Compilation of shock, vibration, and acoustic data from Titan vehicles. Volume III - Titan II shock, vibration, and acoustic data
Vibration, acoustic, and shock data tabulated for Titan II ICBM
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Vibration, acoustic, and shock data tabulated for Titan II ICBM
NASA information release of Lunar Orbiter D launching, including configurations, systems, mission, and Atlas Agena launch vehicle data
New launch vehicles have historically had significantly higher failure probabilities in early flights than what has been predicted using Probabilistic Risk Assessment. Work on a new methodology originally started with ARES I-X and the Common Standards Working Group (CSWG) for range safety applications. CSWG consists of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Air Force, and NASA. Historical launch vehicle data was viewed as the best predictor of success/failure for launches of new vehicles. A launch vehicle database was developed that includes all launches from 1980-2017 (both US and foreign). Entries to the database include: Vehicle by model type; Launch dates; Failure description; Failure Result (Loss Of Vehicle (LOV)/Loss Of Mission (LOM); Failure cause (when available); Vehicle designs (stages/engines/etc.)
Lunar orbiter A - configuration, tasks, Atlas Agena launch vehicle, data acquisition and evaluation, and mission events
The Safety and Mission Assurance (S&MA) Directorate is responsible for mitigating risk, providing system safety, and lowering risk for space programs from ground to space. The S&MA is divided into 4 divisions: The Space Exploration Division (NC), the International Space Station Division (NE), the Safety & Test Operations Division (NS), and the Quality and Flight Equipment Division (NT). The interns, myself and Arun Aruljothi, will be working with the Risk & Reliability Analysis Branch under the NC Division's. The mission of this division is to identify, characterize, diminish, and communicate risk by implementing an efficient and effective assurance model. The team utilizes Reliability and Maintainability (R&M) and Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) to ensure decisions concerning risks are informed, vehicles are safe and reliable, and program/project requirements are realistic and realized. This project pertains to the Orion mission, so it is geared toward a long duration Human Space Flight Program(s). For space missions, payload is a critical concept; balancing what hardware can be replaced by components verse by Orbital Replacement Units (ORU) or subassemblies is key. For this effort a database was created that combines mass and reliability data, called Mass and Reliability System or MaRS. The U.S. International Space Station (ISS) components are used as reference parts in the MaRS database. Using ISS components as a platform is beneficial because of the historical context and the environment similarities to a space flight mission. MaRS uses a combination of systems: International Space Station PART for failure data, Vehicle Master Database (VMDB) for ORU & components, Maintenance & Analysis Data Set (MADS) for operation hours and other pertinent data, & Hardware History Retrieval System (HHRS) for unit weights. MaRS is populated using a Visual Basic Application. Once populated, the excel spreadsheet is comprised of information on ISS components including: operation hours, random/nonrandom failures, software/hardware failures, quantity, orbital replaceable units (ORU), date of placement, unit weight, frequency of part, etc. The motivation for creating such a database will be the development of a mass/reliability parametric model to estimate mass required for replacement parts. Once complete, engineers working on future space flight missions will have access a mean time to failures and on parts along with their mass, this will be used to make proper decisions for long duration space flight missions
The GSFC implementation of an Optical Communication System to demonstrate an operational optical communication link for Orion EM-2. It will serve as a base for providing an operational optical communications capability for future Orion missions. GSFC plans to maintain a development path for the optical communication flight terminal to allow commercialization and implementation on future Orion missions. The Orion optical module part of the optical communications flight terminal and its control electronics have a common architecture with the ILLUMA-T optical terminal provided by GSFC for use on the ISS. The plan is to flow data from Orion through the Optical Communication Fight Terminal to the Optical Communication Ground Terminal and reverse. NASA's Orion spacecraft is an exploratory vehicle designed for longer-duration flights beyond the Moon. Following Orion's Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), during which the spacecraft will travel beyond the Moon, enter a distant retrograde orbit around the Moon and return to Earth unmanned, Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2) will see a crewed spacecraft complete a slightly different flight path. First crewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft, currently targeting a June 30, 2022 launch. The mission involves: One revolution in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) parking orbit to verify basic Orion systems functionality and deploy solar arrays. A single 42-hour Highly Elliptical Orbit (HEO) intermediate checkout orbit allows characterization of the Orion vehicle system performance prior to committing to a cis-lunar flight. Trans Lunar Injection (TLI) burn using Orion Service Module (SM) main engine, which sends Orion on a lunar flyby and free return. Skip reentry at lunar return velocities to splashdown off the coast of San Diego. Total mission duration is approximately 10 days. EM-2 is the