Development Study of A Precooled Turbojet Engine for Flight Demonstration

This paper presents the development status of a subscale precooled turbojet engine "S-engine" for the hypersonic cruiser and space place. S-engine employs the precooled-cycle using liquid hydrogen as fuel and coolant. It has 23 cm x 23 cm of rectangular cross section, 2.6 m of the overall length and about 100 kg of the target weight employing composite materials for a variable-geometry rectangular air-intake and nozzle. The design thrust and specific impulse at sea-level-static (SLS) are 1.2 kN and 2,000 sec respectively. After the system design and component tests, a prototype engine made of metal was manufactured and provided for the system firing test using gaseous hydrogen in March 2007. The core engine performance could be verified in this test. The second firing test using liquid hydrogen was conducted in October 2007. The engine, fuel supplying system and control system for the next flight test were used in this test. We verified the engine start-up sequence, compressor-turbine matching and performance of system and components. A flight test of S-engine is to be conducted by the Balloon-based Operation Vehicle (BOV) at Taiki town in Hokkaido in October 2008. The vehicle is about 5 m in length, 0.55 m in diameter and 500 kg in weight. The vehicle is dropped from an altitude of 40 km by a high-altitude observation balloon. After 40 second free-fall, the vehicle pulls up and S-engine operates for 60 seconds up to Mach 2. High altitude tests of the engine components corresponding to the BOV flight condition are also conducted.