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The year in review

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December 2009

EDITORIAL: Inching toward reform 3 OUT OF THE PAST 76 Page70 2009 SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX 78 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 82 Page 30

THE YEAR IN REVIEW Adaptive structures 58 Hypersonic technologies Page 36 Aeroacoustics 5 and aerospace plane 75 Aerodynamic decelerators 8 Intelligent systems 30 Aerodynamic measurement Life sciences 64 technology 15 Lighter-than-air systems 23 Aerospace power 5 Liquid propulsion 38 Aerospace traffic management 74 Management 27 Air-breathing propulsion systems Materials 52 integration 43 Meshing, visualization and Air transportation 16 computational environments 6 Aircraft design 17 Missile systems 60 Aircraft operations 18 Modeling and simulation 49 Applied aerodynamics 10 Multidisciplinary design Astrodynamics 14 optimization 26 Atmospheric and space Nondeterministic approaches 54 environments 9 Nuclear and future flight Atmospheric flight mechanics 11 propulsion 36 Page 60 Balloon systems 19 Plasmadynamics and lasers 12 Computer-aided enterprise Propellants and combustion 41 solutions 50 Sensor systems 32 Computer systems 33 Software systems 34 Design engineering 48 Space colonization 61 Page 16 Digital avionics 31 Space logistics 66 Economics 24 Space operations and support 69 Electric propulsion 44 Space resources utilization 63 Energetic components 46 Space systems 67 Flight testing 20 Space tethers 65 Fluid dynamics 4 Space transportation 68 Gas turbine engines 40 Structural dynamics 57 General aviation 21 Structures 59 Ground testing 51 Survivability 53 Guidance, navigation, and control 7 Systems engineering 28 High-speed air-breathing Unmanned systems 73 propulsion 37 Terrestrial energy 54 Page 24 History 25 Thermophysics 13 Homeland security 70 V/STOL 22 Hybrid rockets 42 Weapon system effectiveness 62

BULLETIN AIAA Meeting Schedule B2 AIAA Courses and Training Program B4 AIAA News B5 Meeting Program B13 Calls for Papers B19 Page 48 Cover:Type by Jane Fitzgerald;image from space shuttle Columbia,2003.

Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc. at 1801 Alexander Bell Drive, Reston, Va. 20191-4344 [703/264-7577]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S. and Canada, $163, foreign, $200. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500. Periodical postage paid at Herndon, VA, and at additional mailing offices. Copyright © 2009 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 47, No. 11. dec09edit.qxd:AA Template 11/17/09 4:33 PM Page 1

®

is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

Elaine J. Camhi Editor-in-Chief Patricia Jefferson Associate Editor Inching toward reform Greg Wilson Production Editor Jerry Grey, Editor-at-Large Christine Williams, Editor AIAA Bulletin As the new year began, a new administration and a new Congress opened a door to long-sought efforts to rewrite the tangle of controls governing U.S. exports. Correspondents The International Traffic in Arms Regulations were enacted in 1976 and Robert F. Dorr, Washington Philip Butterworth-Hayes, Europe closely mirrored laws in place in eastern bloc nations. Over the subsequent 30+ Michael Westlake, Hong Kong years, political winds have shifted, both domestically and internationally, and those rules have been reinterpreted, refocused, and, in many cases, made even Contributing Writers more restrictive. Richard Aboulafia, John Binder, James W. Canan, Marco Cáceres, Edward Flinn, But recently many, particularly in the aerospace industry, have come to Tom Jones, Théo Pirard, David Rockwell, recognize that the very regulations designed to protect the nation’s technologi- Frank Sietzen, J.R. Wilson cal edge and asymmetrical advantage over potential foes have, with their re- strictions on the export of possible dual-use technologies, also hamstrung the Fitzgerald Art & Design Art Direction and Design ability of the U.S. to participate in international trade in many areas only mar- ginally related to defense. Craig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution International aerospace companies loath to endure the months of red tape David W. Thompson, President and deliberations required for the purchase of simple parts instead developed Robert S. Dickman, Publisher their own capabilities. The rise of the “ITAR-free satellite” was not a one-off. STEERING COMMITTEE But with the new administration, there seemed to be genuine interest in re- Michael B. Bragg, University of Illinois; examining ITAR issues. Members of both houses of Congress began holding Philip Hattis, Draper Laboratory; Mark S. hearings, and many who had been adamantly opposed to change came to un- Maurice, AFOSR; Laura McGill, Raytheon; derstand the damage being done to trade and now simply urged caution in George Muellner, Boeing; Merri Sanchez, moving forward. The House bill authorizing appropriations for the Dept. of National Aeronautics and Space Administra- State, where ITAR issues reside, and containing a section on reform of export tion; Mary Snitch, Lockheed Martin controls was passed in June. (Unfortunately, its Senate equivalent remains EDITORIAL BOARD stalled.) And in August, President Obama announced a comprehensive review Ned Allen, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; of export controls. Jean-Michel Contant, EADS; Eugene This all might suggest a looming overhaul of the most trade-restrictive Covert, Massachusetts Institute of Technol- parts of the laws. However, there are other troubles weighing heavily on the ogy; L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Texas A&M Uni- president and the Congress. For example, even as the economy appears to be versity; Michael Francis, United Technologies; turning around, unemployment is still rising. And the world clock is ticking on Christian Mari, Teuchos; Cam Martin, climate change, as the longer we wait to act, the more damage will be done NASA Dryden; Don Richardson, Donrich Research; Douglas Yazell, Honeywell and the more mitigation will be necessary. But these issues do truly tie together. The longer it takes to modify the an- ADVERTISING tiquated sections of the export controls, the smaller the U.S. export market will National Display and Classified: become. As more and more of those who were once our customers become Robert Silverstein, 240.498.9674 our competitors, that market shrinks, manufacturing numbers diminish, and the [email protected] workforce required declines. West Coast Display: Greg Cruse, Export controls also hamper U.S. participation in GEOSS, the Global 949.361.1870 / [email protected] Earth Observation System of Systems. Climate change mitigation can only Send materials to Craig Byl, AIAA, 1801 happen when action is taken on a global scale. But according to a report issued Alexander Bell Drive, Suite 500, Reston, VA in 2008 by the Center for Strategic & International Studies, “Export control 20191-4344. Changes of address should be regulations are a fundamental disincentive and significant structural impediment sent to Customer Service at the same address, to U.S. participation in international systems, to foreign cooperation with the by e-mail at [email protected], or by fax at United States, and to the development of GEOSS.” 703/264-7606. There are those who argue that ITAR reform must take a back seat as our Send Letters to the Editor to Elaine Camhi at the same address or [email protected] government grapples with the larger issues of the day. But a closer look would suggest the opposite, that major strides in repairing what is broken or out-of- December 2009, Vol. 47, No. 11 date in ITAR would go a long way in helping solve those issues. Elaine Camhi Editor-in-Chief AS-1209rev.qxd:AA-December 11/12/09 11:20 AM Page 2

AEROSPACE SCIENCES

Fluid dynamics tified for the first time. Regular orbiter instru- mentation was augmented by high-resolution calibrated imagery obtained by a Navy NP-3D The year has brought many significant and ex- Orion aircraft using a long-range infrared op- citing developments in the study of fluid dy- tical package known as Cast Glance. namic phenomena with a breadth of activities In low Reynolds number aerodynamics, spanning from hypersonics to low Reynolds work continues on unsteady flow phenomena number regimes. and control. Researchers at the University of A significant development has been the es- Michigan found that for low-aspect-ratio flap- tablishment of three national hypersonics cen- ping wings, tip vortices can increase lift by cre- ters, overseen by NASA and the Air Force Re- ating a low-pressure region near the wing tip search Laboratory (AFRL) Office of Scientific and delaying the shedding of the leading-edge Research, to help forge a national direction vortex (LEV). AFRL/RB researchers have for studying hypersonic flight. One center, led demonstrated, with a high-order implicit large- by Texas A&M University with several part- eddy simulation (ILES) approach, that stall ners, is called the National Center for Hyper- suppression can be achieved with small-ampli- sonic Laminar Turbulent Transition. It will tude high-frequency oscillations. The resulting specialize in boundary-layer control research. new flow regime has no LEV shedding or AFRL, Caltech, and the University of Min- thrust generation, and features the dramatic nesota have collaborated in a numerical and spanwise breakdown of the dynamic-stall vor- experimental study on control of high-speed tex system. A joint effort by Caltech, Illinois boundary layers. The team has demonstrated Institute of Technology, Princeton, and North- significant eastern University has demonstrated signifi- delays in cant reduction of lift fluctuations in unsteady transition flows through flow control, with applications in gust alle- viation. Balanced POD (proper orthogonal de- composition)/observer models were shown to stabilize vortex shedding using only two velocity sensors, with important benefits Complete transition to turbulence for small autonomous air vehicles. was initiated by one particular through the suppression of instabilities with Control of the flow over a hemispheri- transition mechanism for a flat-plate boundary layer at the injection of CO2. Researchers at the Uni- cal turret for aerooptic applications is an im- Mach 3. (Left) Isosurfaces of versity of Minnesota, CUBRC, NASA Lang- portant application of control of 3D flows, and the vortex identification criterion ley, Purdue, and AFRL used a combination of has received considerable attention this year. “Q” and contours of spanwise stability analysis and ground test data to iden- Studies involving hybrid Reynolds-averaged vorticity at one spanwise position illustrate small-scale structures tify crossflow instability as a likely mechanism Navier-Stokes/ILES simulations by researchers close to the end of the for transition on the leeward side of the X-51 at AFRL, and experiments at AFRL, Syracuse computational domain. demonstrator aircraft. University, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech, and (Right) A close-up view shows contours of the spanwise vorticity Additional efforts involving highly resolved the University of Florida demonstrated an ar- (simulations carried out by the numerical studies include a University of Ari- ray of actuation strategies in both open and University of Arizona). zona program examining the entire process of closed loops. transition to turbulence in supersonic and hy- Researchers at the University of Vermont personic flows. The goal is to enable im- have teamed with NASA to study micropro- proved engineering and physical models for pulsion and control of nanosats, to enable transition during high-speed flight. new propulsion technologies for these very On space shuttle Discovery’s STS-119 small spacecraft using microfluidics. and -128 missions, NASA flew a specially Purdue and George Washington Univer- modified tile and instrumentation package to sity, under FAA funding, conducted studies of monitor heating effects from boundary-layer air circulation patterns and particle transport transition during reentry. The airflow on the in model aircraft cabins. A key finding is that port wing was deliberately disrupted by a pro- people walking in the aisles disrupt the de- tuberance built into a modified tile, enabling signed ventilation flow patterns and can pro- the effects of a known roughness geometry on mote the spread of airborne contaminants by Lawrence Ukeiley the orbiter surface boundary layer to be quan- over 10 rows.

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Aeroacoustics

The development of civil supersonic aircraft capable of operating within the threshold of community noise regulations is continuing on different fronts. Wyle Laboratories, in collab- oration with Penn State University and Eagle Aeronautics, has made significant strides in calculating sonic boom footprints from super- sonic flight vehicles. Enhancements include sonic boom predictions over georeferenced terrain encompassing varying ground imped- ance, as well as distortions imposed by at- mospheric turbulence. Meanwhile, scientists at Stanford Univer- sity, with support from NASA, are developing large eddy simulations (LES) capable of pre- dicting the radiated sound from heated and The FAA sponsored an aircraft unheated supersonic jets with complex taxi noise study performed by geometries. Databases obtained at the small A collaboration between GKN Aerospace Wyle Laboratories. hot jet acoustic rig facility at NASA Glenn are and Honeywell Aerospace brought continued being used to validate these models. Similar progress in reducing engine fan noise. The efforts at Boeing, under way since 2004, have two companies designed, fabricated, and demonstrated continued progress in the de- tested a seamless double-layer engine inlet velopment and application of LES methodol- liner using a Hexcel HexWeb Acousti-Cap ogy. Accurate spectral predictions of jet noise, honeycomb core with a perforated composite to within 2-3 dB over a meaningful range of facesheet. Far-field acoustic surveys on a full- frequencies, have been achieved from com- scale demonstrator engine at Honeywell’s plex single-stream and dual-stream nozzle Acoustic Test Facility demonstrated compara- geometries and a wide range of jet operating ble results over a substantial range of engine conditions with the developed methodology. speeds for the new design when compared to Researchers at the University of Illinois at traditional liners. Testing also confirmed im- Urbana-Champaign are developing new theo- provements in sound attenuation at high en- ries for the dominant mechanisms responsible gine power settings using the seamless liners. for the sources of core noise in aircraft en- The counterrotating open fan engine ar- gines. This effort is part of an NRA from chitecture, successfully developed and flight NASA’s subsonic fixed-wing program. The tested by GE in the 1980s, is a candidate for mechanism, often called “indirect combustion the next generation of narrowbody aircraft. noise,” is believed to be caused by thermody- To meet community noise regulations, CFM namic interactions (entropy fluctuations) with International (a 50/50 joint partnership be- the engine’s turbine blades. Nonlinear simula- tween GE and Snecma) has developed mod- tions of the flow and acoustic radiation over an ern open rotor fan system designs using com- idealized turbine blade support the new theory. putational aeroacoustic prediction tools. Joint Other activities in computational aero- GE/NASA testing is scheduled to continue acoustics and advanced measurement meth- through early 2010 to demonstrate these con- ods were sponsored this year by the Aeroa- cepts and validate the design tools. coustics Research Consortium. Managed by In the area of space-based launch plat- the Ohio Aerospace Institute, the consortium forms, existing liftoff acoustic models used by is a partnership among NASA Glenn, Boeing, NASA Marshall are being updated with new General Electric Aircraft Engines, Honeywell empirical data. One such set of experiments, International, Pratt & Whitney, and Rolls- conducted under a joint effort of NASA, Wyle Royce. Its programs include assessing the ef- Labs, and ATK Launch Systems, comprised fectiveness of using phased microphone ar- three static firings incorporating more than 60 rays to identify engine noise sources, the acoustic free-field microphones. The new development of computational methods to acoustic models will be used to predict the predict high-speed jet noise, and the applica- liftoff acoustic environments of the Ares I and tion of LES to acoustic liners. Ares V launch vehicles. by Charles E.Tinney

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Meshing,visualization, and computational environments

The length scale ratio for the The overall problem of elucidating the coarse and medium meshes interaction between mesh and solution in the Langley cell-centered sequence is normalized by mesh is large and complex. Recent work by size so that the expected value Carl Ollivier-Gooch of the University of is one; the analysis suggests British Columbia seeks to address a that the medium mesh has small but important part of the prob- cells that are too large on the surface of the fuselage. lem, that of determining whether a se- quence of meshes truly constitutes a mesh refinement sequence for a mesh convergence study. Two meshes are said to form an ideal refinement pair if their tion of error transport equations. Techniques cell sizes are uniformly proportional across for simultaneous visualization of flow variables the entire domain, and if cell aspect ratio and and their associated errors include multiple orientation are the same in anisotropic re- contours, multiple vectors or streamlines, tex- gions of the mesh. The size, shape, and ori- turing, and error bubbles. Error sources may entation of a cell in an unstructured mesh can be used to drive local adaptive mesh refine- be computed in more than one way; one vi- ment, directly from the user interface. The able approach is to compute the moments system has been demonstrated for practical problem to find the size, aspect ratio, and turbulent flows on 3D unstructured meshes. principal directions of the cell. Mesh generation developers worldwide came together to share technical information related to their re- search at the Interna- tional Meshing Round- table (IMR), a yearly conference devoted to In a comparison of one of the mesh generation and two cell aspect ratios (roughly general preprocessing spanwise to streamwise) for the techniques. Started by coarse and medium meshes in the Langley cell-centered Sandia National Labo- sequence, with the exception of ratory in 1992, the a few small regions on the wing meeting continues to and at the base of the tail, the be one of the premier aspect ratio is nearly the same for both meshes, as expected. events focusing on mesh generation for field simulations and Once these quantities are known, a com- graphical display. The AIAA began cospon- parison between meshes can be accomplished soring the conference starting with the 18th by projecting data from one mesh to another. IMR held in Salt Lake City in October. Although this is still a research tool, meshes An award given each year by the AIAA from a Drag Prediction Workshop held this MVCE Technical Committee was renamed the summer were analyzed successfully. Shahyar Pirzadeh Memorial Award for the CRAFT Tech and CEI have jointly devel- Outstanding Paper in the discipline. The oped a computational environment that allows award was renamed in memory of a valued users to predict, visualize, and reduce grid-in- contributor to the field of unstructured numer- duced errors in CFD simulations. Through a ical mesh generation. Pirzadeh, who died on custom interface, the software system com- March 18, was best known for his work with bines an error quantification and unstructured the VGRID unstructured mesh generator. His mesh adaptation code, CRISP CFD, with the many innovations included the advancing lay- rendering capabilities of EnSight. ers method and early adoption of the Carte- A variety of methods may be used to visu- sian background grid to control mesh spacing. by Anthony C.Iannetti alize predicted errors obtained from the solu- He was also the award’s first recipient.

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Guidance,navigation, and control

Rockwell Collins demonstrated a damage-tol- erant flight control system for DARPA’s Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft Systems pro- gram using an unmanned F/A-18 subscale aircraft model with 60% wing loss. The flight controller demonstrated automatic recovery and autonomous landing. Aurora Flight Sciences demonstrated au- A Sidewinder missile demonstrated surface-to-air tonomous vertical takeoff, hover, and landing April in an operationally realistic test con- capability when it engaged of the Excalibur unmanned combat aircraft, ducted in Israel by the Israel Ministry of De- an unmanned air target. which combines high-speed flight with vertical fense and the Missile Defense Agency. takeoff and landing (VTOL). Its VTOL system Shuttle mission STS-126 delivered ISS gets its primary propulsion from a tilting jet component modules that doubled the space engine and supplemental thrust and pitch con- station’s crew capacity with new living quar- trol with electric lift fans. ters, regenerative environmental controls, and An X-plane pushing the limits of flight enhanced life support system. Follow-up STS control software is the tailless, X-48B blended missions installed the final pair of solar panels, wing body built by Boeing with NASA and the several new multinational science laboratory Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). The modules, and a new astronaut treadmill. On X-48B’s flight controller is responsible for al- July 30, two 5-in.-cube picosatellites, Aggie- locating the autopilot commands among 20 Sat2 (Texas A&M University) and Bevo-1 movable surfaces. The control surfaces are all (University of Texas-Austin) were released independently actuated and clustered along from STS-127 Endeavour. They are the first the trailing edge. The centralized, highly cou- of a series of test satellite pairs that will even- pled, nonlinear flight control system also in- tually demonstrate autonomous rendezvous corporates envelope protection algorithms via and docking. limiters. More robust alpha and beta sideslip On June 18, NASA launched LCROSS limiter algorithms are being developed to pro- (Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satel- vide better envelope protection against unex- lite) and LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter). pected lateral-mode oscillations seen in stall In an effort to detect water ice traces in a lunar tests at high angles of attack. polar crater, the LCROSS satellite flew into a NetFires completed the first moving target heavy debris plume created when its spent up- test flight of the non-line-of-sight launch sys- per-stage Centaur rocket impacted the Moon’s tem’s precision attack missile in July. Ray- Cabeus A crater on October 9. It collected theon’s AIM-9X Sidewinder missile demon- and analyzed debris samples and relayed the strated surface-to-air capability when it en- data to Earth. LRO’s one-year lunar surface gaged an unmanned air target in May. The mapping mission for subsequent lunar expedi- AIM-9X is a fifth-generation, high off-boresight tions began when it entered its mapping orbit infrared-guided missile developed for the air- September 17 and started relaying high-reso- to-air mission. lution topographic imagery. Lockheed Martin launched DAGR rockets In October 2008, India launched its first from an airborne AH-6 Little Bird helicopter lunar probe, Chandrayaan-1, which demon- and hit the targets in two trials in July. Lock- strated launch to Earth orbit, departure, trans- heed Martin and the Missile Defense Agency fer, and insertion into low lunar orbit, finally demonstrated the ability of the Terminal High releasing a lunar impactor for surface analysis Altitude Area Defense weapon system to de- missions. Chandrayaan-1 carried science pay- tect, track, and intercept a separating target loads for NASA and ESA, among others, and inside Earth’s atmosphere in March. completed its mission in June. A Boeing Harpoon Block II missile An AFRL experimental small satellite, Tac- equipped with a redesigned guidance control Sat-3, launched and deployed on May 19. unit hit its land-based target in its first test TacSat-3 hosts a hyperspectral sensor that flight in September. The Arrow II interceptor, can be directly controlled by troops in the by Leena Singh, produced by Boeing and Israel Aerospace In- field, an ocean data telemetry microsatellite Daniel J. Clancy, and dustries, shot down a ballistic missile target in link, and a plug-and-play avionics package. Brett Ridgely

