As always I really enjoyed the space access conference. I brought the “blue ball” with me and it seemed to become the gathering point in the entrance area. I was cool to meet a bunch of people that follow this blog.
My presentation slides are available SA09 PDF.(50MB pictures in full res) Its not really a standalone presentaion, its more a set of potograpic notes to organize the talk. The video I presented:SA09 video
If you have followed the blog there are really only a few things you have not seen or heard before:
1)The end of the video has an on-board video from the recent flights.
2)We discussed the fact that we are having concerns about propellant availability and are working to set up a sparging system to take readily available 50% food grade peroxide and turn it into 85 to 90% “rocket” grade. We have enlisted the technical help of experienced experts in this effort and this effort is probably going to be a 6 week detour. When the facility is complete I’ll provide some pictures and a video tour.
3)We indicated that we were open to selling any of the parts pieces or technology we have developed.
11 comments:
I wonder if you have seen this article: John Whitehead, from LLNL, "Hydrogen Peroxide Propulsion for Smaller Satellites". Nicely covers basics of peroxide technology - you may have know all this already, but still.
That was quite an interesting paper. Thank you for sharing.
I also like some of his pump articles. Not all of them are public, AIAA got more of my $ today.
I read a few of the pump papers, both the two way and four way piston pumps were interesting although not totally clear on the design. Still enough information with some logic to build one. May be a better option than the electric one. Good side project all the same.
We still think U can make more thrust by crumpling dollar bills & throwing them from the back of a spaceship than U can by burning them in a combustion chamber or buying fuel with them.
Paul,
Thanks for the slides and info. I was wondering what's the rough bulk cost for the 50% Hydrogen Peroxide? Or the normal "rocket" level stuff you guys get already. Trying to get my head around what the propellant/consumable costs would be for your 100km vehicle.
Why don't you just buy one?
http://www.tecaeromex.com/ingles/destilai.htm
I'm kind of amazed or suspicious why someone hasn't bought on of these and then used it to supply HTP and sell it to other teams.
tecaaeromex is no longer selling his still.
Bulk costs for 50% vary from less than 50c to more than 1.30 a pound depending on purity and quantity.
Peroxide propulsion lists their prices, shipping is about 2K for almost any quantity.
(http://www.peroxidepropulsion.com/hydrogen-peroxide.php) It also takes so long to get from peroxide propulsion that you want to store more high test than you probably should, the Summers in Mojave are warm. Storing bulk 50% is a lot safer.
Paul,
do you have any resources on the sparging method?
Thanks
Jim Clem
Sorry to hear tecareromix is no longer selling his still.
The other one I've heard of is from http://www.xlspace.com, but that requires 70% as a starting feedstock. He was at Space Access 2008 pushing his products, but not at the 2009 show and I have no idea what happened there. Is this guy still around?
Sparging look at:
patent 6780288
The inventor is Mr Carden and he is also the owner of Xl Space systems. XL space stopped making peroxide, but he may be back in business as soon as June. We have been consulting with Mr Carden as we set up our system.
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