Rocket and Spacecraft Propulsion Elements: Theory, Design, and Applications of Chemical and Electric Systems for Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft

A rocket in empty space has nothing to push against. It can only accelerate by throwing part of its own mass away at high speed, and every launch engine and spacecraft thruster ever built is a particular answer to that single problem.

Rocket and Spacecraft Propulsion Elements builds the subject as one connected argument, from the conservation of momentum to a qualified, flight-ready propulsion system. Every major result is derived from stated assumptions, every derivation is carried through the step that does the work, and more than eighty worked examples show the numbers in full, with units tracked to the answer, so that you can reproduce and trust them.

Inside, you will learn how to:

• Derive and apply the rocket equation, thrust, specific impulse, total impulse, and mass ratio, and see why staging is unavoidable.

• Predict engine performance at any altitude from thermochemistry, isentropic nozzle flow, characteristic velocity, and thrust coefficient, including real-nozzle losses.

• Compare pressure-fed, gas-generator, staged-combustion, expander, and electric-pump cycles, and work through injectors, combustion stability, cooling, and turbopumps as parts of one engine.

• Analyze solid motors from grain geometry and burning rate, and hybrid engines from regression rate and mixture-ratio shift.

• Build a complete velocity-change budget through powered ascent, staging, orbital transfers, plane changes, rendezvous, attitude control, and station-keeping.

• Evaluate electrothermal, electrostatic, and electromagnetic thrusters under the power limits that govern electric propulsion, and estimate low-thrust mission performance.

• Follow a design into hardware through materials, fabrication, integration, test, reliability, and qualification.

Nineteen chapters cover performance parameters, thermochemistry, nozzle theory and configurations, chemical propellants and their safe handling, liquid-engine systems and power cycles, injectors and combustion, heat transfer and cooling, turbopumps, solid and hybrid motors, launch vehicle flight performance, orbital maneuvering, reaction control, electric propulsion, advanced and emerging concepts, materials and fabrication, and integration and testing. Each chapter opens with learning objectives and closes with practice problems, and a glossary, symbol list, and appendices of constants, standard-atmosphere data, unit conversions, and propellant properties support the whole book.

This book is written for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in aerospace engineering who have completed a first course in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, and dynamics; for instructors who want a self-contained text whose examples students can reproduce; and for practicing engineers in the early and middle stages of their careers who need working relationships they can justify rather than rules they must take on faith.

Get your copy and build your propulsion knowledge from first principles to flight-ready hardware.