18

III. Solid Propellant Rocket Motors

SOLID MOTOR DESIGN

Rocket engines can be fueled with either liquid or solid propellants. Solid rocket motors
have been used for hundreds of years and are generally much simpler in design than liquid
motors. In addition, all modern solid rocket motors generally operate in a similar way with
the differences between them being relatively minor and usually differences of magnitude
rather than differences of design and operation. For this reason,
the specifics of solid rocket motors will be discussed first.

Liquid propellant rocket engines are typically mounted at the

base of a rocket, and fed by fuel and oxidizer piped in from
tanks stacked above the engine inside the tubular body of the
rocket. Solid propellants cannot be piped into a combustion
chamber in this way; instead, the entire propellant-carrying
portion of the solid rocket is turned into one giant combustion
chamber. This arrangement is visible in the image of the Ariane
5 rocket to the right - a liquid propellant engine below a large
liquid propellant tank in the center, flanked by two large solid
propellant rockets.

As a result, the walls of the solid rocket are not thin and light
like the walls of a liquid propellant tank, but due to the pressure
and temperature inherent in any combustion chamber, they are
thick and heavily reinforced. These reinforced walls, often
called casings, are significantly heavier than the tanks of a liquid propellant rocket, and
this is a drawback of solid rocket motors.

Inside the body of the solid motor, a mixture of solid propellants is cast into a hard bonded
rubber-like cement. This mixture, called the grain, has a hole, called the bore, up the center
through the length of the motor from the nozzle all the way to the end, as shown in the
image below.
19

The cross section of a solid motor is a round doughnut shape with the casing and the grain
surrounding the bore. When the solid motor is ignited, combustion occurs on the
propellant surface exposed to the bore through the full length of the solid motor, and
burns outward toward the casing. A section of a
solid motor showing the casing, grain, and
circular bore is shown in the image to the right.

Only the exposed surface of the grain burns,

and the thrust produced by the motor is
dictated by the area of that exposed surface.
For a solid motor with a circular bore, the
thrust increases as over time, as the bore
becomes larger and the grain is hollowed out by
combustion until the exposed surface is nearly
the size of the casing itself at which point the
motor burns to completion and thrust drops to
zero.

THRUST PROFILES
The thrust profile of the solid motor describes how the thrust changes over the duration
of its use. A thrust profile which increases over time is called progressive, one which has a
decreasing thrust over time is called regressive, and once which is flat and stable for the
duration of the motor’s burn is called a neutral thrust profile. The thrust profile is a
function of the grain geometry - the circular bore shown above creates a progressive
thrust profile, while bore shapes which increase or decrease the exposed surface area on
the grain can be used to create various other thrust profiles. Shown below are example
grain geometries which can be used to produce varying thrust profiles. The circular bore
on the left produces a progressive thrust profile, the star-shaped bore in the center
produces a neutral thrust profile, and the cross on the right produces a regressive thrust
profile.
20

Using more complicated grain geometry, almost any thrust profile can be engineered.
Commonly used but not shown above are progressive-regressive profiles in which the
thrust first increases then decreases, and stepped profiles in which the thrust changes in
discrete steps.

BENEFITS AND HAZARDS

Because the propellant is stored inside the combustion chamber in a solid rocket motor,
there is no easy way to shut the motor off once it has been ignited. Liquid propellant
rocket engines can use valves to stop the flow of propellant into the engine, but solids
must burn to depletion. For this reason, solid motors are often considered more
dangerous. Failures are generally catastrophic. A report by the US Air Force assessing the
safety of a proposal to use the Space Shuttle solid rocket motors to lift a crew capsule
concluded that a solid motor failure would create a cloud of white-hot burning propellant
that would reach three miles in diameter within 20 seconds:

The capsule will not survive an abort… as [it will be] engulfed until water-impact by solid
propellant fragments radiating heat from 4,000F toward the nylon parachute material (with a
melt-temperature of 400F).

