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

To create a new flyable propulsion system, Detonation Engine System (DES) has developed which can be stowed in the sounding rocket S-520-31. This paper focused on the first flight demonstration of RDE in space environment, which is integrated into DES, using S-520-31. The flight result was compared with the ground test data to validate its performance. In the flight experiment, the stable combustion of the RDE with aerospike nozzle was observed by onboard digital and analog cameras. With time-averaged mass flow of 182 ± 11 g/s and equivalence ratio of 1.2 ± 0.2, the RDE generated the time-averaged-thrust of 518 N, and the specific impulse achieved 290 ± 18 s, which is almost identical to the ideal value of constant pressure combustion. Due to the RDE combustion, the angular velocity increased by 5.7 deg/s for total, and the time-averaged torque during 6 s of operation was 0.26 N∙m. The high frequency sampling data identified the detonation frequency during record time as 20 kHz in the flight, which was confirmed in the DES ground test through the high frequency sampling data analysis and high-speed video imaging.