Browse Topic: Spacecraft
Shipbuilders didn’t have the option of fiberglass when the nonprofit American Bureau of Shipping (ABS) was established 160 years ago to help safeguard life and property on the seas. Fortunately, technology to help better ensure the safety of ocean vessels has also come a long way in that time, in part because people have become a spacefaring species.
A Coventry University design and materials engineer is leading an international team of researchers in the creation of a new material for liquid hydrogen storage tanks that are used to propel rockets into space. Coventry University, Coventry, UK The future of space travel is seemingly changing by the day and a Coventry University academic is doing his bit to stay at the front of the space race. Dr. Ashwath Pazhani along with an international team of researchers have created a new material for storing the liquid hydrogen used to propel rockets into space by the likes of NASA.
Over the past decade, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate and its team of development partners have developed several unique thermal protection system (TPS) technologies designed to protect spacecraft from the extreme heat conditions and entry environments that space missions face. Working closely with the NASA Ames Research Center, Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM), along with several other partners, have developed a new generation of unique strong and robust materials produced using three-dimensional (3D) weaving.
Fangzheng Liu, Nathan Perry, Tobias Roeddiger, Sean Auffinger, Joseph Paradiso, Ariel Ekblaw MIT Media Lab Cambridge, MA
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics have developed a new way to produce and shape large, high-quality mirrors that are much thinner than conventional space-telescope mirrors. The final product is even flexible enough to be rolled up and stored compactly inside a launch vehicle.
Tracking the spread of COVID-19 through communities provided essential data for public-health officials and individuals to make informed decisions during the pandemic. One method that proved useful was collecting, concentrating, and testing municipal wastewater for the presence of the virus that caused the illness. As this testing ramped up, a technology developed for NASA to identify pathogens inside spacecraft saved time and produced dependable results on Earth.
Space lasers are transforming the world. Not the far-off future of science fiction, but the universe of how data and communications flow today - everywhere from deep space missions to countless applications here on earth, including consumer internet services, military operations, and banking transactions. Lasers can transmit vast amounts of data over great distances at the speed of light, 100 times faster than previously possible in space. The narrowness of the light beams makes laser communication remarkably efficient. The highly focused light is aimed at the receiver, resulting in minimal beam divergence and signal loss and allowing for reduced power consumption.
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have designed a science enclosure system for science experiments conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS). It allows users the ability to safely manipulate objects of study within the transparent enclosure by utilizing protective boundary layer innovations whose designs may be transferable to other containment systems. The science enclosure system can support experiments that would require Biosafety Level (BSL) 2 containment.
Innovators at NASA Johnson Space Center have developed and successfully flight tested a high-performance computing platform, known as the Descent and Landing Computer (DLC), to suit the demands of safe, autonomous, extraterrestrial spacecraft landings for robotic and human exploration missions.
Life for astronauts on the International Space Station has been, for the most part, less taxing than it was in the space shuttle days, when missions often included many goals and milestones compressed into a short period of time. That won’t be the case, however, for the first astronauts to journey to the surface of the Moon during the Artemis program, said Alexandra Whitmire, a NASA Scientist whose job concerns astronaut well-being and performance.
Manufacturing and servicing facilities in space are (finally) moving from the pages of science fiction to reality. For decades, we've seen movies with scenes of spacecraft being created and serviced in beautifully rendered factories with Earth in the background. And many more ideas have come from authors imagining bold futures where humanity does everything from creating giant nets of satellites to massive, spinning space stations. Some might lament that, back in reality, we’ve come so far with our achievements in space yet fallen short of the brightest visions. How can we have landed on the Moon 50 years ago and still be scrapping billion-dollar satellites when they run out of fuel? However, there’s good reason to believe that the space industry is almost done laying the foundations that will let us move from science fiction to engineering reality.
We are in the midst of a golden age of space travel with the upcoming launch of multiple reusable heavy lift rockets. These new craft will increase deliverable mass to LEO and decrease delivery costs. These rockets are essential to replacing the ISS with commercial space stations in the coming decade. These new commercial stations will enable the creation of in-space factories that leverage microgravity to improve products for use on Earth. Large-scale 3D bioprinting is one technology that will benefit from microgravity and has the potential to address the organ shortage and overreliance on animal models for drug discovery and testing.
The International Space Station cost more than $100 Billion to build and took 60 launches to complete. Yet, it has only 900 cubic meters of usable space. If we are to live and work in space, conduct meaningful research, and use our imaginations for sports and entertainment — we will need a lot more usable space in space. What if we could create stronger, scalable and more resilient space stations for a small fraction percent of this cost?
