oxygen is added to the airstream to increase maximum altitude] can be dangerous. Much heavier than simple rockets.|-!Precooled jets / Liquid air cycle engine (combined cycle with rocket)|Intake air is chilled to very low temperatures at inlet before passing through a ramjet or turbojet engine. Can be combined with a rocket engine for orbital insertion.|Easily tested on ground. High thrust/weight ratios are possible (~14) together with good fuel efficiency over a wide range of airspeeds, mach 0-5.5+; this combination of efficiencies may permit launching to orbit, single stage, or very rapid intercontinental travel.|Exists only at the lab prototyping stage. Examples include RB545, SABRE, ATREX|}

Electric heating {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-! Resistojet rocket (electric heating)] than monopropellant alone, about 40% higher.|Uses a lot of power and hence gives typically low thrust|-! Arcjet rocket (chemical burning aided by electrical discharge)]|Very low thrust and high power, performance is similar to Ion drive.] (electric arc heating; emits plasma)|Plasma is used to erode a solid propellant|High Specific Impulse , can be pulsed on and off for attitude control|Low energetic efficiency|-! [Variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket from 1000 seconds to 10,000 seconds|similar thrust/weight ratio with ion drives (worse), thermal issues, as with ion drives very high power requirements for significant thrust, really needs advanced nuclear reactors, never flown, requires low temperatures for superconductors to work|}

Solar heating The Solar thermal rocket would make use of solar power to directly heat reaction mass, and therefore does not require an electrical generator as most other forms of solar-powered propulsion do. A solar thermal rocket only has to carry the means of capturing solar energy, such as solar concentrators and mirrors. The heated propellant is fed through a conventional rocket nozzle to produce thrust. The engine thrust is directly related to the surface area of the solar collector and to the local intensity of the solar radiation.

{]|Propellant is heated by solar collector|Reasonably simple, good performance with liquid hydrogen propellant, adequate performance with in-situ water for short-range interplanetary flight|only useful once in space, as thrust is fairly low, but hydrogen is not easily stored in space, otherwise moderate/low Specific Impulse if higher molecular mass propellants are used|}

Beamed power {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-!Beam-powered propulsion|Propellant is heated by laser beam aimed at vehicle from a distance, either directly or indirectly via heat exchanger|simple in principle, in principle very high exhaust speeds can be achieved|~1 MW of power per kg of payload is needed to achieve orbit, relatively high accelerations, lasers are blocked by clouds, fog, reflected laser light may be dangerous, pretty much needs hydrogen monopropellant for good performance which needs heavy tankage, some designs are limited to ~600 seconds due to reemission of light since propellant/heat exchanger gets white hot|-!Beam-powered propulsion|Propellant is heated by microwave beam aimed at vehicle from a distance|microwaves avoid reemission of energy, so ~900 seconds exhaust speeds might be achieveable|~1 MW of power per kg of payload is needed to achieve orbit, relatively high accelerations, microwaves are absorbed to a degree by rain, reflected microwaves may be dangerous, pretty much needs hydrogen monopropellant for good performance which needs heavy tankage, transmitter diameter is measured in kilometres to achieve a fine enough beam to hit a vehicle at up to 100km.|}

Nuclear heating Nuclear propulsion includes a wide variety of Spacecraft propulsion methods that use some form of nuclear reaction as their primary power source. Various types of nuclear propulsion have been proposed, and some of them tested, for spacecraft applications:

{] (radioactive decay energy)|Heat from radioactive decay is used to heat hydrogen|about 700-800 seconds, almost no moving parts|low thrust/weight ratio|-! Nuclear thermal rocket (nuclear fission energy)] can be high, perhaps 900 seconds or more, above unity thrust/weight ratio with some designs|Maximum temperature is limited by materials technology, some radioactive particles can be present in exhaust in some designs, nuclear reactor shielding is heavy, unlikely to be permitted from surface of the Earth, thrust/weight ratio is not high|-! Gas core reactor rocket (nuclear fission energy)] between 1500 and 3000 seconds but with very high thrust|difficulties in heating propellant without losing fissionables in exhaust, exhaust inherently highly radioactive, massive thermal issues particularly for nozzle/throat region|-! Fission-fragment rocket (nuclear fission energy)] (nuclear fission energy)|A sail material is coated with fissionable material on one side|No moving parts, works in deep space|Theoretical only at this point|-! Nuclear salt-water rocket (nuclear fission energy)], very high thrust|Thermal issues in nozzle, propellant could be unstable, highly radioactive exhaust. Theoretical only at this point|-! Nuclear pulse propulsion (exploding fission/fusion bombs)], very high thrust/weight ratio, no show stoppers are known for this technology|Never been tested, pusher plate may throw off fragments due to shock, minimum size for nuclear bombs is still pretty big, expensive at small scales, nuclear treaty issues|-! Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion (fission and/or fusion energy)] (nuclear fusion energy)|Fusion is used to heat propellant|Very high exhaust velocity|Largely beyond current state of the art|-! Antimatter rocket (annihilation energy)|Antimatter reaction is used to heat propellant|Extremely energetic, very high exhaust velocity is possible on paper|Antimatter containment issues, thermal issues, beyond current state of the art.|}

