SATELLITE PROPULSION AND POWER SYSTEM

摘要

In the preferred embodiment of the invention, a cooled bipropellant thruster (70) for controlling the on-orbit position and orientation of a spacecraft is provided. The cooled bipropellant thruster (70) uses a liquid fuel and liquid oxidizer. The liquid fuel is decomposed in a first chamber (72) with a catalytic bed of decomposition material (74) and produces at least one reaction gas, which flows to the second reaction chamber (90). The second reaction chamber (90) is heated by the reaction gas, but is cooled by liquid oxidizer flowing through cooling passages (92, 94, 98, and 102), which brings the oxidizer into a heat exchange relationship with the second reaction chamber (90). During the heat exchange relationship, heat is transferred from the second reaction chamber (90) to the oxidizer and the oxidizer transforms into a gas. The gaseous oxidizer is fed into a second reaction chamber (90) to secondarily react with the reaction gas.