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AEROSPACE SCIENCES

Aerodynamic decelerator the corresponding opening loads and load fac- systems tors. The cluster test provided the cluster degradation factor for the main parachute’s drag area, as well as an observation of the 2009 was a very productive year for para- parachute’s deployment, inflation, and cluster chute development. Notable accomplishments interaction characteristics. include testing of the Mars Science Labora- NASA’s Engineering and Safety Center developed and tested MLAS as a risk-mitiga- tion system should problems arise with Orion’s launch abort design. The effort culmi- nated in a highly successful July flight test. During the test, two mortar-deployed para- chutes separated the coast skirt from the for- ward fairing, followed 3 sec later by two more mortar-deployed parachutes reorienting the fairing 180°, which placed the boilerplate CEV crew module (CM) in the heat-shield-first orientation. With the fairing stabilized, the boilerplate CM was released from inside the fairing. After a brief ride on two drogues, the boilerplate CM released its simulated forward bay cover and deployed four main parachutes. This test demonstrated that the fairing The Ares I recovery system will require parachutes that are much larger and stronger than those used for the space shuttle. could be successfully reoriented and the CM released without detrimental recontact. Thus it showed that the MLAS system is a viable tory (MSL) parachute, the Ares I recovery sys- concept should the baseline launch abort sys- tem, and the Max Launch Abort System tem encounter significant difficulties during (MLAS), as well as significant work in the area development. of autonomous payload delivery. This year the Aerodynamic Decelerator The MSL parachute finished its final test- Systems Center at the Naval Postgraduate ing, successfully completing structural qualifi- School developed Snowflake, an autonomous cation and flight lot workmanship verification networking aerial delivery system for a 3-lb tests. The testing took place at the NASA payload. Networking capability allows target Ames Full Scale Aerodynamics Complex 80 x assignment and tracking from anywhere in The Mars Science Laboratory 120-ft wind tunnel. The parachute was de- the world through the Internet. Snowflake is parachute completed testing ployed at conditions that produced inflation currently being integrated with the Arcturus T- this year. loads 25% higher than the maximum ex- 20 UAV, which will be able to carry up to 12 pected flight limit load and included multiple systems inside the payload bay and two pay- inflations of the flight lot canopy. The final load containers under the wings. tally resulted in a single canopy withstanding Aerial delivery remains an increasingly 14 inflations at peak inflation loads ranging critical and successful method of supply deliv- from 360 to 290 kN (81-65 klbf). ery for the military in all types of environ- The Ares I solid rocket booster, which will ments. Airdrops have nearly doubled every launch the Orion crew exploration vehicle year since 2005 in Afghanistan, and are on (CEV) following retirement of the space shut- track to exceed 30 million lb this year. The tle, is much heavier than the shuttle’s booster JPADS (joint precision airdrop system) family and reenters the atmosphere at a much of autonomous air vehicle systems provides higher velocity; hence the parachutes must be payload capability ranging from 1 to 42,000 larger and stronger. The 68-ft-diam drogue lb, with most already demonstrated or in use. parachute will experience a load of 500,000 The largest precision airdrop demonstration lb, while the three 150-ft-diam main para- ever held, conducted by the Army Natick Sol- chutes will experience 300,000-lb loads. The dier Research, Development, and Engineering final drogue parachute basic performance Center, took place in the U.S. October 19- drop test was completed this year, along with 22, 2008, allowing more than 500 U.S. and a drop test of the clustered three main para- allied participants the opportunity to witness chutes. The drogue drop test provided the the capabilities and utility of precision airdrop by Elsa Hennings drag area at various reefing ratios along with systems.

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Atmospheric and space environments

Advancements in the areas of atmospheric and space environments continued, and this year saw a wide variety of developments in flight experiments, testing capabilities, terres- trial guidelines, and space weather. Google Earth displays an image Lockheed Martin Space Systems, NASA of the global ionosphere. Marshall, and Kyushu Institute of Technology are collaborating with the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency and the U.S. Naval Re- search Laboratory (NRL) on a flight experi- ment scheduled to launch aboard STS-134. The PASCAL (primary arc effects on solar cells at LEO) experiment will characterize the cumulative effects of low-power plasma-in- duced arcing on the performance of a variety of typical and state-of-the-art space solar cell The document contains considerable in- technologies. PASCAL is part of the MISSE-8 formation of general engineering and scien- (materials ISS experiment-8) and the first tific interest concerning the terrestrial envi- PRELSE (platform for retrievable experiments ronment. It also has information on ground in a LEO space environment) program man- and in-flight winds, atmospheric thermody- aged by NRL. It will be an active experiment namic models, radiation, humidity, precipita- on the station with a design life of least two tion, severe weather, sea state, lightning, at- years and a goal of being returned to Earth for mospheric chemistry, and seismic criteria. It ground processing. Results will aid spacecraft includes a model to predict atmospheric dis- designers, operators, and insurers responsible persion of aerospace engine exhaust cloud for solar arrays operating in a space plasma rise and growth. It is available for download at environment conducive to producing electro- the NASA Technical Reports Server: http:// static discharges on the solar array surface. ntrs.nasa.gov. The Air Force is currently developing a Beginning this year, Utah State University new testing capability, the space threat as- is hosting a new organization to develop com- sessment testbed (STAT), at its Arnold Engi- mercial space weather applications, with fund- neering Development Center. STAT will en- ing provided by the Utah Science Technology able ground testing of space systems in the and Research (USTAR) initiative. The USTAR complex natural space environment at various Center for Space Weather (UCSW) is devel- orbits and will also provide the ability to in- oping innovative applications for mitigating duce man-made threats. An interactive con- adverse space weather effects in technological nection to satellite operations centers will be systems. Of the space environment domains included to bridge the gap between develop- affected by space weather, the ionosphere is ment and operational testing of space sys- the key region that impacts communication tems. This connectivity will allow ground sta- and navigation systems. The UCSW has de- tion hardware, software, and operators to be veloped products for users of systems affected involved in realistic test scenarios. by space-weather-driven ionospheric changes. NASA Marshall’s Natural Environments On September 1, in conjunction with Branch has published the latest revision to Space Environment Technologies, UCSW re- Terrestrial Environment (Climatic) Criteria leased the world’s first real-time space Guidelines for Use in Aerospace Vehicle Devel- weather via an iPhone app. Space WX dis- opment (NASA/TM-2008-215633). This doc- plays the real-time current global ionosphere ument provides guidelines for the terrestrial total electron content along with its space environment (Earth surface to 90-km altitude) weather drivers. Also, the global assimilation that are specifically applicable in the develop- of ionospheric measurements system is now ment of design requirements and specifica- being run operationally in real time at UCSW by Dustin Crider and the tions, plus associated operational criteria, for with the continuous ingestion of hundreds of AIAA Atmospheric NASA aerospace vehicles, payloads, and as- global data streams to dramatically improve and Space Environments sociated ground support equipment. characterization of the ionosphere. Technical Committee

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AEROSPACE SCIENCES

Applied aerodynamics Preparations continue for Ares I-X flight tests. Development has relied heavily on CFD to predict aerodynamic characteristics on the Heightened focus on energy and the environ- pad, at liftoff, and during ascent, as well as to ment has led to new activities in the aeronau- predict trajectories of vehicle components to tics community. NASA has initiated the Envi- ocean impact. ronmentally Responsible Aviation project, The Fourth Drag Prediction Workshop which focuses on integrated system-level re- centered around the NASA common research search aimed at simultaneously achieving na- model and emphasized trim drag and Rey- tional noise, emissions, and fuel burn goals for nolds number effects. The model will be tested N+2 (generation after next) civil aircraft. to flight Reynolds numbers at NASA’s Na- NASA’s ongoing N+3 advanced concept tional Transonic Facility. A test in the Ames studies, involving four subsonic and two su- 11-ft wind tunnel will follow. personic civil missions, will be completed in Northrop Grumman conducted a series of spring 2010. The Air Force Research Labora- tests to evaluate step excrescence effects on tory (AFRL) kicked off an 18-month study of boundary transition in the presence of a pres- military transports, the Revolutionary Config- sure gradient. Results indicate that the allow- urations for Energy Efficiency Program, to able height of a step excrescence is larger identify ways of achieving 90% reductions in than previously thought, enabling design of fleet fuel usage by 2050. full-scale, subsonic, low-sweep aircraft with a The European Smart Fixed Wing Aircraft better understanding of the tolerance require- Integrated Technology Demonstrator is pursu- ments for laminar flow. ing active wing technologies that adapt wing NASA and Georgia Tech Research Insti- shape based on sensed airflow, as well as new tute are collaborating on fundamental 2D cir- aircraft configurations that can best incorpo- culation control experiments to be used for rate these novel concepts. CFD validation. These data will provide the An AFRL/Scaled Composites/Northrop physical characteristics associated with sepa- Grumman/university team is maturing swept- ration and supercirculation flow control and wing laminar flow control technologies toward will lead to a refinement of turbulence models, revolutionary ISR (intelligence, surveillance, gridding techniques, and test techniques. and reconnaissance) capabilities as part of the AFRL has begun an aggressive multidisci- SensorCraft concept. A variety of in-flight plinary project on micro air vehicle develop- measurement techniques have been used, in- ment, to include the flight sciences (aerody- cluding infrared thermography and unique namics, structures, and controls) and con- self-contained, in-flight boundary-layer meas- stituent subjects such as efficient energy trans- urement devices, to conduct flight tests of a duction and storage. AFRL engineers are 30-deg swept-wing test article attached to the combining wind/water tunnel testing, bench- A 4%-scale Boeing joined-wing White Knight One aircraft. top testing, computations, and analysis to ex- SensorCraft configuration was ploit unsteady aerodynamics for improved optimized and tested in the NASA Ames 11-ft wind tunnel. flight performance and flight control. These Pressure-sensitive paint, port efforts will leverage the Air Force Office of side, is compared to CFD, Scientific Research multidisciplinary research starboard side. Sublimation and IR thermography were also on bio-inspired flight as well as the extensive employed to detect the presence and multidisciplinary research now being per- of significant laminar flow on formed in the academic community. They in- the configuration. clude studies of bat flight, led by Brown Uni- versity, and fundamental physics of flapping wings, led by the University of Michigan. Operational control units on flight projec- tiles were tested at the wind tunnel of the As part of the AFRL Aerodynamic Effi- Army Armament Research, Development, ciency Improvement program, Boeing per- and Engineering Center (Picatinny Arsenal). formed CFD-based aerodynamic optimization Full-scale models of various configurations on a joined-wing SensorCraft configuration to were tested at near-free-flight Reynolds num- minimize the configuration drag and inlet dis- bers to validate performance. Testing resulted by Gary Dale, Andrew tortion. With NASA support, a 4% scale in a working software fix being implemented McComas, and the AIAA Applied Aerodynamics model of the optimized geometry was built for a configuration that had failed during bal- Technical Committee and tested in the Ames 11-ft wind tunnel. listic firing.

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Atmospheric flight a practical, dual-use mechanics roadable aircraft. Renewed interest in dirigibles has led Boeing completed low-speed taxi tests on the one company to offer 787 Dreamliner. These included evaluation of Zeppelin tours over the ground handling and braking system dur- San Francisco Bay and ing taxi speeds of up to 100 kt. The company the USAF to consider continues to address wing attachment struc- it for a long-duration, tural issues before first flight, which is ex- high-altitude mission. pected by year’s end. The latest variant in The current design Boeing’s largest aircraft, the 747-8, is sched- uses a helium-filled hull uled to fly by early 2010. Design changes to to provide buoyancy the wing and engine have improved fuel effi- and a solar panel array ciency, while the lengthened fuselage has in- for propulsion and sys- The IRVE has an inflatable creased capacity by up to 51 seats. tem power. The USAF vehicle is expected to 10-ft-diam heat shield that Boeing is also continuing its successful X- hover at 65,000 ft for 10 years providing per- generates sufficient drag to 48B Blended Wing Body flight test program. sistent surveillance. enable controlled descent through the atmosphere. As of October 21, 70 flights designed to ex- In an alternate approach to high-altitude (Photo by Sean Smith.) pand the flight envelope up to and beyond persistent loiter, the 61-m-wingspan Solar Im- stall and confirm the flight control software’s pulse vehicle is being prepared for an initial capabilities, were successfully completed. The flight late this year. The large wingspan and Boeing X-48C, a low-noise variant of the X- lightweight structure contribute to coupling 48B, completed a 300-hr test in the 30x60 between the aerodynamic and structural wind tunnel facility at NASA Langley. modes and offer unique handling qualities. An Currently under way are several efforts to autonomous option is planned for the aircraft, develop autonomous and augmented control which may compete with vehicles developed systems for general aviation aircraft. Hoh for DARPA’s Vulture program. Aeronautics and S-TEC have received a sup- Virgin Galactic conducted the inaugural plemental type certificate for their stability flight of WhiteKnightTwo, which will be used augmentation and autopilot unit, called Heli- to drop-test and eventually launch the com- SAS, for the Robinson R44 helicopter. Flight mercial space tourism vehicle SpaceShipTwo. testing is in progress for Bell’s 206-B and 407 The spacecraft uses a morphing tail section to rotorcraft models. reconfigure from a streamlined ascent geome- For fixed-wing aircraft, Hawker Beech- try to a high-drag reentry shape. craft and Rockwell Collins Athena have com- pleted initial flight testing of a fly-by-wire auto- The X-48C completed a 300-hr test in the 30x60 wind tunnel land system for the Beechcraft Bonanza. The facility at NASA Langley. goal is to demonstrate adapting a UAV au- (Photo by Bob Ferguson, Boeing.) topilot system to a manned aircraft to improve flight safety. Cessna has flown the first production, sin- gle-engine model 162 Skycatcher, which is manufactured in China. Development and production continue despite two incidents with prototype aircraft involving unrecoverable NASA Langley successfully tested the in- spins. Cessna is reentering the primary train- flatable reentry vehicle experiment (IRVE), ing market with the aircraft, its first two-seat whose inflatable 10-ft-diam heat shield gener- design since 1985. Skycatcher complies with ates sufficient drag to enable uncontrolled de- the new LSA (light sport aircraft) category. scent through the atmosphere. Launched to Roadable aircraft prototypes were an- an altitude of 131 mi. using a Black Brant IX nounced and debuted, including Terrafugia’s rocket, the IRVE initiated inflation during de- folding wing design and Maverick’s parachute scent while passing through an altitude of 124 wing approach. Hybrid air-land vehicles face mi. This demonstrator’s success will lead to conflicting design requirements and environ- larger, more advanced aeroshells designed to mental factors during the drive and flight withstand higher heat. Ultimately, a shield phases. Both these and other companies say may be used for safely landing larger payloads by Mujahid Abdulrahim advancements in materials and systems enable to higher surface elevations on Mars. and Dwayne F.Kimball

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Plasmadynamics and lasers ing on the Kamchatka peninsula. Additional flight test planning is under way at JAXA’s In- stitute of Space and Astronautical Science, Development of electrodynamic heat shield with the aim of enhancing planetary aero- technology gained significant mo- braking capabilities. mentum this year, with some This year has seen advances groups now poised to un- on many fronts in high dertake pioneering flight power-laser technology test experiments. The development. Empha- basic idea is to pro- sis is on developing ject magnetic fields electrically powered Fluorescence emanates from into the hypersonic laser systems, includ- a diode pumped alkali laser experiment. (Courtesy Air Force boundary layer sur- ing bulk solid-state, Research Laboratory.) rounding a reentry fiber lasers, and gas- vehicle and induce electric hybrid lasers. strong magnetohy- Northrop Grumman, drodynamic interac- under DOD’s Joint tion effects to manipu- High Power Solid-State late and control flow Laser program, demon- structure. Potential hyper- strated a bulk solid laser with sonic flight applications include 106 kW of power, claiming the active thermal protection systems, record for the highest continuous wave guidance and flight path control for endoat- power produced by this type of laser. As part mospheric maneuverability, and magnetohy- of this demonstration, Northrop Grumman drodynamic power extraction with in-flight en- also showed 19.3% electrical to optical con- ergy storage and/or burst power utilization. version efficiency with a beam quality of ap- The basic technological concept was orig- proximately 3.0. Similar in orientation to inally conceived in the 1950s as a potential DARPA’s High Energy Liquid Laser Area De- means of mitigating heat transfer to warhead fense System, these programs are pushing nose cones but was set aside following the bulk solid-state laser technology to higher practical demonstration of ablative heat shield powers, better beam quality, and improved materials. However, advancements in super- specific power performance to enable place- conducting magnet and cryocooler technolo- ment of these lasers on aircraft and mobile gies combined with a desire for enhanced ca- ground platforms. pabilities have generated renewed interest in An alternative approach to bulk solid-state the idea. laser technology that incorporates the cooling Detailed conceptual development has been function performed by the liquid into the gain led primarily by the Institute of High Tempera- media involves optically pumping a gas with tures in Russia. ESA, EADS Astrium Space diode sources to drive the lasing action. This Transportation, and DLR have also invested in approach has the potential to combine the experimental and theoretical research and re- beam quality and cooling advantages of gas cently completed milestone demonstration ex- lasers with the compactness and logistics ad- periments in the L2K long-duration arc-heater vantages of electrically powered solid-state de- facility at DLR, with clear demonstration of vices. Researchers at the Air Force Academy, surface temperature reductions (16-44%) and teamed with the Air Force Research Labora- heat flux mitigation (46-85%). tory and General Atomics, made significant The group’s current efforts focus on CFD demonstrations of increases in laser power in validation using high-accuracy experimental laboratory devices with diode pumped alkali data and flight test development. Flight tests lasers. While demonstrating increases in laser are necessary to cover the complete environ- power, a critical finding was a decrease in op- ment parameter space, which cannot be pre- tical input power to laser output power con- cisely simulated in ground-based facilities, and version efficiency with increasing input optical to include the integrated effects of vehicle power, attributed to mounting losses to heat flight dynamics. The suborbital flight test sce- release and kinetic quenching in the gas. With nario is based on submarine launch from the this finding, it is clear that future development Barents Sea using well-established Volna/ of this technology will involve the application by Ron J.Litchford Volan hardware and infrastructure, with de- of traditional aerospace technologies for con- and Timothy J.Madden scent phase test article deployment and land- trolling heat release in a gas.

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Thermophysics Plume heating is due to the roll control system.

