Minerva, igniting the future
Creators: name:  M. GALEOTTA 
name:   J. JOUBERT 
name:   J. CHOPINET 
name:   S. PERNON 
name:   P. PEMPIE 
Publisher: name: Proceedings of  the 9th European Conference for Aerospace Sciences. Lille, France, 27 June - 1 July, 2022
Year: 2022
Subjects: SPACE
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGIES
REUSABILITY

description: Today, space has become a geostrategic issue marked by a strong acceleration of investments and new uses. The space sector as a whole is undergoing a rapid evolution, that is being fuelled by two correlated causes that are essentially feeding this dynamic. On the one hand, the digital revolution and, on the other hand, the role of space in this revolution, with more and more satellites providing and transporting a growing flow of data. This evolution is accompanied by an acceleration in the pace of innovation, an expansion of entrepreneurial ecosystems from upstream to downstream and the emergence of new players. In this context of disruptive innovation, CNES, as the driving force behind France\'s space ambitions, through the PERSEUS (Projet Etudiant de Recherche Spatiale Europeen Universitaire et Scientifique) program of the Direction of Space Transportation, aims to make students aware of the economic, strategic and political dimensions of space, which are more important than ever with the evolution of traditional space to NewSpace, and to encourage entrepreneurship of young people in this field. Through the realization of ground and flight demonstrators of space transportation systems, the objective is to sensitize students to the professions of the sector and to stimulate the innovation and the technological development by the young people within a school or associative framework. In fact, the ambitious demonstrator projects implemented in the program are in line with the CNES strategy for space transportation. In the long term, the PERSEUS project aims to launch a 5km apogee bi-fluid rocket with reuse on the basis of LOX/CH4 propulsion through the DREAM ON challenge. Demonstrating critical technologies and capacities, with a launch target in May 2024, the current ongoing core project, ASTREOS 1, shall serve as a stepping stone for a reusable DREAM ON sounding rocket. ASTREOS 1 will be the first bi-liquid demonstrator of PERSEUS program. To develop a bi-liquid sounding rocket, one of the paths to success is the mastery of the Propulsion Package, with in particular the testing of the bi-liquid LOX/Ethanol (in a first step) engine, so called Minerva. In this respect, the update and redefinition of the PERSEUS propulsion bench on the Vernon plateau at PERSEUS partner ArianeGroup will be essential in order to carry out and operate the numerous cryogenic engine and stage tests. From the use of ablative materials to the implementation of a regenerative cooling circuit, different engine evolutions are foreseen to tackle the challenge of the bi-liquid propulsion. The development of these variants will obey to an incremental technological rationale which will enable students and Perseus project to improve their knowledge and master of this challenging field. These evolutions of the Minerva Rocket Engine will feed the versions of the ASTREOS sounding rocket family and also the DREAM ON rocket branch. This paper aims at giving an overview of the bi-liquid propulsion activities undertaken in PERSEUS- as well as deep insights for some of them- , of the results achieved so far and the next challenges in front of the PERSEUS program to fulfill this ambitious Agile Roadmap dedicated to the Propulsion package.