User:PDLemoo/Monopropellant rocket

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History
Helmuth Walter was a German engineer an early pioneer of monopropellant rockets using hydrogen peroxide as fuel. Although his initial work was on submarine propulsion the same jets of oxygen produced by for combustion in gas turbines could be directed through a nozzle to generate thrust. The rocket Walter developed was used in the German ME-163 fighter aircraft in 1944, the first aircraft to break the 1000 km/h (635 mph).

After World War Two the British would continue to experiment with hydrogen peroxide monopropellants. They would develop the de Havilland Sprite a hydrogen peroxide rocket that could produce 5000lbf of thrust over 16 seconds. Not intended for space flight the rocket would provide hot and high takeoff capability to the de Havilland Comet 1 the first commercial jet airliner.

In 1998 the use of monopropellant hydrazine thrusters gave NASA the capability to land much heavier objects on mars by cutting out the need for heavy airbags. This weight saving allowed them to carry more scientific instruments on the phoenix space probe. NASA once again relied on monopropellant rockets to land the 1 ton curiosity rover on mars. The sky crane not only allowed a much softer landing than the airbags used in previous rovers, but a more precise landing site could be picked. The sky crane was used again in 2021 for the perseverance rover.