In most researches on a green monopropellant thruster, a catalyst is employed in order to initiate the chemical reaction in the monopropellant thruster as is the case with a conventional hydrazine thruster. In the case of Hydroxylammonium nitrate (HAN) based monopropellant, SHP163, the catalyst is easy to be degraded and/or broken because its flame temperature is too high for the catalyst. In order to extend the lifetime of the thruster, we evaluated experimentally a laser ignition method for HAN based monopropellant. As one of feasibility studies, ignition tests of a propellant droplet were carried out in a closed chamber. We measured inside pressure of the chamber and obtained shadowgraph movie by using high speed video camera at several different laser energies. As the result, it was found that HAN-based monopropellant gasified at more than approximately 20mJ of laser energy. And, the behavior of a droplet was observed successfully by high speed shadowgraph when a laser was irradiated.
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Physical characteristics: Original contains illustrations