AEROSPACE INDUSTRY
UPDATE
January 2020
McIlvaine Company
Table of Contents
NASA's Trip to
Mars Begins in California Cleanroom
Media Put JPL
in Spotlight as Mars 2020 Mission is Readied
Aerospace
Research Facilities
NASA John H. Glenn Research Center facilities have contributed to
decades of technology advances. Aerospace testing facilities accurately simulate
aircraft flight conditions on Earth and the harshest conditions found in the far
reaches of the solar system. Facility capabilities include engine components
testing, full-scale engine testing, flight research, icing research, materials
and structures, microgravity, space power and propulsion, and wind tunnels.
Plum Brook Station, located 50 miles west of
Cleveland, is home to four test facilities that perform ground tests for the
international space community. Glenn has repurposed its Hypersonic Tunnel
Facility to create the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) at Plum Brook
Station. NEAT is a reconfigurable facility that can accommodate power systems
for large passenger airplanes like a Boeing 737, with megawatts of power. This
testbed takes advantage of the facility's massive amounts of available power to
carry out research and technology development of aircraft electrical powertrains.
NEAT also includes a vacuum chamber that can
simulate altitudes of up to 40,000 feet to test high-voltage power electronics,
electric motors, and controls. As large airline companies compete to reduce
emissions, fuel, and noise, aircraft manufacturers are shifting more of their
aircraft systems to electrical power. To help usher in the next revolution in
aviation — hybrid electric and turboelectric aircraft — NASA is building and
testing portions of a concept aircraft's power systems with an eye toward the
future.
The Space Environments Complex (SEC) houses
the world's largest and most powerful space environment simulation facilities
including the Space Simulation Vacuum Chamber measuring 100 feet in diameter by
122 feet high.
Glenn's image-processing method can provide
two- or three-dimensional, high-contrast visualization of veins and other
vascular structures.
The Reverberant Acoustic Test Facility is the
world's most powerful spacecraft acoustic test chamber. It can simulate the
noise of a spacecraft launch up to 163 decibels or as loud as the thrust of 20
jet engines.
The Mechanical Vibration Facility is the
world's highest-capacity and most powerful spacecraft shaker system, subjecting
test articles to the rigorous conditions of launch.
The In-Space Propulsion Facility (ISP) is the
world's only facility capable of testing full-scale, upper-stage launch vehicles
and rocket engines under simulated high-altitude conditions. The engine or
vehicle can be exposed for indefinite periods to low ambient pressures,
low-background temperatures, and dynamic solar heating to simulate the
environment of orbital or interplanetary travel.
NASA's Trip
to Mars Begins in California Cleanroom
NASA's Mars 2020 rover will head off for the
Red Planet next year. But like Voyager, Galileo and Cassini before it, the
mission's epic journey began in a "cleanroom" in California.
One of two ultra-sterile labs used for
spacecraft assembly at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, on the
outskirts of Los Angeles, the eggshell-white room was briefly and exceptionally
opened to journalists.
"We need to keep the hardware as pristine and
as safe as possible until we get to Mars," said David Gruel, operations manager
for Mars 2020.
The Mars rover will collect samples on the
planet in the search for traces of microbial life potentially dating back
billions of years.
Journalists had to go through a lengthy
sterilization process before entering the room "so we actually are bringing
samples back from Mars, and not bringing back hair from my body or some skin
from somebody else's body," explained Gruel.
Automated shoe brushes and sticky mats remove
particles from shoes before guests even reach the locker room.
To prevent contamination, visitors must then
don a "bunny suit" -- sleeves sealed with adhesive tape -- along with face
masks, latex gloves and even beard protectors for the more hirsute.
Finally, they pass beneath a pulsating "air
shower" that blasts away the last unwanted particles.
The rover itself is regularly scrubbed with
isopropyl alcohol and a microfiber mop, and the lab's air is filtered 70 times
per hour.
Journalists invited by NASA also had to
remove foam covers from their microphones -- a breeding ground for germs.
Specially approved paper and pens were provided, in place of traditional writing
implements which can shed dust and other particles.
Guests are also told to refrain from wearing
any makeup or perfume.
Technicians working on crucial sampling
equipment are often subject to even more stringent protocols.
"They can't take a shower, bathe the day they
work on the hardware," Gruel told AFP. "They can't put any hair products into
their hair to style it, they can only wear one or two types of deodorant."
It is all a far cry from the early days of
space exploration.
