Nitrous Oxide Micro Engines

NOME technology also has the potential to be applied to numerous different areas. The first of these potential applications would be high altitude or undersea fuel cells. When nitrous is dissociated it produces nitrogen and oxygen gas. The oxygen gas could then be used with either hydrogen or methanol fuel cells to produce electricity. The nitrous reactor could be run for a short time to pressurize a cylinder with a plug of nitrogen/oxygen mix, which could then slowly be siphoned off to be used within a fuel cell. Another particularly interesting technology would be to pass the NOME reactor exhaust through a turbine and, using a generator, creating a very compact miniature power unit. NOME reactors could also include use on micro Sea Gliders to produce rapid buoyancy changes in this type of vehicle over very small periods of time. These small sea gliders would be able to travel underwater without propeller noise, providing numerous potential applications for both civil and military undersea use. NOME technology could also be used to create gas generators that could supply emergency breathing gas to trapped miners, people in underground shelters, or submarines through dissociation of reserve nitrous oxide.

Potential applications for NOME are numerous for NASA. NOME technology would be a novel hardware solution for anywhere an inexpensive, simple, low-thrust rocket engine could be used. Particular areas of interest would be RCS control of satellites, and main propulsion for micro-satellites, or even for propulsion of free-flying telerobots (such as have been discussed for Shuttle, Orion, ISS, or Hubble inspection applications). Currently, the primary RCS propellant used on spacecraft is hydrazine, which is extremely toxic and which therefore greatly complicates and increases the cost of ground handling operations prior to launch. Another key advantage for NASA would be the use of NOME RCS for any spacecraft that employs nitrous technology for other applications. NOME thrusters could be used for ultra fine control EVA thrusters if a nitrous breathing system was being employed, or used as RCS on a manned spacecraft which employed a nitrous-based oxygen supply system. The breathing and NOME subsystems could draw their nitrous from the same reservoir, thus adding to the over all simplicity of the system. Furthermore, NOME could be used on any spacecraft that used a nitrous based main propulsion system (either as a monopropellant, or combining nitrous with a hydrocarbon in a bipropellant or hybrid engine). The overall result of using a non-toxic RCS propellant that serves other spacecraft functions as well would produce major gains in performance and system simplicity. More »