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Results for “SPACECRAFT REENTRY”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 199 records · Page 11
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1966

Flight craft Patent

Designing spacecraft for flight into space, atmospheric reentry, and landing at selected sites

Edwards, G. G.↗
NASA NTRS1990

The US Experiments Flown on the Soviet Biosatellite Cosmos 1887

Cosmos 1887, a biosatellite containing biological and radiation experiments from the Soviet Union, the United States and seven other countries, was launched on September 29, 1987. One Rhesus monkey's feeder stopped working two days into the flight and a decision was made to terminate the mission after 12 1/2 days. The biosatellite returned to Earth on October 12, 1987. A system malfunction, during the reentry procedure, caused the Cosmos 1887 spacecraft to land approximately 1800 miles beyond the intended landing site and delayed the start of the postflight procedures by approximately 44 hours. Further information on the conditions at landing and postflight activities is included in the Mission Operations portion of this document. U.S. and U.S.S.R. specialists jointly conducted 26 experiments on this mission, including the postflight transfer of data, hardware and biosamples to the U.S.

Connolly, James P.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Handbook for Designing MMOD Protection

Spacecraft are subject to micro-meteoroid and orbital debris (MMOD) impact damage which have the potential to degrade performance, shorten the mission, or result in catastrophic loss of the vehicle. Specific MMOD protection requirements are established by NASA for each spacecraft early in the program/project life, to ensure the spacecraft meets desired safety and mission success goals. Both the design and operations influences spacecraft survivability in the MMOD environment, and NASA considers both in meeting MMOD protection requirements. The purpose of this handbook is to provide spacecraft designers and operations personnel with knowledge gained by NASA in implementing effective MMOD protection for the International Space Station, Space Shuttle, and various science spacecraft. It has been drawn from a number of previous publications [10-14], as well as new work. This handbook documents design and operational methods to reduce MMOD risk. In addition, this handbook describes tools and equations needed to design proper MMOD protection. It is a living report, in that it will be updated and re-released periodically in future with additional information. Providing effective and efficient MMOD protection is essential for ensuring safe and successful operations of spacecraft and satellites. A variety of shields protect crew modules, external pressurized vessels and critical equipment from MMOD on the International Space Station (ISS). Certain Space Shuttle Orbiter vehicle systems are hardened from MMOD impact, and operational rules are established to reduce the risk from MMOD (i.e., flight attitudes are selected and late inspection of sensitive thermal protection surfaces are conducted to reduce MMOD impacts). Science spacecraft include specific provisions to meet MMOD protection requirements in their design (for example, Stardust & GLAST). Commercial satellites such as Iridium and Bigelow Aerospace Genesis spacecraft incorporate MMOD protection. The development of low-weight, effective MMOD protection has enabled these spacecraft missions to be performed successfully. This handbook describes these shielding techniques. For future exploration activities to the Moon and Mars, implementing high-performance MMOD shielding will be necessary to meet protection requirements with minimum mass penalty. A current area of technology development in MMOD shielding is the incorporation of sensors to detect and locate MMOD impact damage. Depending on the type of sensor the signals from the sensor can be processed to infer the location of the impact and the extent of damage. The objective of the sensors is to locate critical damage that would endanger the spacecraft or crew immediately or during reentry (such as an air leak from crew module or critical damage to thermal protection system of reentry vehicles). The information from the sensors can then be used with repair kits, patch kits, hatch closure or other appropriate remedial techniques to reduce MMOD risk.

Arnold, Jim↗
NASA NTRS2007

Inadvertent Earth Reentry Breakup Analysis for the New Horizons Mission

The New Horizons (NH) spacecraft was launched in January 2006 aboard an Atlas V launch vehicle, in a mission to explore Pluto, its moons, and other bodies in the Kuiper Belt. The NH spacecraft is powered by a Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (RTG) which encases multiple General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) modules. Thus, a pre-launch vehicle breakup analysis for an inadvertent atmospheric reentry in the event of a launch failure was required to assess aerospace nuclear safety and for launch contingency planning. This paper addresses potential accidental Earth reentries analyzed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) which may arise during the ascent to parking orbit, resulting in a suborbital reentry, as well as a departure from parking orbit, resulting in an orbital reentry.

Ling, Lisa M.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Prediction of the pattern performance for the Aeroassist Flight Experiment (AFE) spacecraft

In order to provide a set of benchmark flight data for a reusable Aeroassisted Orbit Transfer Vehicle (AOTV) application, NASA undertook the development of an Aeroassisted Flight Experiment (AFE) which will be launched from the Space Shuttle. A representative aeroassist trajectory will be flown and sensor measurements of aerodynamic performance, thermal protection response, and plasma ionization reentry effects will be obtained. Discussed here is the spacecraft antenna. Estimates of signal transmissions from the AFE to the Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) during the reentry period are given. The computer modeling of the antennas is presented with and without the reentry plasma.

Yang, C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Aerobrake plasmadynamics - Macroscopic effects

The flow around an aerobraking spacecraft (such as the Aeroassist Flight Experiment reentry vehicle) will contain a region of partially ionized gas, that is, a plasma. It is shown here by numerical simulation that macroscopic plasmadynamic effects (which are not included in standard aerothermodynamic simulations) will have a noticeable effect on the reentry flow field. In particular, there are thermoelectric phenomena which can have a major influence in flow dynamics at the front of an ionizing bowshock. These thermoelectric phenomena arise because of the presence of large density and temperature gradients at the front of a reentry bowshock, and they include strong local magnetic fields, electric currents, and ohmic heating. One important result is the dramatic increase in temperature (over the case where plasma effects are neglected) at a reentry shock front; the implication is that macroscopic plasmadynamic effects can no longer be neglected in simulations of hypersonic reentry flow fields.

