Electrochemical propulsion for space exploration

This paper wants to explore the feasibility and convenience to couple an electromagnetic with a chemical thruster in order to exploit the modest propellant consumption of the first and the high thrust of the second. Coupling the advantages of electric propulsion and chemical allows an electric thruster to perform manoeuvers where higher thrust is required. In fact, in case of a electrochemical thruster that uses hydrogen as working fluid can be reacted with oxygen to get larger thrust increase, of course, for a time limited by mass of LOX (or GOX) on board. While in principle this is feasible, in practice, several points must be considered: in particular, those related to chemical propulsion, that is, mixing between two fluids, reactivity at the low feed pressure, and of course the performance achievable. For this purpose, in order to preliminary estimate performance of this electro-chemical thruster in chemical mode when burning H2 with oxygen and at its same operative conditions of pressure and temperature, a theoretical analysis has been performed. This has shown that, combustion of H2/Ox at typical electric thruster pressures is possible with significant thrust increase, coupling the advantages of electric propulsion. © 2015 by A. Ingenito