Advanced liquid rockets

Abstract

A program to substitute iridium coated rhenium for silicide coated niobium in thrust chamber fabrications is reviewed. The life limiting phenomena in each of these material systems is also reviewed. Coating cracking and spalling is not a problem with iridium-coated rhenium as in silicide-coated niobium. Use of the new material system enables an 800 K increase in thruster operating temperature from around 1700 K for niobium to 2500 K for rhenium. Specific impulse iridium-coated rhenium rockets is nominally 20 seconds higher than comparable niobium rockets in the 22 N class and nominally 10 seconds higher in the 440 N class.