Reaction Motors XLR-99
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Reaction Motors XLR-99
The Reaction Motors LR99 engine was the first large, throttleable, restartable liquid-propellant rocket engine. Development began in the 1950s by the Reaction Motors Division of Thiokol Chemical Company to power the North American X-15 hypersonic research aircraft. It could deliver up to of thrust with a specific impulse of or at sea level. Thrust was variable from 50 to 100 percent, and the restart capability allowed it to be shut down and restarted during flight when necessary. Design and development The engine is propelled by liquid oxygen and anhydrous ammonia, pumped into the engine by turbopumps at a mass flow rate of over per minute. After one hour of operation, the XLR99 required an overhaul. Operating times nearly twice that were recorded in tests, but declared largely unsafe. The basic X-15 aircraft carried fuel for about 83 seconds of full-powered flight, while the X-15A-2 carried fuel for just over 150 seconds. Therefore, each XLR99 was capable, in theory, of bet ...
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Reaction Motors
Reaction Motors, Inc. (RMI) was an early American maker of liquid-fueled rocket engines, located in New Jersey. RMI engines with thrust powered the Bell X-1 rocket aircraft that first broke the sound barrier in 1947, and later aircraft such the X-1A, X-1E, and the Douglas D-558-2 Skyrocket. A thrust RMI engine also powered the Viking research rocket, the first large liquid-fueled US high-altitude rocket. RMI was merged with Thiokol in 1958, where it produced the XLR-99 engine that powered the X-15 rocket aircraft. History Formation and the sound barrier Reaction Motors, Inc. began operation as early as 1930 through the work of then American Interplanetary Society members Lovell Lawrence, George Edward Pendray, Hugh Pierce, and engineer John Shesta. This group quickly moved from science fiction discussions to practical rocketry. Pendray contributed heavily to their early designs using knowledge acquired from a trip to Berlin in 1931. In 1938, Princeton University ...
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Mass Flow Rate
In physics and engineering, mass flow rate is the Temporal rate, rate at which mass of a substance changes over time. Its unit of measurement, unit is kilogram per second (kg/s) in SI units, and Slug (unit), slug per second or pound (mass), pound per second in US customary units. The common symbol is \dot (pronounced "m-dot"), although sometimes \mu (Greek language, Greek lowercase Mu (letter), mu) is used. Sometimes, mass flow rate as defined here is termed "mass flux" or "mass current". Confusingly, "mass flow" is also a term for mass flux, the rate of mass flow per unit of area. Formulation Mass flow rate is defined by the limit of a function, limit \dot = \lim_ \frac = \frac, i.e., the flow of mass \Delta m through a surface per time \Delta t. The overdot on \dot is Newton's notation for a time derivative. Since mass is a scalar (physics), scalar quantity, the mass flow rate (the time derivative of mass) is also a scalar quantity. The change in mass is the amount that ...
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Aircraft Rocket Engines
An aircraft ( aircraft) is a vehicle that is able to flight, fly by gaining support from the Atmosphere of Earth, air. It counters the force of gravity by using either Buoyancy, static lift or the Lift (force), dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct Powered lift, downward thrust from its engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, rotorcraft (including helicopters), airships (including blimps), Glider (aircraft), gliders, Powered paragliding, paramotors, and hot air balloons. Part 1 (Definitions and Abbreviations) of Subchapter A of Chapter I of Title 14 of the U. S. Code of Federal Regulations states that aircraft "means a device that is used or intended to be used for flight in the air." The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called ''aviation''. The science of aviation, including designing and building aircraft, is called ''aeronautics.'' Aircrew, Crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard Aircraft pilot, pilot, whereas unmanned aerial vehicles ...
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High-test Peroxide
High-test peroxide (HTP) is a highly concentrated (85 to 98%) solution of hydrogen peroxide, with the remainder consisting predominantly of water. In contact with a catalyst, it decomposes into a high-temperature mixture of steam and oxygen, with no remaining liquid water. It was used as a propellant of HTP rockets and torpedoes, and has been used for high-performance vernier engines. Properties Hydrogen peroxide works best as a propellant in extremely high concentrations (roughly over 70%). Although any concentration of peroxide will generate some hot gas (oxygen plus some steam), at concentrations above approximately 67%, the heat of decomposing hydrogen peroxide becomes large enough to completely vaporize all the liquid at standard pressure. This represents a safety and utilization turning point, since decomposition of any concentration above this amount is capable of transforming the liquid entirely to heated gas (the higher the concentration, the hotter the resulting gas). Thi ...
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Ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pungent smell. It is widely used in fertilizers, refrigerants, explosives, cleaning agents, and is a precursor for numeous chemicals. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous waste, and it contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to fertilisers. Around 70% of ammonia produced industrially is used to make fertilisers in various forms and composition, such as urea and diammonium phosphate. Ammonia in pure form is also applied directly into the soil. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many chemicals. In many countries, it is classified as an List of extremely hazardous substances, extremely hazardous substance. Ammonia is toxic, cau ...