Shebalin, John V.↗
NASA NTRS1994

High Earth orbit design for lunar assisted small Explorer class missions

Small Expendable launch vehicles are capable of injecting modest payloads into high Earth orbits having apogee near the lunar distance. However, lunar and solar perturbations can quickly lower perigee and cause premature reentry. Costly perigee raising maneuvers by the spacecraft are required to maintain the orbit. In addition, the range of inclinations achievable is limited to those of launch sites unless costly spacecraft maneuvers are performed. This study investigates the use of a lunar swingby in a near-Hohmann transfer trajectory to raise perigee into the 8 to 25 solar radius range and reach a wide variety of inclinations without spacecraft maneuvers. It is found that extremely stable orbits can be obtained if the postencounter spacecraft orbital period is one-half of a lunar sidereal revolution and the Earth-vehicle-Moon geometry is within a specified range. Criteria for achieving stable orbits with various perigee heights and ecliptic inclinations are developed, and the sensitivity of the resulting mission orbits to transfer trajectory injection (TTI) errors is examined. It is shown that carefully designed orbits yield lifetimes of several years, with excellent ground station coverage characteristics and minimal eclipses. A phasing loop error correction strategy is considered with the spacecraft propulsion system delta V demand for TTI error correction and a postlunar encounter apogee trim maneuver typically in the 30 to 120 meters per second range.

Mathews, M.↗
NASA NTRS1966

Bio-Medical Factors and External Hazards in Space Station Design

The design of space-station configurations is influenced by many factors. Probably the most demanding and critical are the biomedical and external hazards requirements imposed to provide the proper environment and supporting facilities for the crew and the adequate protective measures necessary to provide a configuration'in which the crew can live and work efficiently in relative comfort and safety. The major biomedical factors, such as physiology, psychology, nutrition, personal hygiene, waste management, and recreation, all impose their own peculiar requirements. The commonality and integration of these requirements demand the utmost ingenuity and inventiveness be exercised in order to achieve effective configuration compliance. The relationship of biomedical factors for the internal space-station environment will be explored with respect to internal atmospheric constituency, atmospheric pressure levels, oxygen positive pressure, temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration, and atmospheric contamination. The range of these various parameters and the recommended levels for design use will be analyzed. Requirements and criteria for specific problem areas such as zero and artificial gravity and crew private quarters will be reviewed and the impact on the design of representative solutions will be presented. In the areas of external hazards, the impact of factors such as meteoroids, radiation, vacuum, temperature extremes, and cycling on station design will be evaluated. Considerations with respect to operational effectiveness and crew safety will be discussed. The impact of such factors on spacecraft design to achieve acceptable launch and reentry g levels, crew rotation intervals, etc., will be reviewed.

Olling, E. H.↗
NASA NTRS1966

Bio-Medical Factors and External Hazards in Space Station Design

The design of space-station configurations is influenced by many factors, Probably the most demanding and critical are the biomedical and external hazards requirements imposed to provide the proper environment and supporting facilities for the crew and the adequate protective measures necessary to provide a configuration in which the crew can live and work efficiently in relative comfort and safety. The major biomedical factors, such as physiology, psychology, nutrition, personal hygiene, waste management, and recreation, all impose their own peculiar requirements. The commonality and integration of these requirements demand the utmost ingenuity and inventiveness be exercised in order to achieve effective configuration compliance. The relationship of biomedical factors for the internal space-station environment will be explored with respect to internal atmospheric constituency, atmospheric pressure levels, oxygen positive pressure, temperature, humidity, CO2 concentration, and atmospheric contamination. The range of these various parameters and the recommended levels for design use will be analyzed. Requirements and criteria for specific problem areas such as zero and artificial gravity and crew private quarters will be reviewed and the impact on the design of representative solutions will be presented. In the areas of external hazards, the impact of factors such as meteoroids, radiation, vacuum, temperature extremes, and cycling on station design will be evaluated. Considerations with respect to operational effectiveness and crew safety will be discussed. The impact of such factors on spacecraft design to achieve acceptable launch and reentry g levels, crew rotation intervals, etc., will be reviewed. Examples of configurations, subsystems, and internal a arrangement and installations to comply with such biomedical factor requirements will ber presented. The effects of solutions to certain biomedical factors on configuration weight, operational convenience, and program costs will be compared.

Olling, Edward H.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Apollo 13 Facts: Recovery

This video shows the water landing of the Apollo 13 spacecraft. A computer animation shows the atmospheric reentry of the Command Module.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2019

Estimating Drag and Heating Coefficients for Hollow Reentry Objects in Transitional Flow Using DSMC

In NASA’s Object Reentry Survival Analysis Tool (ORSAT), aerodynamic drag and aerothermal heating coefficients are computed for each of the free-molecular, continuum, and transitional flow regimes using analytical and semi-analytical methods. These methods are typically limited to convex, blunt objects (such as spheres) and are applied to other objects such as boxes and cylinders using multiplicative “shape factors” to account for the different behavior. Previous literature has analyzed the aerodynamic and aerothermodynamic properties of flow around sharp-edged objects like boxes and cylinders in transitional flow, though only those objects with solid external boundaries. However, many reentry objects we have encountered in real spacecraft have been hollow (i.e., with the potential to allow flow through them). We present here preliminary results from analyses performed using the NASA Direct Simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) Analysis Code (DAC) on hollow cylinders and boxes (with varying wall thickness-diameter ratio).

Marichalar, Jeremiah J.↗
NASA NTRS1964

Thermal balance and heat protection.

Protection of spacecraft against thermal environment during launching, flight and reentry phases, emphasizing charring and melting ablator systems

THERMAL PROTECTION↗