Engineers would frequently light up
cigarettes while building the Ranger rockets that paved the way for the Apollo
moon missions.
Costly mistakes have led to more caution. A
bid to sterilize the Ranger 3 mission in 1962 accidentally fried the rocket's
electronics, causing it to miss the Moon by more than 20,000 miles.
Media Put
JPL in Spotlight as Mars 2020 Mission is Readied
Members of the media on Dec. 27 tour the
Spacecraft Assembly Facility cleanroom in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory where
NASA’s next spacecraft headed to the Red Planet is being built.
The gestation period for NASA’s $2.5-billion
baby is flying by.
The Mars 2020 mission rover under
construction behind the “cleanroom” doors of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La
Cañada Flintridge is set to launch from the Kennedy Space Center in July.
With the latest rover almost ready to explore
the possibility of life on the Red Planet, more than 50 journalists from around
the world donned protective suits, hoods and booties Friday, Dec. 27 to check it
out.
Domestic and foreign reporters alike swabbed
their recording instruments with isopropyl alcohol in preparation to see the to
see the vehicle, which measures 7 feet high, 9 feet wide and 10 feet long, and
to interview its creators before its transfer to Florida in late January.
The rover was constructed in the clean room
and is undergoing final testing. The rover, its rocket-powered descent stage and
the mission’s cruise stage was on display.
According to Ben Riggs, a mechanical engineer
working on the rover, the vehicle will remain quarantined throughout its
shipping process to Cape Canaveral, through its launch until its arrival on a
planet scientists theorize may have hosted life.
“It’s always encased,” Riggs said. “When the
vehicle gets moved, it gets on a flat truck bed that’s been specially modified
to handle the vehicle. It’s normally stowed a little bit more compact and
effectively double bagged.”
JPL’s team of scientists and engineers take
great measures each day during research and construction to protect the rover
from any organic particulates — human hair, skin, etc. — to ensure that its
findings are credible.
“We don’t want to bring any earth microbes or
have any elements on the vehicle that give us false science returns,” Riggs
said. “We want to make sure that when we’re caching those samples that they’re
pristine and from Mars.”
Jessica Samuels, Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s
Mars 2020 lead flight system systems engineer, talks about NASA’s next
spacecraft headed to the Red Planet at the Spacecraft Assembly Facility
cleanroom. The rover was constructed in the cleanroom and is undergoing final
testing.
The design for the Mars 2020 mission was
conceived in the Foothills in 2011. The rover will remain in an entirely
controlled environment through its departure into the solar system until it
arrives and is released into Jezero Crater, a river delta on Mars, in early
2021.
Like many river deltas on Earth, including
the one at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains just east of JPL, Jezero Crater
is a geological depository that will offer an array of samples to test, Riggs
said.
Unlike river deltas on earth, however, Jezero
Crater is an ancient landform, active three or four billion years ago, said
planetary geologist Emily Lakdawalla.
“It was later buried, and the wind has taken
away a lot of the sediment that was there before, so it’s been exhumed, like one
would exhume a body,” Lakdawalla said.
“The cool thing about it is that it’s been
unburied at different levels, so the Rover is going to be able to drive up to
various locations inside the delta and be able to see it from the inside.”
The rocket-powered descent stage will carry
the Mars 2020 rover underneath.
As the rover descends into Mars’ atmosphere,
the “flying gas can” slows from 200 mph to 2 mph in less than a minute via eight
Mars Lander engines that produce 700 pounds of thrust apiece and a parachute,
said Ray Baker, the flight systems manager for this mission. The last step of
the rover’s deposit is severing the three nylon ropes that connect the rover to
its transport, known as “umbilical bridles.”
Baker, who also helped send the Curiosity
rover to Mars in 2011, said he hopes that the work he has done for this mission
lays the groundwork for future scientists and engineers — including his daughter
and son who attend Paradise Canyon Elementary school in La Cañada.
“We used to say the sky is the limit. For
them, the solar system isn’t even the limit. It’s normal for them that we’re
going and exploring this other planet, and they’re thinking beyond that. It’s
exciting to me that their imaginations think it’s possible to do something even
greater than what we’re trying to do today,” Baker said.
Mechanical engineer Zach Ousnamer said he and
his team used pieces of technology created by labs all over the world to create
the Mars 2020 mission, a rover with an unprecedented scientific payload.
“[Finding life on another planet] would be a
global architectural shift in kind of the next big thing, it doesn’t really get
bigger than that,” Ousnamer said.
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