LEROS
Family of chemical rocket engines
LEROS (Liquid Engine Royal Ordinance Space) is a family of chemical rocket engines manufactured by Nammo at Westcott, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. LEROS engines have been used as primary apogee engines for telecommunications satellites such as the Lockheed Martin A2100 as well as deep space missions such as Juno. The LEROS engines are made of niobium alloy, which is traditionally used for liquid rocket engines such as the attitude control thrusters of the Apollo Lunar Module.
01Types
| Engine | Propellant | Thrust | Isp | Comments | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LEROS 1c | Hydrazine / MON | 460 N | 325 | ||
| LEROS 1b | Hydrazine / MON | 635 N | 318 | ||
| LEROS 2b | MMH / MON | 407 N | 318 | ||
| LEROS 4 | MMH / MON | 1100 N | 323 | Developed c. 2014 for European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Robotic Exploration Program | |
| LEROS 4-ET | MMH / MON | 1310 N | 323 | Extended Thrust version of LEROS 4 |
02History
The family of engines derives from the LEROS 1 which was developed and qualified in the 1990s by Royal Ordnance. The in-space propulsion business was acquired by British Aerospace, then had a sequence of owners including American Pacific Corporation, Moog (from 2012) and Nammo (2017). As of 2011, more than 70 LEROS 1 series engines had been flown successfully.
03Uses
LEROS engines have been used on a number of NASA and other space agency missions:
- NEAR Shoemaker (Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous)
- Mars Global Surveyor
- MESSENGER
- Juno
- JCSAT-5A
- Sirius 4
- Nimiq 1
- SBIRS GEO 1 and GEO 2
- Intelsat 33e
- Beresheet lunar lander
- EnVision Venus orbiter (ESA)
- Blue Ghost lunar lander
04Incidents
There have been helium check valve problems on Juno leading to postponed maneuvers, and a failure after the first burn on Intelsat 33e requiring backup low-thrust jets to be used to bring the satellite to its intended orbit.
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “LEROS”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Juno Fires its Main Engine.jpg by Produced By: JPL , Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Public domain
Fathomly is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Wikimedia Foundation. Spotted a problem? Tell us.