Peroxide Propulsion at the Turn of the Century

A resurgence of interest in peroxide propulsion has occurred in the last years of the 21st Century. This interest is driven by the need for lower cost propulsion systems and the need for storable reusable propulsion systems to meet future space transportation system architectures. NASA and the Air Force are jointly developing two propulsion systems for flight demonstration early in the 21st Century. One system will be a development of Boeing's AR2-3 engine, which was successfully fielded in the 1960s. The other is a new pressure-fed design by Orbital Sciences Corporation for expendable mission requirements. Concurrently NASA and industry are pursuing the key peroxide technologies needed to design, fabricate, and test advanced peroxide engines to meet the mission needs beyond 2005. This paper will present a description of the AR2-3, report the status of its current test program, and describe its intended flight demonstration. This paper will then describe the Orbital 10K engine, the status of its test program, and describe its planned flight demonstration. Finally the paper will present a plan, or technology roadmap, for the development of an advanced peroxide engine for the 21st Century.