Preliminary Experiments on Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine for Flight Demonstration Using Sounding Rocket

摘要

Rotating detonation engine (RDE) is a promising candidate for future upper stage motor because of its high theoretical efficiency and short combustor length. Technological demonstration in space will be necessary to evaluate the performance and flight dynamics of RDE as a space propulsion system. Toward a flight test, we built an open-structure, rocket RDE-powered vehicle to measure thrust to validate a feasibility of an onboard propulsion system. We carried out 4.4 s combustion test, and achieved over 73% of ideal specific impulse above 1.1 MPa of static pressure in the RDE combustor.