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Beam-hopping JoeySat passes in-orbit tests
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By European Space Agency
As climate change drives more frequent and severe weather events, the need for accurate and timely forecasting has never been more critical. And now, the next Meteosat Third Generation weather satellite has passed its environmental test campaign with flying colours, taking it a significant step closer to launch.
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By NASA
Phil Korpeck, a magniX test engineer, sets up a magni650 electric engine in preparation for a series of simulated altitude tests. These tests took place in April 2024 inside NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed facility. NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna At a simulated 27,500 feet inside an altitude chamber at NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed (NEAT) facility, engineers at magniX recently demonstrated the capabilities of a battery-powered engine that could help turn hybrid electric flight into a reality.
This milestone, completed in April 2024, marks the end of the first phase in a series of altitude tests at the facility under NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project.
EPFD brings together expertise from NASA and various industry partners to test the feasibility of hybrid electric propulsion for future commercial aircraft.
NEAT, housed within NASA’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky, Ohio, offers a unique testing environment that simulates the effects of high altitudes without leaving the ground.
This capability allows researchers to safely evaluate the performance of electrified aircraft propulsion systems and components under realistic flight conditions.
“The testing at NEAT is critical for high-power electrified aircraft propulsion technologies because many of the potential problems that a design might encounter only present themselves at higher altitudes,” said Brad French, lead systems engineer for NASA EPFD. “We do our best to analyze machines through sea-level testing, but nothing compares to actually putting them in the environments they will experience on wing and directly observing how they behave.”
Progress on the Ground
At higher altitudes, electrified aircraft propulsion systems will be exposed to thinner air and greater temperature shifts that could negatively impact performance.
The initial round of tests focused on investigating the effects of temperature and high voltage on the electric engine when operating at flight levels.
Researchers conducted partial discharge tests, which examine the strength of the system’s electrical insulation, to help minimize risks of failure that might occur due to excess stress on the components.
They also investigated the engine’s thermal management system to better understand how heat is safely and effectively transferred throughout the machine.
At a control room in NASA’s Electric Aircraft Testbed facility, NASA electrical lead Mark Worley, right, technical lead Nuha Nawash, and software engineer Joseph Staudt, left, monitor altitude testing telemetry via video monitors in April 2024. NASA/Jef Janis “The development of new technologies is a methodical and incremental process,” French said. “By testing these systems in a controlled environment, we can verify that they operate safely and as expected, or isolate and solve any problems before they pose a significant risk.”
Gearing Up for Hybrid Electric Flight Tests
Under EPFD, magniX is retrofitting a De Havilland Dash 7 aircraft with a new hybrid electric propulsion system that combines traditional turbo-propellor engines with electric motors.
This vehicle will be used to demonstrate fuel burn and emission reductions in regional aircraft carrying up to 50 passengers, helping advance NASA’s mission to make air travel more sustainable.
The company recently completed baseline flight testing of the Dash 7 in Moses Lake, Washington, surveying the state of the aircraft prior to modification.
Data gathered from these flight tests will help the team compare fuel savings and performance boosts with the new electrified system.
With baseline flight tests complete, magniX will begin modifying the aircraft in preparation for hybrid electric flight tests planned for 2026.
Baseline flight testing of magniX’s De Havilland Dash 7 aircraft in Moses Lake, Washington during April 2024 prior to hybrid electric system modifications. magniX In the meantime, the next phase of ground tests at NEAT is slated for the summer of 2024 and will evaluate these systems under more extreme flight conditions, including higher power levels and temperatures.
Each round of testing will provide more insight that will eventually help identify new standards and regulations required for future electrified aircraft.
In addition to magniX, NASA works with GE Aerospace to explore other design configurations and approaches for hybridizing commercial aircraft. GE also completed altitude tests of their hybrid electric propulsion system at NEAT in 2022.
NASA, with GE and magniX, are accelerating the development and introduction of electrified aircraft propulsion technologies through NEAT while gathering a rich archive of scientific data.
This will help inform advanced electrified aircraft propulsion system concepts and formulate new research areas and technologies to enable a sustainable aviation future.