History of rocket engines According to the writings of the Roman Aulus Gellius, in c. 400 BC, a Greek people Pythagorean named Archytas, propelled a wooden bird along wires using steam.Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Author and his Achievement (Oxford University Press; revised paperback edn. 2005)

• However, it would not appear to have been powerful enough to take off under its own thrust.

The aeolipile invented in the 1st century (known as Hero's engine) was a rocket engine and the first recorded steam engine. It essentially consists of a hot water rocket on a bearing. It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Apparently Hero's steam engine was taken to be little more than a toy, the principles behind it were not well understood, and its full potential not realized for a millennium.

The availability of black powder to propel projectiles was a precursor to the development of the first solid rocket. 9th century Chinese people Taoist Alchemy discovered black powder in a search for the Elixir of life; this accidental discovery led to fire arrows which were the first rocket engines to leave the ground.

Slow development of this technology continued up to the later 20th Century, when the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first talked about liquid rocket.

These independently became a reality thanks to Robert Goddard (scientist).

References See also

• NERVA - NASA's Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications, a US nuclear thermal rocket programme
• Project Prometheus, NASA development of nuclear propulsion for long-duration spaceflight, begun in 2003

External Links

• Designing for rocket engine life expectancy
• Rocket Engine performance analysis with Plume Spectrometry
• Rocket Engine Thrust Chamber technical article

being tested at NASA's Stennis Space Center, note the relatively transparent exhaust, this is due to this engine's use of hydrogen fuelA rocket engine is a reaction engine that takes all its reaction mass from within tankage and forms it into a high speed Jet engine, thereby obtaining thrust in accordance with Newton's third law. Rocket engines can be used for spacecraft propulsion as well as terrestrial uses, such as missiles. Most rocket engines are internal combustion engines, although non combusting forms also exist.

Principle of operation Most rocket engines produce thrust by the expulsion of a high-temperature, high-speed gaseous exhaust. This is typically created by high pressure (10-200 bar) combustion of solid or liquid Rocket propellant, consisting of fuel and oxidiser components, within a combustion chamber.

Liquid rocket typically pump separate fuel and oxidiser components into the combustion chamber, where they mix and burn. Solid rocket propellants are prepared as a mixture of fuel and oxidising components and the propellant storage chamber becomes the combustion chamber. Hybrid rocket engines use a combination of solid and liquid or gaseous propellants. Alternatively, a chemically inert reaction mass can be heated using a high-energy power source.

The hot gas produced escapes through a narrow opening (the "throat"), into a Rocket engine nozzles. The nozzle dramatically accelerates the gas, converting most of the thermal energy into kinetic energy. The large bell or cone shaped expansion nozzle gives a rocket engine its characteristic shape. Exhaust speeds as high as ten times the speed of sound at sea level are not uncommon.

A portion of the rocket engine's thrust comes from the unbalanced pressures inside the combustion chamber but the majority comes from the pressures against the inside of the nozzle. As the gas expands (Adiabatic process) the pressure against the nozzle's walls forces the rocket engine in one direction while accelerating the gas in the other.

The highest exhaust speed possible is highly desirable for rocket engines to minimise propellant usage. For aerodynamic reasons the flow goes sonic ("Choked flow") at the narrowest part of the nozzle, the 'throat'. Since the speed of sound in gases increases with the square root of temperature, the use of hot exhaust gas greatly improves performance. By comparison, at room temperature the speed of sound in air is about 340m/s while the speed of sound in the hot gas of a rocket engine can be over 1700m/s; much of this performance is due to the higher temperature, but additionally rocket propellants are chosen to be of low molecular mass, and this also gives a higher velocity compared to air.

