Rocket Propulsion by Heister et al. provides comprehensive coverage of the core aspects of chemical (solid and liquid) rocket motor design. The textbook also refers to unsteady analysis and its complexities and importance for safe system design. The text makes good use of relevant examples and case studies, which help to ground much of the theoretical analysis presented.
While this is primarily a textbook on chemical rocket propulsion systems, there is a brief chapter on electric propulsion (EP). This chapter gives a good overview of the types of EP systems and their basic operating principles. It would have been nice to see some more introductory material on basic methods for mission analysis for EP systems here, but as EP is not the main focus of the text, this omission is understandable. Additionally, it would have been nice to see some reference to cold gas propulsion systems, which are still a highly relevant method of propulsion for the space industry.
Throughout the book, there are comprehensive sets of example questions and references for further reading at the end of each chapter. Additionally, in the chapter on combustion and thermochemistry, the text refers to useful and openly available code for chemical equilibrium calculations. The book is completed with a good set of illustrations that clarify the more challenging concepts introduced in the text. While the units in the text are a mixture of imperial and metric, which may be confusing at first glance, this does not take away from the content and analysis methods covered. Finally, the appendices contain key details of the numerical analysis discussed in the main text and a good list of web resources from the authors’ own site, including a solutions manual, and figures in PPT/ JPG format available from the publisher’s site.
Overall, this is a very good senior undergraduate- or postgraduate-level textbook covering key aspects of rocket propulsion with a focus on thermochemical rocket motor design.