Ares I-X is the test flight for the CLV (crew launch vehicle) Ares I. Its first launch occurred on October 28 from NASA Kennedy in sup- port of NASA’s Constellation program. The vehicle’s first stage includes a standard solid rocket booster from the space shuttle pro- gram. The upper stage and crew exploration vehicle portions of the craft are simulators, with a similar outer mold line to Ares I, but no active propulsion or crewed area in the upper stages. Thermal modeling was performed for Ares I-X to show that the vehicle design is thermally robust, and that all components and materials survive the expected conditions. everything from testing in the Vehicle Assem- Several integrated product teams have bly Building, rollout, and on-pad sequences come together to develop the Ares I-X first (nominal as well as extended hold and abort), stage, upper stage simulator, crew module/ through ascent and descent. launch abort system, avionics, and roll control Complex timelines of the avionics startup system. are captured during the on-pad sequence The Ares I-X achieved roughly Mach 4 be- fore the separation of the upper stage from the first stage. Thus the amount of aerody- namic heating is relatively minor on most of the craft. The highest aerodynamic heating is at the pointed nose, where there is a probe in- stalled to capture airspeed and angle of attack. This probe is manufactured from stainless A bow shock forms around the steel to withstand the heating. Other high Ares I-X traveling at supersonic heating on the vehicle is from the roll control speed. The rocket produces 2.96 million lb of thrust at liftoff and system, which will fire during ascent to main- goes supersonic in 39 sec. Liftoff tain the vehicle in the proper orientation. Be- occurred on October 28. cause of the velocity, the plumes from these roll control engines blow back along the vehi- cle, producing locally high heating. Thermal protection system materials are used in those locations to protect the vehicle skin. Another thermal challenge for Ares I-X is to maintain the vehicle and avionics tempera- tures while on the launch pad and during roll- out; there is no active environmental control system during rollout or for several hours be- cases, and full mapping of skin-temperature fore launch. The vehicle is painted white to dependent aerodynamic heating on the vehi- limit absorbed solar heat flux, and fans and cle skin is done during ascent and descent. conductive thermal grease are used to main- This vehicle includes the largest vented air vol- tain the avionics temperatures within limit. ume ever launched by NASA. The behavior of The vehicle thermal model has been devel- that air, including venting on ascent, is also oped with input from four NASA centers and captured in the model. The thermal modeling three contractors. The full model includes all shows that all components and materials are parts of the 350-ft, 2-million-lb vehicle and the expected to remain within their specified ther- pad structures, as well as all physical effects, mal limits during all phases of the mission. such as solar heat flux, radiation exchange Lessons learned on this program about with ground, sky, vehicle components, and large thermal model integration, analysis of pad, natural and forced convection, contact on-pad conditions, and application of aerody- conduction, and avionics self-heating. Over 40 namic heating should prove useful to future by John A. Dec cases are run within the model and include programs. and Ruth M.Amundsen

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Astrodynamics Three spacecraft began low-energy transfers from the Earth to the Moon in 2009: the Lu- nar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, On February 10, Iridium 33—an operational which observed the impact of its upper stage U.S. communications satellite in LEO—was and then impacted itself on October 9, and struck and destroyed by Cosmos 2251, a the two outermost THEMIS/MIDEX probes, long-defunct Russian communications satel- renamed ARTEMIS, which will achieve lunar lite. The debris fragments generated by this orbit in 2011. event, and by earlier on-orbit breakups, explo- The National Academies put out a call for sions, and use of antisatellite weapons, will be white papers focusing on how understanding a growing hazard to much of the LEO satellite of the solar system may be advanced in the fu- population for many decades to come. With a ture. In response, many members of the as- great increase in the number of expected trodynamics community made strong contri- close approaches, it is more important than butions to several papers, advocating research ever to have widespread participation in shar- in several related areas (for example, on-board ing the highest fidelity orbit data in order to navigation autonomy). improve predictions of possible collisions. In addition, the community submitted a There was significant activity related to paper focused on astrodynamics research and A view of Iridium 33 and flight dynamics at the Moon over the past analysis. This paper made the case that, while Cosmos 2251 shows orbits and debris 180 min after the two year. The Chinese Chang’e spacecraft and the astrodynamics research has both enabled and communications satellites greatly expanded the capabilities of numerous collided. (Credit: T.S. Kelso.) planetary science missions, including Dawn, Cassini-Huygens, and MESSENGER, funding for this research has been largely limited to the development and operations phases of missions. NASA funding for general research and analysis in astrodynamics would uncover new techniques before the formulation of new mission concepts and could motivate new classes of missions. These new techniques would not only enhance all sizes of missions, but would also expand the feasible set for new mission concepts. In the area of low-thrust dynamics, the Dawn spacecraft performed the first flyby of another planet (Mars) by a spacecraft equipped with solar-electric propulsion. The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft began thrust- ing again in the final leg of its journey back to Earth and is due to arrive in June 2010. Back on Earth, the European Gravity Field and Steady-State Ocean Circulation Explorer launched in March. It is using electric thrusters as part of a compensation system for all non- gravitational forces acting on the spacecraft, leading to improved spatial resolution of the Earth’s gravity field. Finally, the Centre National d’Etudes Spa- tiales hosted the Fourth Global Trajectory Op- Japanese Selenological and Engineering Ex- timization Competition. The objective of this plorer spacecraft made planned impacts to international astrodynamics design contest the lunar surface in March and June, respec- was to design a rendezvous mission to a given tively. The Indian spacecraft Chandrayaan-1 asteroid while visiting the largest number of arrived at the Moon and delivered a lunar other asteroids along the way. The winning probe in late 2008, and conducted science team for this year was from Moscow State operations until it fell silent at the end of Au- University. A workshop presenting the meth- gust. It was joined in orbit by the Lunar Re- ods and results from the competitors was held by L. Alberto Cangahuala connaissance Orbiter (LRO) in late June. in Toulouse in September.

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Aerodynamic pressure data and the three-com- Monash University and the LML measurement technology ponent velocity data from the PIV. obtained instantaneous data from This technique was applied to wind tun- 3C-3D PIV. Structures in green represent vortices identified nel tests of a Japanese regional jet, the MRJ using a high value of the second University of Florida researchers presented a (Mitsubishi Regional Jet), to support the aero- invariant of the velocity gradient microelectromechanical systems-based capac- dynamic design. The technique provides pro- tensor; the blue regions represent low-speed streaks. itive wall shear stress sensor for turbulence file and induced drag distributions, which can- measurements. It consists of a tethered float- not be supplied by conventional balance ing element structure with comb fingers for measurements. The profile drag and induced electromechanical transduction, and employs drag and lift data generated by aerodynamic silicon-micromachining techniques to develop components (winglets, high-lift devices, en- a metal-plated, differential capacitive floating- gine nacelle, and so on) have proven useful in element-based design. A shear-induced sensor aerodynamic design studies. motion results in a proportional capacitance Researchers at the Laboratory for Turbu- change, measured as a voltage. A simple fab- lence Research in Aerospace and Combustion rication process with two lithography steps is (LTRAC) at Monash University in Melbourne, used, with deep reactive ion etching on a sili- Australia, led by Julio Soria, and at the Labo- con insulator wafer. The sensor exhibits a lin- ratory for Mechanics Lille (LML) at the Ecole ear sensitivity up to the testing limit of 1.1 Pa Central de Lille, France, led by Michel Stanis- and a bandwidth of 6.2 kHz. The device has las, have undertaken the first 3C-3D (three- the largest dynamic range and lowest noise floor of any MEMS shear stress sensor to date. The unsteady pressure-sensitive paint (PSP) technique developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) was applied to visualize changes in pressure distri- bution on a wing in flutter. Fast-response an- odized-aluminum PSP was coated on a thin aluminum half wing model for flutter measure- ments. The model was illuminated by a high- power blue laser diode, and its PSP lumines- cence was measured by a CMOS high-speed camera at 4,000 frames per second. Time- series PSP results revealed a limit cycle oscil- lation (LCO) in which unsteady pressure be- Using stereo PIV, JAXA and havior was observed. Downward deformation component three-dimensional) velocity vector Tohoku University obtained of the wing caused positive angle of attack at field measurements using accelerated multi- three-component velocity distribution around a regional the wing tip because of the swept-back angle, ple-line-of-sight SMART-based Tomo PIV (de- jet model. Lift and drag profiles so that lambda-shaped shock structure was veloped at LTRAC) of a turbulent boundary were computed from the PIV data. clearly observed. No shock waves were ob- layer. The measurements produced instanta- served in upward deformation cases where neous quantitative 3C-3D velocity vector field the angle of attack induced by the deforma- measurements in the boundary layer, reveal- tion was negative. Continuous time-series re- ing vortices and other flow structures. sults produced by the unsteady PSP technique Researchers at Ohio State and Iowa State are helpful in understanding the unsteady be- universities developed a MHz-rate nitric oxide havior of the global pressure field, including planar laser-induced fluorescence imaging sys- shock waves in the LCO phenomena. tem. The system was demonstrated in the 31- JAXA and Tohoku University jointly de- in. Mach 10 wind tunnel at NASA Langley, veloped an innovative technique to measure where it was used to study the time evolution the spanwise distribution of lift and drag on a of the transition to turbulence in hypersonic wing by stereo particle imaging velocimetry boundary layers. In a separate experiment, (PIV). The 2D Poisson equation for pressure Langley researchers have demonstrated non- is solved using PIV velocity data in a measure- invasive measurement of 2D oblique-shock ment plane perpendicular to the freestream strengths (that is, pressure change) with two direction, yielding the static pressure distribu- independent optical methods, Doppler global by Thomas P.Jenkins tion. Using the wake integral method, span- velocimetry and laser-induced thermal acous- and the Aerodynamic wise distributions of profile and induced drag tics, finding excellent agreement between the Measurement Technology and lift are obtained based on the derived two approaches. Technical Committee

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Air transportation

US Airways A320 struck a flock of geese and was forced to ditch in the Hudson River. The World Geodetic System (WGS) is the co- than others (the UAV market), and with some ordinate system used by GPS. The current airports (Cincinnati, Hong Kong, Munich) hit version, WGS-84, was last updated in 2004. harder than others (Abu Dhabi, Charles De To implement worldwide satellite-based com- Gaulle, San Francisco). According to the Air munications, navigation, and surveillance sys- Transport Association, passenger traffic in the tems—a key early component of NextGen ini- fourth quarter of the year was expected to be tiatives—it is critical that the worldwide air 12.5 billion passenger miles, down about 13% traffic system be referenced to WGS. This from the fourth quarter of 2000 and about year an important milestone was reached as equal to the 12.1 billion mi. flown in the fourth Mexico converted to the WGS-84 standard. In quarter of 2001 after the downturn associated addition, in the U.S. the number of published with September 11. Wide-Area Augmentation System Category I Because of this drop, airlines are cutting approach procedures (1,333) surpassed that service, focusing more on those routes that of the prior-generation ground-based ones. cater to business travelers, who tend to pay On January 12, USA Today reported a higher fares. Even some of the low-fare air- new record for aviation: It had been two years lines are impacted, like Southwest, whose rev- since the last passenger fatality on a U.S. car- enue is down by about 5% and whose sched- rier. On January 15, a US Airways A320 ule for 2010 is slightly reduced. struck a flock of geese and was forced to ditch Efforts to integrate UAVs into the air- in the Hudson River. Fortunately, no lives space system saw progress this year. In Eu- were lost. However, in February the string was rope, several projects continued, including the broken when 48 passengers were killed after ASTRAEA program, whose goal is to flight a Continental Connection flight crashed near test a UAV in nonsegregated airspace in Buffalo, N.Y. In March, a FedEx MD-11 2012. The FAA has begun a simulation proj- crashed at Tokyo’s Narita Airport. In June, an ect for investigating UAV operations in the Air France A330 was lost over the Atlantic. U.S. airspace system, and the Performance- Also in June, a Yeminia Airways A310 went Based Rulemaking Committee has delivered down in the Indian Ocean. In July, a Cas-pian its recommendations concerning small UAVs. Airlines Tu154 crashed in Iran. And in Au- Once regulatory barriers to flying UAVs are gust, a highly publicized crash occurred over reduced, the market for commercial applica- the Hudson River between a sightseeing heli- tions of these aircraft is expected to explode, copter and a private plane. as it has for military applications. Although not atypical from a statistical The En Route Automation Modernization standpoint, the accident rate worldwide for (ERAM) system, successor to the FAA’s Host this year did not decline, and the breadth of system, was installed this year in 20 U.S. air the accidents—occurring over all regulatory route traffic control centers, and software test- segments of aviation—has raised safety regula- ing has begun. The FAA expects to make a tors’ concerns. decision on full deployment by year’s end. With the economy on the downturn, air ERAM is considered a key technology plat- travel has declined, reducing arrival delays but form for a number of NextGen initiatives, in- by Steven J. Landry, also putting pressure on the industry. The im- cluding network-centric operations, weather Chris Nutter, Frank Frisbie, pact has not been uniform, with some indus- integration, automated conflict resolution, and and Dan Salvano tries (the business aircraft market) hit harder strategic flow management.

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Aircraft design airplane that uses 32% less fuel for a B- 777 mission. Contin- Three themes for 2009 are hypersonics, mili- uing studies include tary aircraft, and green aircraft. replacing the tail sur- In hypersonics, DARPA is developing the faces with thrust vec- Vulcan engine, which is capable of accelerat- toring and circulation ing a vehicle from rest to Mach 4+. Vulcan control. consists of an integrated constant volume In military air- combustion (CVC) engine, a pulsed detona- craft, Lockheed Mar- tion engine, and a current-production high tin rolled out the Mach turbine engine—a Mach 2+ turbojet. Navy F-35C. The The turbine operates from rest to Mach 2; the Marines’ STOVL F- CVC engine from Mach 2 to Mach 4+. Vul- 35B has been under- The Vulcan engine program, HTV-2, and scramjet flight testing are enabling DARPA’s vision of can will enable reusable hypersonic cruise ve- going expanded flight hypersonic aircraft. hicles for ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and testing, with its first reconnaissance), strike, and access to space. vertical landing com- DARPA plans to fly the Falcon HTV-2 hy- pleted. The Air Force CTOL F-35A is under- personic vehicle 4,000 n.mi. from the ground going propulsion and aerial refueling testing. at Mach 15-20, validating hypersonic thermal The first joint training wing has been created. management, guidance, navigation, and con- Boeing unveiled the Navy P-8 Poseidon trol systems. DARPA also plans to fly Boe- maritime patrol aircraft, a modified B-737- ing’s X-51A WaveRider on a 5-min Mach 6 800ERX. Northrop Grumman Navy’s E-2D flight to demonstrate scramjet propulsion, ad- Advanced Hawkeye vancing sustained-use scramjet technology. completed operational In green aircraft, one important initiative is assessment and has en- the hybrid wing body (HWB) configuration, tered low-rate produc- suitable for military transports. NASA, the Air tion. Northrop Grum- Force Research Lab (AFRL), and industry are man’s Navy X-47B developing HWB aircraft that, relative to to- UCAV is preparing for day, will have 40% reduced fuel burn, noise first flight, completing levels 42 dB below Stage 4, and 75% reduced static and dynamic NOx emissions. Boeing’s X-48B Blended proof load testing that Wing Body is completing low-speed flight test- validated the design ing to evaluate handling qualities and develop and structural integrity. a flight control system. Various key HWB General Atomics The fighter-sized Navy X-47B technologies are being studied, including light- flew the Avenger, faster and stealthier than UAV can conduct long-range, weight stitched composite structures for non- the MQ-1 Predator and MQ-9 Reaper. Skunk high-endurance missions including circular fuselage, hybrid laminar flow control Works unveiled an advanced replacement for ISR and precision strikes. for reduced drag, boundary layer ingesting these vehicles. The stealthy UAV design uses serpentine engine inlets, ultra-high-bypass en- a hybrid propulsion system comprising em- gines such as AFRL’s ADVENT/HEETE/ bedded jet engines for high transit and dash AD-HEETE engines, landing gear plasma fair- speeds and a turbodiesel driving a propeller ings for noise control, low-emissions combus- located between V-tails for longer, lower tors, and advanced flight controls. speed loiter. Used together, the engines can To ensure introduction of HWB aircraft by push the UAV to higher altitudes. The F-22- 2020, NASA’s Integrated Systems Research sized fuselage can be fitted with mission- Program will mature, integrate, and test these specific modular wings: a shorter wing for the technologies at the systems level, through medium-altitude hunter/killer role and a simulations, ground testing, and flight testing. longer wing for high-altitude, high-endurance Truss-braced-wing aircraft for commercial ISR missions. transports enable an increased wingspan and AeroVironment made a breakthrough in thinner wing with less sweep, resulting in re- nanotechnology, demonstrating controlled duced induced drag and natural laminar flow. hovering flight of DARPA’s flapping wing Multidisciplinary optimization is used to deter- Nano Air Vehicle. They will next build a 10-g mine the proper balance between aerodynam- hummingbird-like spy vehicle that can travel ics and structures. A NASA-funded Virginia indoors and outdoors using its flapping by Dyna Benchergui Tech/Georgia Tech study has resulted in an wings. and Charlie Svoboda

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Aircraft operations simulations of EDA and collected field data during flight operations at the Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center. For large air- Working closely with the FAA and airline in- craft operating in en route airspace under dustry partners, NASA continued its research heavy traffic conditions, simulation results across multiple airspace and operational do- showed reductions in fuel consumption and mains to increase the capacity and efficiency carbon dioxide emissions of up to 500 lb and of the National Airspace System. To optimize 1,500 lb per flight, respectively, with EDA. departure operations, new algorithms were Results also showed a reduction of over 70% created to assign aircraft to available depar- in controller-pilot communications due to ture queues and to schedule runway departure EDA’s ability to resolve complex arrival prob- times. These algorithms took into account lems with a comprehensive trajectory solution wake-vortex separation criteria, departure fix that can be issued as a single air traffic control constraints, and aircraft prioritization. Com- clearance. putational optimization showed improve- For arrival traffic within terminal airspace, ments in runway throughput when minimizing NASA conducted high-fidelity simulations in- total airport delay. Total airport delay in a Dal- vestigating the feasibility of conducting closely las-Fort Worth traffic study was reduced by up spaced parallel approaches to three runways— to 30 min over a 15-min scheduling horizon spaced as little as 750 ft apart—under instru- compared to traditional first-come first-served ment meteorological conditions. Using flight algorithms. deck displays depicting aircraft locations and To avoid airspace congestion en route, wake hazard regions, pilots flew trajectories to and to provide an equitable distribution of any the runway in an echelon formation while required delay among airspace users, NASA maintaining precise spacing with one another. developed and tested a generalized approach Off-nominal events such aircraft blunders and for evaluating the effectiveness of different wake encroachments were tested. In the event traffic flow management strategies at both the of an emergency situation, pilots were given regional and national levels. Using this ap- aural and visual alerts and shown the breakout proach, 85 6-hr fast-time simulation experi- trajectory needed on their navigation display. ments examined tradeoffs between alter- The pilots successfully completed all native optimization schemes, simulated approaches with no planning horizons, replan- safety violations and with ning intervals, and con- adequate levels of situ- trol techniques. In the ational awareness. absence of weather The minimum sep- NASA furthered development constraints, these aration recorded of the EDA (en route descent studies showed that over all simulated advisor), used here in a scheduling alone flights was 2,400 simulation at Ames. was the most effec- ft, well above the tive strategy for alle- FAA separation viating congestion. In criterion of 500 ft the presence of en for such operations. route weather hazards, A Monte Carlo- however, tactical rerouting based optimization model was shown to be the preferred was developed for using the prob- strategy for avoiding sector overload. abilistic forecast of stratus clearing time at San In the arrival domain, NASA furthered its Francisco to achieve benefits in terms of more development of the EDA (en route descent ad- efficient ground delay programs (GDPs) by visor) to help air traffic controllers plan opera- better determining GDP end time and scope. tions that maximize throughput while reduc- Model results indicate reductions of 29% of ing fuel consumption and environmental unnecessary issued ground delay and 39% of emissions. New algorithms and human inter- unnecessarily delayed flights over the GDPs. faces were developed to provide controllers This corresponds to a $2.8-million savings with idle-thrust descent solutions that prevent per stratus season. The FAA is now funding a traffic conflicts while satisfying time-based me- field evaluation of this model during the stra- by the AIAA Aircraft tering constraints. Working with the FAA, tus season in 2010 as a cross-organizational Operations Technical Boeing, United Airlines, and Continental Air- effort by the FAA, NASA, Mosaic ATM, and Committee lines, NASA conducted human-in-the-loop MIT Lincoln Laboratory.