Expansion in the rocket nozzle then further multiplies the speed, typically between 1.5 and 4 times, giving a highly collimated hypersonic exhaust jet. The speed increase of a rocket nozzle is mostly determined by its area expansion ratio—the ratio of the area of the throat to the area at the exit, but detailed properties of the gas are also important. Larger ratio nozzles are more massive but are able to extract more heat from the combustion gases, increasing the exhaust velocity.

Nozzle efficiency is affected by operation in the atmosphere because atmospheric pressure changes with altitude. For optimal performance the pressure of the gas at the end of the nozzle should just equal the ambient pressure; if lower the vehicle will be slowed by the difference in pressure between the top of the engine and the exit, if higher then this represents pressure that the bell has not turned into thrust. To maintain this ideal the diameter of the nozzle would need to increase with altitude, which is difficult to arrange. A compromise nozzle is generally used and some reduction in performance occurs. To improve on this, various exotic nozzle designs such as the plug nozzle, stepped nozzles, the expanding nozzle and the aerospike engine have been proposed, each having some way to adapt to changing ambient air pressure and each allowing the gas to expand further against the nozzle, giving extra thrust at higher altitude.

Performance Rocket technology can combine very high thrust (meganewtons), very high exhaust speeds (around 10 times the speed of sound at sea level) and very high thrust/weight ratios (>100) simultaneously as well as being able to operate outside the atmosphere.

Rockets can be further optimised to even more extreme performance along one or more of these axes at the expense of the others.

Net thrust Below is an approximate equation for calculating the gross thrust of a rocket engine:

F_g = \dot{m}\;V_{e} + A_{e}(P_{e} - P_{amb})Rocket Propulsion Elements seventh edition eq-2-14

where:

\dot{m} = \,exhaust gas mass flow

V_{e} =\,jet velocity at nozzle exit plane

A_{e} =\,flow area at nozzle exit plane

P_{e} =\,static pressure at nozzle exit plane

P_{amb} =\,ambient (or atmospheric) pressure

Since, unlike a jet engine, a conventional rocket motor lacks an air intake, there is no 'ram drag' to deduct from the gross thrust. Consequently the net thrust of a rocket motor is equal the gross thrust.

The \dot{m}\;V_{e}\, term represents the momentum thrust, which remains constant at a given throttle setting, whereas the A_{e}(P_{e} - P_{amb})\, term represents the pressure thrust term. At full throttle, the net thrust of a rocket motor improves slightly with increasing altitude, because the reducing atmospheric pressure increases the pressure thrust term.

Throttling Rockets can be throttled by controlling the propellant rate \dot{m}.

Note that because rockets choke at the throat, and due to the supersonic exhaust the pressure at the exit is ideally exactly proportional to the propellant flow \dot{m}, provided the mixture ratios and combustion efficiencies are maintained. It is thus quite usual to rearrange the above equation slightly:

F_g = \dot{m} . V_{e(vac)} - A_{e} P_{amb}

Where: V_{e(vac)} =\, the effective exhaust velocity in a vacuum of that particular engine.

In principle rockets can be throttled down to an exit pressure of about one-third of ambient pressure (due to flow separation in nozzles) and up to a maximum limit determined only be the mechanical strength of the engine.

In practice, the degree to which rockets can be throttled varies greatly, but most rockets may be throttled by a factor of 2 without great difficulty; the typical limitation is combustion stability, as for example, injectors need a minimum pressure to avoid triggering damaging oscillations (chugging or combustion instabilities); but injectors can often be optimised and tested for wider ranges.

Energy efficiency Rocket engine nozzles are surprisingly efficient heat engines for generating a high speed jet, as a consequence of the high combustion temperature and high compression ratio in accordance with the carnot cycle. For a vehicle employing a rocket engine the energetic efficiency is very good if the vehicle speed approaches or somewhat exceeds the exhaust velocity (relative to launch); but at low speeds the efficiency asymptotically approaches 0% at zero speed (as with all jet propulsion.) See Rocket#Energy efficiency for more details.

Cooling The reaction mass's combustion temperatures can fairly typically reach ~3500 K (~5800 °F) which is often far higher than the melting point of the nozzle and combustion chamber materials, two exceptions are graphite and tungsten (~1200 K for copper). Indeed many construction materials can make perfectly acceptable propellants in their own right. It is important that these materials be prevented from combusting, melting or vapourising to the point of failure. Materials technology could potentially place an upper limit on the exhaust temperature of chemical rockets.