However, because they have virtually no moving parts and operate on the simplest of
mechanisms, solid rocket motors are generally much easier to develop and manufacture,
as well as cheaper than corresponding liquid engines. And the simplicity means that
failures are rare. In addition, solid propellant does not evaporate or break down over time
and so solid motors can be stored in a ready-to-fly state for years if necessary. The
simplicity and value make them useful, but the limited control options and specific failure
modes generally make them less suitable for use in human spaceflight.
21

IV. Liquid Propellant Rocket Engines

ENGINE CYCLES
Liquid propellant rocket engines are more complex than solid propellant motors due to
the inherent properties of liquid propellants, which cannot be formed, stored, or burned in
the same orderly way as solids. The problem of getting the liquid propellants to feed into
the combustion chamber is the primary cause of the increased complexity. This is a
difficult problem to solve because pressure inside a combustion chamber is extremely
high: the RD-180 engine which powers the Atlas V rocket has a chamber pressure of more
than 260 times atmospheric pressure - over 3,800 pounds per square inch. Propellants fed
into the combustion chamber must overcome the chamber pressure to flow into the
chamber at all, and thus the injection pressure must be even greater than the chamber
pressure. A simple drain leading from the propellant tanks into the combustion chamber
won’t do; the propellants must be driven into the chamber at very high pressure.

There are several ways to achieve the power necessary to reach the high propellant feed
pressure, and the various methods of doing so are referred to as power cycles. Most of the
power cycles involve the use of high-pressure pumps. Engines which use these are
referred to as pump-fed engines. Within this class of engine there are several variants,
each using a different power cycle to deliver power to the propellant pumps. But there is a
simpler cycle, called the pressure-fed cycle, which does away with the pumps entirely.
Instead, the propellant inside the tanks is pressurized and stored in a high-pressure state.
When the valves are opened, this high pressure forces it into the combustion chamber.
The division between pump-fed and
pressure-fed engines is the primary division in
liquid propellant rocket engines.

PRESSURE-FED CYCLE
In a pressure-fed engine, shown in the image
on the right, the fuel and oxidizer (shown in
red and blue respectively) go directly from the
tanks into the chamber, separated by only one
cutoff valve for each tank. The tanks are
connected to a tank of pressurant, usually
helium but sometimes other inert gases,
stored at very high pressure (shown in green).
22

This pressurant flows into the propellant tanks and pressurizes them. When the valves
open the pressure forces the propellants into the chamber. In order for the propellant to
flow into the chamber, the tank pressure must be greater than the chamber pressure. To
preserve this relationship, several compromises must be made both in the tanks and in the
chamber. Tanks strong enough to contain the high pressure propellants are heavy, and the
higher the design pressure, the stronger and therefore heavier the tank structure must be.
In addition, the pressurant tank must be large enough and strong enough to contain the
necessary volume of pressurant. The necessity of pressurant increases the system mass
overall, and higher pressures and larger tanks require a more massive pressurant system.
These factors place practical limits on the propellant tank pressure. Since the chamber
must operate at a pressure lower than that of the tanks, the limits on tank pressure also
limit chamber pressure. These drawbacks - the weight of the pressurant system and the
limit on chamber pressure - are significant, but are balanced against the attractive
features of the cycle.

The most beneficial feature is that pressure-fed engines require almost no moving parts to
deliver propellant to the engine, just a few valves. This saves weight and significantly
improves both the reliability and life of the engine, because there is hardly anything in the
loop susceptible to wear or damage. It also makes development relatively simple and
keeps manufacturing costs low. For entities without advanced technological and
manufacturing capabilities, this makes pressure-fed engines attractive. For example,
Robert Goddard first tested pressure-fed rocket engines in the 1920s, and the Third Reich
began designing and building pressure-fed rockets starting in 1933. In this cycle, throttling
is simple and requires only variable flow propellant valves: open the valve wider and you
will get more propellant and higher thrust. Pump-fed engines can require complex control
schemes to achieve even limited throttling while pressure-fed engines are well-suited to
wide throttle ranges. In pump-fed engines, the start sequence can involve a complicated
sequence of valve and throttle positioning, and sometimes external support, but
pressure-fed engines are usually started by simply opening propellant valves.

