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A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS)

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A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2011 A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Hardware for Meeting NASA’s Need for a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to the International Space Station - [COTS]2 Chad Lee Davis University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Aerodynamics and Fluid Mechanics Commons, Other Aerospace Engineering Commons, and the Space Vehicles Commons Recommended Citation Davis, Chad Lee, "A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Hardware for Meeting NASA’s Need for a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to the International Space Station - [COTS]2. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2011. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/965 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Chad Lee Davis entitled "A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Hardware for Meeting NASA’s Need for a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to the International Space Station - [COTS]2." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Science, with a major in Aerospace Engineering. James Evans Lyne, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Masood Parang, Robert E. Bond Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Chad Lee Davis entitled “A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Hardware for Meeting NASA’s Need for a Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) to the International Space Station [COTS]2.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, with a major in Aerospace Engineering. James Evans Lyne Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Masood Parang__ Robert E. Bond__ Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) A Feasibility Study for Using Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) Hardware for Meeting NASA’s Need for a Commercial Orbital Transportation Service (COTS) to the International Space Station [COTS]2 A Thesis Presented for the Master of Science Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Chad Lee Davis August 2011 Copyright © 2011 by Chad Lee Davis All rights reserved. ii DEDICATION To my wife Annie Davis and my parents Lee Roy & Eileen Davis iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I would like to thank my loving wife who has supported me through this long and demanding endeavor. I would also like to thank my children; Jacob, Tyller, Alyson and Zachary for the many hours they have given up with me, to allow me to finish this degree program. I can only hope that my desire for knowledge can one day inspire them to study hard in their respective career fields. While having a family, working full-time and being in the Air National Guard has really tested my skills of time management and self discipline. I would also like to thank my parents for their never ending support for their only son and by teaching me to always finish what you start, no matter how long it might take. There are various people I’d like to say thank you to from Orbital Sciences Corp. and NASA who have answered questions in many areas of the aerospace disciplines and provided technical support during my research and thesis development. I would like to thank my graduate advisor and friend, Dr. Evans Lyne who has encouraged and allowed me to build a degree program in the areas that most interested me in the aerospace field. I appreciate his availability via cell at various hours of the day and night. I’d like to thank my faculty committee members, Dr. Robert Bond and Dr. Masood Parang for agreeing to be on my committee and also the University of Tennessee’s Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering Department. iv ABSTRACT The space vehicle system concept (i.e. resupply vehicle) described is based on the new direction that President George W. Bush announced on January 14, 2004 for NASA’s Human Exploration, which has the space shuttle retiring in 2011 following the completion of the International Space Station (ISS). This leads to a problem for the ISS community regarding the capability of meeting a sixty metric-ton cargo shortfall in resupply and the ability of returning large payloads, experiment racks and any other items too large to fit into a crew only type spacecraft like the Orion or Soyuz. NASA and the ISS partners have realized these future problems and started developing various systems for resupply to ISS, but none offer the capability for large up or down mass close to that of the shuttle. Without this capability, the primary purpose behind the ISS science mission is defeated and the ability to keep the station functioning properly is at risk with limited payload delivery (i.e. replacement hardware size and mass). There is a solution to this problem and a majority of the solution has already been designed, built, and flight tested. Another portion has been studied heavily by a team at NASA for use in a slightly different mission. Following the retirement of the space shuttle fleet and the loss of heavy up and down mass capability, the only solution to the problem is to design a new spacecraft. However, the budget and new direction for NASA will not allow for a costly new payload carrying spacecraft. The solution is to use existing commercial off the shelf (COTS) hardware to minimize the costs of developing a totally new system. This paper will discuss the technical feasibility of this conceptual configuration. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page CHAPTER 1 ................................................................................................................. 1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 1 Section 1-1 Mission Background ..................................................................... 1 Section 1-1.1 Russia’s Progress ......................................................................... 3 Section 1-1.2 ESA’s Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) ................................ 5 Section 1-1.3 JAXA’s H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) ........................................ 6 Section 1-1.4 NASA’s Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) . 7 Section 1-2 Objectives ................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................................................... 13 Proposed Vehicle Configuration ................................................................................. 13 Section 2-1 Resupply Vehicle System ........................................................... 13 Section 2-1.1 Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) ................................ 13 Section 2-1.2 Interm Control Module (ICM) ................................................... 16 Section 2-1.3 Ellipsled ..................................................................................... 18 Section 2-1.4 Landing Recovery System ......................................................... 21 Section 2-1.5 STS-to-EELV Adaptor Structure ............................................... 25 Section 2-1.6 Expendable Launch Vehicles (ELVs) ....................................... 26 Section 2-2 Phases of Flight Configuration ................................................... 27 Section 2-2.1 Launch Configuration ................................................................ 27 Section 2-2.2 On-Orbit Configuration ............................................................. 30 vi Section 2-2.3 Reentry Configuration ............................................................... 32 Section 2-2.4 Overall Concept of Operations .................................................. 33 Section 2-3. Additional Missions .................................................................... 35 Section 2-3.1 ISS Module Assembly ............................................................... 35 Section 2-3.2 GEO & Lunar Cargo Returns .................................................... 35 Section 2-3.3 Human Returns .......................................................................... 36 CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................................................... 37 Methodology for Aerodynamic Analysis and Results ................................................ 37 Section 3-1 Pro-Engineer Modeling ............................................................... 37 Section 3-1.1 Component Modeling and Configuration Layout...................... 37 Section 3-1.2 Mass
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