Alternatively, rockets may use more common construction materials such as aluminum, steel, nickel or copper alloys and employ cooling systems that prevent the construction material itself becoming too hot. Regenerative cooling, where the propellant is passed through tubes around the combustion chamber or nozzle, and other techniques, such as curtain cooling or film cooling, are employed to give longer nozzle and chamber life. These techniques ensure that a gaseous thermal boundary layer touching the material is kept below the temperature which would cause the material to catastrophically fail.

The coolant methods include:

uncooled (used for short runs mainly during testing)

ablation walls (walls are lined with a material that is continuously vapourised and carried away).

radiative cooling (the chamber becomes almost white hot and radiates the heat away)

dump cooling (a propellant, usually hydrogen, is passed around the chamber and dumped)

regenerative cooling (uses the propellant to cool the chamber via a cooling jacket before being injected)

curtain cooling (propellant injection is arranged so the temperature of the gases is cooler at the walls)

film cooling (surfaces are wetted with liquid propellant, which cools as it evaporates)

In all cases the cooling effect that prevents the wall from being destroyed is caused by a thin layer of insulating fluid (a boundary layer) that is in contact with the walls that is far cooler than the combustion temperature. Provided this boundary layer is intact the wall will not be damaged.

Disruption of the boundary layer may occur during cooling failures or combustion instabilities, and wall failure typically occurs soon after.

With regenerative cooling a second boundary layer is found in the coolant channels around the chamber. This boundary layer thickness needs to be as small as possible, since the boundary layer acts as an insulator between the wall and the coolant. This may be achieved by making the coolant velocity in the channels as high as possible.

Mechanical issues The combustion chamber is often under substantial pressure, typically 10-200 bar (1 to 20 MPa), higher pressures giving better performance. This causes the outermost part of the chamber to be under very large hoop stress.

Worse, due to the high temperatures created in rocket engines the materials used tend to have a significantly lowered working tensile strength.

Safety Rocket engines are tested at a rocket engine test facility before being put into production.

Rockets have a reputation for unreliability and danger; especially catastrophic failures. Contrary to this reputation, carefully designed rockets can be made arbitrarily reliable. In military use, rockets are not unreliable. However, one of the main non-military uses of rockets is for orbital launch. In this application, the premium is on minimum weight, and it is difficult to achieve high reliability and low weight simultaneously. In addition, if the number of flights launched is low, there is a very high chance of a design, operations or manufacturing error causing destruction of the vehicle. Essentially all launch vehicles are test vehicles by normal aerospace standards (as of 2006).

The X-15 rocket plane Albert Scott Crossfield, with a single catastrophic failure during ground test, and the SSME has managed to avoid catastrophic failures in over 350 engine-flights.

Noise The Saturn V launch was detectable on seismometers a considerable distance from the launch site. As the hypersonic exhaust mixes with the ambient air, shock waves are formed. The sound intensity from these shock waves depends on the size of the rocket, and on large rockets can actually kill. The Space Shuttle generates over 200 dB(A) of noise around its base.

Generally speaking noise is most intense when a rocket is close to the ground, since the noise from the engines radiates up away from the plume, as well as reflecting off the ground. This noise can be reduced somewhat by flame trenches with roofs, by water injection around the plume and by deflecting the plume at an angle.

Chemistry Although rocket propellants require relatively high energy density (energy per unit mass) many common materials are more energetic. For example, petrol/gasoline or paraffin has as much energy as a typical rocket fuel and far more than the fuel/oxidiser mix used in a rocket engine. This is because the rocket propellant carries its own oxidiser. Fuels for automobile or turbojet engines, utilise atmospheric oxygen and can have much higher energy density.

Many rocket propellants use hydrogen in the propellant, as this gives the highest exhaust speeds (primarily due to the low molecular mass, but this is not the whole story) Newsgroup correspondence, 1998-99.

Computer programs that predict the performance of propellants in rocket engines are available. Complex chemical equilibrium and rocket performance calculations, Cpropep-Web.

Ignition With liquid and hybrid rockets, immediate ignition of the propellant(s) as they first enter the combustion chamber is essential.

Failure to ignite within milliseconds causes too much liquid propellant to be within the chamber, and if/when ignition occurs the amount of hot gas created will often exceed the maximum design pressure of the chamber. The pressure vessel will often fail catastrophically. This is sometimes called a Hard start.

Ignition can be achieved by a number of different methods; a pyrotechnic charge can be used, the propellants can ignite spontaneously on contact (hypergolic), a plasma torch can be used, or electric spark plugs may be employed.

