The overarching goal of the Rocket Propulsion Systems department at the DLR Institute of Space Propulsion is to develop, maintain and provide systems expertise in the field of liquid rocket propulsion.
System competence is understood as the ability to:
be able to describe the operating behavior of a liquid propellant rocket engine in steady-state and transient conditions,
be able to describe the operating behavior of the subcomponents of a liquid propellant rocket engine and their interactions in steady-state and transient conditions,
be able to control the operating behavior of a liquid propellant rocket engine in steady-state and transient conditions and
be able to quantify the effects of the choice of architecture of liquid propellant rocket engines and the construction methods of the subcomponents with regard to their technical, economic and ecological effects.
The department's field of work essentially comprises pressurized and pump-fed liquid rocket engines for main and upper stage applications, in-orbit applications or lander engines. The propellant combinations to be considered include all common propellant combinations for the applications mentioned, whereby the focus is on the cryogenic propellant combinations liquid oxygen / liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen / hydrocarbon (in particular liquid oxygen / liquid biomethane). The system boundary is understood to be the interface to the propellant supply of the stage or the spacecraft, provided that the operating behavior of the engine can be adequately decoupled from the behavior of the propellant supply system.
