Study of Laser Heated Propulsion Devices. Part 2: Assessment of Laser Propulsion Modeling and Simulation Requirements

摘要

Theoretical models for the laser heated thruster are reviewed. The requirements for an improved laser heated thruster theoretical model are discussed. The application of a time dependent finite difference Navier-Stokes equation solution to the laser heated thruster problem is described, along with a simple closed form solution which was developed in order to gain insight into the difficulties encountered in the pursuit of the numerical solution.