LEROS
For the Greek island, see Leros.
LEROS is a family of chemical rocket engines manufactured by Moog ISP Westcott United Kingdom. LEROS engines have been used as primary apogee engines for telecommunications satellites such as the Lockheed Martin A2100 [1] as well as deep space missions such as Juno.[2]
The family of LEROS engines derive from the original LEROS 1 engine which was developed and qualified in the 1990s by Royal Ordnance. The LEROS engines are all made of niobium alloy, which is traditionally used for liquid rocket engines such as the main engine of the Apollo Lunar Module. More than 70 LEROS 1 series engines have been delivered and have flown successfully.[3]
Engine | Propellant | Thrust | Isp | Comments |
---|---|---|---|---|
LEROS 1c [4] | Hydrazine / MON | 460 N | 325 | |
LEROS 1b | Hydrazine / MON | 635 N | 318 | |
LEROS 2b | MMH / MON | 407 N | 318 | |
LEROS 4 (High Thrust Apogee Engine) | MMH / MON | 1100 N | Under Development for European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Robotic Exploration Program [5] |
Uses
LEROS engines have been used on a number of NASA and other space agency missions:
- NEAR - Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous
- Mars Global Surveyor [6]
- Mercury Messenger [7]
- Juno
- JCSAT-13 [8]
- Sirius 4
- Nimiq 1 [9]
- SBIRS GEO 1 & GEO 2 [10][11]
References
- ↑ Spaceflight Now - LEROS 1c First Firing
- ↑ BBC Juno Jupiter probe gets British boost
- ↑ PRNewswire LEROS History
- ↑ Moog ISP Apogee/Upper Stage Thrusters
- ↑ Spacenews ESA HTAE Engine Development
- ↑ Astronautix - Mars Global Surveyor
- ↑ Spacenewsfeed - NASA Mercury Messenger Orbit Insertion
- ↑ Spaceflight101 - Ariane 5 Flight VA206
- ↑ Astronautix - A2100 Platform
- ↑ Skyrocket - SBIRS Geo 1
- ↑ Spaceflight101 - Atlas V SBIRS Geo 2 Launch
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