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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 55 records · Page 3

Model representation of the ambient electron density distribution in the middle atmosphere

While the Langmuir probe controlled by rocket propagation experiments by the University of Illinois at midlatitude revealed the existence of a permanent D region turning point (DTP), similar measurements over the Thumba equatorial station did not clearly bring out the above daytime feature. Moreover, the calibration constant (ratio of electron density to the current drawn by the Langmuir probe) increased with height (in the 70 to 100 km region) in the case of the midlatitude observations whereas the recent measurements over Thumba showed a decrease up to about 90 km followed by an increase above 90 km. Secondly, there is the problem of reconciling the station oriented observations from the COSPAR family with the ground based radio propagation measurements from the URSI family. Thirdly, new information on Winter in Northern Europe (WINE) and in USSR is available by asking for its incorporation into any global model such as the IRI. The results of investigation of the above aspects are presented.

Ramanamurty, Y. V.↗

Design of a GRCop-42 Regeneratively Cooled Thrust Chamber Assembly and Feed System

An additively manufactured thrust chamber assembly was designed and printed using laser powder bed fusion. The NASA-developed material GRCop-42 was used for its high strength and high temperature characteristics. The combustion chamber and nozzle utilize regenerative coolant channels to achieve long duration hot fire tests. Design for additive manufacturing was used to create geometries not easily attainable with traditional machining. The thrust chamber assembly was post processed to ensure print quality and verify for testing. A feed system – encompassing all propellant lines, valves, sensors, and tanks – was designed and built to enable steady state, pressure regulated testing. Pressure transducers, thermocouples, and load cells were placed to enable measurements of the propellant properties and engine performance. Venturis and orifices were used throughout the system to control the flow rates to the thrust chamber. Aside from providing propellants, the feed system provides pressure using nitrogen, and purges the lines during shutdown. The design process for this testing platform is described. A testing campaign on the hardware will be conducted by the Akronauts Rocket Design Team at the University of Akron in Spring 2023.

Dillon M. Petty↗

Design of a GRCop-42 Regeneratively Cooled Thrust Chamber Assembly and Feed System

An additively manufactured thrust chamber assembly was designed and printed using laser powder bed fusion. The NASA-developed material GRCop-42 was used for its high strength and high temperature characteristics. The combustion chamber and nozzle utilize regenerative coolant channels to achieve long duration hot fire tests. Design for additive manufacturing was used to create geometries not easily attainable with traditional machining. The thrust chamber assembly was post processed to ensure print quality and verify for testing. A feed system – encompassing all propellant lines, valves, sensors, and tanks – was designed and built to enable steady state, pressure regulated testing. Pressure transducers, thermocouples, and load cells were placed to enable measurements of the propellant properties and engine performance. Venturis and orifices were used throughout the system to control the flow rates to the thrust chamber. Aside from providing propellants, the feed system provides pressure using nitrogen, and purges the lines during shutdown. The design process for this testing platform is described. A testing campaign on the hardware will be conducted by the Akronauts Rocket Design Team at the University of Akron in Spring 2023.

Dillon M. Petty↗

University of Utah four-channel pulse-to-pulse commutated SUPER-LOKI rocket meteorological parachutesonde (electronics)

The electronics and temperature sensing units of the pulse-to-pulse rocketsonde are described. The sonde is designed for the 2 1/8-inch dart of the SUPER-LOKI meteorological rocket. In flight, the sonde descends by parachute from rocket apogees of about 75 kilometers. As the sonde descends, it transmits air temperature data back to ground radio receiving stations.

