[Courtesy of Korea Aerospace Industries]
A liquid fuel rocket engine consists of the fuel tank, the combustion chamber, the turbopump which forces fuel at high pressure towards the combustion chamber and controlling valves which regulate the flow of fuel into the chamber. Rocket propellants are either a high oxygen-containing fuel or a mixture of fuel plus oxidant.
Four 75-ton engines will be used for the first stage of the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-2 (KSLV-2), a three-stage rocket. The propellant tank consists of an oxidant tank and a fuel tank. The fuel tank was completed in early March, according to the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI), which works with the Korea Aerospace Research Institute (KARI) to develop a home-made rocket.
KAI officials said the prototype of a full-size oxidant tank with its diameter reaching 3.5 meters was unveiled in a ceremony on Tuesday. It is bigger than an engine used for a test rocket launched in November last year that reached the maximum height of 209 kilometers (129 miles).
"There was a lot of trials and errors and difficulties, but we eventually succeeded in developing South Korea's first single-stage propellant tank through close cooperation with a KARI research team," KAI's senior managing director Shin Hyun-dae said. South Korea plans to complete the development of a qualification model this year before producing an actual flight model.
South Korea's space program has seen slow progress as other countries are reluctant to transfer core technologies. Three space rockets have been launched but two fired in 2009 and 2010 failed to reach orbit. The third one using Russian technology put a satellite into orbit.
reporter
Lim Chang-won
cwlim34@ajunews.com
