Fractional consumption of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen during the space shuttle program

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.