Sirius Bipropellant Rocket Engine
Project Sirius is a student led project that aims to design and build a cost-effective, three stage rocket to launch small satellites into low Earth orbit from a UK based spaceport.
The current stage of the project involves the design, manufacture and testing of a 1.5kN regeneratively cooled 3D printed liquid fuel engine. The project aims to serve as a testbed to develop a new generation of “green” propellant rocket propulsion.
This project was my fourth year group design project ("GDP"). The project is currently running on its third year as a GDP and so the development of the rocket engine prototype is in an advanced stage, although there are still many aspects that hadn't been finished by the previous teams, so it was our turn to take on them!
The ultimate goal of our project was to test-fire the rocket and analyse its performance. This however could not be accomplished due to the Covid-19 pandemic. University closure forced us to stop working on-site on the project a few weeks before the planned test date. The project video details all the progress accomplished by my team:
My main responsibility within the project was the verification of the rocket’s catalyst decomposition chamber, which involved the design, manufacture and firing of a small-scale demonstration thruster:
Another task which I took on was the development of the oxidiser injector for the full-scale engine. I designed and manufactured an injector featuring 109 0.7 mm orifices, which produced an evenly distributed oxidiser injection pattern into the catalyst chamber
I also manufactured the catalyst required to fire the engine, which amounted to around a kilogram worth of pellets.
