Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Williams, F..
The objective of this analysis is to process Lincoln Laboratory Doppler radar data obtained during FLOWS testing at Huntsville, Alabama, in the summer of 1986, to characterize windshear events. The processing includes plotting velocity and F-factor profiles, histogram analysis to summarize statistics, and correlation analysis to demonstrate any correlation between different data fields.
Tethered multiple spacecraft configurations are discussed relative to low Earth orbit, geosynchronous Earth orbit, and one, two, or three dimensional configurations. Attitude control, pointing, and stabilization of such tethered systems are addressed.
The purpose of a constellation is to provide a mode of distributing space systems in a method that could be advantageous and not eliminating the consolidation/aggregation advantages. The applicability of stabilization concepts to various orbital conditions was defined.
The cryogenic module of Mass Driver Two comprises a 3.25 inch (82.55 mm) OD bucket with two 44 kilo-ampere-turn coils made with .028 inch (.71 mm) diam niobium-titanium multi-filamentary cable in a copper matrix, impregnated with lead alloy for thermal inertia, as well as the service station to refrigerate, energize and eject the bucket. The station is housed in a six inch flanged pyrex cross which connects to the four inch pyrex tube of the mass driver itself. The bucket is refrigerated by being forced against a copper braid cradle attached to the bottom of a liquid helium reservoir which protrudes into the cross from above. The bucket is energized inductively by turning off two superconducting coils which are also attached to the helium reservoir, and which have maintained the correct flux linkage through the bucket coils during their cool-down through the critical temperature. Once charging is completed, the clamping pressure is released and the bucket is injected into the mass driver by means of two normal-conductor pulse coils surrounding the horizontal branches of the cross.
Mass drivers can serve to propel massive objects by expelling any available material as reaction mass, however, mass driver engines have several limitations such as relatively large payload size and dynamic stability problems. A number of alternative acceleration mechanisms exist which offer advantages for certain applications, such as higher acceleration at a sacrifice in efficiency, smaller possible size and decreased complexity at a sacrifice in service life, etc. The alternative concepts include several variants of the railgun, a family of superconducting slingshot oscillators, a momentum transformer, an impulse induction motor, and a family of hybrid synchronous accelerators. A potential application of considerable interest is the earth-based launching of space cargo or nuclear waste by using off-peak generating capacity to accelerate one ton cargo cylinders at intervals of several minutes.