Retro Aerospace Propulsion Division

PolyAcetylOzone (PAO) Propellant Testing

March 32, 2005

Retro Aerospace has finished our first round of testing of a new monopropellant developed by the NASA Marshall Spaceflight Center. This new propellant, only recently produced in testable quantities, is a powder form of polymerized Acetylozone. This chemical, HOOOCCH, is an energetic monopropellant which has a theoretical specific impulse of over 400 seconds.

HOOOCCH has been tested both as pressed powder and in a slurry form with liquid Fluorine/ liquid Oxygen (FLOX) oxidizer added to slurry the powder.

Photos of our initial test series follow:

Test 1.
Our (former) Mojave, CA underground test bunker with 3 kilograms of Acetylozone in a small solid rocket test chamber, picture from about 1,200 meters away.
Test 2.
Our (former) Mojave, CA surface test facility #1, a test of about 60 kg of Acetylozone in a solid rocket firing chamber, picture from about 3,500 meters distance. No desert tortoises were harmed in this test.
Test 3.
Our (former) Mojave, CA surface test facility #3, about 40 kg of Acetylozone in a slurry with 10 kg of FLOX, picture from about 2,200 meters.
This night test was intended to avoid any harm to normal daytime aircraft flight patterns and largely succeeded, other than the Learjet that was melted into a puddle by the fluorine fallout on the airport.
Notice the brilliant red color in the fireball. Normal chemistry of HOOOCCH has no explanation for the red reaction color, leading us to believe that secondary exothermic reactions with atmospheric nitrogen were occurring. See Test 8 below.
Test 4.
Finally, a successful launch! This test vehicle used 10 kg of Acetylozone and 3 kg of FLOX and ascended to an altitude of 3.5 kilometers before suffering a minor containment failure. Damage on the surface was limited to broken windows no further than 4 kilometers from the launch point.
Test 5.
This was a stability test of about 400 kg of FLOX/Acetylozone. We dropped a ballpoint pen 20 centimeters into the tank using a remote actuator. The photo is taken from a distance of roughly 5 kilometers, the test was at our (former) Mojave Test Site #9.
Test 6.
This was our second stability test, in our Mojave Test Site #7 facility. Contained within a 10 foot thick concrete bunker, 300 kilograms of FLOX/Acetylozone was heated from its normal storage temperature of 8 degrees kelvin to a high point of about 9.3 degrees kelvin and subjected to a 0.1g shock. We successfully determined an upper bound on shock sensitivity of bulk FLOX/Acetylozone, an important step towards largescale applications of HOOOCCH.
The photo was taken from 5 km away from the test stand and slightly outside the debris pattern.
Test 7.
Another stability test. Or brand new test site Mojave #13 and 1,300 kg of powder Acetylozone was subjected to a Richter 2.2 earthquake at 11:55pm Monday, December 20 2004, and the test results were obvious from the photograph. We have recommended against Western Test Range launches of Acetylozone propellant vehicles as a result of this impromptu test.
Test 8.
A safety compatability test. 15,000 kg of Acetylozone at 7 degrees K was exposed to 1 gram of liquid nitrogen at 75 K. The intermediate azide chemistry apparently proved hypergolic with the bulk Acetylozone. As did nearby atmospheric nitrogen after the initial reaction, as you can see from the large corroded patch of ground around the (former) Test Stand #30.
The photo was taken from 8 km away. The corroded patch of ground was 3,400 meters across and is now clearly visible from orbit. Several astronauts on ISS have commented excitedly about the chances that they can fly on Acetylozone propelled vehicles in the future.
Test 9.
Successful flight again! Notice the exhaust trail from surface level up to the point where the primary propellant tank decomposed unexpectedly at an altitude of about 800 meters. We were very happy to see that the second stage ignited properly and climbed an additional 1,200 meters before its propellant load also decomposed unexpectedly.