Atwood, K. W.↗

Cooperative Testing of Rocket Injectors That Use Gaseous Oxygen and Hydrogen

Gaseous oxygen and hydrogen propellants used in a special engine energy cycle called Full-Flow Staged Combustion are believed to significantly increase the lifetime of a rocket engine's pumps. The cycle can also reduce the operating temperatures of the engine. Improving the lifetime of the hardware reduces its overall maintenance and operations costs, and is critical to reducing costs for the joint NASA/industry Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV). The work in this project will demonstrate the performance and lifetime of one-element and many-element combustors with gaseous O2/H2 injectors. This work supporting the RLV program is a cooperative venture of the NASA Lewis Research Center, the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Rocketdyne, and the Pennsylvania State University. Information about gas-gas rocket injector performance with O2/H2 is very limited. Because of this paucity of data, new testing is needed to improve the knowledge base for testing and designing new injectors for the RLV and to improve computer models that predict the combusting gas flows of new injector designs. Therefore, detailed observations and measurements of the combusting flow from many-element injectors in a rocket engine are being sought. These observations and measurements will be done with three different tools: schlieren photography, ultraviolet imaging, and Raman spectroscopy. The schlieren system will take photos of the density differences in combusting flow, the ultraviolet movies will determine the location of the hydroxyl (OH) radical in the combustion flow, and the Raman spectroscopic measurements will provide the combustion temperature and amount of water (H2O), hydrogen (H2), and oxygen (O2) in the combustor. Marshall is providing overall program management, design and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses, as well as funding for the work at Penn State. An existing, windowed combustor and several injectors will be provided by Rocketdyne--two injectors for the initial screening tests and one with an optimized design based on the best design found in the screening tests. Lewis will provide a nozzle and several injectors for the screening test program. The configuration of the injectors will be based on a design chosen by all the participants, and their elements will be based on the coaxial and impinging flow. Lewis also will provide the instrumentation for the flow-field measurements: schlieren, ultraviolet imaging, and Raman spectroscopy. In addition, thermocouples will measure heat flow on the injector face. Other traditional measurements of rocket performance will be made as well: chamber pressure, mass flow of each propellant, purge flow, and the barrier cooling gas flow. Penn State will conduct single-element testing with the injector elements from both the Rocketdyne and the jointly designed injectors. A wide variety of traditional and nontraditional injector designs will be tested in this program. The results will be valuable in computational fluid dynamics code validation and overall rocket combustion efficiency measurements. Correlations between combustion efficiency, laser measurements of species, and ultraviolet and visible light photography will also be made. Thus far, several different single-element injectors have been tested at Penn State and Lewis. The experimental setup of a rocket engine with a viewing window is shown. The combusting flow is shown. The results are helping engineers design the many element injectors.

Source record↗

SRS Computer Animation and Drive Train System

The spinning rocket simulator (SRS) is an ongoing project at Oral Roberts University. The goal of the SRS is to gather crucial data concerning a spinning rocket under thrust for the purpose of analysis and correction of the coning motion experienced by this type of spacecraft maneuver. The computer animation simulates a virtual, scale model of the component of the SRS that represents the spacecraft itself. This component is known as the (VSM), or virtual spacecraft model. During actual physical simulation, this component of the SRS will experience a coning. The goal of the animation is to cone the VSM within that range to accurately represent the motion of the actual simulator. The drive system of the SRS is the apparatus that turns the actual simulator. It consists of a drive motor, motor mount and chain to power the simulator into motion. The motor mount is adjustable and rigid for high torque application. A digital stepper motor controller actuates the main drive motor for linear acceleration. The chain transfers power from the motor to the simulator via sprockets on both ends.

Arthun, Daniel↗

Rocket FUV Observations of the Io Plasma Torus During the Shoemaker-Levy/9 Impacts

We observed the Io torus from 820-1140 A on universal time (UT) 20.25 July 1994 from a sounding rocket telescope/spectrograph. These observations serve as only the fourth published spectrum of the torus in this wavelength range, and the only far ultraviolet (FUV) data documenting the state of the torus during the Shoemaker Levy 9 Impacts.

Stern, S. A.↗

Solar and airglow measurements aboard the two suborbital flights NASA 36.098 and 36.107

This suborbital program, involving the University of Colorado (CU), National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), University of California at Berkeley (UCB), and Boston University (BU), has resulted in two rocket flights from the White Sands Missile Range, one in 1992 and one in 1993 as NASA 36.098 and 36.107 respectively. The rocket payload includes five solar instruments and one airglow instrument from CU/NCAR and one solar instrument and two airglow instruments from UCB/BU. This report discusses results on solar radiation measurements and the study of thermospheric airglow, namely the photoelectron excited emissions from N2 and O, for the CU/NCAR program.

Woods, Thomas N.↗

Advanced Methods for Aircraft Engine Thrust and Noise Benefits: Nozzle-Inlet Flow Analysis

