The rocket body will consist of solid fuel and oxidizer. Thanks to this decision, less debris will fall into orbit.
The body of the new missile is a hollow tube of solid fuel. Inside it is filled with a powder oxidizer. During the flight, the rocket engine gradually “eats” its body. As a result, the flight turns out to be “wasteless” – the rocket remains do not fall to the Earth and do not remain flying in orbit.
“Launch vehicles are usually very large – because it takes a lot of fuel to enter orbit. With a decrease in the size of the carrier itself, the volume of fuel falls much faster than the mass of the entire structure. Therefore, miniaturization has its limit, “says lead specialist Patrick Harkness. “With our autophage rocket, the situation is completely different. We can adjust the size of the carrier to the dimensions of the satellite, which must be delivered to orbit. ”
The development of Scottish specialists is conducted jointly with Ukrainian scientists from the Dnipro National University. The results of their work the international team published in the Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets. The researchers have already achieved continuous operation of the engine in the laboratory for 60 seconds, and showed that the engine power can be varied by varying the speed of feeding the solid fuel rod into the combustion chamber.