Martin Propst

TU Dresden | TUD · Institut für Luft- und Raumfahrttechnik

The space industry and research institutes are striving to return to the Moon, with the ambitious goal of establishing a permanent outpost on its surface. Lunar landers are needed to supply the base. However, lunar dust poses a significant obstacle that can affect operations, infrastructure and equipment on the ground. To solve this problem and ena...

A cold-gas test campaign has been conducted at the DLR’s P6.2 test bench in Lampoldshausen, with the objective of investigating the linear aerospike nozzle flow in interaction with secondary injection thrust vector control (SITVC). In this campaign, the influence of nozzle truncation, injection position and injection pressure on the nozzle surface...

In the context of the European Space Agency (ESA)-funded activity, LUNAR In-Situ LANDing Structures (LUNAR ISLANDS), the feasibility of in-situ manufactured structures to decrease the exposure of surroundings to high-velocity particles of lunar regolith is explored. These particles get ejected as a consequence of the engine's plume interacting with...

This contribution addresses the complete process chain of an annular aerospike breadboard engine fabricated by laser powder bed fusion using the nickel-based superalloy Inconel® 718. In order to qualify the material and process for this high-temperature application, an extensive material characterization campaign including density and roughness mea...

One of the main challenges for sustainable lunar operations are the potential adverse effects on surface infra-structure caused by regolith particles, covering the lunar surface. Due to the lack of atmosphere, these particles are not affected by weathering and remain sharp and jagged. Thus, they can damage lander and/or launch vehi-cles whose engin...

Rotating detonation engines (RDEs) emerge as a promising technology in the field of propulsion, potentially offering improved efficiency compared to traditional combustion engines. Nonetheless, the combustion process within RDEs currently lacks a comprehensive understanding. This study endeavors to bridge this knowledge gap by examining the flow be...

A cold-gas test campaign has been conducted at the DLR’s P6.2 test bench in Lampoldshausen to investigate linear aerospike nozzles in interaction with secondary injection thrust vector control (SITVC). Nozzle truncation and injection position are analysed w.r.t. their influence on the nozzle surface and base pressure. While the effects of injection...

Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes offer geometrical freedom to design complex shaped parts that cannot be manufactured with conventional processes. This leads to new applications including aerospace propulsion systems where the Ni-superalloy based material has to withstand high operating temperatures. In this contribution suspension plasma spra...

This contribution presents an overview of the research and development activities within the research group for Space Transportation, which is part of the Institute of Aerospace Engineering at Technische Universität Dresden. The research focuses mainly on chemical propulsion systems, including the cutting edge academic investigations on additively...

Within the frame of the ESA funded ASPIRER project , an additively manufactured aerospike bread-board engine, using kerosene and hydrogen perox-ide as propellants, is developed and tested. This contribution summarizes the fluid simulation activities carried out during the project with focus on the hydraulic design of the cooling channels and the ae...

Additive Manufacturing (AM) methods drastically simplify or even enable the fabrication of complex structures such as aerospike nozzles while minimising the number of individual parts. The general advantages of additively manufactured ceramic components lie in their low density combined with high strength as well as chemical and thermal resistance....

In this contribution, an overview is given about the MACARONIS project in which a cold-gas thruster system is developed, aiming for an in-orbit demonstration of a ceramic Additively Manufactured (AM) aerospike nozzle made of alumina (Al2O3). The advantages of AM ceramic components lie for the present application in their low density combined with h...

Advanced ceramics are recognized as key enabling materials possessing combinations of properties not achievable in other material classes. They provide very high thermal, chemical and mechanical resistance and typically exhibit lower densities than metals. These properties predestine ceramics for many different applications, especially those in spa...

Advanced ceramics are recognized as key enabling materials possessing combinations of properties not achievable in other material classes. They are characterized by very high thermal, chemical and mechanical resistance and also usually have a lower density than metals. These properties predestine ceramics for many different applications, especially...

Within the framework of the ESA funded ASPIRER project, an additively manufactured aerospike breadboard thrust chamber using kerosene and hydrogen peroxide as propellants is developed and tested. This contribution summarizes the design and test planning activities carried out during the project. In this regard, the overall system design is discusse...

Facing the ever-growing commercialisation of space, particularly within low earth orbit, the academic space sector has reached a pivotal point that will define its role in the upcoming decades. At the same time, space exploration has reached its biggest momentum since the Apollo era. In the Global Exploration Roadmap, the leading space fairing nati...

