Synerjet for Earth/Orbit Propulsion: Revisiting the 1966 NASA/Marquardt Composite (Airbreathing/Rocket) Propulsion System Study

A landmark study of Synerjet propulsion for fully-reusable Earth/orbit transport missions was conducted for NASA in 1965-67 by a study team of Marquardt, Rocketdyne, and Lockheed (the present author led this effort). Synerjet propulsion systems are fully integrated aerospace vehicle power-plants, comprising both airbreathing and rocket hardware subsystems and technologies. They are thereby capable of multimode operation using airbreathing, rocket, and certain mixed airbreathing/rocket thermodynamic operating cycles.

The final report (9 volumes) deriving from this 20-year ago study could have applicability to post-Shuttle systems assessments currently underway. However, for reasons of passage-of-time and the (then) classified nature of the study, its documentation seems not well known, and to be in scarce availability today.

This paper ameliorates this limited information-availability situation by providing a readily accessible, study overview for the interested reader.