Over the last decade, a government-industry effort to advance the use of modern computer processors and networks in spacecraft avionics systems has quietly been making its own gains in industry adoption and a re-thinking of the way next generation spacecraft electronic systems could be designed in a less costly and more interoperable way. Spacecraft avionics systems are all of the electronic instruments, components, computers and subsystems that control primary spaceflight flight and data communications functionality.
Riding aboard NASA's Psyche spacecraft, the agency's Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration continues to break records. While the asteroid-bound spacecraft doesn't rely on optical communications to send data, the new technology has proven that it's up to the task. After interfacing with the Psyche's radio frequency transmitter, the laser communications demo sent a copy of engineering data from over 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) away, 1. times the distance between Earth and the Sun. This achievement provides a glimpse into how spacecraft could use optical communications in the future, enabling higher-data-rate communications of complex scientific information as well as high-definition imagery and video in support of humanity's next giant leap: sending humans to Mars.
In research that may lead to advancements in the design of next-generation airplane and spacecraft, MIT engineers used carbon nanotubes to prevent cracking in multilayered composites. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA To save on fuel and reduce aircraft emissions, engineers are looking to build lighter, stronger airplanes out of advanced composites. These engineered materials are made from high-performance fibers that are embedded in polymer sheets. The sheets can be stacked and pressed into one multilayered material and made into extremely lightweight and durable structures. But composite materials have one main vulnerability: the space between layers, which is typically filled with polymer “glue” to bond the layers together. In the event of an impact or strike, cracks can easily spread between layers and weaken the material, even though there may be no visible damage to the layers themselves. Over time, as these hidden cracks spread between layers, the composite
In any human space flight program, safety of the crew is of utmost priority. In case of exigency in atmospheric flight, the crew is safely and quickly rescued from the launch vehicle using Crew Escape System (CES). CES is a critical part of the Human Space Flight which carries the crew module away from the ascending launch vehicle by firing its rocket motors (Pitch Motor (PM), Low altitude Escape Motor (LEM) and High altitude Escape Motor (HEM)). The structural loads experienced by the CES during the mission abort are severe as the propulsive, aerodynamic and inertial forces on the vehicle are significantly high. Since the mission abort can occur at anytime during the ascent phase of the launch vehicle, trajectory profiles are generated for abort at every one second interval of ascent flight period considering several combinations of dispersions on various propulsive parameters of abort motors and aero parameters. Depending on the time of abort, the ignition delay of PM, LEM and HEM
Severe problem of aerodynamic heating and drag force are inherent with any hypersonic space vehicle like space shuttle, missiles etc. For proper design of vehicle, the drag force measurement become very crucial. Ground based test facilities are employed for these estimates along with any suitable force balance as well as sensors. There are many sensors (Accelerometer, Strain gauge and Piezofilm) reported in the literature that is used for evaluating the actual aerodynamic forces over test model in high speed flow. As per previous study, the piezofilm also become an alternative sensor over the strain gauges due to its simple instrumentation. For current investigation, the piezofilm and strain gauge sensors have mounted on same stress force balance to evaluate the response time as well as accuracy of predicted force at the same instant. However, these force balance need to be calibrated for inverse prediction of the force from recorded responses. A reliable multi point calibration
With regards to any aerospace mission, it is very useful to have awareness about the state of vehicle, i.e., the information about its position, velocity, attitude, rotational rates and other concerned data such as control surface deflections, landing gear touchdown, working of mechanisms and so on. The sensor data from the vehicle that is communicated to the ground can be difficult to perceive and analyze. A frame work for real-time motion simulation of an aerospace vehicle from onboard telemetry data is henceforth developed in order to improve the understanding about the current state of the mission and aid in real-time decision making if required. The telemetry data, that is transmitted through User Datagram Protocol (UDP), is received and decoded to usable format. The visualization software accepts the data in a fixed time interval and applies the required transformations in order to ensure one-to-one correspondence between actual vehicle and simulation. The transformations
Unsteady pressure fluctuations in launch vehicles can induce aerodynamic instabilities, potentially resulting in vibration, structural fatigue, and even catastrophic failure. These risks undermine structural integrity and jeopardize payload delivery, threatening mission success and crew safety. Therefore, precise measurements of unsteady pressure are vital for understanding dynamic pressure distribution and flow behaviour caused by phenomena like shock waves, vortices, boundary layer interactions, and flow separation. While ground-based wind tunnel tests have conventionally provided these insights, this paper presents an on-board system designed for real-time unsteady pressure data acquisition. The system addresses the challenge of accurately resolving high-frequency pressure variations over very high base pressure values. It can be integrated into re-entry vehicles and stage recovery experiments, providing confidence in acquiring data for complex geometrical shapes. Moreover, the
