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Abstract :
[en] The use of in-flight Oxygen Collection has shown to significantly improve space launcher performance. The conceptual approach followed by the Royal Military Academy of Brussels (RMA) has tried to widen the available design margins in order to reduce the required technological leap and limit the economical risk associated with such a development.
The aim of the ESA-funded theoretical and experimental study on an air separation device is to demonstrate the possibility of performing efficient air distillation in a compact rotating column. An integration of the vehicle, propulsion system and separation unit designs is presented aiming to optimise the overall vehicle performance while keeping technological difficulty and system complexity at a reasonable level.
Reference vehicles are presented in their specific mission profiles with an emphasis on TSTO’s.
Different layouts of the internal energy and mass flowsheets have been studied and were compared in order to make best use of the refrigeration capacity of the hydrogen fuel running though the propulsion system during the first phase of the flight considering the separator as a classical distillation column. This analysis provides the requirements in terms of heat exchange capacity, compression ratios and number of so-called transfer units needed in the separator. Here, the system is intentionally kept simple, to limit complexity, but the analysis is thorough and accurate, including, for example, the effect of the presence of argon. Results for a supersonic
carrier are presented.
An analysis of the separation unit to reach those requirements has been performed. That includes internals, practical building with estimates of pressure drop, separation performance and flow limitation. The sizing of the separator bed is provided for a carrier plane showing that such on-board separator is indeed practical.