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Balloon systems

This year brought progress in balloon design and operational techniques. This included sig- nificant successes in large balloon flights, which will increase the usefulness of balloon platforms for scientific and military users. The popularity of small balloons is gaining mo- mentum. Reductions in payload weight and power requirements make it possible to carry out significant science missions using very small hand-launched balloon systems. NASA’s 2009 flight program supported a robust manifest of 16 NASA flights and one technology demonstration. Activities included conventional zero-pressure flights from Fort Sumner, N.M., as well as long duration bal- loon (LDB) missions and superpressure bal- loon flights launched from McMurdo, Antarc- tica, and Esrange, Sweden. The ANITA LDB mission launched in Antarctica achieved its NASA’s 7-million-ft3 balloon, at float altitude of 110,000 ft, best trajectory thus far for the needed dwell decadal survey, Astronomy and Astrophysics is 274 ft in diameter. The balloon time over the deep ice of the East Antarctic in the New Millennium, and will play an im- circled the Antarctic continent Plateau. This extended dwell time is necessary portant role in providing inexpensive access for 54 days during December for achieving the science goal of detecting to the near-space environment for science 2008-February 2009. Photo credit: Michael S. Smith, neutrinos. The CREAM (cosmic ray energet- and technology. Aerostar International. ics and mass) mission achieved almost 20 A JPL-led team continued to mature the days’ flight duration, thus providing over 120 planetary balloon technology required for a days’ cumulative exposure toward the project future mission to Saturn’s moon Titan. Sev- goal of 1,000 days of flight. The Sunrise in- eral hours of autonomous flight were accumu- strument launched from Esrange achieved ob- lated on a low-altitude blimp test bed using the servations previously unparalleled. NASA re- techniques of waypoint navigation, trajectory alized a 100% mission success for the year. following, and image-based motion estima- The record-setting flight of a NASA-devel- tion. The team also successfully conducted oped superpressure pumpkin balloon was suc- proof-of-concept experiments to collect small cessfully launched from McMurdo on Decem- amounts of soil from a low-altitude aerobot us- ber 28, 2008. This roughly 201,000-m3 test ing a tethered sample acquisition device. CFD balloon was the largest successful single-cell simulations yielded design metrics for double- superpressure balloon ever flown. The flight walled Montgolfiere, or hot air, balloons suit- lasted over 54 days, with the balloon flying at able for use in the cryogenic environment at a stable altitude of 33.8 km. In the seven-plus Titan. A full-scale, 9-m-diam, double-walled weeks at float, it circled the Antarctic conti- prototype Titan Montgolfiere balloon was also nent almost three times with an altitude varia- successfully floated during an indoor test using tion of only about ±170 m, more than an or- a conventional propane burner heat source. der of magnitude decrease in altitude variation Aerostar International has developed small from standard zero-pressure balloons. A balloon command and control systems that roughly 420,000-m3 balloon was also test will allow small university groups and other flown for a short flight from Sweden in June. users to conduct long-duration balloon flights A longer duration flight of the same size bal- above 100,000 ft with a minimal logistics loon will take place late this year from Mc- footprint. The system includes two-way Murdo Station. telemetry, ad hoc networking capabilities, re- These superpressure balloons will ulti- dundant flight termination systems, and mis- mately carry large scientific experiments to sion planning software. The systems have the brink of space for 100 days or more, and been used successfully on university and mili- may enable a new era of high-altitude scien- tary demonstration flights. Future develop- by the AIAA Balloon tific research. The superpressure balloon was ments will include precise altitude control sys- Systems Technical highlighted in the National Research Council's tems and satellite modem communications. Committee

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Flight testing addition to testing all the STOVL systems, and to vector engine thrust. These tests confirmed that the vertical thrust of 41,100 lb was avail- able. Critical performance parameters were measured. Results corresponded well with the computer models for STOVL operations and will lead to the in-flight transitions to STOVL mode and the first vertical landing in the last quarter of the year. However, an engine blade design problem caused the aircraft to be grounded until this fall. BF-2, the second STOVL aircraft, first flew on February 25. Initial flights were in conventional mode, to be followed by STOVL flights. On August 14, the first air refueling us- ing the Navy probe and drogue system was F-35 STOVL variant BF-2 refuels carried out with a KC-130 tanker. BF-2 will from a Marine KC 130 tanker, First flying at the end of 2008, Scaled Com- also cover flutter envelope expansion, high- using the Navy probe and drogue system. posites’ White Knight Two will carry Space- angle-of-attack testing, performance and pro- Ship Two to altitude before its launch into pulsion testing, and weapons and radar-signa- space. Initial changes to the WK2 control sys- ture testing. This aircraft will be deployed to tem, which is unpowered, included modifica- NAS Patuxent River, Md., later in the year. tions to the rudder aero balances and the ad- BF-4, due to fly this year after an exten- dition of vortex generators to the vertical tails. sive series of ground tests, is a STOVL variant Initial flights expanded the flight envelope to with full avionics, including the Northrop 140 kt and 18,000 ft. Further flights checked Grumman AN/APG-81 active electronically pressurization and the electronic control sys- scanned array radar, electrooptical distributed tem, and altitude was increased to 52,000 ft. aperture system, and integrated communica- WK2 is now being prepared for initial carriage tions, navigation, and identification suite, and of SpaceShip Two. the BAe Systems electronic warfare system. The much-delayed first flight of Boeing The Advanced Composite Cargo 787 ZA 001 had been on track, aiming to fly Aircraft, based on the Dornier at the end of June, and the aircraft had com- 328 with new composite fuse- lage and tail, had its first flight pleted initial taxi and braking tests when the out of Palmdale. Modified by the flight test program was delayed to embody LM Skunk Works, the ACCA is modifications to the wing-fuselage joint area proving the advantages of out-of-autoclave production after tests on the static rig revealed delamina- of large airframe components. tion of the composite stringers. Following in- Photo: Lockheed Martin/Carla corporation of fixes, first flight is planned for Thomas NASA Dryden. the last quarter of this year. The Boeing 747-8 freighter completed power-on checks in August and is expected to CF-1, the first F-35B for the USN, will enter flight test during the last quarter. A fleet also fly late this year. of three aircraft will be used in the test pro- The advanced ballistic laser aircraft YAL- gram. With a lengthened fuselage, a new wing 1A, a modified 747-400, has been flying out with raked wingtips, and GEnx engines (al- of Edwards AFB and on August 20 fired its ready flown on the GE 747-100 test bed), the high-energy laser in flight. Further beam con- -8 will be a quieter, more efficient aircraft. trol and tracking tests will be completed be- Several Lockheed Martin F-35s are now fore it fires at increasingly challenging targets, in flight test. BF-1 will test initial STOVL flight culminating in the shoot-down of a boosting operations, short takeoffs, hovers, and verti- ICBM. cal landings. Hover pit testing involved an- Lockheed Martin flew the Advanced choring the aircraft to a metal grate 14 ft Composite Cargo Aircraft in June. Based on above a sloped concrete floor, eliminating a Dornier 328, the vehicle features a new ground effects and so simulating free flight. composite fuselage, tail ramp, and tail. The The specially instrumented hover pit in Fort out-of-autoclave large composite structure Worth was used in March. Sensors measured used for the fuselage promises to reduce pro- by David Brown thrust and aircraft response to pilot inputs, in duction costs drastically.

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General aviation est models to appeal to American taste, with fea- tures such as toe brakes, Following a slight decline in 2008, general modern panels, and aviation shipments dropped dramatically in leather interiors. the first half of this year. Overall, the number The prototype for the was down 46% over the same period last Terrafugia Transition, a year, with only 1,037 aircraft delivered. Total roadable LSA, flew for the billings also dropped for the first time in over first time in March. The a decade to 77% of last year’s record first-half ICON A5, one of the more figure of almost $12 billion. impressive LSA amphib- Tecnam this year introduced to Hardest hit was the piston market, down ians being developed, completed the first se- the U.S. market the P2006T 58% from the high of 1,034 aircraft in the ries of flight tests this year. CubCrafters intro- light twin with economical 100-hp Rotax engines. first half of 2008. Also, for the first time in duced its Super Sport-Cub, boasting 180 hp several years, business jet shipments dropped from its ECI O-340 engine. This airplane has by 38%. This trend was anticipated both from tremendous performance for an LSA, while the budget cuts of many industries and from still meeting the 1,320-lb gross weight limit. the bad press recently given to the use of busi- ness aircraft, perceived by many as perks strictly for executives. The production version of the Cessna 162 SkyCatcher was The very light jet (VLJ) boom ended with unveiled in July after receiving LSA certification, and the bankruptcy of Eclipse, considered the deliveries are expected late this year. leader in this market. The Embraer Phenom 100 was certificated in late 2008 and began deliveries this year, and the Cessna Citation Mustang continues its deliveries. With gross weight close to 10,000 lb, however, these air- planes are not true VLJs, falling more into the category of light jet. The Piper Jet, a single- engine VLJ, continues in development. Both Cirrus and Diamond are actively working to- ward certification of their single-engine jets, but consider them personal jets, designed as step-up models from their piston lines. Production of larger business jets has been cut back, and Cessna suspended work on the Columbus, its largest jet ever. As a re- sult of this move and other cuts, Cessna laid off almost 8,000 people. However, the com- A unique airplane introduced to the U.S. pany still remains the largest producer of gen- market this year by the Italian manufacturer eral aviation aircraft, both piston and jet, with Tecnam, a leading producer of LSA, is the 321 delivered in the first half of the year. In P2006T. This impressive twin high-wing uses July, Cessna announced the ASTM (American two of the lightweight 100-hp Rotax 912 en- Society for Testing and Materials) approval of gines that are so popular in LSA. With feath- the Model 162 SkyCatcher, its entry into the ering constant-speed props and retractable light sport aircraft (LSA) category, and ex- gear, ample single-engine performance, and pects deliveries before the end of the year. a fuel consumption of under 10 gph total, Aimed primarily at the training market, this this aircraft should be a boon to multiengine aircraft is expected to boost both Cessna sales training. and the LSA market overall. Following Cessna, Cirrus was the second Although a relatively small segment of largest producer of general aviation aircraft, general aviation, LSA seems to be the one with 121, all pistons. Bombardier/Learjet was bright spot in this market. With 70 companies the second largest deliverer of jets, at 104, now producing such aircraft, new models con- and Diamond shipped 88 aircraft, the third tinue to be introduced. Current U.S. registra- highest number of pistons. Although these tions of light sport airplanes now total over numbers show some reasonable activity, over- 1,600, up about 400 from last year. Many Eu- all, the first half of this year was pretty disap- ropean manufacturers have modified their lat- pointing for general aviation. by Hubert C.“Skip”Smith

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V/STOL against our requirement of 40,550 lb.” In January Bell Boeing was awarded Phase I of a two-phase joint performance- based logistics contract from Naval Air Sys- tems Command. The $581-million contract provides integrated logistics support for both the Marine Corps MV-22 and Air Force CV- 22 over a five-year period. The Air Force declared initial operational capability for its CV-22 aircraft in March. By the end of the summer, Air Force Special Op- erations Command had deployed CV-22s from its 8th Special Operations Squadron to Iraq for the aircraft’s first operational deploy- ment in support of a combatant commander. April marked the end of an 18-month Iraq deployment for 12 MV-22 Ospreys. The V- 22 fleet now has more than 60,000 flight hours. Plans are to ramp up annual V-22 pro- duction from 19 aircraft this year to 28 in 2010, and then to 36 in 2011 and beyond. The X2 completed low-speed flight testing at the Schweizer facility in Horsehead, N.Y. Further flight testing was transferred to Sikor- UH-60 IBC testing in the Ames subsonic wind tunnel was successfully completed in sky’s flight test development center in West March. (Photo by Dominic Hart.) Palm Beach, Fla. There, tests were resumed and, by the middle of October, Sikorsky’s X2 technology demonstrator had achieved a max- This year brought progress in areas across the imum speed of 106 kt. Phase III flight testing spectrum of high-technology V/STOL pro- was then to begin and the active vibration grams, from the F-35B STOVL (short take- control system was to be made operational. off/vertical landing) Joint Strike Fighter to To date, the aircraft has been flown in both Sikorsky’s X-2 coaxial twin rotor technology helicopter and auxiliary propulsion mode. The demonstrator to V-22 tilt-rotor overseas de- pusher propeller has shown that it can pro- ployment to DARPA-funded full-scale wind vide the benefits of level flight acceleration tunnel research on individual blade control. and deceleration. Flight testing will continue The F-35B is in final preparations for ver- until the aircraft reaches the maximum speed tical landing. On September 4, the first Lock- achievable, currently calculated to be 250 kt. heed Martin F-35B Lightning II STOVL vari- On March 5, the UH-60A individual blade ant, known as BF-1, began a final series of control (IBC) test team successfully concluded flights at the company’s Fort Worth plant be- all testing in the NASA Ames 40x80-ft wind fore its scheduled transfer to the primary tunnel. This wind tunnel test program is a col- STOVL test site at Naval Air Station Patuxent laborative effort of NASA, the Army, Sikorsky River, Md. There, the test team will intensify Aircraft, and ZF Luftfahrttechnik GmbH to STOVL-mode flight operations—short take- demonstrate the benefits of IBC for a UH-60 offs, slow landings, and hovers—until BF-1 ex- rotor. (IBC is an active rotor concept providing ecutes a full vertical landing later this fall. BF- independent control of blade root pitch.) All 2 is scheduled to arrive at Patuxent River in major test objectives were met, allowing for December, shortly after BF-1. These aircraft the evaluation of IBC effects on power, noise, will be followed by BF-3, and the first avion- vibration, loads, and flight characteristics. ics-equipped F-35, BF-4. During a four-week joint NASA/Army ex- In April, BF-1 demonstrated during testing periment in July, flight dynamics and control that it produces excess vertical thrust—more requirements for large rotorcraft were investi- than is required for carrying out its missions. gated at NASA Ames in the facility’s Vertical “The performance level measured was ab- Motion Simulator. The purpose of the study solutely exceptional,” says J.D. McFarlan, was to define response bandwidth and damp- Lockheed Martin F-35 air vehicle lead. “We ing requirements in pitch, roll, and yaw in by E.R.Wood demonstrated 41,100 lb of vertical thrust hover for a large rotorcraft.

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Lighter-than-air systems

Development of unmanned airships and aerostats continues to dominate the lighter- than-air field in terms of funding and ad- vanced technology. Projects focus on the mil- itary requirements of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. These requirements have forced the development of very lightweight materials for airship and payload structure. They have also led to finding novel ways of in- corporating payload and structure to combine their functions, as in DARPA’s ISIS project. High altitudes will be used to achieve wide ar- eas of coverage. In April DARPA awarded Lockheed Martin a $400-million contract to proceed with Phase 3, which includes design and construction of a one-third-scale demon- strator airship slated to fly in 2012. Lockheed Martin plans to fly its long-en- durance demonstrator, HALE-D, in 2010. The 71M Aerostat Test Balloon Designed to fly for two weeks in the strato- is prepared for liftoff from the sphere while carrying a 50-lb payload, the Gas design for the midaltitude STS-111 au- Aerostat Test Bed at McGregor Range, N.M. craft is a scaled version of the High Altitude tonomous airship. Airship, sponsored by the Army Space and Hybrid Air Vehicles in the U.K. is flight Missiles Command. The Army also an- testing its HAV3 scale demonstrator. Test re- nounced its interest in rapidly acquiring a sults will be applied to the design of full-scale long-endurance multipayload vehicle with a 20-200-ton payload aircraft. 2,500-lb package of sensors while on station In July Boeing and Skyhook International at 20,000-ft altitude. reached a configuration freeze milestone on Raytheon and TCOM, contractors for the the heavy-lift airship, establishing the aircraft’s Army’s JLENS (joint land attack cruise missile overall performance and layout. These in- defense elevated netted sensor) project, have clude an added three-piece tail, integration of completed a $1.4-billion contract to develop a lifting and thrusting propulsion systems, and superior airborne sensing system. TCOM pro- improved aerodynamics on the craft, which 3 vides the 74-m, 650,000-ft tethered aerostats combines helicopter and airship components. American Blimp has delivered to lift 7,000-lb radars to an altitude of 10,000 Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik delivered its two A170s this year for display ft. Two aerostats are required for each operat- NT-07 number 4 airship to Airship Ventures in advertising. ing system, one carrying a surveillance radar California in October 2008. Passenger sight- and the other a fire control radar. The system seeing flights take place at Moffett Field near can detect missiles over the horizon 340 mi. San Francisco and at various local airports. away flying at low altitude. Sixteen aerostats Longer excursions are flown to Monterey and equipped with the Raytheon radars are on or- Los Angeles. Zeppelin’s passenger flights also der. TCOM also has delivered 147 17-m tacti- continue to be popular in Germany. A fifth cal aerostats for the Army’s RAID program for NT-07 airship is under construction. force protection. American Blimp, through its subsidiary The Polar 400 airship from Guardian The Lightship Group, has delivered A170 air- Flight Systems (formerly Blackwater Airships) ships to the Wind Creek Casino in Atmore, has demonstrated improved broad area per- Ala., and to Beijing Advertising in China. sistent surveillance carrying a megapixel com- Both airships are equipped with 70x30-ft pound focal plane camera. The demonstration LED video screens. was sponsored by the Office of the Secretary The 21st Century Airships team in On- of Defense, Advanced Systems and Concepts. tario has developed a 231-ft airship designed Sanswire-TAO has acquired the first en- for flight at midaltitude (15,000-20,000 ft). velope for its STS-111 multisegmented non- The craft is controlled by three vectoring pro- rigid airship. A lightweight efficient engine has pellers and designed for manned and un- been modified to operate the patented Fuel- manned flight. by Norman Mayer

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Economics tion, and reducing conflicts of interest. The proposed FY10 DOD budget reflected a shift away from complex, costly, and technologi- Factors that affected the broader aerospace cally “exquisite” platforms toward solutions industry’s economic perspectives this year that are more attainable given schedule, bud- ranged from the economic downturn and the get, and risk constraints. changes influenced by government fiscal real- Consistent with this perspective, the $26- ities, to support for current space applications billion Transformational Satellite program was and the promise of future opportunities. canceled in favor of building two additional Advanced Extremely High Frequency Satel- lites, and production of the F-22 Raptor was IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII capped in favor of accelerated development and increased purchases of the F-35 Joint The proposed FY10 DOD budget Strike Fighter. In addition, support for un- manned vehicles, particularly UAVs, contin- reflected a shift away from complex, ued to grow, with proposed spending of $5.4 costly, and technologically“exquisite” billion for this year, an increase of over 18% from 2008. platforms toward solutions that are In spite of the difficult economic environ- more attainable given schedule, ment, space applications saw continued prog- ress. Use of GPS is expanding, largely driven budget, and risk constraints. by the strong growth of GPS-enabled mobile phones, predicted to reach almost 80 million IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII shipments this year. In capital markets, a number of companies across the space ser- vices industry were able to obtain substantial The economic situation has created chal- financing, including $1 billion for Dish Net- lenges across the industry, with aviation par- work, $738 million for Globalstar, and $526 ticularly affected. Despite lower jet fuel costs, million for Sirius XM. The commercial re- which averaged less than half of the 2008 mote sensing industry also took strides for- peak cost of $4 per gallon, the commercial ward with DigitalGlobe’s successful IPO, aviation sector has been hurt. The Interna- GeoEye’s launch of the world’s highest com- tional Air Transport Association is forecasting mercial resolution imaging satellite, and the that the global commercial aviation industry, start of operations for RapidEye’s innovative driven by declining traffic and pricing, will ex- five-satellite constellation. perience a 15% decline in revenues and $9 The future for space continues to be billion in losses this year. Aviation manufac- promising, as evidenced by the entrepreneur- turers also experienced significant impacts. ial opportunities being pursued. The privately General aviation airplane shipments fell by funded SpaceX achieved its first successful 46% during the first half of the year, accord- commercial flight, placing the Malaysian ing to the General Aviation Manufacturers As- RazakSat satellite into orbit, while an Abu sociation. Substantial layoffs resulted, with Dhabi group invested $280 million in the United Technologies, Boeing, and Cessna an- space tourism company Virgin Galactic. One nouncing layoffs of almost 30,000 workers. example of innovative government/commer- The space industry was not immune to cial partnerships was Intelsat’s agreement to the effects of the financial crisis, with Sea host an Australian military UHF payload on its Launch (launch services) and ICO North commercial Intelsat-22 satellite. Another was America (mobile satellite services) filing for the formation of U.S. Space LLC, which will bankruptcy because of their inability to obtain capitalize on defense market bandwidth short- needed financing. ages by building and operating privately Even defense markets reflected the gov- owned communications satellites to be leased ernment’s new fiscal realities and its need to only to military customers. achieve more with less. The signing of the As a year of economic uncertainty and ex- Weapons Systems Acquisition Reform Act citement comes to an end, the resilience and into law marked renewed efforts to eliminate creativity that have taken the aerospace in- waste and inefficiency in defense acquisition dustry through previous periods of difficulty by Marilee Wheaton by limiting cost overruns, strengthening over- appear likely to lead it again to a brighter and Scott Isara sight and accountability, fostering competi- future.