first crewed mission of the Orion Spacecraft that crew brings more video up/downloads, file transfers, and real-time chats with family back home and high-rate communications enables live HD streaming for Crew conferences, Public Affairs Office (PAO) events, and significant mission events. Also still collecting vehicle data on numerous Orion subsystems via Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) allows large data volume returns sooner for DFI and future science payloads, as opposed to waiting for end-of-mission. O2O is a demonstration of operational utility system tested as a Developmental Test Objective (DTO) and not required to meet mission requirements/success/ Flight Test Objectives (FTO). EM-2 architecture is as close to future mission operational architecture as possible.Orion subsystems (video, DFI, etc.) expected to generate ~250 GB of data in the first 24 hours of flight. Total data generated over the mission estimated to be more than 400 GBUsing S-Band alone, Orion limited to ~ 6GB of data downlink per day. Because of this limitation, Orion is planning to limit live video downlinks on EM-1 in order to downlink high priority fileswith 1 hour/day of Optical Communication, Orion could downlink ~6x more data per day (~ 36GB/day).The optical communication system is capable of multiple data rates up to at least 80 Mbps downlink for the transfer of Orion data to Earth while Orion is operating in the lunar vicinity.
In this study, attributes are described for solid and liquid propulsion systems based on historical data. This study is not intended to compare liquid and solid propulsion system attributes, rather to present options for their use in various mission scenarios. US launch vehicle data from 1970 to 2008 was analyzed to assess solid and liquid propulsion development cost and schedule characteristics, performance features, and safety and mission success attributes. The study assessed historical trends for liquid and solid systems, and investigated implications of those trends. It was found that the two propulsion technologies have unique, common and complementary attributes that can be leveraged to meet mission requirements.
An investigation has been conducted in the NASA Langley Research Center 14- by 22- Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel to obtain the liftoff and transition aerodynamics of the Ares I (A106) Crew Launch Vehicle. Data were obtained in free-air at angles of attack from 10 to 90 at various roll angles and at roll angles of 0 to 360 at various angles of attack. In addition, tower effects were assessed by testing with and without a mobile launcher/tower at all wind azimuth angles and at various model heights to simulate the rise of the vehicle as it clears the tower on launch. The free-air data will be used for low speed high angle of attack flight simulation and as a bridge to the low angle of attack ascent database (0.5 < Mach < 5.0) being developed with data from the Langley Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel and Boeing Polysonic Wind Tunnel. The Ares I Database Development Team will add incremental tower effects data to the free-air data to develop the database for tower clearance.
A linear stochastic model of the human operator is developed and applied to the problem of piloted control of an aircraft. The pilot and aircraft are modeled as linear time-invariant systems containing both process and measurement noise. The loop closure by the pilot is determined by formulating the problem as an optimal stochastic control problem. The solution to the optimal control problem yields not only the pilot's optimal control output which he uses to control the vehicle, but also the optimal combination of his observations of the vehicle states upon which the pilot bases his control. A method is presented so that, using experimental pilot vehicle data, the cost functional which is minimized in the optimal control problem will be numerically equal to the pilot rating that the pilot would associate with the given vehicle and task.
Considerations of comfort of passengers and crew in light aircraft and helicopters indicate substantial benefits may be obtained by the reduction of interior noise levels. This paper discusses an ongoing research effort to reduce interior noise in such vehicles. Data from both field and laboratory studies for a light aircraft are presented. The laboratory data indicate that structural vibration is an efficient source of interior noise and should be considered in the reduction of interior noise. Flight data taken on a helicopter before and after installation of acoustic treatment demonstrate that over 30 dB of noise reduction can be obtained in certain portions of the spectra. However, subjective evaluations of the treated vehicle indicate that further reductions in interior noise are desirable. An existing interior noise prediction method which was developed for large jet transports was applied to study low-frequency noise in a light aircraft fuselage. The results indicate that improvements in the analytical model may be necessary for the prediction of interior noise of light aircraft.
Data from an extensive array of collocated instrumentation at the Wallops Island test facility were intercompared in order to (1) determine the practical achievable accuracy limitations of various tropospheric and ionospheric correction techniques; (2) examine the theoretical bases and derivation of improved refraction correction techniques; and (3) estimate internal systematic and random error levels of the various tracking stations. The GEOS 2 satellite was used as the target vehicle. Data were obtained regarding the ionospheric and tropospheric propagation errors, the theoretical and data analysis of which was documented in some 30 separate reports over the last 6 years. An overview of project results is presented.