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Reaction Motors XLR11
The XLR11, company designation RMI 6000C4, was the first liquid-propellant rocket engine developed in the United States for use in aircraft. It was designed and built by Reaction Motors Inc., and used ethyl alcohol and liquid oxygen as propellants to generate a maximum thrust of . Each of the four combustion chambers produced of thrust. The engine was not throttleable but each chamber could be turned on and off individually. Development Development of the engine began in 1943. Reaction Motors called the engine "Black Betsy", though informally it was referred to as "The Belching Black Bastard". Its first official designation was the 6000C4, and it was later given the military designation XLR11. Operational history The XLR11-RM-5 engine was first used in the Bell X-1. On October 14, 1947, the X-1 became the first aircraft to fly faster than the speed of sound (Mach 1). The XLR11-RM-5 was also used in the X-1A and X-1B, and as a booster engine in the U.S. Navy's D-558-2 Douglas S ...
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Regenerative Cooling (rocket)
In rocket engine design, regenerative cooling is a configuration in which some or all of the propellant is passed through tubes, channels, or in a jacket around the combustion chamber or nozzle to cool the engine. This is effective because the propellants are often cryogenic. The heated propellant is then fed into a special gas-generator or injected directly into the main combustion chamber. History In 1857 Carl Wilhelm Siemens introduced the concept of regenerative cooling. On 10 May 1898, James Dewar used regenerative cooling to become the first to statically liquefy hydrogen. The concept of regenerative cooling was also mentioned in 1903 in an article by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. Robert Goddard built the first regeneratively cooled engine in 1923, but rejected the scheme as too complex. A regeneratively cooled engine was built by the Italian researcher, Gaetano Arturo Crocco in 1930. The first Soviet engines to employ the technique were Fridrikh Tsander's OR-2 tested i ...
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Minute
A minute is a unit of time defined as equal to 60 seconds. It is not a unit in the International System of Units (SI), but is accepted for use with SI. The SI symbol for minutes is min (without a dot). The prime symbol is also sometimes used informally to denote minutes. In the UTC time standard, a minute on rare occasions has 61 seconds, a consequence of leap seconds; there is also a provision to insert a negative leap second, which would result in a 59-second minute, but this has never happened in more than 40 years under this system. History Al-Biruni first subdivided the hour sexagesimally into minutes, seconds, thirds and fourths in 1000 CE while discussing Jewish months. Historically, the word "minute" comes from the Latin ''pars minuta prima'', meaning "first small part". This division of the hour can be further refined with a "second small part" (Latin: ''pars minuta secunda''), and this is where the word "second" comes from. For even further refinement, the term ...
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Turbopump
A turbopump is a fluid pump with two main components: a rotodynamic pump and a driving gas turbine, usually both mounted on the same shaft, or sometimes geared together. They were initially developed in Germany in the early 1940s. The most common purpose of a turbopump is to produce a high-pressure fluid for feeding a combustion chamber. While other use cases exist, they are most commonly found in liquid rocket engines. There are two common types of pumps used in turbopumps: a centrifugal pump, where the pumping is done by throwing fluid outward at high speed, or an axial-flow pump, where alternating rotating and static blades progressively raise the pressure of a fluid. Axial-flow pumps have small diameters but give relatively modest pressure increases. Although multiple compression stages are needed, axial flow pumps work well with low-density fluids. Centrifugal pumps are far more powerful for high-density fluids but require large diameters for low-density fluids. Histo ...
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North American X-15
The North American X-15 is a Hypersonic speed, hypersonic rocket-powered aircraft which was operated by the United States Air Force and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the List of X-planes, X-plane series of experimental aircraft. The X-15 set speed and altitude records in the 1960s, crossing the Kármán line, edge of outer space and returning with valuable data used in aircraft and spacecraft design. The X-15's highest speed, , X-15 Flight 188, was achieved on 3October 1967, when William J. Knight flew at Mach number, Mach6.7 at an altitude of , or 19.34miles. This set the Flight airspeed record, official world record for the highest speed ever recorded by a crewed, powered aircraft, which remains unbroken. During the X-15 program, 12pilots flew a combined 199flights. Of these, 8pilots flew a combined 13flights which met the Air Force human spaceflight, spaceflight criterion by exceeding the altitude of , thus qualifying these pilots as bei ...
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Ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pungent smell. It is widely used in fertilizers, refrigerants, explosives, cleaning agents, and is a precursor for numeous chemicals. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous waste, and it contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to fertilisers. Around 70% of ammonia produced industrially is used to make fertilisers in various forms and composition, such as urea and diammonium phosphate. Ammonia in pure form is also applied directly into the soil. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many chemicals. In many countries, it is classified as an List of extremely hazardous substances, extremely hazardous substance. Ammonia is toxic, cau ...
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Liquid Oxygen
Liquid oxygen, sometimes abbreviated as LOX or LOXygen, is a clear cyan liquid form of dioxygen . It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an application which is ongoing. Physical properties Liquid oxygen has a clear cyan color and is strongly paramagnetic: it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet. Liquid oxygen has a density of , slightly denser than liquid water, and is cryogenic with a freezing point of and a boiling point of at . Liquid oxygen has an expansion ratio of 1:861 and because of this, it is used in some commercial and military aircraft as a transportable source of breathing oxygen. Because of its cryogenic nature, liquid oxygen can cause the materials it touches to become extremely brittle. Liquid oxygen is also a very powerful oxidizing agent: organic materials will burn rapidly and energetically in liquid oxygen. Further, if soaked in liquid oxygen, some materials su ...
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