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This paper gives an overview of the development of an environmental-friendly small bipropellant rocket engine at the Institute of Aviation in Warsaw, Poland. 98% concentration hydrogen peroxide oxidizer and Jet-A fuel are used. A reliable pressure-fed system was chosen and system assembly tests are on-going. The final goal is to enable building and flight-qualifying a larger engine, possible to be used as a large satellite thruster and orbit transfer propulsion system. The paper covers the design and tests of a sub-scale, high contraction ratio, 250-Newton-thrust rocket engine. Fuel is injected into the oxidizer gaseous catalytic decomposition products and pseudo-hypergolic ignition occurs. Results of test firings are presented, with thrust, pressure and temperature measurements given. Special attention is drawn to the process of kerosene autoignition. A novel investigation of kerosene autoignition for very low O/F values, when a high contraction ratio is utilized, was made. Nomenclature CR = combustion chamber Contraction Ratio GEO = Geostationary Orbit GRASP = Green Advanced Space Propulsion HC = hydrocarbon HP = Hydrogen Peroxide HTP = High Test Peroxide IoA = Institute of Aviation KAIST = Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology LRE = Liquid Rocket Engine MMH = Monomethylhydrazine NTO = Dinitrogen Tetroxide O/F = oxidizer-to-fuel ratio p c = chamber pressure p e = nozzle exit pressure RCS = Reaction Control System SOTA = State-of-the-Art TCA = Thrust Chamber Assembly UDMH = Unsymmetrical Dimethylhydrazine

The paper presents results of wind tunnel tests of the Experimental Rocket Platform (ERP), which is developed in Institute of Aviation. It is designed as an easy accessible and affordable platform for microgravity experiments. Proposed design enables to perform experiments in microgravity for almost 150 seconds with apogee of about 100 km. The full-scale model of the ERP has been investigated in the T-3 wind tunnel in Institute of Aviation. During the investigation, the aerodynamic loads of the rocket has been measured for the angle of attack up to 10° and the different rotation angle around the longitudinal axis (up to 90°, depending on the configuration). Three configurations has been investigated: • without fins and boosters • with fins and without boosters • with fins and boosters Additionally, the measurements of velocity field around the ERP using the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) has been performed. Based on the wind tunnel test, an influence of fins and boosters on aerodynamic characteristics of the rocket has been described. Results of the wind tunnel tests show relatively high contribution of boosters in total aerodynamic drag. Some conclusions concerning performance and stability of the rocket have been presented.