Flight Demonstration of Detonation Engine System Using Sounding Rocket S-520-31: System Design

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.