For these reasons, engines using this cycle are commonly used in mission-critical roles
where redundancy is impossible or impractical and where failure to perform exactly right
can mean loss of mission or loss of crew: the engines used by the Apollo lunar module for
descent to and ascent from the lunar surface were pressure fed, and so were the space
shuttle OMS engines used to de-orbit the vehicle in preparation for landing.

The Aestus engine on the Ariane 5 EPS upper stage on the next page is pressure-fed. The
propellant is stored in the yellow spherical tanks and the helium used as pressurant is
stored in the smaller black tanks. Due to their inherent strength, Spherical tanks are
23

commonly used to store

high-pressure fluids so
naturally are appropriate for
pressure-fed systems.
However, a collection of
spheres is difficult to pack
tightly together, and so
pressure-fed propellant
systems generally take up a
lot of volume and contain
large amounts of dead space
which might otherwise have
been filled with additional
propellants. Even in
non-spherical tanks for
pressure-fed engines, the requirement for strength tends to limit the size and shape of the
tanks, illustrated by the Orion service module on the left (with the helium tank visible in
the center of the four propellant tanks), and the space shuttle OMS pod to the right. In a
pump-fed system, the propellant tanks are generally much larger and fill the available
space.
24

PUMP-FED CYCLES
In most pump-fed rocket engines, there are two pumps: one for fuel and one for the
oxidizer. These pumps are located between the propellant tanks and the combustion
chamber, and they pull the propellants out of the tank and inject them at high pressure
into the chamber. The power to run these pumps is usually derived from a turbine through
which hot pressurized gas passes. As it passes through, the gas forces the turbine to rotate
at high speed. The turbine is connected to the two pumps by some mechanical means, so
that as it spins it causes the pumps to spin which drives the propellants into the chamber.
These pumps, connected to and powered by a gas turbine, are called turbopumps and
form the heart of the pump-fed rocket engine.

A common way of connecting the turbine to the pumps is to put them all on a shaft
running through the hub of the turbine and then through the hub of the pumps. One
consequence of the single-shaft design is that the fuel and oxidizer pumps spin at the same
speed, which is a limiting factor, as some engines require that the fuel and oxidizer pumps
to spin at different speeds. In these engines, a single-shaft design will not work and instead
a geared transmission must be used to deliver power from the turbine to the pumps, with
individual gear ratios determining the speed of each pump during operation. The BE-4
engine made by Blue Origin is an example of a single-shaft design. In the image below, the
layout is clearly visible on the model of the BE-4. The shaft runs right to left across the top
of the engine, with the turbine to the right of center and the fuel and oxidizer pumps to the
left of center. The fuel pump is to the far left and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos is pointing at
the oxidizer pump sandwiched in the middle.
25

Another example of a single-shaft

turbopump assembly is the Soviet NK-33
engine. In this engine, shown on the right,
the shaft runs vertically rather than
horizontally across the top of the engine.
The fuel pump is at the bottom of the
shaft connected to a fuel line; the
oxidizer pump is in the middle connected
to the large oxidizer line, and the turbine
powering both pumps is at the top of the
assembly.

EXPANDER CYCLE
The pump-fed section will start with a
simple example. In the expander cycle,
one of the propellants, usually the fuel, is
routed through channels in the wall of
the combustion chamber, where the
intense heat boils the liquid converting it
to a gaseous state. The rapid expansion
associated with the conversion of a liquid
into a gas drives the propellant through
the turbine which in turn drives the fuel and oxidizer pumps.

In the image to the right, the fuel and oxidizer tanks are shown
in red and blue respectively, with lines going to the pumps. In
these diagrams, pumps will be represented by triangles, with
the color of the pump signifying the fluid flowing through. The
blue oxidizer is routed from the oxidizer tank through the
oxidizer pump into the combustion chamber. The red fuel flows
from the fuel tank, through the pump on the left down into the
combustion chamber wall, which is hollow. This is represented
by the red jacket around the combustion chamber in the image.
The fuel flows around the combustion chamber and is
expanded by the heat as it boils and becomes gaseous. From
this point, the gaseous fuel flows away from the chamber wall,
shown by the line coming off the right side of the chamber, and
into a turbine on the right side of the image and colored in red.
26

The turbine is connected to the turbopumps by the single shaft oriented horizontally. The
expanded fuel which passes through the turbine drives the turbine and thus the pumps.
The layout shown here is a representative diagram only; real engine designs can vary
significantly.

