RU2673215C1 - Method of operation of a manned orbital station - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: satisfaction of human life needs; astronautics.SUBSTANCE: invention relates to flight control and life support for crews of spacecraft (SC), mainly orbital stations. Method comprises the release of carbon dioxide from the air of habitable SC compartments by adsorption, as well as subsequent desorption, cooling (with partial liquefaction), and compression of this gas. In this form, carbon dioxide is stored onboard the SC, and before the orbit correction, the calculated portion of the gas is heated to the set temperature, controlling its pressure. Then a portion of gas is discharged into the space surrounding the SC through the nozzle of the correction motor.EFFECT: technical result is the possibility of increasing the mass of the payload delivered to the SC (orbital station), as well as increasing the operation safety.1 cl

Description

The invention is intended for use on board manned spacecraft (SC), especially orbital stations (OS) with a large crew.

An analogue of this proposal is the concept of an orbital gas station where rocket fuel is produced in orbit of the Earth (David Brandt-Erichsen "Orbital Propellant Depots: Building the Interplanetary Highway." Posted on August 17, 2011, NSS Website Updates, Space Transportation, Technology. Wikipedia ) The components of the fuel here are hydrogen and oxygen, which are obtained by electrolysis of water delivered from the Earth. Pulse jet engines of such an OS, providing correction of its orbit, naturally work on the same fuel components (Jonathan A. Goff, Bernard F. Kutter and Frank Zeglerlas, Dallas Bienhoff, Frank Chandler, Jeffrey Marchetta “Realistic near-term propellant depots: Implementation of a critical spasefaring capability)). AIAA SPACE 2009 Conference & Exposition September 14-17, 2009, Pasadena, California, AIAA 2009 - 7656). In the near future, the concepts of satellite tankers for orbital refueling with conventional rocket fuel are considered (“NASA is working on the creation of an automatic gas space station”, “Cosmonautics News”, July, 2014, AstroNews.ru). The maneuvering of such stations is also supposed to be carried out at the expense of their own resource, by means of pulsed reactive action. A pulsed reactive action on a spacecraft is a standard way of performing its maneuvers during flight. Moreover, for various operations, the strength of such an effect may differ by an order of magnitude. For example, the propulsion system of Mir station included two corrective engines with a thrust of 300 kg and 32 orientation engines with a thrust of 13 kg (engine.aviaport.ru Mirny Complex engines). Thus, orbital “refueling” ensures its flight due to its own “gas resource”, i.e. gases produced on its board.

The disadvantage of analogues is the technological complexity of operations with rocket fuels, as well as their explosiveness. In addition, such concepts usually do not provide for the presence of astronauts on board the station (to a large extent due to the danger of production).

Closer to this proposal (prototype) is the current methodology for ensuring long-term flights of a manned international space station (ISS), when the station’s decline due to its deceleration in the upper atmosphere is periodically compensated by reactive thrust pulses. The latter are generated by burning fuel delivered from the Earth (using the engines of delivery ships or their own corrective engines of the station (Orbit of the International Space Station ISS, www.astro-azbuka.ru). Moreover, on the ISS, as well as on orbital refueling, it produces its own gas resource - this is gaseous waste of crew’s vital activity, which consists mainly of carbon dioxide (UG). Usually this ISS “gas resource” is quite large. One person on average “produces” 0.96 kg of UG per day (Gusenberg A.S. et al. " The choice of life support complex for the crews of long-term space stations ”, Space Engineering and Technology, p. 72, No. 1 (8), 2015). Depending on the number of crews, tens of kilograms of carbon dioxide can be collected on board the OS in a short time. Despite it is, at present, the gas is simply being emitted into the surrounding space. The separation of hydrocarbons from air during purification of the latter is carried out due to the adsorption of hydrocarbons on regenerated sorbents (“Water and atmosphere regeneration at space stations ...” LS Bobe et al. 2010, report of NIIKhimmash, niichimmash.ru, or AM Genin et al. "Man in Space", State Publishing House of Medical Literature, Moscow, 1963, p. 32). Depending on the type of sorbent used, its regeneration (i.e., UG desorption) is carried out either by dumping adsorbed gases into vacuum (in the Russian segment) or by calcining the sorbent (in the American segment). In any case, with the existing ISS flight procedure, tens of kilograms of gas are thrown overboard uselessly, while at the same time special fuel is regularly delivered to the station for its correction engines.

The need to deliver this fuel from the Earth while at the same time "not using" its own gas resource is the main disadvantage of the prototype.

The objective of this proposal is to reduce the need for manned spacecraft in the supply of rocket fuel through the use of gaseous waste products (GOL) as the working fluid of its corrective engines.

The technical result of the invention is the ability to increase the mass of other payloads delivered to the station, as well as improving the safety of operating the OS.

The technical result is achieved by the fact that in the method of operating a manned orbital station, including the release of carbon dioxide from the air of its inhabited compartments by adsorption and subsequent desorption of this gas with its discharge into the surrounding space, as well as the correction of the orbit of the station using reactive thrust pulses, desorbed carbon dioxide they are cooled and compressed, the resulting compressed and partially liquefied carbon dioxide is collected and stored in this form on board the station, and before the correction of its orbit, the calculated rtsiyu carbon dioxide required to obtain a predetermined pulse jet thrust, is heated to a predetermined temperature while controlling its pressure, and then discharged into the surroundings via correction of the engine nozzle.

The essence of the proposal is as follows. To create jet thrust, you first need a working fluid (gas) for the jet engine and, secondly, the energy to heat this gas. Both that and another is always made at the manned station: gases - with a life support system, energy - with its solar batteries.