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History hundred years after Galileo presented his in- vention, which he used to discover Jupiter’s moons, the Hubble Space Telescope received This year marks the centennial of the birth of its final servicing, and on July 23 its lens the aerospace industry. Today we can look turned to Jupiter, recording sharp images of back 100 years to its beginning in 1909, the aftermath of a surface impact by a comet when the Wright brothers set up the Wright or asteroid. Company, to today, when exciting develop- ments range from a new generation of com- mercial airplanes to sophisticated space ex- ploration activities. In 1909 it would have been hard to project where the aerospace in- dustry would be a century later. In May of 1909 the Wrights were hailed as heroes upon their triumphant return from demonstration flights made the previous year in Europe and at Fort Myer, Va. On October 4, 1909, Wilbur Wright made a 20-mi. flight up the Hudson River and back in view of a mil- lion people. Now, 100 years later, over three million passengers a day travel in airplanes. On July 25, 1909, Louis Blériot crossed the English Channel, flying from Calais to Dover in 37 min in a Blériot XI Monoplane. The event had implications that would prove devastating during the two world wars: Britain was now vulnerable to air attack. Neverthe- less, the flight was hailed as one of aviation’s early triumphs. On July 27 of this year, to commemorate the flight’s hundredth anniver- sary, Frenchman Edmond Salis flew a restored Blériot XI across the channel. Another celebration that took place this year was the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. At a widely publicized event mark- ing this achievement, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were reunited, and each was awarded a Congressional Space Medal of Honor. Meanwhile, NASA’s Lunar Reconnais- sance Orbiter began its mission to map the lu- On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s Moon landing,crew- nar surface with high-resolution cameras and Fifty years ago, the Mercury Seven—the members (from left) Michael return pictures from the Apollo landing sites. first astronaut group—were selected to great Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Many museums and work sites around the fanfare. Meanwhile, the X-15 began early Aldrin gathered at the National Air and Space Museum. Photo country also celebrated the 1969 landing. A flight testing, with pilot Scott Crossfield at the Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls. 40th anniversary documentary film, Moon controls. The contrast between the two meth- Beat, won the 2009 Special Jury Remi Award ods of early access to the edge of space is a at the 42nd Annual WorldFest-Houston Inter- subject of continuing discussion. national Film Festival. In addition, NASA an- This year AIAA sponsored the transcrip- nounced the availability of remastered footage tion of three important oral histories, those of of the initial TV broadcasts of the landing. Sam Iacobellis of North American-Rockwell; This year is also the 400th anniversary of Jack Duffendack, who worked at Lockheed Galileo’s introduction of the telescope. On from 1937 to 1977 and became its chief en- August 25, 1609, Galileo gave a demonstra- gineer; and Les Jonkey, also of Lockheed tion of his new optical device to several (1937-1984), where he was head of manufac- prominent Venetian officials. The event was turing engineering for the Skunk Works. celebrated by a PBS special, 400 Years of the These histories should be available to AIAA Telescope, sponsored by Ball Aerospace. Four members in the near future. by Scott Eberhardt

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Multidisciplinary design with the German Aerospace Institute DLR to optimization develop fast aeroelastic analysis and design tools. These tools will be used for topology de- sign, internal structure layout, and composite Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) skin design of fixed and rotary wings, and synergistically considers the interests of multi- wind turbine blades. ple, often competing, disciplines in the opti- Researchers at the University of Illinois at mal design of parts, products, and systems. Urbana-Champaign and Caterpillar developed Advances in MDO span industry, government, a methodology to efficiently perform stress- and academia—with a variety of emphases. based topology optimization. The method al- The University of Michigan’s Optimal De- lows engineers to design mechanical compo- sign Lab extended the analytical target cas- nents via topology optimization by having cading methodology for solving nonhierarchi- stress as a criterion instead of stiffness, thus cal problems and conducting reliability target reducing stress concentrations. allocation (with Eindhoven University of Tech- The University of Bath has been develop- nology), and developed methods for market ing efficient structural optimization capabili- simulation-based vehicle design. The lab also ties such as topology optimization in a con- investigated the impact of novel vehicle archi- tinuum with uncertainties. They are also col- tectures on occupant safety and sustainability, laborating with Airbus and QinetiQ in design and derived relationships between coupling and analysis capabilities for bistable compos- and controllability in codesign problems. ites with actuations as a concept mechanism Virginia Tech, Wright State Uni- for morphing wings. versity, and the Air Force Research The Integrated Design Automation Labo- Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB ratory at Northwestern University has devel- have teamed to form a collaborative oped a multiscale design methodology for de- center on future aerospace vehicles. signing multiscale engineering systems. Their The goal of the Virginia Tech-based focus is on the design of hierarchical material center is to improve aerospace vehicle and product systems with the consideration of design methods. The center will specifi- random field uncertainty that propagates cally investigate multidisciplinary analysis across multiple length scales. Related research and design of several futuristic at Brigham Young University has focused on The swift is one of nature’s models for aircraft such as the joined- characterizing a mapping between manufac- morphing wings, a wing sensor craft, flapping turing process, geometric design, and material design challenge micro air vehicles, and super- microstructure spaces to facilitate multiscale for MDO. sonic long-range strike aircraft. MDO. MIT researchers are developing MDO- Penn State and the Applied Research Lab based methods for conceptual design of continue to investigate the benefits of data vi- supersonic and subsonic aircraft. This sualization and visual steering tools that sup- includes a multifidelity optimization ap- port decision-making. Recent findings demon- proach that achieves provable conver- strate that novice users—when properly gence to a high-fidelity optimum trained to work with higher dimensional visu- without requiring derivative in- alization tools—perform significantly better formation, a multifidelity geome- than users without training and yield results try framework that permits comparable to those of expert users. consistent representation of Researchers at the University at Buffalo- evolving designs for MDO across design SUNY are studying the convergence charac- phases, and an approach for including more teristics of multidisciplinary design process ar- detailed controller design in the conceptual chitectures and have developed accurate design process. analytical predictions for certain classes of At the University of Oklahoma, an exergy process architectures. destruction minimization approach has been Iowa State has developed a segmentation used for drag optimization of aircraft using air- algorithm to assist in tumor diagnosis and sur- frame and operational variables. The develop- gical planning. The algorithm uses adaptive ment of a large multilevel, multifidelity, multi- fuzzy rules to extract tumor tissues from objective MDO framework also continues. healthy tissues in CT scans, and using virtual The Aerospace Structures group at Delft reality, the segmented tumors can be viewed University of Technology is collaborating with in context with the original patient data to im- by Christopher A. Mattson aircraft manufacturers Airbus and EADS and prove decision-making.

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Management sources (including energy), technology (includ- ing knowledge, skills, and abilities), and de- fense (protection) for an increasing number of Whenever we enter a new era it is important countries, including NICs. to consider where we have been, what factors Where is the right place? The drive to have been important, and where we want to lower costs has extended industrialized coun- be. In the past, management—like other areas tries’ interests literally around the world. Not of industry—was divided up and specialized. every developing country will be industrial- Today it is entering an exciting new era that ized. However, for the acquisition or trans- has almost unlimited potential and is more port of resources, for protection, or for other complex than ever. reasons, the interests of NICs are frequently Traditionally, management has the right tied to countries with which no apparent tie stuff in the right place at the right time. In to- to industrialized countries exists. The right day’s globalized, hypercompetitive world, place becomes a world in which the flow of where knowledge is transmitted literally at the information, goods, and services continues speed of light, this can be difficult to accom- uninterrupted. plish. Uncertainty abounds. What is the right stuff—the right people, equipment, capital, IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII and other assets? Where is the right place— not just geographically, but economically, technically, environmentally, even socially? What is the purpose of expending When is the right time? The answers are es- resources to develop new technologies pecially important in the aerospace industry, where risk is great, costs are high, and failure if they cannot be implemented because nuts can be devastating. and bolts are lacking? What will it mean if Today many complex issues seem to com- plement and contradict. For example, many stopping development of fighter jet aircraft believe aerospace (particularly its defense ultimately reduces the defense of countries component) is simply outdated. On the other hand, some say it is simply in the downturn of we depend on, to the point where we cannot a cycle. Others point to politicians’ lack of en- obtain critical goods and services? gagement on aerospace topics during our last election and conclude that the populace does IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII not view aerospace as relevant to the health of our nation. Yet the role of aerospace is as important today as it has ever been. However, unlike the changes in industries where con- When is the right time? The answer is, all sumers impatiently wait for new product fea- the time. To ensure the continuous flow of in- tures, changes in aerospace are not always formation, goods, and services today, sustain- apparent. For example, people fly on air- able development around the world is vital. planes but do not “see” the new materials that What is the purpose of expending resources make air travel more viable and economical. to develop new technologies if they cannot be This is similarly true for defense. implemented because nuts and bolts are lack- The ability to take so much for granted ing? What will it mean if stopping develop- creates a real conundrum in discussing what ment of fighter jet aircraft ultimately reduces the role of this industry should be. Equally im- the defense of countries we depend on, to the portant is how aerospace fits in with and sup- point where we cannot obtain critical goods ports other industries. So, how should man- and services? agement meet the requirements of today’s Managing sustainable development re- aerospace industry? quires broadening the scope of deliberations What is the right stuff? Because of out- well beyond the boundaries of the past. To- sourcing, the right stuff includes continuous day, having the right stuff at the right time and access to information, goods, and services, place will require a “holistic” approach in many of which are produced in newly indus- which aerospace plays many roles. Corre- trialized countries, or NICs. Today, NICs pro- spondingly, an expanded and more compre- vide most of the world’s industrial base and hensive approach by management will be have a growing presence in the technological needed in order to fulfill the aerospace indus- base. So the right stuff becomes sufficient re- try’s requirements. by Marvine Hamner

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Systems engineering systems engineering curricula indicates simi- larity to general engineering degrees that sim- ply offer a broad but shallow engineering pro- In recent years, defense and aerospace pro- gram of study. grams have placed growing emphasis on sys- Other programs offer studies in engineer- tems engineering as a distinct technical disci- ing economy and scheduling that complement pline. As a result, there has also been greater work experience, yet still do not focus on the emphasis on education and training in the problem-solving needs that so many systems subject. In a Purdue University lecture, former engineers face at work. The programmatic NASA administrator Michael Griffin proposed side of systems engineering is easily over- that “systems engineering is a holistic, inte- looked, and while a balance between perfor- grative discipline, wherein the contributions of mance, cost, and schedule is a critical aspect structural engineers, electrical engineers, of a systems engineer’s job, isolated courses in mechanism designers, power engineers, and those subjects may not give a student sufficient many, many more disciplines are weighted background to achieve that balance. Also, a and considered and balanced, one against an- study of risk management, which by its nature other, to produce a coherent whole that is not quantifies technical risk in terms of cost and dominated by the view from the perspective of schedule impacts, could be of benefit to sys- a single discipline.” tems engineering curricula. The premise that a systems engineer func- Several other publications have noted that tions in a unique discipline, interacting with about five years after graduation, engineers typically face a choice of continuing in their discipline or migrating to a systems integra- IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII tion job. Employers typically aid the transition to a systems career path with in-house train- “Systems engineering is a holistic, integrative ing. There are many workplace opportunities discipline, wherein the contributions of structural to receive training in systems engineering once formal education has been completed. engineers, electrical engineers, mechanism Corporate universities offer various training designers, power engineers, and many, many opportunities in systems engineering, natu- rally focusing on the specifics of the organiza- more disciplines are weighted and considered tions they serve. Traditional universities also and balanced, one against another, to produce offer short-term certificate programs in sys- tems engineering. a coherent whole that is not dominated by the In addition, graduate degree programs view from the perspective of a single discipline.” have long been offered in systems engineer- ing, with the degree names varying widely IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII and the major focus being integration of tradi- tional disciplines. The previously mentioned lack of integrated programmatic problem- and relying on discipline-specific engineers, solving course material still seems to exist at has possibly led to increasing numbers of uni- the graduate level. versities offering undergraduate degrees in this Every systems engineer operates in a area. This raises the question of how a student unique program development structure. Each can learn a multidisciplinary engineering ap- program faces integration challenges specific proach to problem solving without the benefit to its system. In program failure studies, much of a strong background in a single discipline. blame is placed on lack of adherence to rec- For this reason, general opinion, supported ommended systems engineering practices. by publications, is not in favor of undergradu- However, those practices are nearly always ate degrees in systems engineering. subject to tailoring or modification. Such To fill the growing number of systems en- change, although warranted, does leave a lack gineering positions made available in part of structure to impart to systems engineering through the much-publicized aging of the students. In the future, systems engineering workforce, a number of universities now offer competency will require a variety of funda- undergraduate degrees in this field. These de- mentals provided by traditional education, grees have varied titles and are situated under combined with program-specific training to various departments within the universities. grow the knowledge base for the community by Michelle Bailey Brief scrutiny of some of the undergraduate as a whole.

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Society and aerospace technology

This spring, an interesting social experiment began in space when the ISS attained its first six-person international crew, the largest crew ever to live in space together for a long period of time. While there have been larger crews on space shuttle missions, these only last a couple of weeks, and ISS tours of duty can last up to six months. Arriving in March aboard a Soyuz space- craft were two of the crewmembers, Russian Commander Gennady Padalka and NASA physician Michael Barratt. Japan’s first full- time crewmember, Koichi Wakata, also ar- ISS Expedition 20 crewmembers rived in March, on the shuttle Discovery. In share a meal in the station’s May, the three were joined by Russia’s Roman sizes to as high as 13. This will be a test for Unity node with visiting space shuttle Discovery crewmembers. Romanenko, Frank De Winne, who repre- recently installed sophisticated life support sys- While the two craft were docked sents ESA’s 11 member countries, and Cana- tems. These space travelers will be arriving on during STS-128, 13 people lived dian Space Agency shuttle veteran Robert vehicles launched from Russia and the U.S., on the ISS (NASA photo). Thirsk. For the first time, all five space agen- but cargo also will arrive on new transport ve- cies building the station were represented by a hicles designed by Europe and Japan. The ISS full-time crewmember. has become the first global port for space- Until now, three-person crews have spent ships, involving the hardware needed for large amounts of time building and maintain- spacefaring societies and people—the “soft” ing the station. One of the main reasons for ware at the heart of human exploration. This having a larger crew on the international lab is reality is the focal point of astrosociological re- to increase the number of hours devoted to search and clearly points to the need for col- science experiments from 20 to 70 hr a week. laboration between the natural/physical sci- ISS Expedition 20 crewmembers from Canada, Europe, Russia, In addition to increasing the science return, ences and the social sciences. and the U.S. monitored the having a larger crew is a tremendous social ex- Perhaps most important, a space crew unpiloted Japanese H-II transfer periment. The Russians and Americans, who now reflects, for the first time, the global na- vehicle (HTV) in its first approach have been rotating crews aboard the station ture of our world. Eventually the international to the ISS. Once the HTV was in range, they used the station’s since 2000, have now been joined by a team crews will staff the station for up to six Canadian robotic arm to grab representing different cultures. months, simulating the time periods for longer the cargo craft and attach it to In talking about some of the challenges, space journeys. The international partners the ISS Harmony node, built by the crew have compared it to having in-laws have indicated they the U.S. (NASA photo). visiting for the holidays, except the crew is liv- would like to con- ing in a space about the size of a jumbo jet tinue ISS opera- and sharing limited bathrooms, food prepara- tions until 2020, tion areas, and sleeping quarters that are lo- enabling hundreds cated in various modules throughout the ISS. of astronauts from As they live and work together in space, around the world the crewmembers themselves are performing to staff and visit an important set of social experiments, includ- the global outpost. ing a formal one called Interactions, which Since interna- records the crew’s feelings and examines the tional cooperation influences of culture on their stay in space. will more than likely This experiment has been running since the make longer space station’s early days. Investigators also collect missions possible, anonymous data from ground control person- the crews and their nel for comparison with the data collected social interactions from crewmembers on orbit. may well involve the In addition to the station’s assigned crew, most important area of research, one that helps spacefarers from around the world will be vis- pave the way for explorations and settlements by Tracy McMahan iting the ISS, temporarily bumping up crew farther away from Earth. and Jim Pass

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Intelligent systems use of a computational psychology method for control of unmanned vehicles. CRS uses a Soar cognitive architecture agent to navigate to a target while avoiding different types of ob- stacles. CRS realized when simple approaches to avoiding complex obstacles were not work- ing, and employed a more complicated ap- proach to avoid more challenging obstacles. CRS can be expanded with more software systems, additional perceptual capabilities, and more sophisticated agents. In another effort to use psychological prin- ciples to control robotic systems, the Army Research Laboratory developed a Symbolic and Sub-Symbolic Robotics Intelligence Con- trol System (SS-RICS). The system’s major thrust has been the integration of knowledge representation and organization theories within the field of cognitive psychology. SS- RICS is a hybrid cognitive system; its contin- uum of knowledge is intended to represent the complete spectrum of cognition. NASA’s Ares I rocket program has several intelligent systems components. The Ares I-X MIT developed an iPhone inter- ground diagnostic prototype (GDP) monitored face for controlling small UAVs. the first-stage thrust vector control and associ- This was a year of substantive advances for in- ated ground hydraulics in the Vehicle Assem- telligent systems. MIT’s Humans and Automa- bly Building and on the launch pad. GDP tion Lab developed an iPhone interface for combines the TEAMS diagnostic tool from controlling small autonomous helicopters in Qualtech Systems, the inductive monitoring indoor/outdoor urban settings. MAV-VUE system (IMS) anomaly detection tool from (micro air vehicle visualization of unexplored NASA Ames, and the SHINE rule-based ex- environments) supports a map display, real- pert system from the Jet Propulsion Lab. time camera imagery with panning capability, GDP was deployed to Kennedy Space Center, health and status monitoring, and novel vehi- where it received live data from the rocket and cle control capabilities. Operators with no ground hydraulics. IMS’ model-based reason- specialized training use a touch-enabled dis- ing, machine learning, and data mining tech- play to command an unmanned small heli- niques are also used to establish a baseline, copter through high-level, goal-based way- then monitor and report abnormal behavior points or fine-grained “nudge” gestures on F/A-18 jet engines and on the space sta- leveraging built-in accelerometers. tion’s control moment gyros and external Researchers in the Vehicle Systems and thermal control. Control Laboratory at Texas A&M developed Finally, JPL is using dynamic landmarking an approach for synthesizing adaptive learn- for change detection to autonomously detect ing flight control laws for morphing air vehi- transient surface features from orbit, such as cles. They demonstrated the ability to learn dust devil tracks or dark slope streaks on Mars. the shape-changing policy for an air vehicle The approach operates on visually salient with up to 14 independent controllable shape- landmarks, not pixel-based change detection, changing degrees of freedom using a Q- to provide a sparse, semantic representation Learning approach with an adaptive action of image content. Automated methods were grid and coupling it with structured adaptive developed to identify landmarks, classify them model inversion control. Accurate trajectory using a machine learning classifier, then tracking and stability were achieved while match landmarks between images using graph morphing during aggressive maneuvering. matching algorithms. New or vanished land- The approach is being extended to real-time marks appear as unmatched items on images learning and flight control. from the Mars orbiter camera on Mars Global by the AIAA Intelligent Systems Technical Researchers at Penn State developed the Surveyor and the thermal emission imaging Committee Cognitive Robotics System (CRS) to study the system on the Mars Odyssey orbiter.

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Digital avionics B Out reports from other aircraft as well as ADS-R and TIS-B uplinks from the ADS-B ground stations. This allows a flight crew to be As the FAA moves toward the Next Genera- aware of other traffic. ADS-B In was not in- tion Air Transportation System (NextGen), it cluded in the original NPRM. The responses has defined a transformational program to the NPRM have suggested that a strategy known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance- for incorporating ADS-B In should be defined. Broadcast (ADS-B). ADS-B Out is easier to install than ADS-B ADS-B is the NextGen surveillance tech- In. For Out, aircraft only need a Mode-S ex- nology that allows aircraft and air traffic man- tended squitter or UAT radio; there are no sig- agement to know the location of each partici- nificant modifications to the flight deck instru- pating aircraft. Instead of relying completely on ground-based primary and secondary sur- veillance radar (SSR) systems to track aircraft, NextGen will rely on each aircraft to broad- cast its GPS position periodically. The FAA Surveillance and Broadcast Serv- ices Program Office is the organization re- sponsible for the ADS-B program. ITT is the ADS-B prime contractor that is performing system installation and will be responsible for system operation. ITT is scheduled to have nationwide ADS-B service ready by 2013. The FAA has mandated two different datalinks for ADS-B. Air carrier and larger general aviation aircraft are already equipped with a 1,030-MHz uplink/1,090-MHz down- link datalink. Smaller general aviation aircraft are more likely to be equipped with the uni- versal access transceiver (UAT) that operates at 978 MHz. Since there are two datalinks, the ADS-B ground system incorporates ADS- R (ADS-B Rebroadcast), which rebroadcasts the transmission on the other datalink. Nonparticipating aircraft, those that are not equipped with ADS-B, will still be tracked with primary radar and SSR. The position in- This ADS-B ground station is located in southern Florida. formation for nonparticipants is provided to (Photo courtesy ITT.) ADS-B-equipped aircraft through Traffic In- mentation. For In installation, the flight deck formation Services (TIS) to ensure that the air- needs a cockpit display of traffic information craft have a complete picture of other traffic. capability, a user interface, and optional inter- TIS-B data will be uplinked through the ADS- faces to display weather information. B datalinks. In late 2008, the ADS-B ground system Aircraft equipage has been separated into was installed and tested in Miami and southern two different capabilities: ADS-B Out and In. Florida. This year installations were completed ADS-B Out capability requires that an aircraft in Louisville, Philadelphia, Juneau, and the be equipped for broadcasting its GPS position Gulf of Mexico. The gulf installation includes once a second. With ADS-B Out-equipped air- 16 total ground stations that will provide the craft broadcasting their position, the air traffic initial operational capability (IOC). These sta- control system can start relying on ADS-B tions are fairly evenly split between nine land- rather than radar for surveillance. A notice of based sites located around the coast of the proposed rule making (NPRM) issued in 2007 gulf, and seven oil-platform installations. All of mandated the use of ADS-B Out by 2020. these stations were operational at the end of Responses to the NPRM were collected in September 2009 in preparation for a Decem- 2008, and publication of a final rule is ex- ber IOC. Sometime after IOC, an additional pected in 2010. five oil platform installations will be added to by James Rankin, Chris Watkins, and the ADS-B In enables aircraft to receive traffic increase the overall availability of the system in AIAA Digital Avionics and weather information. It can listen to ADS- the gulf. Technical Committee

