Masten Flight Systems Works Toward First Launch of a NASA Payload For
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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration Desert Thunder! Masten Flight Systems works toward first launch of a NASA payload for Flight Opportunities office Cover Story Welcome to Aerovations Flight Opportunities This is an exciting time within NASA for innovation Resources 16 The newly established Office of the and technology. With the Chief Technologist seeks to match NASA Ronald Young, creation of the NASA Office Dryden Innovative and science community launch needs of the Chief Technologist, Partnerships Office with companies capable of getting the and the selection of its chief, 661-276-3741 experiments aloft to flight conditions Bobby Braun, a new agency champion has emerged The Office of the Chief to re-vitalize NASA as a Technologist: http://www. preeminent research and 30 Holland helps nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/ 24 Fiber optic development organization. index.html News protect ideas, Expanding on initiatives 4 Dryden Center systems commercialize tech of the former Innovative SBIR and STTR Innovation Fund Partnerships Program, information: http://sbir. new models are nurturing gsfc.nasa.gov/SBIR/SBIR. selectees named 6 Allen Parker’s ED11 0115-05 NASA Photo by Tom Tschida Concepts innovations inside and html 11 Dryden researcher algorithm shatters a outside of NASA. In fact, The Innovative Partnerships Office staff includes, from left, Jason Han- technology barrier as part of the OCT, all of son, Ron Young, Julie Holland, Greg Poteat and Elizabeth Newcamp. submits winning idea for 9 New launch Dryden IPP website: the IPP – now called the http://www.nasa. office is formulated from two previous projects. Ames Research future space treadmills technology idea 6 Dryden, 4DSP enter Innovative Partnerships gov/centers/dryden/ Center, Moffett Field, Calif., began the Commercial Reusable gains ground Office – has been adopted Suborbital Research, or CRuSR, activity for the agency’s Science OCT structure is licensing agreement about/Organizations/ 17 and its work continued. Technology/ Mission Directorate. A second project is the Facilitated Access to focused on technology Flight experiments Competitive partnership the Space Environment for Technology, or FAST, which originated 13 opportunities such as the in the former IPP office. Flight Opportunities officials will seek 7 Dryden fiber optic validated ‘hot film’ sensors. sensor work honored successful Small Business Innovative Research and Small Business and foster capabilities and services from the commercial sector, 20 Dryden helps Now, the challenge is to Technology Transfer programs continue as part of the OCT initially for suborbital flight services. determine whether move the technology Space Technology programs. Ten such programs are organized As with all change, some has been seamless and some has been sonic booms will People to the next level under three divisions: early-stage innovations, game-changing challenging. At Dryden, a valued member of the IPO staff, Russ create false alarms technologies and crosscutting technology demonstrations. The Barber, recently passed away. Barber participated in analyzing and 4 Center chief individual programs are detailed elsewhere in this publication. assessing emerging commercial space markets that would foster a 13 Fly-by-feel systems The Innovative Partnerships Office is managing all former viable commercial industry, bringing these data into NASA’s Space technologist has a vision SBIR represent the next IPP responsibilities for the Space Technology programs. David Technology strategy and selection process. Additionally, in work revolution in aircraft Voracek, Dryden center chief technologist, provides oversight with a nascent commercial flight-service community, Barber’s 9 Eight Small Business 15 Mangalam brings controls and serves as a representative to Braun’s office. Center chief many years of NASA project management experience and insights Innovative Research Dryden ideas, technology technologists guide their respective center’s participation in were greatly respected on Flight Opportunities programmatic the Space Technology programs, and will provide each center’s challenges. Russ will be sorely missed in a number of ways. agreements approved 24 New tool could for Phase II funding “bottom-up” input to the agency’s innovation and technology It also is expected to be a year of achievement. The Xaero launch 22 Students contribute accurately assess strategies and goals. of the first NASA payload by Masten Flight Systems of Mojave, to Dryden researcher’s adaptive flight control Selecting and investing in a large number of highly creative Calif., for the Flight Opportunities program will be a major 21 Dryden SBIR work and gain insight