At present, on the ISS, the mass of gaseous wastes released per vacuum per person exceeds 1 kg / day (0.96 kg of HC and 0.11 kg of hydrogen) (A. Gusenberg et al. “Choosing a life support system for long-term crews space stations. ”J.:“ Space Engineering and Technology ”, No. 1 (8), p. 68, 2015). An example of a pulsed hydrogen jet propulsion system of a spacecraft can serve as patent RU 2605163, publ. 12/20/2016, bull. No. 35, IPC: F02K 99/00 (2006.01), B64G 1/40 (2006.01). UG is traditionally used to create jet thrust in modeling (Kalina I. “Engines for sports modeling”. M., DOSAAF, 1983). In recent years, UGs have also been used to control microsatellites (“Cold Gas Propulsion System - an Ideal Choice for Remote Sensing Small Satellites), Remote Sensing - Advanced Techniques and Platform, 2012, p.447, www.intechopen.com).

UG has a large molecular weight and, accordingly, a low speed of sound and specific energy. Because of this, the thrust of a carbon dioxide engine is significantly lower (ceteris paribus) than that of an engine running on light gas mixtures. However, technologically advanced gas is very convenient - it easily liquefies, and it is much easier to store it on the OS. The temperature at its triple point (about minus 60 ° C) approximately corresponds to the temperature of structures on the shadow side of the station, and the pressure is only 6 atm. All this, as well as the ability to create a large supply of this gas during the flight, makes it expedient to use gas as a working fluid for corrective engines of the OS.

Thus, due to the unique properties of gas, almost perfectly matching the temperature conditions on board the OS, the use of simple technological schemes is possible (for example, in “2015, JOSS, Vol. 4, No 2, p.375, Stevenson T.et.al.“ Design and Testing of a Cold Gas Thruster for an Interplanetary CubeSat Mission ”or“ Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences, 2014, 63,2S, p. 280, Urmas Kvell et. al. Nanosatellite orbit control using MEMS cold gas thrusters ”).

The proposal can be implemented as follows.

During operation of a manned orbital station, as usual, UG is isolated from the air of its inhabited compartments by adsorption on a solid sorbent and subsequent desorption during periodic cleaning of the sorbent, for example, by heating it with an electric heater located in the adsorber. The desorbed hot gas is pre-cooled to a temperature below 32 ° C (critical UH temperature). Gas cooling can be carried out, for example, due to its contact with the structural elements of the station located on its shadow side. The cooled UG is compressed (for example, by a compressor) to a pressure above 6 atm. (minimum critical pressure) and re-cooled by contact method until it is liquefied. The resulting liquid carbon dioxide is collected in containers and stored in this form under pressure on board the manned OS. In the future, liquid carbon dioxide can also be used as a fire fighting agent.

Before turning on the OS correction engine, the calculated portion of carbon dioxide necessary to obtain a given impulse of reactive thrust is transferred from the storage ring to the gas generator - the space is closed, or partially closed, where the gas is heated, and its liquid fraction (if present) evaporates i.e. the working fluid of the correction engine is formed. Such a gas generator can be, for example, a chamber of the engine itself, in particular, an electric heating or electric arc type. In it, under the influence of a flowing electric current, the UG is heated to a predetermined temperature limited by the heat resistance of the engine materials. At the right time, this UG is discharged into the surrounding space through the nozzle of the correction engine. As a result, a jet thrust impulse is created. If necessary, the above operations performed before the correction of the orbit of the manned station, repeat.

Let us estimate the maximum thrust impulse that an exhaust gas from an engine can create during a year of work in orbit. We assume that there are 6 people on the OS. Since, as indicated, one person produces 0.96 kg of gas per day, the whole crew will produce 2102 kg of gas per year. When using an electric heating engine, the temperature in its chamber can be 2200 K (S.D. Leskov et al., Electric rocket engines, Mechanical Engineering, 1975, p. 122). At this temperature, the velocity of the outflow into the vacuum of UG with a molecular mass of 44 is 1900 m / s. (M.V. Dobrovolsky, Liquid-propellant rocket engines, M., Mechanical Engineering, 1968, p. 17). The total impulse equal to the product of the mass of the working fluid by the flow rate is 4 million N⋅s. If the mass of the OS is, for example, 40 tons, its speed with such a pulse can increase by 100 m / s.

In order to give the operating system a predetermined thrust momentum I, a portion of UG with a mass m equal to m = I / W should be sent to the engine, where W is the gas outflow velocity from the engine nozzle. For example, to create a thrust impulse of 1000 N⋅s at an outflow speed of 1900 m / s, 0.53 kg of carbon dioxide must be sent to the engine.

Typically, heptyl-amyl engines with a specific thrust of 3100 m / s are used on the OS. The proposed method allows you to save

(2102 kg⋅1900 m / s) / 3100 m / s = 1288 kg of traditional fuel per year.

Claims (1)

A method of operating a manned orbital station, including the release of carbon dioxide from the air of its habitable compartments by adsorption and subsequent desorption of this gas with its discharge into the surrounding space, as well as the correction of the station’s orbit by means of reactive thrust pulses, characterized in that the desorbed carbon dioxide is cooled and compressed , the resulting compressed and partially liquefied carbon dioxide is collected and stored on board the station, and before the correction of its orbit, the calculated portion of carbon dioxide, n necessary to obtain a given impulse of reactive thrust, it is heated to a predetermined temperature, while controlling its pressure, and then dumped into the surrounding space through the nozzle of the correction engine.