An extensive flight test campaign has been conducted to look into developing actionable advice for pilots of today’s vehicles to reduce their acoustic footprints. Ten distinct vehicles were tested at three different test ranges, with nine of the vehicles’ data being documented here. Twelve pairs of turning conditions were tested to determine their effect on blade-vortex interaction noise. Each turning flight condition was evaluated using the peak A-weighted, band-limited (50 Hz - 2500 Hz), sound pressure level measured throughout the maneuver. This metric was a surrogate for blade-vortex interaction noise, and the difference between the peak values of each turning pair was investigated. That peak value difference was subsequently corrected by the offset from the intended vehicle altitude at turn initiation from the actual altitude at initiation. The corrected amplitudes were investigated and grouped into six validated actionable guidance principles that can be given to pilots to immediately reduce their acoustic footprint during operations.
Response of a launch vehicle to wind profiles wind profile data determined by angle-of-attack sensors and photographic triangulation
A subscale aerodynamic model of the GTX air-breathing launch vehicle was tested at NASA Glenn Research Center's 10- by 10-Foot Supersonic Wind Tunnel from Mach 2.0 to 3.5 at various angles-of-attack. The objective of the test was to investigate the effect of angle-of-attack on inlet mass capture, inlet diverter effectiveness, and the flowfield at the cowl lip plane. The flow-through inlets were tested with and without boundary-layer diverters. Quantitative measurements such as inlet mass flow rates and pitot-pressure distributions in the cowl lip plane are presented. At a 3deg angle-of-attack, the flow rates for the top and side inlets were within 8 percent of the zero angle-of-attack value, and little distortion was evident at the cowl lip plane. Surface oil flow patterns showing the shock/boundary-layer interaction caused by the inlet spikes are shown. In addition to inlet data, vehicle forebody static pressure distributions, boundary-layer profiles, and temperature-sensitive paint images to evaluate the boundary-layer transition are presented. Three-dimensional parabolized Navier-Stokes computational fluid dynamics calculations of the forebody flowfield are presented and show good agreement with the experimental static pressure distributions and boundary-layer profiles. With the boundary-layer diverters installed, no adverse aerodynamic phenomena were found that would prevent the inlets from operating at the required angles-of-attack. We recommend that phase 2 of the test program be initiated, where inlet contraction ratio and diverter geometry variations will be tested.
Error sources and their magnitudes in Scout launch vehicle data
An experimental investigation has been conducted to obtain the flow properties in the wake of a model of the Viking '75 entry vehicle. Data are presented for the model at several angles of attack at free-stream Mach numbers from 0.2 to 3.95. The characteristics of the wake flow field are discussed and results are shown to demonstrate the significant variation of wake center-line flow properties in the transonic speed range, the shift in wake profiles with change in angle of attack, and the similarity exhibited by the velocity profiles across the wake.
A series of three tests was conducted using solid rocket propellants to determine the effects a solid rocket plume would have on thermal protective surfaces (TPS). The surfaces tested were those which are baselined for the shuttle vehicle. The propellants used were to simulate the separation solid rocket motors (SSRM) that separate the solid rocket boosters (SRB) from the shuttle launch vehicle. Data cover: (1) the optical effects of the plume environment on spacecraft related surfaces, and (2) the solid particle size, distribution, and composition at TPS sample locations.
A computational procedure is described which numerically integrates the equations of motion of an unguided rocket. Three translational and two angular (roll discarded) degrees of freedom are integrated through the final burnout; and then, through impact, only three translational motions are considered. Input to the routine is: initial time, altitude and velocity, vehicle characteristics, and other defined options. Input format has a wide range of flexibility for special calculations. Output is geared mainly to the wind-weighting procedure, and includes summary of trajectory at burnout, apogee and impact, summary of spent-stage trajectories, detailed position and vehicle data, unit-wind effects for head, tail and cross winds, coriolis deflections, range derivative, and the sensitivity curves (the so called F(Z) and DF(Z) curves). The numerical integration procedure is a fourth-order, modified Adams-Bashforth Predictor-Corrector method. This method is supplemented by a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method to start the integration at t=0 and whenever error criteria demand a change in step size.