Gaseous propellants generally will not cause hard starts, with rockets the total injector area is less than the throat thus the chamber pressure tends to ambient prior to ignition and high pressures cannot form even if the entire chamber is full of flammable gas at ignition.

Solid propellants are usually ignited with one-shot pyrotechnic devices.

Once ignited, rocket chambers are self sustaining and igniters are not needed. Indeed chambers often spontaneously reignite if they are restarted after being shut down for a few seconds. However, when cooled, many rockets cannot be restarted without at least minor maintenance, such as replacement of the pyrotechnic igniter.

Types of rocket engines {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-!water rocket is 582 [meters/1918 Foot (unit of length))|-!cold gas thruster|Ignitable, self sustaining solid fuel/oxidiser mixture ("grain") with central hole and nozzle|Simple, often no [moving parts, reasonably good mass fraction, reasonable Specific Impulse . A thrust schedule can be designed into the grain.|Once lit, extinguishing it is difficult although often possible, cannot be throttled in real time; handling issues from ignitable mixture, lower performance than liquid rockets, if grain cracks it can block nozzle with disastrous results, cracks burn and widen during burn. Refuelling grain harder than simply filling tanks, Lower specific Impulse than Liquid Rockets.|-!Hybrid rocket|Propellant such as Hydrazine, Hydrogen Peroxide or Nitrous Oxide, flows over catalyst and exothermically decomposes and hot gases are emitted through nozzle|Simple in concept, throttleable, low temperatures in combustion chamber|catalysts can be easily contaminated, monopropellants can detonate if contaminated or provoked, [Specific Impulse is perhaps 1/3 of best liquids|-!Bipropellant rocket|Rocket takes off as a bipropellant rocket, then turns to using just one propellant as a monopropellant|Simplicity and ease of control|Lower performance than bipropellants|-![Tripropellant rocket, improves payload for launching from Earth by a sizeable percentage|Similar issues to bipropellant, but with more plumbing, more R&D|-![Air-augmented rocket|A combined cycle turbojet/rocket where an additional [oxidizer such as oxygen is added to the airstream to increase maximum altitude] can be dangerous. Much heavier than simple rockets.|-!Precooled jets / Liquid air cycle engine (combined cycle with rocket)|Intake air is chilled to very low temperatures at inlet before passing through a ramjet or turbojet engine. Can be combined with a rocket engine for orbital insertion.|Easily tested on ground. High thrust/weight ratios are possible (~14) together with good fuel efficiency over a wide range of airspeeds, mach 0-5.5+; this combination of efficiencies may permit launching to orbit, single stage, or very rapid intercontinental travel.|Exists only at the lab prototyping stage. Examples include RB545, SABRE, ATREX|}

Electric heating {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-! Resistojet rocket (electric heating)] than monopropellant alone, about 40% higher.|Uses a lot of power and hence gives typically low thrust|-! Arcjet rocket (chemical burning aided by electrical discharge)]|Very low thrust and high power, performance is similar to Ion drive.] (electric arc heating; emits plasma)|Plasma is used to erode a solid propellant|High Specific Impulse , can be pulsed on and off for attitude control|Low energetic efficiency|-! [Variable specific impulse magnetoplasma rocket from 1000 seconds to 10,000 seconds|similar thrust/weight ratio with ion drives (worse), thermal issues, as with ion drives very high power requirements for significant thrust, really needs advanced nuclear reactors, never flown, requires low temperatures for superconductors to work|}

Solar heating The Solar thermal rocket would make use of solar power to directly heat reaction mass, and therefore does not require an electrical generator as most other forms of solar-powered propulsion do. A solar thermal rocket only has to carry the means of capturing solar energy, such as solar concentrators and mirrors. The heated propellant is fed through a conventional rocket nozzle to produce thrust. The engine thrust is directly related to the surface area of the solar collector and to the local intensity of the solar radiation.

