Unfortunately, hydrazine is a powerful reducing agent that poses serious biological and environmental concerns. Hydrazine is extremely destructive to living tissues, and is a known human carcinogen. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classifies hydrazine as "highly toxic". Hydrazine possesses a high vapor pressure and boils readily at room temperature. Thus, there exists significant risk of respiratory contamination and special servicing procedures that employ full-pressure Self-Contained Atmospheric Protective Ensemble (SCAPE) suits are required [3]. Although procedures are in place to allow hydrazine to be managed safely on tightly controlled military reservations and at government-operated launch facil

No abstract

Development of a high-performing hybrid rocket system that employs 90% hydrogen peroxide and 3-D printable thermoplastic materials is reported. Traditionally, high-grade peroxide has been employed as a monopropellant using noble-metal catalysts to initiate thermal decomposition. Catbeds beds are expensive, heavy, and contribute no propulsive mass to the system. Catbeds exhibit limited operational lifetimes, and are often rendered inactive due to the high temperatures of thermal decomposition. The presented alternative thermallydecomposes the injected peroxide stream using an electrostatic ignition system, where as a moderate electric field is introduced to the additively layered ABS fuel grain. Electrostatic arcs are induced within the 3-D printed surface features, and produce sufficient pyrolyzed fuel vapor to induce spontaneous combustion when a flow of gaseous oxygen is introduced. Heat released is sufficient to thermally decompose the injected peroxide stream. The liberated heat and oxygen from decomposition drive full combustion along the length of the fuel grain. Gaseous oxygen pre-leads as small as 250 ms reliably initiate combustion. Multiple on-demand relights are provided with this system. Achieved laboratory specific impulse values exceed 215 s under ambient conditions, with a projected vacuum value exceeding 300 s. Density specific impulse values exceeding 4000 N-s/liter are achievable with this system.