Fractional consumption of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen during the space shuttle program
Abstract
The Space Shuttle uses the propellants, liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, to meet part of the propulsion requirements from ground to orbit. The Kennedy Space Center procured over 350 million liters of liquid hydrogen and over 200 million liters of liquid oxygen during the 30-year Space Shuttle Program. Because of the nature of the cryogenic propellants, approximately 54% of the total purchased liquid hydrogen and 32% of the total purchased liquid oxygen were used in the Space Shuttle Main Engines. The balance of the propellants were vaporized during operations for various purposes. This paper dissects the total consumption of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen and determines the fraction attributable to each of the various processing and launch operations that occurred during the entire Space Shuttle Program at the Kennedy Space Center.
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A study of the Space Shuttle Program over 30 years showed that about half of the LH2 purchased was not used to launch the vehicle into space but was lost due to combined heat leak through the supply chain.
“A study of the Space Shuttle Program over 30 years showed that about half of the LH2 purchased was not used to launch the vehicle into space but was lost due to combined heat leak through the supply chain [12].”
From Energy efficient large-scale storage of liquid hydrogen (2022) · cites this paper as [12]
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Notardonato, W. U., Swanger, A. M., Fesmire, J. E., Jumper, K. M., Johnson, W. L., & Tomsik, T. M. (2017) · IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering · doi:10.1088/1757-899x/278/1/012012 · Cited by 73 · see citing works
Energy efficient large-scale storage of liquid hydrogen
Fesmire, J., Swanger, A., Jacobson, J., & Notardonato, W. (2022) · IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering · doi:10.1088/1757-899x/1240/1/012088 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
- Authors
- Partridge, J. K.
- Affiliations
- Kennedy Space Center (US)
- Corresponding author
- Partridge, Jonathan K.
- Venue
- AIP Conference Proceedings
- Publisher
- AIP
- Published
- 2012
- Pages
- 1765-1770
- ISSN
- 0094-243X (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2069911325
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 3 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 1.79
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- AIP conference proceedings (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Spacecraft and Cryogenic Technologies
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Rocket and propulsion systems research
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Spacecraft Design and Technology
- Keywords
- Space Shuttle, liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, cryogenic propellants, propellant consumption, Space Shuttle Main Engine, launch operations, propellant processing, Kennedy Space Center
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