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Last Updated Jun 18, 2024 EditorAnisha EngineerContactAnisha Engineeranisha.engineer@nasa.gov Related Terms
Aeronautics Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Electrified Powertrain Flight Demo Glenn Research Center Green Aviation Tech Integrated Aviation Systems Program View the full article
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center technologists Les Johnson and Leslie McNutt at Redwire Space on Jan. 30, 2024, following a successful solar sail deployment test. NASA cleared a key technology milestone at Redwire’s new facility in Longmont, Colorado, with the successful deployment of one of four identical solar sail quadrants. Redwire Space By Wayne Smith
In his youth, NASA technologist Les Johnson was riveted by the 1974 novel “The Mote in God’s Eye,” by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven, in which an alien spacecraft propelled by solar sails visits humanity. Today, Johnson and a NASA team are preparing to test a similar technology.
NASA continues to unfurl plans for solar sail technology as a promising method of deep space transportation. The agency cleared a key technology milestone in January with the successful deployment of one of four identical solar sail quadrants. The deployment was showcased Jan. 30 at Redwire Corp.’s new facility in Longmont, Colorado. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, leads the solar sail team, comprised of prime contractor Redwire, which developed the deployment mechanisms and the nearly 100-foot-long booms, and subcontractor NeXolve, of Huntsville, which provided the sail membrane. In addition to leading the project, Marshall developed the algorithms needed to control and navigate with the sail when it flies in space.
NASA and industry partners used two 100-foot lightweight composite booms to stretch out a 4,445-square-footsquare-foot (400-square-meter) prototype solar sail quadrant for the first time Jan. 30, 2024. While just one quarter of the sail was unfurled in the deployment at Redwire, the complete sail will measure 17,780 square feet when fully deployed, with the thickness less than a human hair at 2 and a half microns. The sail is made of a polymer material coated with aluminum. (Redwire Space) The sail is a propulsion system powered by sunlight reflecting from the sail, much like a sailboat reflects the wind. While just one quarter of the sail was unfurled in the deployment at Redwire, the complete sail will measure 17,780 square feet when fully deployed, with the thickness less than a human hair at 2 and a half microns. The sail is made of a polymer material coated with aluminum.
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate recently funded the solar sail technology to reach a new technology readiness level, or TRL 6, which means it’s ready for proposals to be flown on science missions.
“This was a major last step on the ground before it’s ready to be proposed for space missions,” Johnson, who has been involved with sail technology at Marshall for about 25 years, said. “What’s next is for scientists to propose the use of solar sails in their missions. We’ve met our goal and demonstrated that we’re ready to be flown.”
A solar sail traveling through deep space provides many potential benefits to missions using the technology because it doesn’t require any fuel, allowing very high propulsive performance with very little mass. This in-space propulsion system is well suited for low-mass missions in novel orbits.
“Once you get away from Earth’s gravity and into space, what is important is efficiency and enough thrust to travel from one position to another,” Johnson said.
A solar sail achieves that by reflecting sunlight – the greater the size of the sail, the greater thrust it can provide.
Les Johnson
NASA technologist
Some of the missions of interest using solar sail technology include studying space weather and its effects on the Earth, or for advanced studies of the north and south poles of the Sun. The latter has been limited because the propulsion required to get a spacecraft into a polar orbit around the sun is very high and simply not feasible using most of the propulsion systems available today. Solar sail propulsion is also possible for enhancing future missions to Venus or Mercury, given their closeness to the Sun and the enhanced thrust a solar sail would achieve in the more intense sunlight there.
Moreover, it’s the ultimate green propulsion system, Johnson said – as long as the Sun is shining, the sail will have propulsion. Where the sunlight is less, he envisions a future where lasers could be used to accelerate the solar sails to high speeds, pushing them outside the solar system and beyond, perhaps even to another star. “In the future, we might place big lasers in space that shine their beams on the sails as they depart the solar system, accelerating them to higher and higher speeds, until eventually they are going fast enough to reach another star in a reasonable amount of time.”
To learn more about solar sails and other NASA advanced space technology, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/space-technology-mission-directorate
Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Feb 12, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
A key NASA design milestone was recently completed by Collins Aerospace as the company works to develop a next-generation spacesuit for use on the International Space Station.
The milestone – a pressure garment system fit and functionality test in a microgravity-like environment – marked an important step toward developing a suit for NASA that can be used for continuing operations and advancing scientific discovery in low Earth orbit.
The agency selected Collins to develop a new spacesuit that can replace the current space station spacesuit, known technically as an extravehicular mobility unit, which has been worn by astronauts to assemble and maintain the space station for over two decades.
