Dual mode propulsion systems combine the high efficiency of bipropellant rockets with the reliability and simplicity of monopropellant rockets. Dual mode systems are either hydrazine/N2O4, or MMH/hydrogen peroxide (the former is much more common). Typically, this system works as follows: During the initial high-impulse orbit-raising maneuvers, the system operates in a bipropellant fashion, providing high thrust at high efficiency; when it arrives on orbit, it closes off either the fuel or oxidizer, and conducts the remainder of its mission in a simple, predictable monopropellant fashion.
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Thee in the driving storm even as now, the snow, the winter-day
declining,
Thee in thy panoply, thy measur’d dual throbbing and thy beat
convulsive,
Thy black cylindric body, golden brass and silvery steel,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“The love of their country is with them only a mode of flattering its master; as soon as they think that master can no longer hear, they speak of everything with a frankness which is the more startling because those who listen to it become responsible.”
—Marquis De Custine (1790–1857)
“Along a parabola life like a rocket flies,
Mainly in darkness, now and then on a rainbow.”
—Andrei Voznesensky (b. 1933)