LOX/methane reusable rocket propulsion at reach with large scale demonstrators tested

Grand challenges in aerospace propulsion

“…Green monopropellants for space propulsion can offer reduced environmental impact and address safety concerns, an important challenge that is being addressed (Nosseir et al, 2021). In addition, space launch propulsion systems are under development by SpaceX (Raptor), Blue Origin (BE-4), and others that use liquid methane fuel (Neill et al, 2009;Boué et al, 2018) rather than liquid RP fuels, indicating that further innovation in conventional liquid-propellant space launch systems is coming in the near future.…”

First principles reaction discovery: from the Schrodinger equation to experimental prediction for methane pyrolysis

“…Recently, there has been a revival of interest in methane and liquied natural gas (LNG) as potential aerospace propellants due to their higher specicimpulse and less-concerning environmental effects compared to some of the conventional kerosene-based fuels. 81,82 New research studies have emerged for experimenting with methane combustion at a higher-pressure, and/or under engine-relevant conditions. [83][84][85][86] As a subset of methane combustion chemistry, the pyrolytic reaction process is critical to predicting methane's combustion behavior and sooting propensity at fuel-rich conditions.…”

CFD Evaluation of a New Centrifugal Pump Concept for Rocket Propulsion

“…The most common issue when using semicryogenic or cryogenic propellants is that the process of their pressurization can lead to cavitation conditions exposure [9]. There are many papers concerning the cavitation phenomenon, which analyze it and try to predict the characteristics of the flow, as well as to give relevant solutions to prevent it [10][11][12]. Cavitation represents the main cause of instability in pumps according to [13].…”