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Sensor systems Insight A-20 UAV to survey seal populations in the Bering Sea. In September, researchers from the University of Colorado’s Coopera- tive Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences flew an Aerosonde UAV in the Antarctic winter. In spite of temperatures be- low -35 C, the UAV successfully measured lo- cal weather conditions and ice coverage in Terra Nova Bay. Monitoring of ocean conditions in temper- ate environments is useful for both climate modeling and routine weather prediction. The Flying Fish UAV, under development by a DARPA-funded team at the University of Michigan, is designed to supplement existing buoys with an autonomous air vehicle capable A University of Colorado-led of repositioning itself as needed. Unlike con- team deployed an Aerosonde ventional UAV sensor systems, the avionics A-20 UAV at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, collecting data on The challenges in designing sensor systems sensors are combined with the environmental weather conditions and ice for aerospace applications are complex. The sensor suite. The integrated sensor package coverage. sensor must demonstrate accuracy and relia- offers greater reliability and lower power con- bility, and must be integrated into both the sumption than conventional arrangements. sensor system and the overall vehicle architec- An area that presents sensor systems with ture. As vehicles move into more demanding another set of challenges is vehicle health environments, the sensors themselves must monitoring. Sensor systems designed to mon- become more robust. Recent developments in itor propulsion systems must function in envi- sensors for military, scientific, and commercial ronments of extreme temperatures, high vi- applications show the variety of challenges bration loads, and corrosive chemicals. At the that must be met. The rewards include greater low-temperature extreme, Accellent Tech- safety, better vehicle performance, and previ- nologies is developing sensor systems to de- ously unobtainable scientific data. tect structural failures in the cryogenic fuel Helicopters operating away from paved systems of liquid propellant rocket engines fields are vulnerable to brownout, a loss of vis- during operation. At higher temperatures, a ibility during takeoff or landing due to dirt or team at NASA Glenn demonstrated the use sand kicked up by the vehicle. Sikorsky is of magnetic measurements of tip clearance leading the development of the Sandblaster for the compressor and turbine stages of System. This DARPA-funded effort integrates combustion turbines. Sierra Nevada’s millimeter-wave radar, Hon- Adapting existing sensors for the space eywell’s data processors and synthetic vision environment requires that the design be re- technology, and Sikorsky’s flight control sys- evaluated for the extreme conditions. Lab-on- tems to allow safe rotorcraft operation under a-chip microdevices, developed for terrestrial these conditions. A similar system developed medical diagnostics, offer the capability to by CAE uses laser radar for sensing. search for life in extraterrestrial environments. Deploying sensors on UAVs, removing the JPL, NASA Ames, and the University of Cali- human presence entirely, is a second option fornia at Berkeley are partners in developing for improved safety. While military UAV ap- the Urey instrument for ESA’s 2016 ExoMars plications have become routine, the applica- mission. Urey includes two microfabricated in- tion of UAVs to other tasks also enhances struments: the Mars oxidant instrument and safety. Using UAVs to take scientific measure- the microcapillary electrophoresis instrument. ments in the harsh polar environment offers The Mars oxidant instrument uses chemically better data, with less risk to humans, than us- sensitive solid-state films to detect oxidants. ing conventional aircraft. NOAA-university The microcapillary electrophoresis instrument partnerships led to progress in both polar re- not only detects amino acids, but also deter- gions this year. In May and June, for example, mines the chirality, indicating if they have a bi- researchers from NOAA’s National Marine ological origin. Technical challenges include Mammal Laboratory, working with the Uni- development of materials for the spacecraft by Michael J.Martin, Wei-Jen Su, and versity of Alaska’s Unmanned Aircraft Pro- environment, packaging, and ensuring system Stephen Horowitz gram, demonstrated the shipboard use of an reliability.

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Computer systems Sun Microsystems by Oracle seem likely to happen, raising concerns over the impacts to VxWorks and the Java programming lan- This year saw several notable developments in guage, respectively, used in a variety of aero- radiation-hardened electronics, designed to space computing systems. operate through the harsh radiation environ- We make note that this year the first inter- ment of space. Broad Reach Engineering an- planetary Internet site was established aboard nounced BRE440, a PowerPC 440 imple- ISS, and the new high-water mark in mentation using the 0.15µ Honeywell HX- supercomputing is now 2,793 5000 semiconductor technology. BRE440 TFLOPS (about one- raises the bar for rad-hard computing through tenth a “human an on-chip L2 cache and enhanced memory brain equiv- access features. Just as personal computers bolster their central processing units (CPUs) with auxiliary devices such as graphics processing units, more space systems are finding it essential to enhance their CPUs (such as the BRE440 and the Rad 750) with powerful coprocessors. Custom integrated circuits have often fulfilled this need, but more systems are moving to re- configurable FPGAs (field-programmable gate arrays) for this purpose. The Air Force TacSat 3 satellite, launched earlier this year, used an array of Xilinx Virtex 4 devices to handle number-crunching tasks for a hyperspectral imager camera. Although such FPGAs were not specifically designed for TacSat 3, launched earlier this use in space, under a separate Air Force Re- year, features this on-board search Laboratory program an even more ad- processor. vanced FPGA, based on the Xilinx Virtex 5 (FX130), was created in rad-hard form. At alent” or HBE), thanks to the Berkeley BO- nearly 1 billion transistors, the prototype chips INC system. Some still groan at hearing “se- produced this year represent the most com- mantic web,” despite Microsoft’s hilarious tel- plex rad-hard chip ever developed. evision ads for their revamped Bing search Computers without memory are useless. (no, decision) engine. Cloud computing to Fortunately, this year brought other break- some may be the answer (what became of throughs in rad-hard memory. BAE an- “grid computing”?), but some of us are not nounced a 4-Mbit rad-hard nonvolatile mem- sure about the question. ory, based on a (chalcogenide) phase change We should not, however, remain despon- material. TI debuted a 16-Mbit SRAM, based dent, when the future holds so much promise. on a radiation-hardening technique (patented Intel now believes that Moore’s Law can truck by Silicon Space Technology) that allows ex- on to at least 2022, with chips having transis- isting commercial fabrication lines to build tors with 4-nm features. TSVs (through-silicon rad-hard chips. This breakthrough is particu- vias) are now ushering in the possibility of 3D larly exciting because it may make TI’s vast integrated circuits with more than 1 M con- catalog of intellectual property accessible in tacts/cm2 interconnecting stacked chips. Cof- rad-hard form. fee-cup-sized plug-and-play “designer” Cube- Not only will this year be remembered as sats may crowd the skies (although the one of global struggle with the economic unprecedented collision of an Iridium and downturn, but also as one of startling Russian satellite stresses the need to manage changes in acquisition. It was the year the be- the clutter in space). Finally, DARPA and the leaguered $20-billion TSAT (transformational Air Force Office of Scientific Research have satellite) program was formally canceled. The each launched initiatives in the ultimate com- fate of some of NASA’s most significant ini- putation fabric—programmable matter—in tiatives remains murky. It was also a year which the line between information and mate- when (at the time of this writing) the pur- rial may itself become blurred in a “Termina- chases of Wind River Systems by Intel and tor-2”-like future of morphable systems. by Jim Lyke

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INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Software systems fense, to ban the use of all removable media. NASA issued restrictions on personally owned devices a few weeks later. The extent of any by Stephen Blanchette Jr. Security and privacy issues in aerospace soft- damage was not clear. ware systems took center stage this year. Frequently cited in these reports are inad- Other problems and achievements demon- equate safeguards for networked systems and strated that software is as important as any inadequate controls on commercially devel- other element of aerospace systems and must oped software products. As aerospace sys- receive commensurate attention to ensure tems increasingly rely on software for their de- success. velopment and operations, software security Perhaps the biggest story in aerospace issues must be placed on a par with aerody- software came in April, when it was reported namics and other traditional aerospace con- that unknown persons had hacked into the cerns. The robustness of products, services, Air Force’s Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program and operations depends on doing so. and stolen terabytes of information. Rather Meanwhile, lost in the noise of high-profile than U.S. government computers, it was JSF security news came a September 2008 report prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s network of new software technology being developed that was attacked. The compromised informa- at JPL to identify individuals by applying gait tion was not critical, and no classified data was analysis techniques to satellite imagery of their accessed. Nevertheless, the event highlighted shadows. The premise is that a person’s nor- the increasing threat of cyber attacks. The mal walking patterns are difficult to fake. threat is to civil systems as well: In May, the Shadows are used because direct imagery inspector general of the DOT cited vulnerabil- records only the tops of people’s heads. ities in the air traffic control system. While much more development is needed Another widely reported security incident to make the concept operationally useful, pri- occurred late in 2008, when a software worm vacy advocates undoubtedly will raise con- In November 2008, Airbus an- infiltrated an Army network. Worms are com- cerns that will have to be addressed—recall the nounced that its A400M would be delayed by problems with the puter programs that replicate themselves outcry over early use of public video surveil- software for the full-authority across a network to perform malicious ac- lance. The aerospace software community digital engine control unit. tions. In this incident, the worm was intro- must consider its ethical responsibilities in ap- Then, in May, a software error was noted in some multimode duced via a thumb drive, prompting the Army, plying recognition technologies. GPS receivers, which might followed shortly by the entire Dept. of De- Problems in aerospace software ranged throw off flight deck clocks. from significant to annoying. In November 2008, Airbus announced that its A400M mil- itary airlifter would be delayed nearly six addi- tional months by problems with the software for the full-authority digital engine control unit. In May of this year, the European Aviation Safety Agency noted a software error in some multimode GPS receivers from one manufac- turer. This error caused the units to compute a date 512 weeks in the past upon transitioning from June 20 to 21. While no errors in navi- gation precision resulted, the bug had the po- tential to throw off flight deck clocks and cause other anomalies. On a more positive note, data from various Mars probes were incorporated into the Google Earth application in February, provid- ing scientists and lay users a unified view of the red planet. Moon content from Apollo mis- sions was added in July to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing. While scien- tific data sharing is important in its own right, these advances doubtless will inspire a new generation to all manner of aerospace careers, and may even stimulate public interest in, and support for, continued manned spaceflight.

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PROPULSION AND ENERGY

Nuclear and future flight The NTR was selected over chemical propul- propulsion sion for in-space transportation because of its higher specific impulse, increased tolerance to payload growth, and lower initial mass in Atmospheric mining in the outer solar system LEO, which is important for reducing the was investigated as a means of fuel production number of heavy lifters. for high-energy propulsion and power. A nu- All three NTR vehicles use a common core clear fusion fuel, Helium 3 (3He), can be propulsion module with three 25,000-lb-thrust wrested from the atmospheres of Uranus and “composite fuel” NERVA (nuclear engine for Neptune and used in situ for energy produc- rocket vehicle applications) -derived engines to tion and/or propulsion. perform all primary mission maneuvers. Five teams from the Case Western Reserve NERVA-derived engine features include an exit University Dept. of Mechanical and Aero- temperature of roughly 2,700 K, chamber space Engineering participated with NASA pressure of about 1,000 psia, specific impulse Glenn Research Center in the study. Four of around 900 sec, and engine thrust-to- weight ratio of about 3.43.) Two cargo flights, using minimum en- ergy paths, deliver a cargo lander to the surface and a habitat lander into a 24-hr elliptical parking or- bit where it remains until the ar- rival of the crew during the next mission opportunity (about 26 months later). The cargo ele- ments aerocapture into Mars orbit and are enclosed within a large triconic aeroshell, which is a pay- load shroud during launch, then an aerobrake and heat shield dur- ing Mars orbit capture and in en- try, descent, and landing on Mars. A nuclear rocket could deliver The gasdynamic mirror (GDM) the crew to the orbiting Mars teams addressed cruiser-based and balloon- is a magnetic device where fusion plasmas are Transfer Vehicle prior to Earth departure. based 3He mining vehicles, and one focused heated to ignition by the reaction products re- on 3He mining on an outer planet moon. sulting from the “at-rest” annihilation of an- Team 1 created a conceptual 3He mining tiprotons in uranium 238. Unlike terrestrial fu- cruiser for Uranus. An inertial-electrostatic sion power systems, where large Q values confinement (IEC) nuclear fusion reactor was (ratio of fusion power to injected power) are used for propulsion, operating as an air- required, only modest Q values are needed for breathing engine during subsonic cruise in the spaceflight. Recent work at the University of atmosphere and operating on stored liquid hy- Michigan focused on a bimodal fusion propul- drogen as propellant during ascent to orbit. sion system in which Q values near unity are The overall vehicle dry mass was approxi- used and the GDM serves as a neutron source. mately 40,000 kg. The mass was estimated Fusion reactions are neutron rich but energy based on past designs and estimates of the poor, while fission reactions are energy rich IEC engine from Robert Bussard’s research. but neutron poor. This fact led to a system in The overall mission delta-V to climb from the which the GDM device serves as a fast neutron low mining altitude to the 5,000-km altitude source surrounded by a blanket of thorium was 16.23 km/sec. The engine specific im- 232, which is used to breed uranium 233 and pulse was approximately 6,000 sec. The min- simultaneously burned to produce energy. ing time was 28.3 days. For a reasonable blanket size and deuter- In NASA’s recently completed Mars DRA ium-tritium plasma density, size, and temper- (design reference architecture) 5.0, payload ature, the hybrid system can produce tens of and transportation system options for a hu- gigawatts of thermal power per centimeter. man Mars mission after 2030 were exam- When heating hydrogen fuel, a 7-m-long en- by Bryan Palaszewski ined. Recent work detailed the analysis of a gine can generate a specific impulse of about and the AIAA Nuclear and Future Flight Propulsion nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) that will reduce 59,000 sec at a thrust of about 8 MN at a Technical Committee the number of Ares V heavy-lift launchers. fuel flow rate of about 130 kg/sec.

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The X-51A SED-WR is poised to High-speed air-breathing demonstrate the first-ever sustained flight beyond Mach 6 propulsion of a hydrocarbon-fueled and -cooled air-breathing engine. In the area of ramjet/scramjet powered flight, the X-51A scramjet engine demonstrator WaveRider (SED-WR) is poised to demon- strate later this year the first-ever sustained flight beyond Mach 6 of a hydrocarbon-fueled and -cooled air-breathing engine. The SED- WR program team consists of Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne (PWR). The ef- is helping the nation master the fundamental fort is funded by the Air Force Research Lab- physics required for routine air-breathing- oratory (AFRL) and DARPA. propulsion-powered aerospace vehicle flight. Also under Air Force funding, Alliant Tech- The TBCC technology development element systems (ATK) successfully completed testing has progressed significantly, where turbine-to- for a new class of ramjet propulsion systems scramjet transition is being studied. The initial that will enable high-speed strike systems and small-scale mode transition study showed high UAVs to travel at Mach 5+. The most recent performance for both flow paths during the tests involved flight-weight, fuel-cooled TTRJ transition process. NASA Glenn is leading the (thermally throated ramjet) technology built design and development of a large-scale with conventional materials and manufacturing model capable of accommodating both the processes, and burning readily available JP-10 turbine engine and the dual-mode scramjet en- jet fuel. ATK ran the fuel-cooled hardware gine. This model is being developed in part- through multiple 2-min-long test periods to nership with AFRL, ATK, Boeing, Williams demonstrate full thermal equilibrium, thus en- International, and Spiritech. The large-scale suring required engine durability and accumu- inlet mode transition experimental module lating more than 44 min of hot operating time. has completed the design phase and is being In the area of combined cycle engines, readied for initial test entry into Glenn’s PWR successfully demonstrated the full range 10x10 supersonic wind tunnel facility. of power required for a turbine-based com- bined-cycle (TBCC) vehicle. The PWR-9221FJ dual-mode ramjet (DMRJ) successfully sus- tained stable combustion at Mach 3, 4, and 6 in ground tests. Testing was conducted at Arnold Engineering Development Center after a 10-year effort to upgrade a high-speed, high- temperature blow-down ground test facility. “This test was significant,” says Matthew Bond, test manager of AEDC’s Aerodynamic and Propulsion Test Unit (APTU). “The Mach- 6 run on June 24 was the first-ever scramjet propulsion test at AEDC. It was an actual test of the DARPA Falcon combined-cycle engine technology [FaCET] dual-mode ramjet using APTU’s recently acquired combustion air heater, Mach-6 nozzle, and JP-7 fuel heater.” Building on the success of the FaCET The first-ever scramjet propulsion test at AEDC took place when the DMRJ tests, PWR and Lockheed Martin are In March, JAXA and Hokkaido University DARPA FaCET was tested in the working together under Phase 1 of the mode conducted flight tests of a rocket-based com- center’s Aerodynamic and transition demonstrator program, a DARPA- bined-cycle (RBCC) engine, using a cascaded Propulsion Test Unit. (USAF funded activity. This new program will include multistage impinging jet-type hybrid rocket. photo.) both the low-speed (turbine) and high-speed The RBCC is being studied for an air-breath- (DMRJ) elements of the TBCC propulsion ing launch vehicle. The flight test data will be system and will demonstrate the transition be- used for evaluating the ejector system design tween the two modes of operation. code. In July, JAXA also succeeded in the At NASA, the hypersonic propulsion ele- ground firing of a precooled turbo-engine ment of the fundamental aeronautics program model being studied for Mach-5 cruise flight. by Tom Kaemming

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PROPULSION AND ENERGY

Liquid propulsion cient low-cost propellant tank, two-zone ther- mal control, and electrical/mechanical inter- faces designed for ease of integration. It was a good year for liquid propulsion. Al- Separately, AMPAC-ISP demonstrated a though a liquid rocket engine on the Long small divert engine, attitude control thruster, March 3B failed in August, the U.S., the Eu- and aluminum diaphragm propellant tank for ropean Union, and Japan had stellar liquid en- use in flight experiments to mature missile de- gine performance and made technology fense technologies. progress on many fronts. New propulsion concepts and technolo- A Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems gies for very small launch vehicles are in de- TR408 100-lbf oxygen/methane thruster velopment by a joint team from California demonstrated pulsed and steady-state per- State University, Long Beach and Garvey formance using a heat exchanger chamber at Spacecraft. This team conducted the first In Japan, the LE-8 LOX/natural extreme propellant conditions. At NASA Mar- flight demonstration of a rocket burning LOX gas rocket demonstrated its shall, the TR202 lunar descent engine with and propylene, building on their previous ex- flight feasibility in tests this pintle injector demonstrated 10:1 throttling perience with LOX and methane. Such alter- summer. with excellent combustion stability, using liquid native hydrocarbon fuels have the potential to oxygen (LOX) and gaseous hydrogen. Further improve performance over conventional RP- TR202 testing is planned to optimize per- 1. In parallel, the university collected flight formance and chamber heat transfer. data on aerospike performance in overex- Aerojet completed environmental and hot- panded, transonic flight conditions—despite fire testing of two prototype 600-lbf-thrust an ignition failure of one of the 10 aerospike monopropellant engines for NASA’s Ares roll thrust modules. control system, demonstrating five times mis- On August 21, Ariane 5 accomplished its sion life. In support of the Constellation pro- 32nd consecutive successful flight, delivering gram, Aerojet began testing of an advanced two communication satellites to geosynchro- 5,500-lbf LOX/liquid methane rocket engine. nous transfer orbit. The previous month, an And for unmanned spacecraft, development Ariane 5 lifted the heaviest commercial satel- testing of the AMBR (advanced materials lite ever built (weighing 6,910 kg). Meanwhile, bipropellant rocket) demonstrated specific im- ESA continued to evolve its engine designs. pulse of 333.5 sec with 150 lbf thrust using The 180-kN upper stage Vinci expander cycle storable propellants. engine accumulated 4,672 sec of test time Orbital Technologies completed initial sea- over 31 hot firings on the P4.1 test facility at level tests of its Maelstrom L-3 thrust chamber DLR/Lampoldshausen, Germany. High-fre- assembly (TCA). The 3,000-lbf-class, vortex- quency stability margin was demonstrated in cooled TCA burns LOX and subcooled pro- “bomb” testing. Separately, ESA engaged pane. Further development of the Maelstrom EADS/Astrium for development of an in- L-3 under an Air Force contract will lead to space engine in the 3-8-kN thrust range; first flight demonstrations of the TCA in 2011. firing is expected in 2011. AMPAC In-Space Propulsion developed a A focus area for ESA’s future launcher modular hydrazine subsystem suitable for preparatory program is main-stage propulsion plug-n-play SmallSat applications. The design for next-generation launchers. The program is incorporates off-the-shelf components with testing a demonstration 40-kN staged com- several cost and risk reducing features: a 1-N bustion subsystem using a coupled preburner/ thruster with adjustable mount (allowing thrust main combustion chamber that can be pow- vector tuning any time before launch), an effi- ered by LOX/H2 or LOX/methane. EADS/ Astrium and Snecma cooperated in hot firing The MR-80 Ares roll control engine with LOX/methane, achieving combustion undergoes testing at Aerojet. pressures of 200 bar in the preburner and 150 bar in the main chamber. The Japanese 100-kN-class LOX/liquid natural gas engine (to be named LE-8) demon- strated its flight feasibility during the summer. In more than 11 tests, 2,200 sec of on-time were accumulated—including two 500-sec mis- by the AIAA Liquid sion duty tests and a 600-sec overduty test. Propulsion Technical The prototype engine performed flawlessly; al- Committee titude testing is scheduled for next year.

