The overall goal of the Rocket Propulsion Systems Department at the Institute of Space Propulsion is to build, maintain, and provide systems competence in the field of liquid rocket propulsion.
In this context, system competence is understood as the ability to:
In this context, the department's field of work mainly includes 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 mentioned applications, with a focus on the cryogenic propellant combinations liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid hydrogen (LH2) and LOX/hydrocarbon (especially LOX/LNG). In this context, the system boundary is understood to be the interface to the propellant supply of the stage or spacecraft, provided that the operating behavior of the engine can be adequately decoupled from the behavior of the propellant supply system.
In addition to increasing performance, the greatest demand on modern launch systems is to enhance reliability and increase service life while at the same time reducing production and operating costs.
The research group System Analysis and Control deals with the description and analysis of the entire liquid rocket engine system including its transient behavior, which results from the coupled operation of the individual components.
A central goal of DLR Lampoldshausen is to bundle all competencies in the field of turbopumps for rocket propulsion systems in order to conduct targeted and effective research. To this end, DLR scientists are concentrating on developing new technologies to make turbopumps more cost-effective and efficient.