Aerospace Engineering Commons^™

Practical Applications Of Pressure-Fed Lox/Ch4 Rocket Engines, James Susen Parks

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The University of Texas at El Paso Aerospace Center is working on a family of LOX/CH4 pressure-fed rocket engines. The applications of a pressure-fed rocket engine include orbital launch vehicles and lunar ascent and descent vehicles. This dissertation focuses on the application of the CROME LOX/CH4 engines under development at UTEP. The dissertation contains three chapters on orbital launch vehicles and a fourth chapter on lunar descent/ascent vehicles. The first two chapters look at pressure-fed LOX/CH4 orbital launch vehicle design compared to an electric pump fed and a gas generator vehicle. The third chapter looks at the sensitivities in the …