US 6,981,364 B2
Combine engine for single-stage spacecraft
Osamu Okamoto, Tokyo (Japan); Tatsuo Yamanaka, Saitama (Japan); Masataka Maita, Tokyo (Japan); Hideyuki Taguchi, Tokyo (Japan); and Takeshi Tsuchiya, Tokyo (Japan)
Assigned to National Aerospace Laboratory of Japan, Tokyo (Japan)
Filed on Jul. 22, 2003, as Appl. No. 10/623,601.
Prior Publication US 2005/0016157 A1, Jan. 27, 2005
Int. Cl. F02K 9/78 (2006.01); F02K 7/18 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 60—224 11 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A combined engine for a single-stage spacecraft, comprising an air intake section, an engine main body section including a combustion chamber, and an exhaust nozzle section, in this order, and comprising rocket engines that inject the engine exhaust flows as rocket jets into said combustion chamber are arranged on struts that partition said air intake section into a plurality of air introduction channels,
wherein controlling the chamber pressure in said rocket engines allows the shapes of said rocket jets injected from said rocket engines to be varied controlling the states of the airflow introduced into said combustion chamber, the combustion pressure in said combustion chamber and the state of the gas-flow exhausted from said combustion chamber without any mechanical variable structures to be able to stably produce thrusts at the wide ranges of flight speeds from take-off to orbiting earth with a single engine.