Abstract

There’s a growing interest in liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane (LCH4) as propellants combination for future liquid propulsion rocket engines in the international Space community. The use of CH4 instead of H2 brings new challenges for the design and qualification of future liquid propulsion rocket engines. As the French Space Agency in charge of the definition of France Space Policy, CNES performs new generation launcher studies and evaluates potential breakthrough, by conducting prospective analysis and R&T programs held in close cooperation with experts and scientists. 

In the past few years, CNES has thus defined a dedicated R&D program to tackle new challenges associated to LOX/CH4 combustion in rocket engine operating conditions. A wide range of complex and coupled physical phenomena is encountered in the combustion devices of such engines, which have to be studied both experimentally and numerically. 

This talk will give an overview of main results and still open challenges of CNES liquid propulsion LOX/CH4 Combustion Devices R&D program.

Biography

Marie Theron is a Combustion Devices Expert (Eng., PhD) in the Space Transportation Division of the Technical Division of CNES (French National Space Agency). She collaborates to the definition of the technical policy for R&D activities together with industrial (Arianegroup, Start-ups : The Exploration Company, Dark, Sirius…) and/or academic partners (CNRS, ONERA, Universities, …) and gives at the same time expertise to present and future Ariane projects (e.g. Ariane 6) and to liquid rocket engine demonstrator projects (e.g. Staged Combustion Engine, Prometheus engine, …). As a CNES engineer, it is part of her daily job to search for and to optimize synergies between final product needs and main academic and industrial R&D policies. Her role is to ensure that R&D working directions are relevant to answer liquid rocket engines combustion devices anomalies understanding tasks and combustion devices design improvement needs.