In this contribution, numerical analyses are performed to predict the asymmetrical pressure distributions on the surface of linear, truncated aerospike nozzles due to aerodynamic thrust vectoring. Furthermore, the occurring flow features such as separation shocks and the penetration height of the developing Mach disk within the primary flow field i...

Linear and annular aerospike nozzles with thrust vector control through secondary fluid injection (SITVC) are investigated at Technische Universität Dresden. For that purpose, a cold-flow test bench with a six-degree of freedom (6-DOF) force balance has been set up and mounted into a vacuum chamber for higher nozzle pressure ratios. In this contrib...

In this contribution, the results of a hot fire test campaign using a 500 N truncated annular aerospike engine are discussed as well as the underlying investigations. The designed aerospike serves as a proof of concept for the additive manufacturing of such an engine by the means of laser powder bed fusion (LPBF). Manufacturing, thermal treatment a...

Within the ACTiVE-project, numerical and experimental investigations are conducted at Technische Universität (TU) Dresden concerning aerospike nozzles with thrust vector control through secondary fluid injection. An integral part of this project is a cold-flow test bench with a six degree of freedom (6-DOF) force measurement set-up. This test bench...

In cooperation with the DLR Institute of Space Propulsion Lampoldshausen, a cold flow linear aerospike nozzle with four different plugs utilizing thrust vector control through secondary fluid injection has been developed for testing at P6.2.The two main goals of this measurement set up were demonstrated in a pre-test: surface pressure measurements...

In this contribution numerical analyses are conducted to optimize a set of parameters for thrust vectoring control of a truncated, linear aerospike nozzle through secondary injection. The flow features of the injection are considered to be similar to those of a sonic jet injected into a supersonic crossflow, a canonical flow for which previous expe...

As an alternative to classical bell nozzle designs, aerospike propulsion systems have been developed and tested since the 1950s. They have been in discussion for the upper stage of Saturn V and later for the Space Shuttle Main Engine. In the form of a linear plug construction, the nozzles were the single-stage-to-orbit propulsion system of choice o...

In this contribution the setup and results of shallow water flow experiments to investigate the Secondary Injection Thrust Vector Control (SITVC) of aerospike engines are described. The experiments were conducted to verify numerical analyses. An assessment of the two utilised measurement techniques Background Oriented Schlieren (BOS) and 2D-Laser-P...

ermany’s student sounding rocket programme “STERN” (Stu-dentische Experimental-Raketen) is a nationwide education pro-gramme initiated by the German Space Administration DLR (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt) in 2012. The pro-ject’s objective is to promote young professionals for launcher systems and to establish a practical education of s...

In this contribution the setup and results of shallow water flow tests are described. These tests are conducted to verify numerical CFD simulations using the TAU code. Their purpose is to investigate the Secondary Injection Thrust Vector Control (SITVC) of aerospike engines. The examinations include two-dimensional planar nozzle expansion flows, qu...

Aerospike nozzles are well known for their altitude adaption capabilities and performance advantage over conventional bell nozzles during endo-atmospheric flight. While thrust vectoring for aerospike engines with combustion chamber segments can be achieved with differential throttling, a different solution must be found for smaller single-chamber e...

Aerospike-Düsen sind bekannt für ihre höhenadaptiven Eigenschaften und ihre Leistungsvorteile gegenüber Glockendüsen in endo-atmosphärischen Flügen. Während der Schubvektor von Aerospike-Triebwerken mit segmentierten Brennkammern über differenzielles Drosseln des Durchflusses gesteuert werden kann, muss für kleinere einteilige Brennkammern eine and...

Shallow water experiments are predestined for fast and inexpensive experimental examination of two-dimensional flow phenomena. In this study, we use the shallow water analogy for the verification of a previous numerical analysis of an aerodynamically thrust-vectored aerospike nozzle. Experiments in a shallow water channel were conducted, using a mode...

Aufbauend auf einem Konzept für ein 3-kN-Raketentriebwerk mit Aerospike-Düse wurden numerische Untersuchungen zur Machbarkeit einer aerodynamischen Schubvektorsteuerung durchgeführt. Die Spikekontur wurde dabei mit dem Open-Source-FORTRAN-Code von C. C. Lee für vollständig außenexpandierende Düsen ermittelt. Die Strömungsberechnung erfolgte unter V...

The present study shows results from numerical investigations of aerodynamic thrust vectoring on a small scale aerospike thruster. The thruster will generate 3 kN of axial thrust at an expansion ratio of ε = 2,941. The full isentropic spike contour was designed using the open source FORTRAN code by C. C. Lee on pure external flow expansion plug noz...