From: kare@sirius.com (Jordin Kare)
Newsgroups: sci.space.tech
Subject: Re: Piston Pumps for Rockets
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 1997 17:40:20 -0700

In article <hinkey.103.5CC60D00@seanet.com>, hinkey@seanet.com (John
Hinkey) wrote:

>A few weeks/days (or was it years?) ago I saw a post that mentioned high
>performance reciprocating pisiton pumps for a rocket.  Does anyone known where
>I can get more information on this?

These were developed by Dr. John Whitehead at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory to provide high-performance thrust on demand
for maneuvering miniature interceptors.  Monopropellant hydrazine
pumps were test-flown on the ASTRID sounding rocket in 1993, if I
recall.  Bipropellant pumps have been tested on the bench, and
have potential applications ranging from Mars ascent stages to
miniature SSTO launch vehicles.  They are competitive with turbopumps
up to (very roughly) 5000-lbf-thrust systems, and substantially
better than either turbopumps or pressure-fed systems below
(again, roughly) 1000 lbf.

Several of John's papers are online at www.llnl.gov

Jordin Kare