PICTORIAL PROGRESS REPORT OF THE SATURN LAUNCH VEHICLE DEVELOPMENT, VOLUME IV
Pictorial progress of saturn launch vehicle - transportation, launching, test facilities
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Pictorial progress of saturn launch vehicle - transportation, launching, test facilities
Statistical analysis of hypotheses concerning roles of technological gatekeeper and primary groups in flow of information in small research and development laboratory
Tracking and navigation analysis, communications development, and facility engineering and operations for deep space network
Superconductive magnets at Lewis Research Center of NASA
The earth observations capability of the space station and space shuttle program definition is discussed. The stress in the functional program element has been to update the sensor specifications and to shift some of the emphasis from sensors to experiments to be done aboard the facility. The earth observations facility will include provisions for data acquisition, sensor control and display, data analysis, and maintenance and repair. The facility is research and development in nature with a potential for operational applications.
This summary provides the general engineering community with the accumulated experience from ALERT reports issued by NASA and the Government-Industry. Data Exchange Program, and related experience gained by Government and industry. It provides expanded information on selected topics by relating the problem area (failure) to the cause, the investigation and findings, the suggestions for avoidance (inspections, screening tests, proper part applications, requirements for manufacturer's plant facilities, etc.), and failure analysis procedures. Diodes, integrated circuits, and transistors are covered in this volume.
Turnaround analysis added a new dimension to the Space Program with the advent of the Space Shuttle. The requirement to turn the flight hardware around in 160 working hours from landing to launch was a significant design driver and a useful tool in forcing the integration of flight and ground systems design to permit an efficient ground operation. Although there was concern that time constraints might increase program costs, the result of the analysis was to minimize facility requirements and simplify operations with resultant cost savings.
Monthly progress reports are given in the areas of marketable subsystems integration; development, design, and building of site data acquisition subsystems and data processing systems; operation of the solar test facility and a systems analysis.
A manufacturer was contracted to screen 125 transistors capable of withstanding the high level inductive voltages obtained when switching inductive loads. Planned differences included a change in die bonding to comply with NASA's desire for hard solder die attachment which further necessitated a change in package to conform to the required die mounting system. Evaluation of the electrical performance and recommended changes were made during the preliminary build phase of the program. The following sections are outlined: (1) narrative outline; (2) customer data summary and X-ray reports; (3) device specification; (4) failure analysis reports; (5) test facilities list; and (6) test measurement data.
The scope of work in preparing the Coal Gasification Data Catalog included the following subtasks: (1) candidate system subsystem definition, (2) raw materials analysis, (3) market analysis for by-products, (4) alternate products analysis, (5) preliminary integrated facility requirements. Definition of candidate systems/subsystems includes the identity of and alternates for each process unit, raw material requirements, and the cost and design drivers for each process design.
Transfer of an existing continous circuit supersonic wind tunnel to Langley and its operation there as a blowdown tunnel is planned. Flow disturbance requirements in the supply section and methods for reducing the high level broad band acoustic disturbances present in typical blowdown tunnels are reviewed. Based on recent data and the analysis of two blowdown facilities at Langley, methods for reducing the total turbulence levels in the settling chamber, including both acoustic and vorticity modes, to less than one percent are recommended. The pertinent design details of the damping screens and honeycomb and the recommended minimum pressure drop across the porous components providing the required two orders of magnitude attenuation of acoustic noise levels are given. A suggestion for the support structure of these high pressure drop porous components is offered.
The progress of the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility is summarized. A design review of the facility, hardware development, cost analysis, and listings of published reports are examined.
A study aimed at describing and illustrating visualization tools used in Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and indicating how these tools are likely to change by showing a projected resolution of the human computer interface is presented. The following are outlined using a graphically based test format: the revolution of human computer environments for CFD research; comparison of current environments; current environments with the ideal; predictions for the future CFD environments; what can be done to accelerate the improvements. The following comments are given: when acquiring visualization tools, potential rapid changes must be considered; environmental changes over the next ten years due to human computer interface cannot be fathomed; data flow packages such as AVS, apE, Explorer and Data Explorer are easy to learn and use for small problems, excellent for prototyping, but not so efficient for large problems; the approximation techniques used in visualization software must be appropriate for the data; it has become more cost effective to move jobs that fit on workstations and run only memory intensive jobs on the supercomputer; use of three dimensional skills will be maximized when the three dimensional environment is built in from the start.