The obvious question is how an engine using this cycle can start if it requires propellant to
be pumped through the system to drive the turbine which powers the pumps in the first
place. Starting a pump-fed engine can be complex, and so the topic has its own section
later in this document. In this section and the ones that follow, consider only an engine
already in operation, for the sake of simplicity.

The gaseous fuel that flows through the turbine is heated, but usually only mildly so. The
temperature of the gas flowing through the turbine is hot, but not in comparison to the
usual heat associated with rocket engines; the temperature of the expanded fuel is usually
no greater than the steam found on a home stovetop. This is much lower than the
combustion chamber, and the turbines of engines using other pump-fed cycles. The
simplicity and mild temperatures in the plumbing are useful features, but the expander
cycle is limited to a relatively low engine size because as engine size increases, fuel
requirements increase as well, and above a certain somewhat flexible limit so much fuel
flows through the walls of the combustion chamber that there’s simply not enough heat to
gasify it. For this reason, expander cycle engines are usually small and are not more widely
used.

There are many variations of this cycle. For example, instead of fuel, oxidizer can be used
to drive the pump, either by itself or alongside the fuel in two separate expander systems
with two separate pumps and turbines. And it’s not necessary for all the fuel to flow
through the expander system in this cycle - a split expander cycle can split off just a
portion of the fuel with the bulk of it flowing directly into the chamber rather than being
used to drive the turbine. In this case, the gaseous fuel can be either dumped overboard or
routed back to be injected into the combustion chamber.

Engines which dump some propellant overboard or out of the system before the
combustion chamber are called open cycle engines, while those in which all the propellant
passes through the combustion chamber are called closed cycle. Intuitively it is easy to
understand that closed cycle engines tend to be more efficient, as open cycle engines are
constantly pouring propellant out as if through a leaking hose. A closed cycle is generally
the more common variant for expander cycle engines.
27

COMBUSTION TAP-OFF CYCLE

In the expander cycle, the heat of the combustion
chamber is harnessed to provide the energy
necessary to drive the turbine The combustion
tap-off cycle uses the pressure inside the
combustion chamber rather than the heat for the
same purpose. Like the expander cycle, the
combustion tap-off cycle pushes a gas through the
turbine to turn the turbopumps. However, the gas in
this case, rather than being expanded gaseous fuel
or oxidizer as in the expander cycle, is hot
combustion exhaust straight from the combustion
chamber. This hot gas is shown in orange in the
image on the right. After being directed from the
combustion chamber through the turbine it is
dumped overboard. The engine in the diagram is a single turbine variant, with the
combustion tap-off gas flowing through just one turbine connected in a single-shaft
arrangement to the turbopumps. But other variants are possible; the BE-3 engine
manufactured by Blue Origin uses a dual-turbine design in which each turbopump is
connected independently to its own turbine. This is
visible in the image of the BE-3 to the left. One
turbine, turbopump, and turbine exhaust is visible in
front of and to the left of the engine, and the second
is just visible peeking out behind and to the right.

Unlike the gas flowing through the turbine in the

expander cycle, in the combustion tap-off cycle the
flow through the turbine comes directly from the
combustion chamber, the hottest part of the rocket
engine. The extreme heat from this gas is enough to
destroy the turbine, and so must be cooled before it
reaches it. This is usually done by injecting unburned
and unheated fuel directly into the flow upstream
from the turbine. To date all combustion tap-off
engines have used liquid hydrogen as fuel, which is
convenient because liquid hydrogen is cryogenic and
28

must be stored at temperatures below -253°C (-423°F) making it a highly effective

coolant.

The combustion tap-off cycle is an open cycle, as the turbine exhaust is dumped
overboard. Unlike the expander cycle, this cycle cannot be closed; the flow is caused
entirely by the differential in pressure between the combustion chamber and the ambient
pressure outside. Routing the exhaust back into the chamber would reduce that pressure
differential to zero and would halt the flow.

