Electrically-propelled cargo vehicle for sustained lunar supply operations Final report
Electrically propelled earth-moon shuttle vehicles for logistic support of advanced lunar operations
SEARCH · Engineering Papers
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.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Electrically propelled earth-moon shuttle vehicles for logistic support of advanced lunar operations
Equilateral triangle solution of three-body problem for Apollo Earth-Moon libration point missions
The Atlas-Centaur AC-5 vehicle was launched from ETR Complex 36A on March 2., 1965 at 8:25.04 a.m. EST. Within about 1 second after launch the thrust of the Atlas booster engine decayed rapidly; the vehicle settled back on the launch pad and was quickly destroyed by fire and explosion. Considerable damage was sustained by the launch complex and its associated equipment. Loss of booster engine thrust was due to fuel depletion at the turbopump inlets, which is attributed to closure of the fuel prevalve or the staging valve. To preclude the recurrence of either of these fuel valving malfunctions, the following corrective action has been taken: The remote control actuator has been replaced by manual operation of the Atlas fuel prevalve; the internal passage dimensions in the staging valve have been increased to lessen the hydraulic load on the valve poppet. In addition to the Atlas fuel system malfunction, a failure in the power control circuitry of the Centaur guidance computer resulted in partial removal of power at umbilical ejection. To prevent such a guidance system failure on future flights some redundant circuitry has been eliminated and more rigorous checkout procedures have been adopted. No further anomalies were discovered in the telemetered data prior to the Atlas booster thrust decay. A prime objective of the AC-5 flight was to place a dynamic model of the Surveyor spacecraft in a simulated lunar transfer trajectory. An important facet of this problem is the demonstration of a launch-on-time capability in accordance with the proper Earth-moon relation. The window opening time was established at 8:25 a.m. EST; thus the actual launch occurred within 4 seconds of the planned time.
Closed lunar orbits are envisaged in lunar mission programs. The study described herein was undertaken to obtain an appreciation of the relevant fuel consumption requirements. The retrograde impulses necessary for establishing the orbits were assumed to occur at the point of closest approach of the main earth-moon trajectory; this point, designated as the arrival position, was restricted to a lunar altitude of 5,000 nautical miles or less. The orientation of the arrival position vector relevant to any coplanar radius vector is not constrained, however, and similarly the scalar value of the arrival velocity is unrestrained. Since the arrival altitude is restricted to 5,000 nautical miles or less, the perturbing accelerations of the earth and sun are sufficiently small that the vehicle and moon essentially comprise an isolated two-body system; this is discussed in the report. Retrograde velocities are determined for any required pericynthion position. If the pericynthion orientation requirement is relaxed then a smaller retrograde velocity is in some cases possible. A comparison between minimum retrograde velocities and retrograde velocities necessary for stipulated pericynthion positions is given. Arrival velocities are correlated with feasible earth departure conditions. The equations developed for determining retrograde velocities for desired pericynthion positions are considered useful for estimating essential data for the preliminary planning of lunar missions. Some graphical representation is included herein for immediate familiarization with possible conditions.
Earth and lunar trajectory and landing site requirements for lunar excursion system
Earth Moon trajectories with consecutive collisions treated, using Birkhoff transformation in planar restricted three-body problem
Apollo capabilities extended for future biomedical, technological and operational experiments, trading space maneuvering capability for experiment load-carrying capacity
Low thrust satellite transfer between Earth and Moon orbits based on two-body trajectories and systematic synthesizing process
Saturn/Centaur launch windows for orbits synchronous with lunar period
Earth Moon trajectories with consecutive collisions treated, using Birkhoff transformation in planar restricted three-body problem
Spacecraft mission to libration centers of Earth- Moon system for collecting meteoroids and photographic program carried out for establishing presence of material at centers
Iterative guidance mode with application to three- dimensional upper stage vacuum flight
Space probe charged particle data evidence for moon crossing of Earth magnetospheric tail
Adaptability of Lunar Orbiter to surface experiments using flyby and earth return trajectory
Harmonic L-4 orbit for very restricted four-body problem determined by method of general perturbations using Chebyshev series
Radio-tracking data from Ranger lunar missions for estimated physical constants of earth and moon
Scientific value of manned lunar exploration