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NASA NTRS2024

High Density Vertiplex - Scalable Autonomous Operations - Flight Test Report

This Technical Memorandum describes the approach taken within the High Density Vertiplex Project to perform rapid prototyping and assessment of the UAM Ecosystem including representative: Onboard Autonomous Systems, Ground Control and Fleet Management Systems, Airspace Management Systems, and Vertiport Automation Systems (VAS). Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS) were employed as effective low risk and inexpensive surrogates for larger proposed UAM aircraft to accelerate the prototyping effort, ensure safety, greatly mitigate costs, and accelerate progress. Flight testing performed included multivehicle operations where usability Human Factors (HF) data was collected on the operators.

Jacob Schaefer↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

An Investigation of the Dragonfly Mission Aeroshell/Parachute Dynamics through Subscale Drop Tests

The Dragonfly mission will place a rotorcraft/lander on Titan by 2034. The entry, descent, and landing system of the Dragonfly mission includes two parachutes: a drogue and a main. To provide needed data, subscale drop tests were used to conduct an experimental investigation of the aeroshell/parachute dynamics. The drop tests used a Disk-Gap-Band drogue parachute and two types of Ringslot main parachutes. All tests used a representative aeroshell which included the heatshield. All models were geometrically scaled to 16.7 percent. The model aeroshell had a diameter of 0.75 m. The model parachute nominal diameters were 0.9 m for the drogue and 2.78 m for the main. The aeroshell’s mass properties were dynamically scaled to simulate flight at an altitude of 4 km at Titan. This dynamic scaling allowed the conversion of model test results to full-scale Titan conditions. Onboard instrumentation on the aeroshell provided data on the rotation rates, from which the Euler angles were determined. Tests were conducted by lifting the models with a drone to an altitude of 350 m and dropping them inverted. Key results from these tests were: 1) the models were able to recover from the extreme inverted initial condition and settle to low-amplitude oscillations; 2) ninety nine percent of the time the oscillation amplitudes observed with the drogue parachute were 11.4 degrees or less; 3) ninety nine percent of the time the oscillation amplitudes observed with the 20 percent porosity main parachute were 15.4 degrees or less.

Parachutes↗