It is possible to recreate the contamination history of the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) through an analysis of its contaminants and selective samples that were collected from surfaces with better documented exposure histories. This data was then used to compare estimates based on monitoring methods that were selected for the purpose of tracking LDEF's exposure to contaminants. The LDEF experienced much more contamination than would have been assumed based on the monitors. Work is still in progress but much of what was learned so far is already being used in the selection of materials and in the design of systems for space. Now experiments are being prepared for flight to resolve questions created by the discoveries on the LDEF. A summary of what was learned about LDEF contaminants over the first year since recovery and deintegration is presented. Over 35 specific conclusions in 5 contamination related categories are listed.
An experimental investigation was conducted to measure skin friction along the chamber walls of supersonic combustors. A direct force measurement device was used to simultaneously measure an axial and transverse component of the small tangential shear force passing over a non-intrusive floating element. The floating head is mounted to a stiff cantilever beam arrangement with deflection due to the flow on the order of 0.00254 mm (0.0001 in.). This allowed the instrument to be a non-nulling type. A second gauge was designed with active cooling of the floating sensor head to eliminate non-uniform temperature effects between the sensor head and the surrounding wall. Samples of measurements made in combustor test facilities at NASA Langley Research Center and at the General Applied Science Laboratory (GASL) are presented. Skin friction coefficients between 0.001 - 0.005 were measured dependent on the facility and measurement location. Analysis of the measurement uncertainties indicate an accuracy to within +/- 10-15 percent of the streamwise component.
This study is an application of H-infinity and microsynthesis for designing robust tracking controllers for the Large Angle Magnetic Suspension Test Facility. The modeling, design, analysis, simulation, and testing of a control law that guarantees tracking performance under external disturbances and model uncertainties is investigated. The type of uncertainties considered and the tracking performance metric used is discussed. This study demonstrates the tradeoff between tracking performance at low frequencies and robustness at high frequencies. Two sets of controllers were designed and tested. The first set emphasized performance over robustness, while the second set traded off performance for robustness. Comparisons of simulation and test results are also included. Current simulation and experimental results indicate that reasonably good robust tracking performance can be attained for this system, using multivariable robust control approach.
Computer models of environmental conditions in Earth orbit are needed for the following reasons: (1) derivation of material performance parameters from orbital test data, (2) evaluation of spacecraft hardware designs, (3) prediction of material service life, and (4) scheduling spacecraft maintenance. To meet these needs, Boeing has developed programs for modeling atomic oxygen (AO) and solar radiation exposures. The model allows determination of AO and solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation exposures for spacecraft surfaces (1) in arbitrary orientations with respect to the direction of spacecraft motion, (2) overall ranges of solar conditions, and (3) for any mission duration. The models have been successfully applied to prediction of experiment environments on the Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) and for analysis of selected hardware designs for deployment on other spacecraft. The work on these models has been reported at previous LDEF conferences. Since publication of these reports, a revision has been made to the AO calculation for LDEF, and further work has been done on the microenvironments model for solar exposure.
This study is an application of H-infinity and micro-synthesis for designing robust tracking controllers for the Large Angle Magnetic Suspension Test Facility. The modeling, design, analysis, simulation, and testing of a control law that guarantees tracking performance under external disturbances and model uncertainties is investigated. The type of uncertainties considered and the tracking performance metric used is discussed. This study demonstrates the tradeoff between tracking performance at low frequencies and robustness at high frequencies. Two sets of controllers were designed and tested. The first set emphasized performance over robustness, while the second set traded off performance for robustness. Comparisons of simulation and test results are also included. Current simulation and experimental results indicate that reasonably good robust tracking performance can be attained for this system using multivariable robust control approach.