In this project on the first stage (2000-Ol), we continued to develop the previous joint research between the Fluid Mechanics and Acoustics Laboratory (FM&AL) at Hampton University (HU) and the Jet Noise Team (JNT) at the NASA Langley Research Center (NASA LaRC). At the second stage (2001-03), FM&AL team concentrated its efforts on solving of problems of interest to Glenn Research Center (NASA GRC), especially in the field of propulsion system enhancement. The NASA GRC R&D Directorate and LaRC Hyper-X Program specialists in a hypersonic technology jointly with the FM&AL staff conducted research on a wide region of problems in the propulsion field as well as in experimental testing and theoretical and numerical simulation analyses for advanced aircraft and rocket engines. The last year the Hampton University School of Engineering & Technology was awarded the NASA grant, for creation of the Aeropropulsion Center, and the FM&AL is a key team of the project fulfillment responsible for research in Aeropropulsion and Acoustics (Pillar I). This work is supported by joint research between the NASA GRC/ FM&AL and the Institute of Mechanics at Moscow State University (IMMSU) in Russia under a CRDF grant. The main areas of current scientific interest of the FM&AL include an investigation of the proposed and patented advanced methods for aircraft engine thrust and noise benefits. This is the main subject of our other projects, of which one is presented. The last year we concentrated our efforts to analyze three main problems: (a) new effective methods fuel injection into the flow stream in air-breathing engines; (b) new re-circulation method for mixing, heat transfer and combustion enhancement in propulsion systems and domestic industry application; (c) covexity flow The research is focused on a wide regime of problems in the propulsion field as well as in experimental testing and theoretical and numerical simulation analyses for advanced aircraft and rocket engines (see, for example, Figures 4). The FM&AL Team uses analytical methods, numerical simulations and experimental tests at the Hampton University campus, NASA and IM/MSU.

Morgan, Morris H., III↗

Sounding rocket flight report, MUMP 9 and MUMP 10

The results of the launching of two-Marshall-University of Michigan Probes (MUMP 9 and MUMP 10), Nike-Tomahawk sounding rocket payloads, are summarized. The MUMP is similar to the thermosphere probe, an ejectable instrument package for studying the variability of the earth's atmospheric parameters. The MUMP 9 payload included an omegatron mass analyzer, a molecular fluorescence densitometer, a mini-tilty filter, and a lunar position sensor. This complement of instruments permitted the determination of the molecular nitrogen density and temperature in the altitude range from approximately 143 to 297 km over Wallops Island, Virginia, during January 1971. The MUMP 10 payload included an omegatron mass analyzer, an electron temperature probe, a cryogenic densitometer, and a solar position sensor. These instruments permitted the determination of the molecular nitrogen density and temperature and the charged particle density and temperature in the altitude range from approximately 145 to 290 km over Wallops Island during the afternoon preceding the MUMP 9 launch.

Grassl, H. J.↗

Sounding rocket flight report: MUMP 9 and MUMP 10

The results of the launching of two Marshall-University of Michigan Probes (MUMP 9 and MUMP 10), Nike-Tomahawk sounding rocket payloads, are summarized. The MUMP 9 paylaod included an omegatron mass analyzer, a molecular fluorescence densitometer, a mini-tilty filter, and a lunar position sensor. This complement of instruments permitted the determination of the molecular nitrogen density and temperature in the altitude range from approximately 143 to 297 km over Wallops Island, Virginia, during January 1971. The MUMP 10 payload included an omegatron mass analyzer, an electron temperature probe (Spencer, Brace, and Carignan, 1962), a cryogenic densitometer, and a solar position sensor. This complement of instruments permitted the determination of the molecular nitrogen density and temperature and the charged particle density and temperature in the altitude range from approximately 145 to 290 km over Wallops Island, Virginia, during the afternoon preceding the MUMP 9 launch in January 1971. A general description of the payload kinematics, orientation analysis, and the technique for the reduction and analysis of the data is given.

Grassl, H. J.↗

The Rocket Engine Advancement Program 2 (REAP2)

The Rocket Engine Advancement Program (REAP) 2 program is being conducted by a university propulsion consortium consisting of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Penn State University, Purdue University, Tuskegee University and Auburn University. It has been created to bring their combined skills to bear on liquid rocket combustion stability and thrust chamber cooling. The research team involves well established and known researchers in the propulsion community. The cure team provides the knowledge base, research skills, and commitment to achieve an immediate and continuing impact on present and future propulsion issues. through integrated research teams composed of analysts, diagnosticians, and experimentalists working together in an integrated multi-disciplinary program. This paper provides an overview of the program, its objectives and technical approaches. Research on combustion instability and thrust chamber cooling are being accomplished

Harper, Brent↗

Efficient GO2/GH2 Injector Design: A NASA, Industry and University Cooperative Effort