GAS GENERATOR CYCLE

imageWithout an external source of power to drive turbopumps, power can be drawn
from the combustion chamber. The expander cycle derives power from the temperature
inside the chamber, while the combustion tap-off cycle uses the pressure. In this way the
expander cycle and combustion tap-off cycle are related - they both rely on the main
combustion chamber for energy to drive the pumps. Beside temperature and pressure,
there is nothing else inside the chamber that can be used to power the pumps and so
rocket engine cycles outside these two must
produce that energy elsewhere. All the engine
cycles described from this point onward use a
variation of the same method: they route
some of the fuel and oxidizer through a
secondary combustion chamber and then, in
the form of hot exhaust, through a turbine
which powers the pumps. The specifics of this
process vary by cycle but the overall concept
is shared by all.

In the gas generator cycle, a small amount of

fuel and oxidizer is routed into the secondary
combustion chamber, called the gas generator,
where it ignites and becomes gaseous. This
gas, shown in orange in the image to the right,
flows out through the turbine and then is
dumped overboard. Because some of the
propellants are lost overboard without going
through the combustion chamber, the gas
29

generator cycle is an open cycle. The letters FR denote that the gas generator is operated
in a fuel-rich condition for the same reason that the combustion tap-off cycle injects fuel
into the line leading to the turbine: ideal combustion heats the exhaust beyond the
temperature at which a turbine can function. A fuel-rich condition means that there is
more fuel in the mixture than there is oxidizer to burn it. The exhaust from a gas generator
operating with a balanced mixture would destroy the turbine by heat even with modern
manufacturing methods and materials. The addition of extra fuel creates an imbalanced
condition inside the gas generator and leaves a large amount of incompletely-combusted
fuel in the exhaust. This remaining unburnt fuel acts as a regulator and heat sink to the
combustion process preventing turbine failure.

Like the expander cycle, the gas generator cycle has limitations imposed by the nature of
the cycle itself. Combustion chamber pressure inside the engine is limited by the pressure
of the propellants being pumped into the chamber - the pump pressure must be greater
than the chamber pressure to force the propellants into the chamber. Increasing chamber
pressure can be done only if pump pressure can be increased, and pump pressure is a
function of the mass flow rate through the turbine - higher mass flow rates give the
turbine more power which in turn is available to the pumps. In the gas generator cycle, a
higher mass flow rate is achieved by diverting more propellant into the gas generator. This,
however, reduces the efficiency of the engine, as the exhaust from the gas generator is
dumped overboard rather than used in the combustion chamber to generate thrust. Since
the rocket engine efficiency requirements allow only a small amount of each propellant to
be routed to the gas generator, the downstream effect is limited power from the turbines,
limited power to the pumps, limited pressure in the pump, and therefore limited pressure
in the chamber. The limit is typically much greater for a gas generator cycle than for a
pressure-fed cycle, but it is a limit nonetheless.

The gas generator exhaust pipe on the Merlin 1D engine used by SpaceX is visible in the
images on the next page nestled up against the right side of the combustion chamber. The
image to the left shows an engine on display, while the image to the right shows a
test-firing with the gas generator exhaust visible as a dark sooty mixture being dumped
overboard. The soot is the result of the fuel-rich operating condition inside the gas
generator. This sooty exhaust contributes a negligible amount of thrust to the engine as a
whole.
30

Engines using this cycle are relatively cheap to develop and maintain due to the modular
nature of the turbomachinery and the simple plumbing. The gas generator and turbine can
be thought of as an independent system apart from the combustion chamber and nozzle,
because it doesn’t require the presence of an actual rocket engine to be tested and
certified - all that is required are feed lines of fuel and oxidizer. This modular concept is
illustrated by the F1 below. The gas generator and exhaust appear to be simply bolted to
the side of the rocket engine,
piggybacking on as if a mere
afterthought. The turbine
exhaust in the F1 is routed
through the curved pipe for
cooling purposes, and the feed
lines are visible as large pipes
in the shape of a C and an I on
the right of the image. The
modular layout simplifies
development and testing and
allows for flexibility in the
design.
31

STAGED COMBUSTION CYCLE

Similar to the gas generator cycle, the staged combustion
cycle burns some of the propellant in a secondary
combustion chamber to provide the power to drive the
pumps. Unlike the gas generator cycle however, staged
combustion is a closed cycle: all the propellant ultimately
flows through the combustion chamber and out the nozzle
and none of it is dumped overboard. In order to achieve this,
the propellant is combusted in stages, as the name implies.

