Challenges and Opportunities of Green Propellants and Electric Pump Feeding for Future European Kick Stages

This paper analyses the synergy between two innovative technologies: green propellants and electric pump feeding, for a 500 N engine thrust range. The novel approach is then compared to the legacy confguration, i.e., an MMH/NTO pressure fed system. First, a discussion of the benefts and challenges of the diferent technologies is presented. Subsequently, the proposed confguration relying on green propellants and e-pumps is investigated. After selecting hydrogen peroxide as the baseline oxidiser, a comparative analysis of diferent fuel candidates is conducted, leading to the selection of propane as fuel. Furthermore, the second part of the paper weights the novel confguration against the standard one and confronts their propulsive performance and mass budget. Results show that the implementation of electric pump feeding can leverage the performance of the selected green propellant outpacing the conventional solution.