High-pressure bipropellant microrocket engine

The development of high-aspect-ratio, high-precision micromachining in silicon or silicon carbide suggests the feasibility of microfabricated, high-chamber-pressure chemical rocket engines. With high-speed turbopumps and valves incorporated onto the rocket chip, a number of propulsion cycles are possible, Such an engine, approximately 20 x 15 x 3 mm in size, operating at a 125-atm chamber pressure, would produce about 15 N of thrust using 300-s I-sp propellants at a thrust-to-weight ratio of 1000:1, The feasibility of these engines has been investigated, and a liquid-cooled, pressure-fed thrust chamber and nozzle have been successfully designed, fabricated, and operated at a 12.5-atm chamber pressure to further evaluate the concept.