The diagram to the right shows an oxygen-rich staged

combustion cycle, in which the preburner, shown in orange,
runs in an oxygen-rich condition - denoted by “OR”. In the
staged combustion cycle the preburner is equivalent to the
gas generator in the gas generator cycle. In the diagram, the
fuel in red flows from the fuel tank through the pump and
into the combustion chamber, with a small amount of fuel
being tapped off for use in the oxygen-rich preburner on the
right side of the engine. Meanwhile, all of the oxidizer flows from the tank through the
oxidizer pump and on through the preburner. The full flow of oxidizer combusted with
only a small amount of fuel creates the oxygen-rich condition inside the preburner,
contrasted to the fuel-rich condition inside the gas generator discussed previously. From
the preburner, the hot gaseous flow composed mostly of unburned oxidizer passes
through the turbine, in the image above sandwiched between the two propellant pumps,
and then into the combustion chamber. The combustion temperature inside the preburner
gasifies the flow of oxygen and thus, unlike all previous cycles, the staged combustion
cycle has a gaseous propellant entering the
combustion chamber, rather than all-liquid.

Because turbine power output is a function of mass

flow staged combustion engines have more power
available to drive the propellant pumps than do gas
generator engines. While the gas generator engine
diverts a small amount of both propellants through
the turbine, staged combustion engines have a small
amount of one propellant, plus the entire flow of the
other propellant going through the turbine. The
32

additional power coming from the turbine allows staged combustion engines to pump
propellant at much higher pressures which in turn allows them to operate at much higher
chamber pressure than gas generator engines and therefore higher thrust levels.

Staged combustion engines commonly use a single-shaft design, as shown in the image on
the previous page. In that engine, a BE-4, the turbomachinery, arranged all on one shaft, is
oriented horizontally across the top of the engine above the combustion chamber. The
simplicity of the single-shaft arrangement is a key feature; combined with the high turbine
power output, and closed cycle, staged combustion engines tend to be more capable than
gas generator engines.

The Russian RD-180 engine in the

image to the right to the right is
another single-shaft staged
combustion engine. Many Russian
engines including the RD-180 use
multiple combustion chambers.
However, the RD-180 is
considered a single engine
because the two chambers are fed
by just a single turbine and
turbopump assembly. Placed
between the two chambers and
oriented vertically, the
single-shaft turboassembly has
the fuel pump at the bottom with
the fuel line coming off the left,
the oxygen pump in the middle
with the large oxygen inlet line
coming in from the right and
angling upward, and finally the
turbine at the top of the shaft.
After leaving the oxygen pump, the oxygen mixes and combusts in the preburner with a
small amount of fuel. In the preburner it is heated into its gaseous state and flows onward
through the turbine and then out of the turbomachinery and into each combustion
chamber. The pipe carrying the oxidizer and turbine exhaust is visible at the top of the
shaft and distinguished by the Y-shaped split which directs the flow to the twin
combustion chambers.
33

In a single-shaft arrangement, the fuel and

oxidizer share a single pump system. While each
has its own pump, the pumps themselves are
powered by a single turbine and all attached to
the central shaft through which power is
distributed to the pumps. The fuel and oxidizer
typically are segregated from each other by a seal
along the shaft. If this seal is not extremely robust
the propellants can migrate through it along the
shaft and cross to the wrong side. Any propellant
mixing of course can be explosive. For this reason,
the seals inside the turbomachinery are critical;
no leakage can occur. This hazard is peculiar to
single-shaft designs. Engines using multiple
turbopumps can potentially operate with looser
tolerances, for example, as each propellant has an
independent pump assembly so the propellants
are not in close proximity, and leaking fluids
simply end up on the outside of the engine and
pipes.