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Aerospace power systems

Lightweight solar arrays having the highest specific power ever achieved are under devel- opment and in use on advanced missions. ATK’s UltraFlex solar array contributed to the success of the Mars Phoenix lander. Its 2.1-m- diameter wings achieved a power density ex- ceeding 118 W/kg using Spectrolab 28.3% efficient UTJ solar cells. Larger diameter ver- sions of the UltraFlex wing are being devel- oped, with successful vacuum deployment of The Mars Phoenix Lander uses a 5.5-m, 175-W/kg wing prototype in a outpost. Key advanced battery technologies ATK’s UltraFlex solar array wings. ground demonstration. Further scale-up to include silicon composite anodes, lithiated 5.9-m-diam UltraFlex wings is envisioned as a mixed-metal-oxide cathodes, and low-flamma- planned power platform for NASA’s Orion bility electrolytes providing tolerance to elec- CEV and other missions. trical and thermal abuse. They are being de- Concentrating photovoltaic arrays are the veloped to achieve a specific energy of 150 focus of a DARPA Phase 2 development W-hr/kg and 320 W-hr/liter. With 80% ca- award to Boeing for design, analysis, and fab- pacity retention after 2,000 cycles, these rication of a multikilowatt ground demonstra- safety-enhanced cells are ideal for mobility tion article. Boeing is teamed with DR Tech- systems such as EVA suits and lunar rovers. nologies, Northrop Grumman, and Emcore to Lithium-ion battery technology is achiev- create the Fast Access Spacecraft Testbed ing wide application for spacecraft and launch (FAST) high power generation system, includ- vehicles, with flight-ready systems offered by ing solar concentration, power conversion, ABSL Space Products, AEA Technology, and power management and distribution, heat re- Saft. ABSL has provided lithium-ion battery jection, and structures, along with necessary technology for over 60 vehicles, including the deployment, pointing, and tracking mecha- NASA Kepler space telescope, Lunar Recon- nisms. When combined with state-of-the-art naissance Orbiter, and Lunar Crater Observa- electric propulsion systems, FAST will form tion and Sensing Satellite, launched this year. the technological basis for a lightweight, high- Radioisotope power systems are facing power, highly mobile spacecraft platform, with critical challenges to continued efficient use of scalability to 175 kW, and at a high system nuclear power in space, including a U.S. specific power level of 130 W/kg, more than shortage of plutonium-238 for radioisotope three times those of conventional systems. thermoelectric generators. Increasing the sup- The advanced solar cells also have benefits ply of radioisotope sources and development on Earth. Both Boeing and Emcore are offer- of higher efficiency advanced Stirling radioiso- ing concentrator systems that reduce the size tope generators are being proposed to enable of the solar cell and the associated cost per the nuclear power option for missions such as watt so that utility-scale systems can take ad- the Outer Planets Flagship 1. vantage of space quality and performance. NASA and the Dept. of Energy continue This year saw a new world efficiency record to conduct research and subsystem testing of set by Spectrolab for a concentrator solar cell fission surface power technologies. An initial A 3-kW non-flow-through fuel cell stack is being designed to converting 41.6% of concentrated terrestrial focus of the joint project is to develop a 40- help meet the needs of a future sunlight to electricity. kWe nuclear reactor that could power the pro- lunar base. NASA is developing energy storage tech- posed Shackleton Lunar Base and to enhance nology, including fuel cells and batteries, to the potential to power a Mars base. Critical meet the expected needs of a lunar outpost. subsystem technology developed at NASA “Non-flow-through” proton-exchange-mem- Glenn includes a lightweight composite full- brane fuel cell stacks and electrolyzers coupled scale radiator panel built by Material Innova- with low-permeable membranes are being de- tions, successfully tested in a vacuum chamber veloped and integrated with reactants stored down to –125 C. At NASA Marshall, Stirling at pressures over 2,000 psi. These technolo- engines built by Sunpower were producing gies form the basis for a regenerative fuel cell over 2 kW of electricity at a gross thermal ef- by the AIAA Aerospace module providing 3 kW for 10,000 mainte- ficiency of about 32% using pumped liquid Power Systems nance-free hours, for application to a lunar metal at 550 C. Technical Committee

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PROPULSION AND ENERGY

Gas turbine engines effect of the synthetic fuels, however, was to reduce engine black carbon emissions by more than 75% relative to JP-8. Energy and the environment topped the Several projects made significant progress year’s highlights in the field of turbine en- this year in the versatile affordable advanced gines. Efforts focused on improving fuel effi- turbine engines (VAATE) program, a DOD-led ciency and on development and demonstra- effort to develop and demonstrate advanced tion of alternative fuels, with activities across turbine engine technologies. The ADVENT the federal government and industry. (Air Force adaptive versatile engine technol- In May the FAA issued a solicitation aimed ogy) program completed Phase I in Septem- at developing CLEEN (continuous lower en- ber following a number of key component ergy, emissions, and noise) technologies for technology demonstrations and detailed de- civil aircraft to help achieve Next Generation signs for variable cycle engines by GE Avia- Air Transportation System (NextGen) goals. tion. The Air Force kicked off Phase II for a full The focus of this effort is to mature noise, engine demonstration, including a 25% reduc- emissions, and fuel burn reduction technolo- tion in specific fuel consumption, by 2013. At gies to expedite their introduction into current the same time, the Air Force is pursuing criti- and future aircraft and engines, and to assess cal components of the HEETE (highly efficient the benefits of alternative “drop in” fuels and embedded turbine engines) program to advance their introduction. Awards are ex- demonstrate an improvement of up to 25% in pected by year’s end. the thermal efficiency of turbine engines. Also under VAATE, the AATE (ad- vanced affordable turbine engine) pro- gram seeks to provide advanced propulsion capability for Army Cur- rent and Future Force rotorcraft, with goals including a 65% increase in horsepower-to-weight, a 25% im- provement in specific fuel consump- tion, and more than 35% reduction in production and maintenance costs. The program includes two competing 3000-HP demonstrator engines from GE Aviation and ATEC (Advanced Turbine Engine Company), a joint venture of Honeywell and Pratt & Whitney. Initial design efforts were completed this year, and ongoing rig tests will validate the individual com- ponent designs before gas generator testing, with engine demonstrations planned in 2012. The Navy initiated several activities under the American Recovery and NASA alternative fuels experiments Reinvestment Act, including plans to were conducted in a DC-8 aircraft Under its subsonic fixed wing project, flight test an F-18E/F on a biofuel JP-5 in at NASA Dryden. NASA has partnered with DOD to examine summer 2010. The Navy team is working the performance and emissions of the NASA with Canadian and Australian partners to Dryden DC-8 aircraft using a series of Fischer- make the biofuel certification of the F-18 an Tropsch (FT)-derived test fuels. Conducted in international effort. January of this year in Palmdale, Calif., the Williams International completed testing of AAFEX (alternative aviation fuel experiment) alternative fuel in a small gas turbine engine. engaged NASA, DOD, EPA, and FAA re- An FJ44-3 engine was powered by 2,000 gal searchers. They found that burning FT fuel did of coal-based alternative fuel for 118 cycles not appreciably affect engine performance, during 21 hr of testing. The synthetic fuel per- by the AIAA Gas Turbine but did lead to aircraft and storage tanker fuel formed well; engine performance was identi- Engines Technical leaks due to seal shrinkage from exposure to cal to using Jet-A fuel and required no special Committee aromatic-hydrocarbon-free fuels. The greatest engine or test cell modifications.

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Combustion vanced laser diagnostics and experimentation and propellants tools in plasma-assisted ignition, and stabiliza- tion of flames at extremely high air velocities and elevated pressures. Efforts to address the challenges of climate As the ISS nears completion, studies of change, energy security, and energy-efficient fuel and material flammability have now be- high-speed propulsion brought significant gun on the station under the leadership of progress in the development of next-genera- NASA Glenn. The goals are to improve fun- tion low-carbon transportation fuels, ad- damental understanding of combustion and vanced propulsion technologies, and experi- enable improvements for fire safety in space mental facilities for space exploration. and in terrestrial applications. An Energy Frontier Research Center for Combustion Science has been established at Princeton University by the Dept. of Energy in an effort to advance fundamental understand- ing and quantitative modeling of renewable transportation fuels. The ultimate goal is to develop a validated, predictive, multiscale combustion modeling capability to optimize the design and operation of evolving fuels in advanced engines for transportation applica- tions. The investigation will cover all the myr- iad time and length scales involved in combus- tion, from the scale of the electron to that of the largest turbulent motion in engines. The center, funded at $4 million a year for five years, consists of 15 principal investi- JAXA astronaut Koichi Wakata, Expedition 19/20 flight gators from seven academic institutions (Cor- A multiuser facility, the combustion inte- engineer, works on the flame nell, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, and the uni- grated rack (CIR), was installed on the ISS in extinguishment experiment versities of Connecticut, Minnesota, and Destiny, the U.S. laboratory module, in late in the combustion integrated Southern California) and the Sandia and Ar- 2008. This combustion facility provides a gas rack on the ISS. gonne national laboratories, with expertise in delivery system, cameras, and a 100-liter quantum chemistry, chemical kinetics, com- chamber into which a variety of experiments bustion theory and modeling, and correspon- can be installed. It can be commanded re- ding experimentation. motely from a control center at NASA Glenn. At Princeton, a next-generation jet fuel Operations with the first CIR effort, the flame project funded by NetJets has identified a sus- extinguishment experiment (FLEX), began tainable pathway for synthesis of zero net car- early this year. FLEX is a direct successor to bon cycle transportation fuels from biomass the droplet combustion experiment conducted and coal using carbon capture and storage on space shuttle missions in 1997 and 2003. and coproduction of low-emission electricity. Leading the multiuniversity FLEX research Other activities include system analysis for en- team is the University of California-San ergy conversion economics and carbon emis- Diego. The objective is to evaluate the effec- sions; energy and policy analysis for sustain- tiveness of suppressants on microgravity ability; and combustion technology assess- flames in atmospheres under consideration ment of this and other means of producing for future spacecraft. CIR will also be used in renewable transportation fuels. ACME (advanced combustion via microgravity A DOD multiuniversity research initiative experiments) for studies of gaseous laminar called “Fundamental Mechanisms, Predictive diffusion flames. Modeling, and Novel Aerospace Applications Combustion research has also been initi- of Plasma Assisted Combustion” was awarded ated in the ISS microgravity science glovebox to a research team from five universities (Ohio (MSG), a general-purpose facility enabling a State, Princeton, Drexel, Georgia Tech, and variety of studies. Early this year, SPICE Penn State) to study nonequilibrium plasma- (smoke point in coflow experiment) became assisted combustion for novel applications in the first combustion experiment to be con- scramjet and gas turbine engines. The objec- ducted in the MSG. More MSG investigations tive is to investigate elementary reactions and are planned for 2010, including studies of by Yiguang Ju nonequilibrium kinetic processes using ad- flame stability and solid fuel flammability. and Joanna Austin

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Hybrid rockets pleted the design and development of a flight weight, 900-lbf-thrust, 90% hydrogen-perox- ide/LDPE hybrid rocket motor that was suc- Several organizations made important contri- cessfully hot-fire tested in vertical configura- butions to hybrid rocket research this year. In tion five times at the Purdue Vertical Rocket May, Scaled Composites successfully com- Test Facility. In addition, the first-generation pleted the first phase of static firing tests of hybrid flight vehicle was launched successfully the hybrid rocket motor for SpaceShipTwo. in June and reached an altitude of 6,100 ft at The vehicle, which is under development by Mach 0.6. This was an important first step to- Virgin Galactic, will be transported by a new ward flight operations for this series of hybrid composite aircraft to the upper atmosphere, rocket technology demonstrators. The Purdue where the hybrid motor will ignite and propel hybrid sounding rocket is the largest hydro- space tourists, scientists, and payloads into gen-peroxide hybrid rocket launched to date. space. Suborbital trajectories to altitudes of up A second-generation high-propellant-mass- to 65 mi. are expected. fraction flight vehicle is currently being devel- oped for supersonic flights to altitudes exceed- ing 30,000 ft at Mach 2. Aerospace Corporation is measuring the structural properties of paraffin-based fuel for- mulations as a function of temperature. In ad- dition, a small motor evaluation cell has been built and test fired. Regression rate measure- ments are also planned. The University of Wuppertal in Germany investigated the effect of simple diaphragm mixing devices, consisting of one- or four-hole The University of Wuppertal perforations located at the beginning or along investigated the effect of the fuel grain. The propellants used for the fir- simple diaphragm mixing ing of the 225-lb thruster were supercharged devices using a hybrid test motor. nitrous oxide and microcrystalline paraffin. Orbital Technolo- The mixing device increased combustion effi- gies (ORBITEC) recently ciency up to 12% compared to the control, conducted initial testing of which had no mixing device. Fuel regression a 10,000-lb thrust class rate downstream of the diaphragm increased vortex hybrid motor. up to 80% compared to the tests conducted The tests took without a mixing device. place at OR- The cryogenic solid propellant (CSP) test BITEC’s Rocket motor was developed and manufactured at Test Facility in Wiscon- the Aerospace Institute in Berlin with funding sin. The 14-in.-diam motor uses from ESA and the German Aerospace Cen- HTPB (hydroxyl-terminated polybutadi- ter (DLR). Cryogenic multilayer internal hy- ene)-based solid fuel and liquid oxygen. The brid combustion was successfully demon- LOX is injected in a swirling fashion to gener- strated with this test rocket motor holding 1 ate a vortex flow field in the fuel port to drive kg of CSPs. The experimental goal of enrich- fuel regression rates that are both fast and ax- ing hydrogen peroxide to more than 90% ially uniform. The high regression rates allow was achieved through the development of a for a single-port, cartridge-loaded fuel grain process based on fractionated crystallization. approach. The test program aims to demon- Beginning with 87.5%, hydrogen peroxide strate the functionality of the vortex hybrid de- greater than 99.4% concentration was suc- sign, stable and efficient combustion, high re- cessfully produced on a scale of kilograms. liability, and the potential for low recurring This high-concentration hydrogen peroxide costs. Additional testing is planned for the was used in combination with different poly- near future and will include both HTPB and mer fuels for various lab-scale ignition and alternative fuels. ORBITEC also conducted combustion experiments under pressure. Cur- smaller scale vortex hybrid motor develop- rent activities focus on the preparation of ment and testing efforts this year using stor- CSP test motor firings with higher concentra- able oxidizers. tion hydrogen peroxide and less subcooled by Steven Frolik The Purdue hybrid rocket project com- propellant grain.

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Air-breathing propulsion systems integration

This year NASA collaborated with General Electric Aviation to investigate new open- rotor propulsion systems. Open rotors had been studied by a NASA/GE team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. NASA has rebuilt and modernized a counterrotation propeller test rig used during that campaign with mod- ern data systems and controls technology. In September, this one-fifth-scale open-rotor propulsion rig began a new test campaign in the NASA Glenn anechoic wind tunnel to investigate a series of advanced propeller fan blade designs. A total of seven blade sets will be tested to determine aerodynamic efficiency, and mechanical and aeroelastic stability. Performance information such as fan thrust and torque, and diagnostic information such as blade loading profiles and flow field turbulence, In Europe, a study of an environ- will be obtained for the baseline configuration. mentally friendly high-speed The information will be used to compare and of 2.3-4.6. Subsonic and transonic operation aircraft featured low-speed wind validate computer-based design, analysis, and from Mach 0 to Mach 2.0 was investigated in tunnel testing. optimization. This propulsion test rig, com- the NASA Glenn 8x6-ft wind tunnel. The test bined with modern materials and manufactur- series gave insight into low-speed perform- ing techniques, will be used to produce im- ance and operability, including contraction ra- proved 3D fan blade designs that enhance tio limits, bleed effects, and mass flow redistri- performance and reduce noise. Open rotors bution characteristics. are projected to save 10% in fuel compared to In July EADS Defence & Security success- current turbofan engine technology, and ulti- fully tested its Barracuda UAV at Goose Bay mately up to 25% with advanced designs. AFB in Canada. With a takeoff weight in the The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter 3-ton class, it is currently the largest un- program passed major propulsion/airframe in- manned aerial system ever designed and built tegration milestones this year, highlighted by in Europe. Powering the aircraft is a Pratt & validation of short takeoff/vertical landing Whitney Canada JT15D-5C. The advanced (STOVL) vertical thrust during tests in April. aerodynamic propulsion integration includes a In September, a one-fifth-scale The propulsion system includes an F135 or diverterless intake design with low observable open-rotor propulsion rig began a new test campaign in the F136 turbofan engine, a drive shaft leading characteristics and an ejector nozzle. NASA Glenn anechoic 9x15-ft from the engine face to a gear box and clutch A four-year study of an environmentally wind tunnel. connecting to a counterrotating lift fan, a friendly High Speed Aircraft (HISAC) within three-bearing swivel duct at the rear that vec- the European Union’s Sixth Framework tors engine thrust downward and provides yaw ended in October. The project assessed the control, and a roll control nozzle under each technical feasibility of an 8-16-passenger wing. Through testing at a specially instru- commercial supersonic transport aircraft un- mented “hover pit” facility, the F-35B STOVL der environmental constraints. Aerodynamic variant demonstrated over 41,000 lbf of verti- propulsion integration is among the key tech- cal thrust and validated the performance of air- nologies that enable a successful design. Con- craft software, controls, thermal management, figurations featuring afterbody and underwing STOVL system hardware, and other systems integrated propulsion systems with ramp in- required for vertical flight. This is the final se- lets were intensively studied in supersonic ries of ground tests before airborne STOVL wind tunnel tests in France and Russia. CFD testing, to take place by year’s end. simulations were performed for a variety of by Hayden Reeve, Chris Hughes, This year AFRL, NASA, and Aerojet col- propulsion integration solutions with different Keith Blodgett, laborated on further testing of the advanced inlet types mounted at the fuselage or the Jeffrey Hamstra, combined-cycle integrated inlet, first tested at wings. Low-speed wind tunnel tests took place Roderick Daebelliehn, NASA Langley in 2007 over the Mach range in Switzerland. and Thomas Berens

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PROPULSION AND ENERGY

Electric propulsion over 24,300 hr of operation, processed over 434 kg of xenon, and demonstrated a total impulse in excess of 16 MN-sec. Plans call for This was an active year for electric propulsion extending the test to demonstrate first failure in flight and R&D programs. The 30-cm mode (accelerator grid wear-through), pro- NSTAR ion thrusters manufactured by L-3 jected at 750 kg at full power. The Japan Communications for NASA’s Dawn space- Aerospace Exploration Agency is developing craft have been operated for a total of 8,000 a 20-mN ion engine for the super-low- hr and have provided a total impulse of 2.6 altitude satellite. L-3 Communications is de- MN-sec. Dawn is scheduled to rendezvous veloping a throttleable 8-cm XIPS thruster with the asteroid Vesta in August 2011. Ja- that operates at 100-350 W, with 2-14 mN of The University of Michigan and pan’s Hayabusa asteroid explorer restarted its thrust. Busek demonstrated three small RF Air Force Research Laboratory four microwave discharge ion engines for a gridded ion thrusters delivering 0.2-, 2-, and developed and operated the first delta-V maneuver in February. The engines 11-mN thrust with specific impulse ranging concentric Hall thruster, called the X2 for its two channels. have operated over 35,000 hr in deep space; from 1,300 to 3,800 sec. (Courtesy of the University of the satellite is scheduled to return to Earth in Aerojet delivered the engineering model of Michigan.) NASA’s high-voltage Hall accelerator. It will begin performance acceptance tests, environ- mental tests, and ultimately a long-duration test where it is anticipated to operate for more than 15,000 hr. Michigan Tech University demonstrated Hall-effect thrusters using light metallic elements for propellant. A nominally 2-kW thruster was operated on both magne- sium and zinc. ElectroDynamic Applications designed a helicon Hall thruster that was then manufactured by Aerojet. It is a two-stage thruster with helicon ionization first stage cou- pled to a Hall accelerator stage to provide high thrust-to-power operation. The Univer- sity of Michigan and Air Force Research Lab- 2010. ESA’s Gravity Ocean Circulation Ex- oratory developed and operated the first con- plorer satellite was launched in March with a centric Hall thruster, named the X2 for its two pair of ion thrusters manufactured by QinetiQ. channels. It is designed to reduce specific ESA’s LISA Pathfinder, scheduled for mass and maximize power during high thrust- launch in 2011, will use both colloid and field to-power operation. emission EP for disturbance reduction and at- MSNW demonstrated the ELF (electrode- titude control. Busek and JPL delivered colloid less Lorentz force) thruster, a new concept for micro-Newton thruster flight units to ESA, pulsed electromagnetic propulsion that uses while Alta will supply the cesium field emis- rotating magnetic fields to create a high-den- sion system. Snecma completed acceptance sity, magnetized plasmoid called a field-re- Snecma’s products include this testing of four PPS-1350 stationary plasma versed configuration. Operation on air and thruster module assembly. (Courtesy of Snecma, Vernon thrusters for ESA’s Alphasat and was selected xenon from 1,000 sec to 5,000 sec specific operations.) to supply eight EDB Fakel SPT-100 thrusters impulse at energy levels suitable for 20-100- for the ESA Small GEO satellite. An Israeli kW steady-state operation was demonstrated. Hall-effect thruster manufactured by Rafael Ad Astra Rocket operated the first stage, heli- was integrated onto the joint Israeli and con section, of the VX-200 200-kW VASIMR French VENμS spacecraft. engine at full power with maximum magnetic L-3 Communications launched four 25- field. A record power of almost 150 kW was cm ion thrusters onboard a Boeing 702 satel- added to the plasma with the second-stage, lite, with another four thrusters in satellite in- RF booster. And the Ecole Polytechnique in tegration and 12 in production. Space Sys- France is currently developing the PEGASES tems/Loral launched five spacecraft with sta- (plasma propulsion with electronegative gases) tionary plasma thrusters, with another three thruster. It produces and accelerates both pos- subsystems delivered and six scheduled for itively and negatively charged ions, which re- delivery. combine and form a neutral beam. This tech- NASA’s evolutionary xenon thruster nique is expected to reduce plasma-spacecraft by Joshua L. Rovey (NEXT) long-duration test has accumulated interactions.

