Akira Kawasaki, Koichi Matsuyama, Ken Matsuoka, Hiroaki Watanabe, Noboru Itouyama, Keisuke Goto, Kazuki Ishihara, Valentin Buyakofu, Tomoyuki Noda, Jiro Kasahara, Akiko Matsuo, Ikkoh Funaki, Daisuke Nakata, Masaharu Uchiumi, Hiroto Habu, Shinsuke Takeuchi, Satoshi Arakawa, Junichi Masuda, Kenzi Maehara, Tatsuro Nakao, Kazuhiko Yamada
AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition, AIAA SciTech Forum 2022, 1-12, 2022
A research group at Nagoya University, in collaboration with Keio University, the Muroran Institute of Technology, and Institute of Space and Astronautical Science at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (ISAS/JAXA), has successfully demonstrated world’s first operation of Detonation Engine System (DES) in space using the sounding rocket S-520-31, which lifted off from the JAXA Uchinoura Space Center, Japan, at 5:30 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) on July 27, 2021. The DES was equipped with two different types of detonation rocket engines, namely a rotating detonation engine (RDE) and a pulse detonation engine (PDE), which generated 500-N-class axial thrust and 1-Nm-class rolling torque, respectively. The RDE and PDE were tested in space during the ballistic flight of the rocket. In this manuscript, the system-level design of the DES was disclosed. Key point are as follows: the DES consists of an RDE and a PDE, and propellant storage/feed, avionics, instrumentation, and structure subsystems; the overall dimensions are 480 mm in the diameter × 1810 mm in the length. The dry mass was 175 kg, while gross (wet) mass was 181 kg including propellant and pneumatic gases. Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components are widely utilized after carefulevaluation and testing, and with redundant architecture.