Launch vehicle structures in course of its flight will be subjected to dynamic forces over a range of frequencies up to 2000 Hz. These loads can be steady, transient or random in nature. The dynamic excitations like aerodynamic gust, motor oscillations and transients, sudden application of control force are capable of exciting the low frequency structural modes and cause significant responses at the interface of launch vehicle and satellite. The satellite interface responses to these low frequency excitations are estimated through Coupled Load Analysis (CLA). This analysis plays a crucial role in mission as the satellite design loads and Sine vibration test levels are defined based on this. The perquisite of CLA is to predict the responses with considerable accuracy so that the design loads are not exceeded in the flight. CLA validation is possible by simulating the flight experienced responses through the analysis. In the present study, the satellite interface responses are validated
Hypersonic flight vehicles have potential applications in strategic defence, space missions, and future civilian high-speed transportation systems. However, structural integration has significant challenges due to extreme aero-thermo-mechanical coupled effects. Scramjet-powered air-breathing hypersonic vehicles experience extreme heat loads induced by combustion, shock waves and viscous heat dissipation. An active cooling thermal protection system for scramjet applications has the highest potential for thermal load management, especially for long-duration flights, considering the weight penalty associated with the heavier passive thermal insulation structures. We consider the case of active cooling of scramjet engine structural walls with endothermic hydrocarbon fuel. We have developed a semi-analytical quasi-2D heat transfer model considering a prismatic core single cooling channel segment as a representative volume element (RVE) to analyse larger-scale problems. The model includes
Riding aboard NASA’s Psyche spacecraft, the agency’s Deep Space Optical Communications technology demonstration continues to break records. While the asteroid-bound spacecraft doesn’t rely on optical communications to send data, the new technology has proven that it’s up to the task. After interfacing with the Psyche’s radio frequency transmitter, the laser communications demo sent a copy of engineering data from over 140 million miles (226 million kilometers) away, 1½ times the distance between Earth and the Sun.
Just as NASA needs to reduce mass on a spacecraft so it can escape Earth’s gravity, automotive manufacturers work to reduce weight to improve vehicle performance. In the case of brake rotors, lighter is better for a vehicle’s acceleration, reliable stopping, and even gas mileage. Orbis Brakes Inc. licensed a NASA-patented technology to accomplish that and more. This revolutionary brake disc design is at least 42 percent lighter than conventional cast iron rotors, with performance comparable to much more expensive carbon-ceramic brakes.
Speed is everything in rocketry. To get into low-Earth orbit, a spacecraft needs to hit velocities around 17,000 mph. And any company building a commercial rocket must have it designed, built, tested, and flying payloads as fast as possible to begin recouping the astronomical cost of reaching commercial readiness.
From flying planes to leading space missions and conducting groundbreaking research, women have been contributing to the aerospace industry for decades. However, the number of women employed in the international space industry represents just 20-22 percent of the workforce, according to figures released by the United Nations in 2021. Only 11 percent of astronauts so far have been women.
In recent years, industry adoption of thermoplastic composites (TPCs) in lieu of thermosets and metallic structures has increased for the fabrication of air and launch vehicle components. Manufacturing of TPCs, performed via automated tape laying (ATL) and automated fiber placement (AFP), uses machines that place prepreg tow or tapes on molds in a unidirectional manner, which then undergo cure cycles, autoclaving, and other steps that require special tooling. The process is time, material, and energy intensive, requires large facilities to house equipment, and limits the size, mechanical properties and shapes of the parts manufactured. To address these limitations, NASA’s Langley Research Center has developed a simplified, tool-less automated tow/tape placement (ATP) system.
Innovators at the NASA Kennedy Space Center have developed a new optical sensor for measuring concentration in a liquid solution. The sensor was designed for measuring the pretreat solution concentration within the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), a specialized toilet designed for the International Space Station (ISS) and other future missions. The sensor was developed to replace the current pretreat concentration sensor within the UWMS that uses electrical conductivity instead of light-based methods.
For both space tourism and space exploration, there is an interest in generating artificial gravity in space for entertainment, recreational, and scientific purposes, as well as to counter the health concerns of extended exposure to a microgravity environment. NASA Ames Research Center has developed a novel technology — a system and approach for creating artificial gravity using a non-rotating spacecraft with connected moving modules, which can be used for habitation and other purposes.
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