Long‐term storage of cryogenic propellants is a critical requirement for NASA's effort to return to the moon. Liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen provide the highest specific impulse of any practical chemical propulsion system, and thus provides the greatest payload mass per unit of launch mass. Future manned missions will require vehicles with the flexibility to remain in orbit for months, necessitating long‐term storage of these cryogenic liquids. For decades cryogenic scientific satellites have used cryogens to cool instruments. In many cases, the lifetime of the primary cryogen tank has been extended by intercepting much of the heat incident on the tank at an intermediate‐temperature shield cooled either by a second cryogen tank or a mechanical cryocooler. For an propellant system, a combination of these ideas can be used, in which the shield around the tank is attached to, and at the same temperature as, the tank, but is actively cooled so as to remove all heat impinging on the tank and shield. This configuration eliminates liquid oxygen boil‐off and cuts the liquid hydrogen boil‐off to a small fraction of the unshielded rate. This paper studies the concept of active costorage as a means of long‐term cryogenic propellant storage. The paper describes the design impact of an active costorage system for the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV). This paper also compares the spacecraft level impact of the active costorage concept with a passive storage option in relation to two different scales of spacecraft that will be used for the lunar exploration effort, the CEV and the Earth Departure Stage (EDS). Spacecraft level studies are performed to investigate the impact of scaling of the costorage technologies for the different components of the Lunar Architecture and for different mission durations.
Active Costorage of Cryogenic Propellants for Exploration
SPACE TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL FORUM‐STAIF 2008: 12th Conference on Thermophysics Applications in Microgravity; 1st Symposium on Space Resource Utilization; 25th Symposium on Space Nuclear Power and Propulsion; 6th Conference on Human/Robotic Technology and the Vision for Space Exploration; 6th Symposium on Space Colonization; 5th Symposium on New Frontiers and Future Concept ; 2008 ; Albuquerque (New Mexico)
AIP Conference Proceedings ; 969 , 1 ; 733-740
21.01.2008
8 pages
Aufsatz (Konferenz)
Elektronische Ressource
Englisch
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