The Collins test was conducted aboard a commercial microgravity aircraft to provide brief periods of weightlessness. During a parabolic flight, a pilot creates weightless conditions for around 20 seconds at a time by conducting a series of roller-coaster-like maneuvers. This allows engineers, scientists, and students to test hardware and conduct scientific experiments in a space-like gravity environment without ever going into space.
Collins Aerospace completed a key NASA design milestone on the company’s next-generation spacesuit for use on the International Space Station. The test was conducted aboard a commercial zero-gravity aircraft where Collins performed a pressure garment system fit and functionality test in a microgravity environment.Collins Aerospace Collins Aerospace’s chief test astronaut John “Danny” Olivas demonstrates a series of tasks during testing of Collins’ next-generation spacesuit while aboard a zero-gravity aircraft. Collins Aerospace Collins Aerospace’s chief test astronaut John “Danny” Olivas demonstrates a series of tasks during testing of Collins’ next-generation spacesuit while aboard a zero-gravity aircraft. Collins Aerospace Collins Aerospace’s chief test astronaut John “Danny” Olivas demonstrates a series of tasks during testing of Collins’ next-generation spacesuit while aboard a zero-gravity aircraft. Collins Aerospace The test was a key step in NASA’s preliminary design review process, one of a series of checkpoints in the project’s design lifecycle, that ensures the design meets all system requirements before manufacturing of flight-ready units can begin.
Collins will continue testing its spacesuit in a vacuum chamber, where air will be removed to create a vacuum to see how the spacesuit performs in a space-like atmosphere, as well as at the agency’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, a 40-foot deep pool at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, that simulates a microgravity environment for astronaut spacewalk training.
This next-generation spacesuit is designed to advance NASA’s spacewalking capabilities in low Earth orbit. It is being developed to support station maintenance and operations as NASA and its international partners continue carrying out scientific research that benefits humanity and demonstrates new technologies for future human and robotic missions.
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By NASA
3 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
The Intuitive Machines Nova-C lander for the company’s first Commercial Lunar Payload Services delivery is positioned before being encapsulated inside its launch fairing. The Nova-C lander will launch from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket no earlier than mid-February.Credit: Intuitive Machines It’s easy to measure fuel in tanks on Earth, where gravity pulls the liquid to the bottom. But in space, the game changes. Quantifying fuel that’s floating around inside a spacecraft’s tank isn’t so simple.
“Because of the very small amount of gravity, fluid doesn’t settle to the bottom of propellant tanks but rather clings to the walls and could be anywhere inside,” said Lauren Ameen, deputy manager for the Cryogenic Fluid Management Portfolio Project Office at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “That makes it really challenging to understand how much propellant you have within your tank, which is really important to maximize your mission duration and plan how much you need to launch with.”
A space-age fuel gauge technology meant to solve this problem will be demonstrated on an upcoming journey to the Moon. Developed at NASA Glenn under the agency’s Technology Demonstration Missions program, the Radio Frequency Mass Gauge (RFMG) payload is set to launch as a part of the Intuitive Machines IM-1 delivery to the lunar surface through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. With CLPS, NASA is working with American companies to deliver scientific, exploration, and technology payloads to the Moon’s surface and orbit.
Dr. Greg Zimmerli, principal investigator for the Radio Frequency Mass Gauge (RFMG) project at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, explains how RFMG technology will help pave the way for future space missions.
Credit: NASA/Denise Eletich
RFMG technology uses radio waves and antennae in a tank to measure exactly how much propellant is available. While smaller-scale experiments have been conducted on the International Space Station and during parabolic flights, this will be the first long-duration RFMG testing on a standalone spacecraft, the Nova-C lunar lander. The data engineers receive throughout its journey could validate simulations done on the ground and mark the next step in developing this technology.
“It’s definitely a critical point,” Ameen said. “This is the first time we’re getting this type of data for RFMG.”
RFMG could be crucial during future long-duration missions that will rely on spacecraft fueled by cryogenic propellants, like liquid hydrogen, liquid oxygen, or liquid methane. These propellants are highly efficient but are tricky to store as they can evaporate quickly, even at low temperatures. Being able to accurately measure spacecraft fuel levels will help scientists maximize resources as NASA moves toward its goal of returning humans to the Moon through Artemis.
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