Gas thruster
AssigneeThe Marconi Company Limited
InventorPeter Smith
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A thruster system has a main bipropellant propulsion unit including a propulsion engine (50) and bipropellant supply having a tank (3) for an oxidizing agent and a tank (4) for a fuel. An auxiliary cold propellant thruster (21) uses propellant supplied by bleeding off vapor from the contents of the oxidizing agent tank (3).
Claims5
A thruster system for a spacecraft of the type including a main bi-propellant propulsion system having a propulsion engine and a bi-propellant supply for the engine which has a tank for a liquid oxidizing agent and a tank for a liquid fuel, the thruster system comprising:
- a subsidiary cold propellant thruster;
- a supply line leading from the oxidizing agent tank to said cold propellant thruster;
- pressure reducing means in the supply line for reducing pressure therein;
- a control valve in the supply line for controlling the flow of liquid oxidizing agent along the supply line;
- and means in the supply line for vaporizing the liquid oxidizing agent prior to delivery of vaporized oxidizing agent to the cold propellant thruster.
In a spacecraft of the type including a main bi-propellant propulsion system having a main propulsion engine and means for supplying both liquid fuel and liquid oxidizer at a system pressure to the main engine to produce thrust, an attitude and orbit control thruster arrangement comprising:
- (a) at least one subsidiary cold propellant thruster;
- (b) means for conveying the liquid oxidizer along a conduit toward the subsidiary thruster;
- (c) means for reducing the system pressure in the conduit;
- (d) means for controlling the flow of the liquid oxidizer along the conduit;
- (e) means for vaporizing the liquid oxidizer prior to conveyance to the subsidiary thruster;
- and
- (f) means for delivering vaporized oxidizer to the subsidiary thruster to provide a fine attitude and orbit control for the spacecraft.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.