Cryogenic solid propulsion (CSP) uses chemical rocket propellant combinations in solid rocket motors that have at least one frozen component. As a result, CSP combines the advantages of solid rocket motors (e.g. high thrust levels, simple, robust and cost-efficient design) and liquid propulsion (e.g. high specific impulse). Thus, high performance, low cost and low pollution CSP technology may have the potential for significant performance improvements for heavy launch vehicles and could bring about a near term revolution for chemical Earth-to-orbit high thrust propulsion. In the framework of research and development under German (DLR) and European (ESA) sponsorship the experimental and theoretical feasibility of CSP has been successfully demonstrated according to Technology Readiness Level TRL4. An experimental combustion chamber holding up to 1 kg of CSP propellants was built at AI: Aerospace Institute and successfully hot fired at the Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology in 2004/2005. It could be shown that selected CSP propellants in specific configurations show good burning behavior with a regression rate that lies in the range of conventional solid rocket propellants. Therefore, the application of cryogenic solid propulsion for large solid rocket boosters was investigated, in order to analyze the performance improvement potential for typical commercial launch vehicles using solid rocket propulsion, e.g. ARIANE 5. Based on preparatory work the investigation was performed for an ARIANE 5 type launch vehicle with CSP boosters. Two representative CSP propellant combinations based on solid hydrogen peroxide (SH2O2) and solid oxygen (SOX) along with polyethylene were selected as reference. CSP stage mass and performance modeling was performed by means of CAD/CAE based methods.
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