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A Propulsive Fluid Accumulator is an artificial Earth satellite which collects and stores oxygen and other atmospheric gases for in-situ refuelling of high-thrust rockets. This eliminates the need to lift oxidizer to orbit and therefore brings significant cost benefits.
Oxygen is a moderate cryogen as air will not liquefy against a liquid oxygen tank, so it is possible to store LOX briefly in a rocket without excessive insulation. [ clarification needed ] In Germany, engineers and scientists began building and testing liquid propulsion rockets in the late 1920s. [ 5 ]
Liquid rocket engines have tankage and pipes to store and transfer propellant, an injector system and one or more combustion chambers with associated nozzles.. Typical liquid propellants have densities roughly similar to water, approximately 0.7 to 1.4 g/cm 3 (0.025 to 0.051 lb/cu in).
For rockets and space vehicles, propellants usually take up 2/3 or more of their total mass. Large upper-stage rocket engines generally use a cryogenic fuel like liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen (LOX) as an oxidizer because of the large specific impulse possible, but must carefully consider a problem called "boil off," or the evaporation of the cryogenic propellant.
Liquid oxygen has a clear cyan color and is strongly paramagnetic: it can be suspended between the poles of a powerful horseshoe magnet. [2] Liquid oxygen has a density of 1.141 kg/L (1.141 g/ml), slightly denser than liquid water, and is cryogenic with a freezing point of 54.36 K (−218.79 °C; −361.82 °F) and a boiling point of 90.19 K (−182.96 °C; −297.33 °F) at 1 bar (14.5 psi).
The target launch cost was $1 million. Aquarius was designed to be a single-stage vehicle 43 meters (141 ft) high and 4 meters (13.1 ft) in diameter and powered by a single pressure fed engine using liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants stored in a composite pressure tank. [1]
Over the course of approximately one Earth year, this system would produce oxygen at a rate of at least 2 kilograms per hour (4.4 lb/h) [1] in support of a human mission sometime in the 2030s. [17] [18] The stored oxygen could be used for life support, but the primary need is for an oxidizer for a Mars ascent vehicle.
The 70-foot-long (21 m), 17-inch-diameter (430 mm) liquid oxygen feedline runs externally along the right side of the liquid hydrogen tank up and into the intertank. Two 5-inch (130 mm) diameter re-pressurization lines run beside it. One supplies hydrogen gas to the liquid hydrogen tank and the other supplies oxygen gas to the liquid oxygen tank.