software in flight activities with potential for disruptive, or game-changing, step toward demonstrating reliable flight services for additional work results in a new into engineering careers technology breakthroughs will generate excitement about NASA’s technology demonstrations and scientific payloads. The flight also generation of carbon- work. Drawing from private industry, colleges and universities, marks a new era of cooperation with our commercial partners. carbon fasteners 28 DIMM is a bright idea. a wave of creative ideas will foster innovations that will engage Although the name of the office has changed, its mission has 26 TPS chief test pilot a new generation of researchers and technologists. Partnerships not. Partnerships are still part of the office name and a key part says Dryden partnership such as those available through SBIR and STTR are models of what we do. We seek out partnerships with industry, academia 25 SBIR opportunities energized students for other collaborations aimed at reinvigorating technology for and other NASA and government entities to continue raising the help tech innovation NASA as well as at stimulating commercial applications, market readiness level of emerging technologies, identifying new sources 30 CPP students aid in expansion and investment in future technologies. of innovation to address NASA’s technology needs that will not Dryden also was selected to manage the Space Technology’s only resolve the agency’s technical challenges, but also benefit the new-tech evaluation Flight Opportunities program under NASA Headquarters nation and the general public through technology transfer for new Inside Aerovations Inside The Masten Flight Systems tethered rocket test on the cover was Stories by X-Press Editor Jay program executive Laguduva Kubendran, a former member of commercial applications. photographed by Tom Tschida (NASA Photo ED11 0139-49) Levine except where noted. Dryden’s technical management staff. Dryden’s John Kelly is the Flight Opportunities program manager. The Flight Opportunities Ron Young, Dryden Innovative Partnerships Office August 2011 Aerovations Aerovations August 2011 Innovation ... from page 4 and aircraft efficiency. from the central nervous system allow a person to react to what is Seeding innovation New aerospace vehicle designs will happening, as it’s happening. If Brenner is successful, as an aircraft depend on such an integrated system flies, information from the sensors will be fed into the flight controls Dryden Center Innovation Fund selectees named that can gather information from an and allow the aircraft to adapt to flight conditions. aircraft’s sensors and feed it into the flight Called Distributive Adaptive Aeroservoelastic Control Utilizing control computer. What’s potentially Physics-Based Aerodynamic Sensing, the new technology will be A new Center Innovation Fund seeded through the NASA Office of the commercial sector would then incorporate into new generations revolutionary is then having the flight used in pinpointing flow bifurcation points – areas where the airflow the Chief Technologist became available when the federal 2011 fiscal of airplanes. Toward that goal, Barraclough earned funding for control system use new algorithms in characteristics change significantly – to define a relationship between year budget passed in April. The goal of the new initiative, funds from electric aircraft system technology development that dovetails with harnessing that information to alleviate different key parameters. which are being offered to agency researchers at each of NASA’s field Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate visions for less noisy, more aerodynamic forces and achieve different For example, information on the leading-edge stagnation point, centers, is to stimulate new ideas and encourage pursuit of promising fuel efficient and environmentally friendly system goals, said Dryden researcher Marty Brenner with angle-of-attack or flow separation point and aerodynamic lift technologies. future aircraft. Marty Brenner. The research focus will alternately be on coefficient, could be used in the control system for decisions on Dryden researchers submitted their proposals at the beginning of the Barraclough, an electrical engineer, is handling quality performance, gust-load alleviation and how to control the aircraft. The system also would help minimize fiscal year to David Voracek, Dryden Chief Technologist. So selections specifically interested in electric propulsion, aerostructural stability. transitions on the aircraft, such as those from laminar-to-turbulent could be made from the submissions as soon as funding became which he said he believes can dramatically Brenner equates the sensors and their information on an and attached-to-separated airflow, and shock waves. available, a group composed of two members