The diagram on a previous page shows an oxygen-rich staged combustion cycle, but a
fuel-rich cycle is also possible, as shown in the diagram above and to the right. In the
fuel-rich staged combustion cycle, the fuel is pumped from the tank into the preburner,
marked in the diagram as “FR” for fuel-rich. In the preburner, it is heated by combustion
and turned into gas. This gas exits the preburner, drives the turbine, and enters the
combustion chamber. The oxidizer is pumped directly from the tank, through the pump,
and into the combustion chamber, with a small portion of it going into the preburner to
burn just a small portion of the fuel, enough to heat the rest and turn it into gas. The
decision to use an oxygen-rich or fuel-rich preburner is dependent primarily on the choice
of fuel.

FULL FLOW STAGED COMBUSTION CYCLE

Like the staged combustion cycle, the full flow staged combustion cycle burns the
propellant in stages on its way to final combustion in the combustion chamber. In the full
flow staged combustion cycle, all of the fuel and all of the oxidizer pass through a
preburner and then a turbine on the way to the combustion chamber. This is achieved by
the use of two separate preburners and two separate turbines - one for fuel and one for
34

oxidizer. Engines using this cycle have a fuel side and an oxidizer side - with all the fluids on
the fuel side being either fuel or fuel rich gas, and all the fluids on the oxidizer side being
either oxidizer or oxidizer rich gas. The only exception to this is the small amount of fuel
and oxidizer that must be diverted across to get combustion in the preburners; without
both fuel and oxidizer no combustion can occur.

Because there are two separate preburners (one fuel-rich and the other oxygen-rich)
followed by two separate turbines, full flow staged combustion engines do not use a
single-shaft design. The conceptual diagram below shows the layout. The left side of the
engine is the fuel side, and the right side is the oxidizer side. The diagram is a conceptual
diagram only, not meant to show actual component positions.

From the fuel tank, most of the fuel goes through

the fuel pump, then through the fuel-rich
preburner, marked “FR” where a small amount of
oxidizer combusts a small amount of the fuel. The
rest is heated by the combustion and converted
into gas which passes through the turbine and then
enters the combustion chamber. The small amount
of fuel that doesn’t go through the preburner is
routed across to the oxidizer side.

On the oxidizer-rich side, the oxidizer leaves the

tank, passes through the oxidizer pump, then enters
the oxidizer-rich preburner. A small amount of
oxidizer is tapped off before the preburner and
routed to the fuel-rich side to burn in the fuel-rich
preburner. Inside the oxidizer-rich preburner, the
oxidizer is heated by combustion and gasified. This
oxidizer-rich gas then leaves the preburner, drives
the turbine on the oxidizer-rich side of the engine,
and then enters the combustion chamber, like the fuel, as a gas.

Because both propellants are gaseous when they enter the combustion chamber, they mix
more efficiently in the chamber and combust more thoroughly than in cycles in which the
propellants are still liquid when entering the combustion chamber. In addition, because all
the propellant flows through the turbines, more power is available to pump the
propellants to higher pressure, which allows very high chamber pressure.
35

ELECTRIC PUMP CYCLE

All the pump-fed cycles described so far derive the power to pump the propellant from
gas-turbines. Gas-turbines are used in the vast majority of pump-fed rocket engines
because they and their associated machinery are lightweight and powerful. But for
lower-power applications on smaller engines, batteries can produce the power needed to
drive the pumps. In the electric pump-fed cycle, the propellant pumps (notably not
turbopumps because they aren’t powered by gas turbines) are driven by small DC electric
motors fed from batteries onboard the rocket. Batteries and electric motors are heavier
than comparable turbomachinery, but are cheaper to develop and manufacture, don’t
require the complex plumbing that comes with gas turbines, and are extremely reliable
because they have very few moving parts.

In the diagram below, the battery in gray feeds power to an electric motor shown in gray
attached to the propellant pumps in red and blue. Like the other diagrams, this is
conceptual only; the only operational example of an engine using the electric pump-fed
cycle is RocketLab’s Rutherford engine which uses two independent electric motors, each
the size of a beverage can, one for each pump. Every pump-fed engine cycle requires the
rocket to carry the power source for the pumps onboard during flight. Turbopumps are
powered by propellant stored in the rocket’s tanks, but electric pumps need batteries,
which are generally less energy dense and heavier for the same amount of power.