Developing new propulsion components in the face of shrinking budgets presents a significant challenge. The technical, schedule and funding issues common to any design/development program are complicated by the ramifications of the continuing decrease in funding for the aerospace industry. As a result, new working arrangements are evolving in the rocket industry. This paper documents a successful NASA, industry, and university cooperative effort to design efficient high performance GO2/GH2 rocket injector elements in the current budget environment. The NASA Reusable Launch Vehicle (RLV) Program initially consisted of three vehicle/engine concepts targeted at achieving single stage to orbit. One of the Rocketdyne propulsion concepts, the RS 2100 engine, used a full-flow staged-combustion cycle. Therefore, the RS 2100 main injector would combust GO2/GH 2 propellants. Early in the design phase, but after budget levels and contractual arrangements had been set the limitations of the current gas/gas injector database were identified. Most of the relevant information was at least twenty years old. Designing high performance injectors to meet the RS 2100 requirements would require the database to be updated and significantly enhanced. However, there was no funding available to address the need for more data. NASA proposed a teaming arrangement to acquire the updated information without additional funds from the RLV Program. A determination of the types and amounts of data needed was made along with test facilities with capabilities to meet the data requirements, budget constraints, and schedule. After several iterations a program was finalized and a team established to satisfy the program goals. The Gas/Gas Injector Technology (GGIT) Program had the overall goal of increasing the ability of the rocket engine community to design efficient high-performance, durable gas/gas injectors relevant to RLV requirements. First, the program would provide Rocketdyne with data on preliminary gas/gas injector designs which would enable discrimination among candidate injector designs. Secondly, the program would enhance the national gas/gas database by obtaining high-quality data that increases the understanding of gas/gas injector physics and is suitable for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code validation. The third program objective was to validate CFD codes for future gas/gas injector design in the RLV program.

Tucker, P. K.↗

Nonlinear Aspects of Combustion Instability in Liquid Propellant Rocket Motors Sixth Yearly Progress Report, 1 Jun. 1965 - 31 May 1966

This is the sixth yearly report on the research at Princeton University on the problem of combustion instability in liquid-propellant rocket motors. These investigations have been sponsored by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under NASA Contract NASr-217 and, in the past, under NASA Grant NsG-99-60. The nonlinear aspects of the problem have been emphasized in both the theoretical and experimental portions of the program. Presently, the theoretical research primarily involves studies of possible mechanisms or forcing functions of the instabilities, the nonlinear gasdynamic oscillations associated with instability in rocket motors, the effect of the exhaust nozzle on the stability, and the effect of damping devices on the stability. In conjunction with the theoretical program, an experimental program of an equally broad range is being conducted. This program includes basic experiments both with rocket motors and "cold" chambers which have been designed to study various combustion processes in order to provide understanding which would be useful in the construction of a theoretical model. It also includes studies of the effects of exhaust nozzles and damping devices upon the instability as well as controlled testing of liquid rocket motors with parametric variations intended to determine the factors which strongly influence the incidence of nonlinear combustion instability.

Combustion instability↗

Numerical Simulation on Liquid Hydrogen Chill-Down Process of Vertical Pipeline

In order to improve the cryogenic propellant management technologies for a liquid hydrogen rocket with high specific impulse, JAXA, the University of Tokyo, and the NASA Glenn Research Center have jointly organized a multi-agency model validation collaboration project. As part of this project, JAXA's boiling simulation was validated with NASA's experimental data on vertical pipeline chill-down. Simulation results were in good agreement with the experimental data obtained using an improved boiling model to reproduce the spray flow. This activity achieved liquid hydrogen turbo-pump simulation at JAXA for grasping the boiling flow phenomenon from engine cut-off to re-ignition. This joint research resulted in an international cooperative relationship for discussing the cryogenic propellant management technologies necessary to develop next-generation liquid rockets.

Umemura, Yutaka↗

Eclipse 2017: Partnering with NASA MSFC to Inspire Students

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) is partnering with the U.S. Space and Rocket Center (USSRC), and Austin Peay State University (APSU) to engage citizen scientists, engineers, and students in science investigations during the 2017 American Solar Eclipse. Investigations will support the Citizen Continental America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE), Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation(HamSCI), and Interactive NASA Space Physics Ionosphere Radio Experiments (INSPIRE). All planned activities will engage Space Campers and local high school students in the application of the scientific method as they seek to explore a wide range of observations during the eclipse. Where planned experiments touch on current scientific questions, the camper/students will be acting as citizen scientists, participating with researchers from APSU and MSFC. Participants will test their expectations and after the eclipse, share their results, experiences, and conclusions to younger Space Campers at the US Space & Rocket Center.

eclipse radio solar↗

Use of a personal computer for the real-time reception and analysis of data from a sounding rocket experiment

In September 1988 the Earth and Planetary Atmospheres Group of the Space Sciences Laboratory of the University of California at Berkeley flew an experiment on a high-altitude sounding rocket launched from the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. The experiment, BEARS (Berkeley EUV Airglow Rocket Spectrometer), was designed to obtain spectroscopic data on the composition and structure of the earth's upper atmosphere. Consideration is given to the objectives of the BEARS experiment; the computer interface and software; the use of remote data transmission; and calibration, integration, and flight operations.

Herrick, W. D.↗