{]|Propellant is heated by solar collector|Reasonably simple, good performance with liquid hydrogen propellant, adequate performance with in-situ water for short-range interplanetary flight|only useful once in space, as thrust is fairly low, but hydrogen is not easily stored in space, otherwise moderate/low Specific Impulse if higher molecular mass propellants are used|}

Beamed power {| class="wikitable"!Type!Description!Advantages!Disadvantages|-!Beam-powered propulsion|Propellant is heated by laser beam aimed at vehicle from a distance, either directly or indirectly via heat exchanger|simple in principle, in principle very high exhaust speeds can be achieved|~1 MW of power per kg of payload is needed to achieve orbit, relatively high accelerations, lasers are blocked by clouds, fog, reflected laser light may be dangerous, pretty much needs hydrogen monopropellant for good performance which needs heavy tankage, some designs are limited to ~600 seconds due to reemission of light since propellant/heat exchanger gets white hot|-!Beam-powered propulsion|Propellant is heated by microwave beam aimed at vehicle from a distance|microwaves avoid reemission of energy, so ~900 seconds exhaust speeds might be achieveable|~1 MW of power per kg of payload is needed to achieve orbit, relatively high accelerations, microwaves are absorbed to a degree by rain, reflected microwaves may be dangerous, pretty much needs hydrogen monopropellant for good performance which needs heavy tankage, transmitter diameter is measured in kilometres to achieve a fine enough beam to hit a vehicle at up to 100km.|}

Nuclear heating Nuclear propulsion includes a wide variety of Spacecraft propulsion methods that use some form of nuclear reaction as their primary power source. Various types of nuclear propulsion have been proposed, and some of them tested, for spacecraft applications:

{] (radioactive decay energy)|Heat from radioactive decay is used to heat hydrogen|about 700-800 seconds, almost no moving parts|low thrust/weight ratio|-! Nuclear thermal rocket (nuclear fission energy)] can be high, perhaps 900 seconds or more, above unity thrust/weight ratio with some designs|Maximum temperature is limited by materials technology, some radioactive particles can be present in exhaust in some designs, nuclear reactor shielding is heavy, unlikely to be permitted from surface of the Earth, thrust/weight ratio is not high|-! Gas core reactor rocket (nuclear fission energy)] between 1500 and 3000 seconds but with very high thrust|difficulties in heating propellant without losing fissionables in exhaust, exhaust inherently highly radioactive, massive thermal issues particularly for nozzle/throat region|-! Fission-fragment rocket (nuclear fission energy)] (nuclear fission energy)|A sail material is coated with fissionable material on one side|No moving parts, works in deep space|Theoretical only at this point|-! Nuclear salt-water rocket (nuclear fission energy)], very high thrust|Thermal issues in nozzle, propellant could be unstable, highly radioactive exhaust. Theoretical only at this point|-! Nuclear pulse propulsion (exploding fission/fusion bombs)], very high thrust/weight ratio, no show stoppers are known for this technology|Never been tested, pusher plate may throw off fragments due to shock, minimum size for nuclear bombs is still pretty big, expensive at small scales, nuclear treaty issues|-! Antimatter catalyzed nuclear pulse propulsion (fission and/or fusion energy)] (nuclear fusion energy)|Fusion is used to heat propellant|Very high exhaust velocity|Largely beyond current state of the art|-! Antimatter rocket (annihilation energy)|Antimatter reaction is used to heat propellant|Extremely energetic, very high exhaust velocity is possible on paper|Antimatter containment issues, thermal issues, beyond current state of the art.|}

History of rocket engines According to the writings of the Roman Aulus Gellius, in c. 400 BC, a Greek people Pythagorean named Archytas, propelled a wooden bird along wires using steam.Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Aulus Gellius: An Antonine Author and his Achievement (Oxford University Press; revised paperback edn. 2005)

• However, it would not appear to have been powerful enough to take off under its own thrust.

The aeolipile invented in the 1st century (known as Hero's engine) was a rocket engine and the first recorded steam engine. It essentially consists of a hot water rocket on a bearing. It was created almost two millennia before the industrial revolution. Apparently Hero's steam engine was taken to be little more than a toy, the principles behind it were not well understood, and its full potential not realized for a millennium.

The availability of black powder to propel projectiles was a precursor to the development of the first solid rocket. 9th century Chinese people Taoist Alchemy discovered black powder in a search for the Elixir of life; this accidental discovery led to fire arrows which were the first rocket engines to leave the ground.

Slow development of this technology continued up to the later 20th Century, when the writings of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky first talked about liquid rocket.

These independently became a reality thanks to Robert Goddard (scientist).

References See also

• NERVA - NASA's Nuclear Energy for Rocket Vehicle Applications, a US nuclear thermal rocket programme
• Project Prometheus, NASA development of nuclear propulsion for long-duration spaceflight, begun in 2003

External Links

• Designing for rocket engine life expectancy
• Rocket Engine performance analysis with Plume Spectrometry
• Rocket Engine Thrust Chamber technical article

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