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Terrestrial energy systems

Terrestrial energy research activities in the past year have become more interdisciplinary, involving collaboration by government, indus- try, and academia as well as international co- operation. Considerable efforts have focused on developing green energy resources, using fuels more efficiently, finding alternate fuels to compensate the increasing demand, and re- ducing aircraft noise. Among alternate fuels, biofuels offer im- Eskom is developing wind farms in mediate potential. In particular, instead of pro- the Western Cape in South Africa. ducing biofuels from edible plants such as graduate studies on green energy. The Uni- corn and soybeans, or from oils and resources versity of KwaZulu-Natal has a Renewable that have other uses, choosing nonedible oils Energy Research Group focusing on solar and cellulosic materials will be the most sensi- thermal applications, broadband radiometry, tive alternative. To this end, the Office of and wind power. The University of Johannes- Naval Research has begun a new initiative on burg has a similar research group on thin-film production of biojet fuels from nonedible oil, photovoltaics. waste, and cellulosic materials. The methodol- Several novel ideas have been considered ogy created under this effort will be useful in for controlling the flow in combustors to in- developing biodiesel and other fuels for trans- crease fuel efficiency and reduce emissions or portation and power generation. There is noise. One idea that has shown some prelim- worldwide interest in this area, and the Asian inary success involves implementing various nations have large government and industry fluidic control devices such as countercurrent programs. In South Africa, several private flow and microjets. These devices are attrac- wind farms are now at various stages of devel- tive because of their simplicity and low en- opment, including a proposed 3-GW venture ergy requirements. For example, researchers by Eskom (South Africa’s national utility com- at the University of Minnesota and the Uni- pany) in the Western Cape. versity of Illinois at Chicago have obtained In the field of combustion for terrestrial ap- preliminary results that indicate injecting plications, the focus has been on coordinated high-velocity air through tiny orifices (on the computation, analytical, and experimental ap- order of 500 µm) could lead to an increase in proaches with innovations in CFD and diag- overall heat release. nostics. Diagnostic tools with improved tem- Similarly, researchers at Florida State Uni- poral and spatial resolution have been versity have used water microjets to manipu- researched to enable measurement of the late turbulence level and thus reduce noise in multiphase flows in complex systems such as exhaust plume. Investigations of bevel nozzle multitube detonation engines and high-tem- and other innovative technologies such as perature, high-speed exhaust systems for mil- chevron and internal corrugation have led to itary aircraft. Particular attention has been unprecedented reductions in noise. Internal given to measuring several species or parame- corrugation and microjet injection offer imme- ters simultaneously. diate potential for reducing noise in the en- Research on CFD is taking place at many gine exhaust and platforms, respectively. institutions globally. In the area of terrestrial To reduce the environmental impact of energy systems there are notable develop- combustion systems, continuing research in- ments at the University of Illinois at Chicago, volves the use of porous inserts in the com- where chemically reacting flows are studied in bustion chamber. Researchers at the University dump combustors. Researchers at San Diego of Maryland are further developing distributed State University are studying flow separation (colorless or flameless) combustion for applica- and fuel droplet dynamics in liquid-fuel com- tions in gas turbine combustion, which can si- bustors. South African universities are also multaneously reduce emission of hazardous active in renewable energy research, and in pollutants, energy consumption, CO2 emis- 2006, the Center for Renewable and Sustain- sions, and noise, also obtaining a good pat- able Energy Studies was established at Stel- tern factor for the quest to achieve a uniform lenbosch University as the national hub for thermal field in the entire combustor. by Farzad Mashayek

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PROPULSION AND ENERGY

Energetic components and over 99% reliability in 144 launches, with no- systems table payloads including the Mars Pathfinder and Exploration rovers and the Deep Impact spacecraft. Delta began as an improved ver- The corporate consolida- sion of the Thor, and recorded its first suc- The first stage solid motor tion of the energetic com- cessful mission August 12, 1960. The Delta II is used in the Ares I. ponents and systems indus- was developed by McDonnell Douglas in re- try continued this year with sponse to an Air Force request for proposals the Chemring Group acqui- following the loss of the space shuttle Chal- sition of Hi-Shear Technol- lenger in 1986, as a means of clearing the re- ogy. Once the acquisition is sulting backlog in the launch manifest. Be- completed, Hi-Shear will cause it is being phased out as a launch join Scot, Kilgore Flares, vehicle, there are only four remaining NASA Alloy Surfaces, and Techni- LSP Delta II missions. cal Ordnance in providing a All launch vehicles rely on the successful wide spectrum of energetic operation of many energetic components for devices for military and numerous different functions, such as motor commercial applications. Hi-Shear’s decades ignition, staging, payload fairing and payload of experience with initiators, safe/arm de- separation, gas and fluid management, and, in vices, and cartridge actuated devices, coupled the case of an unacceptable condition, flight with the low energy reactive thin film bridge termination. initiators it is now developing, significantly en- NASA and industry engineers lit up the hances Chemring’s existing capabilities in en- sky at ATK Space Systems’ Brigham City fa- ergetic materials and components. cility on September 10 with the initial full- This continues to be a busy year for NASA scale, full-duration test firing of the first stage ELV missions. However, after 55 straight suc- motor for the Ares I crew launch vehicle in de- cessful NASA launch missions, the agency’s velopment for NASA’s Constellation pro- Orbiting Carbon Observatory, launched in gram. This is the largest solid rocket motor in the world (154 ft long), holding 1.4 million lb of propellant and producing 370 million lb- sec of vacuum impulse over a burn time of 126 sec. The motor will deliver the Ares I to an altitude of about 35.5 mi. and a speed of Mach 5.7. After this the motor will be sepa- rated from the remaining vehicle and fall back toward the ocean. At approximately 15,000 ft, the aeroshell, a protective heat shield, will be ejected and the parachute recovery system deployed for safe recovery of the booster and motor com- ponents, which will be inspected and refur- bished for reuse. Ares incorporates over 400 energetic de- vices in dozens of different systems. The Joint Strike Fighter, designated the F- 35 Lightning II in July 2006, also enjoyed nu- The Ares I first stage motor merous successes throughout the year, com- undergoes test firing in Utah. February on a Taurus XL, crashed into the pleting first flight for the BF-1 VSTOL aircraft ocean near Antarctica when the rocket’s fair- and the 100th test flight of the AA-1 aircraft. ing (a shroud designed to protect the space- This supersonic multirole fifth-generation craft) failed to separate and release its payload. fighter combines advanced stealth with fighter The failure investigation identified several po- speed and agility, at lower operational and tential causes, one of them related to an ener- support costs. The F-35 uses energetic com- getic component. The observatory was a new ponents and systems for many functions, in- satellite designed to map Earth’s carbon diox- cluding fire suppression, countermeasure de- by Donald Jackson and the AIAA Energetic ide levels. ployment, and crew emergency egress. The Components and Systems NASA’s “workhorse” ELV has been the ejection seat alone uses over 25 energetic Technical Committee Delta II, which has an unsurpassed record of components and systems.

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AEROSPACE DESIGN AND STRUCTURES

Design engineering try standards quickly and in real time. In addi- tion, interaction with workstations, machines, and even other people can now be evaluated easily and quickly within the design. Engineering advances in the design of UAVs continue to evolve at a fast pace as more emphasis is placed on the use and ap- plications of such aircraft. These advances, along with new materials and power plant concepts, allow for larger combinations of payload and duration to create high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) vehicles. The Zephyr is a current example of inte- grating new materials and design ideas in the design and development of a HALE aircraft. By having solar panels integrated into the ve- hicle structure and using ultra-lightweight ma- The Global Observer HALE vehicle is under development for the Special Operations Command. terials, the Zephyr is capable of maintaining flight for up to six months without sacrificing Technology advances in design engineering aircraft structure or weight. Another example emerged in many products and design con- is the Global Observer, under development for cepts this year. From enhancements in design the U.S. Special Operations Command. This tools to exciting new aerospace projects to UAV uses a liquid hydrogen power plant and lessons learned from process failures, the year can carry up to 400 lb of payload with a dura- brought noteworthy products and events that tion of 5-7 days at 65,000 ft. continue to advance the design process. Additional advances in guidance electron- Improved design tools continue to provide ics and situational awareness information cre- the design engineer with more capability to ate opportunities for the aerospace design en- execute the design process efficiently. Human gineer to enhance UAV capabilities further factors are often an important consideration, with autonomous flight and even coordinate and there are many computer applications “swarms” of UAVs to achieve complicated available to assist design engineers with this. mission objectives. These tools can measure attributes such as Several noteworthy process failures have hand and tool access, dexterity requirements, also occurred in aerospace products. The Air- and ergonomics. They are also critical in de- bus A380 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner pro- veloping procedures for the manufacturing vide high-profile examples of critical process process. failures that have delayed deliveries of both Closing the gap between design tools and new vehicles. The design engineer must take these manufacturing tools even further, to- note of the lessons learned from these failures day’s CAD applications are now including hu- and apply appropriate corrective actions as man models as part of the design space. This the aerospace design and manufacturing pro- allows concurrent design and assessment of cess continues to evolve. human factors issues such as ergonomics and For example, the A380 wiring design cre- safety and compares the results against indus- ated a major problem when it switched to alu- minum wire and did not correctly account for New materials and design ideas the increased bend radii and wire diameter re- were integrated into the design quirements of the two different versions of de- and development of the Zephyr sign software in use at the various design fa- HALE UAV. cilities. The 787 recently suffered a structural anomaly that was induced by using the wrong component models in the stress analysis. Nei- ther of these were major design issues, but a lack of configuration management in the de- sign process led to both of these problems and ultimately caused delays in each program. Proper configuration management of designs, models, and processes is critical, especially as by E.Russ Althof the level of design complexity increases.

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Modeling and simulation projected displays. The solution may depend on the type of helicopter and its cockpit lay- out. The roles of motion and vibration and The International Working Group (IWG) their integration with visual systems have also formed under the auspices of the Royal Aero- received particular attention. nautical Society (RAeS) has completed its re- Publication of Document 9625, Volume I, vision and expansion of Volume I of the Man- provides the National Aviation Authorities ual of Criteria for the Qualification of Flight (NAA) with guidance materials for updating Simulation Training Devices (FSTD), Edition their regulations for the initial and periodic 3, International Civil Aviation Organization qualification and evaluation of airplane FSTD. (ICAO) Document 9625. Published on July 1, Several states have indicated an intent to do so it is now available in English from the ICAO in the interest of international harmonization. Online Store (http://store1.icao.int/document In the U.S., 14 CFR FAR (14 Code of Fed- ItemView.ch2?ID=7673). eral Regulations Federal Aviation Regulation) Volume I of the manual covers the qualifi- Part 60, Flight Simulation Device Initial and cation criteria for airplane FSTD. Work con- tinues on Volume II, which will address the cri- teria for rotary wing FSTD. The rotary group of the IWG expects to present its draft to ICAO and the RAeS in early 2010 to be pub- lished late that year. Both volumes contain three parts. Part I, “Training Task Derived Flight Sim- ulation Requirements,” is based on an analysis of airline pilot training needs and lists the fea- tures (such as cues) and fidelity levels required to support each task. Part II, “Flight Simulation Training Device Criteria,” lists criteria for standard examples of FSTD derived from Part I, supporting de- fined training types such as MPL1 (Multicrew Pilot License Phase 1) core flying skills. Vol- ume I defines seven FSTD examples. Volume II is expected to offer three or four helicopter FSTD examples. Part III, “Flight Simulation Feature and Fi- delity Level Criteria,” serves to define the qualification and validation testing require- ments for feature fidelity levels determined in Volume I of the revised manual Part I. It will allow operators and manufactur- covers simulators for fixed-wing ers to design purpose-built devices that do not Continuing Qualification and Use, has under- craft, like this one for the correspond to any of the standard examples gone no changes this year, although the NAA Boeing 737. (Image courtesy 737flightsimulator.co.uk.) defined in Part II. It will also permit currently are considering incorporating at least some qualified FSTD to be upgraded to meet new provision of Document 9625 in the future. regulations by comparing their features with On January 12, the NAA finally published 14 those defined in Part I. CFR Parts 65, 119, 121, and others (“Quali- In Volume I, the challenge of defining ob- fication, Service, and Use of Crewmembers jective criteria for the evaluation of motion and Aircraft Dispatchers Proposed Rule”) to systems leaves this area subject to further replace FAR Part 121 Subparts N and O. The study. Similarly, the lack of technical solutions original comment period was extended and for simulating a full air traffic control environ- expired on August 10. ment requires further research. Nevertheless, The Administrative Procedures Act re- the document addresses both items. quires the regulations to be published within The challenge for the helicopter group 16 months of the expiration of the comment working on Volume II has been evaluating the period, with an effective date of one month constraints imposed by the use of collimated later—that is, no later than early 2011. As of by the AIAA Modeling visual systems versus the problems arising this writing, the NAA are determining how to and Simulation from direct view visual systems such as dome expedite this process. Technical Committee

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AEROSPACE DESIGN AND STRUCTURES

Computer-aided enterprise ager/PLM systems for management of highly configured products, PLCS interoperability solutions needs have increased. Currently, the most widespread application At the end of last year there was much discus- of PLCS is in the area of specification and sion of the Aerospace Industries Association’s control of support activities throughout a com- recommendation “that AIA members and plex product’s life. When you examine the companies transition to standards-based inter- scope of PLCS, also known as AP239, there operability solutions based on the Product is the concept of OASIS data exchange sets Lifecycle Support Standard (PLCS).” At the (DEXs) and other reference data. A DEX is a time, the AIA was also developing “best prac- subset of PLCS capability suited for a particu- tice guidelines to help organizations develop lar business process and enables the use of their own business cases for transitioning to Web-based technology. A sample of existing standards-based data exchange and optimiz- DEXs for logistics support would include: ing their business processes.” •DEX1: Product breakdown defines the Using PLCS within aerospace companies PLM product structure relationship to a logis- in accordance with the published AIA best tics control number or other structures used to practices guidelines is now becoming widely manage support, and provides links to rele- accepted. Boundaries have been crossed to vant documents. create a consortium consisting of AIA, the Eu- •DEX3: A task set for the exchange of a ropean Aerospace and Defense Association, set of task descriptions, to support a work and standards organizations to work as plan, or for use in multiple support solution LOTAR International. Its purpose is to investi- definition. gate and develop approaches using standards PLM systems are now communicating via for the long-term archiving of digital product PLCS with systems that extend far beyond the data. PLCS will be a key component of this traditional design and manufacture lifecycle management capabilities of PLM systems. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PLCS is expanding the definition of product lifecycle to a position long desired—inclusion PLCS can be seen as the standards glue that of the lifecycle portion after production for maintained and supported products. allows PLM, ILS, and other specifications to As affirmed in PLCS DEX1, there are rel- communicate effectively without the high evant documents or electronic processes that development and software support costs must be linked and controlled between PLM and ILS (integrated logistics systems) for main- of custom integrations. tenance and support. PLCS-based repositories often tie together IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII PLM, ILS, and document or international specifications such as these, which are critical activity and will address the requirement to to logistics and maintenance of air, land, and archive product data in such a way that it is sea products: usable decades from now. •S1000D: Technical documentation utiliz- What exactly is PLCS and how does it tie ing a common source database. in to other standards to advance interoperabil- •S2000M: Material management and inte- ity within or between organizations and help grated data processing for military equipment. improve their business? Ask people creating •S3000L: Activities and requirements gov- and consuming engineering and CAD data erning the logistic support analysis process. what STEP (standard for the exchange of •S4000M: Procedure handbook for the product model data) is, and 95% of them will capture of maintenance for military aircraft. correctly state that it is used for translating PLCS can be seen as the standards glue parts or assemblies between CAD formats. that allows PLM, ILS, and other specifications These files are often known as application to communicate effectively without the high protocol (AP) 203 or AP214. PLCS repre- development and software support costs of sents the portion of the STEP standard ad- custom integrations. PLCS can free organiza- dressing product lifecycle management (PLM) tions from legacy approaches to product life- data interoperability in addition to lifecycle cycle support and enable them to meet the dy- by Jim Martin support of products. As aerospace companies namic technical and business needs of the and Mike R.Jahadi have expanded the use of product data man- aerospace world today.

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Ground testing

The past year has been tumultuous, with con- tinued support for efforts like NASA’s Con- stellation program and the USAF Joint Strike Fighter, and cancellation of other programs such as the hypersonic Blackhawk HTV-3X. Even the continuing programs experienced funding and deployment uncertainties that re- sulted in schedule stretch-outs. Testing for re- search continued, although limited budgets for fundamental aeronautics research remained at significantly depressed levels compared with those of earlier decades. NASA and ATK successfully test System development for new, “major” an Orion launch abort system weapon system aerospace programs is in de- opment Center (AEDC) 16-ft transonic wind motor in a 5.5-sec test in the Utah desert at Promontory. cline, although momentum for technology de- tunnel. velopment associated with environmentally •As part of the series of 787 tests required responsible aviation has increased. R&D for before flight clearance, Boeing successfully technologies associated with UAVs has been completed a high-pressure airframe static test on the increase, especially at the system and to 150% of expected maximum service pres- subsystem levels. sure at its Everett, Wash., facility. The availability of test facilities remained •An acoustics research investigation of an challenging, as owners balanced readiness ultra-high-bypass fan rig was accomplished at and uncertain workloads with managing aging the NASA Glenn 9x15 low-speed wind tun- infrastructure, static maintenance budgets, nel, including tests of various fan rubstrips and and targeted investments in improvements “soft” vanes for noise attenuation. and modernization. Ground testing of aero- •AEDC fielded a new test technique that space systems encompasses services for a essentially “flew” an Army projectile model in wide variety of products, requiring an equally its 4-ft transonic wind tunnel via continuous wide variety of test capabilities. measurement, feedback, and remote control This year there were several facility and that positioned control surfaces based on testing highlights: measured loads. •Testing in NASA’s Ares and Orion pro- •In the first customer test since a multiyear grams included launch abort vehicle separa- facility upgrade at its Aerodynamic and Pro- tion testing in the Langley 14x22-ft subsonic pulsion Test Unit, AEDC accomplished a suc- wind tunnel, high-Reynolds-number testing at cessful freejet test on a dual-mode combined the National Transonic Facility, Ares I-X and ramjet/scramjet hypersonic engine for pad testing for ground winds at Langley’s DARPA’s Falcon combined cycle engine test. transonic dynamics tunnel, and a successful Additional highlights included a recent suc- test of the Orion launch abort motor at ATK’s cessful Ares first-stage motor firing at the ATK An engineer inspects part of the Utah facility. Utah facility, continued construction of the simulated launch tower between scale model tests of NASA’s Ares •A 2-Axis Test Facility is under construc- new A-3 test stand at NASA Stennis, closing I-X rocket in the Langley tran- tion at NASA Glenn in support of the Ares I of the Langley full-scale tunnel this fall, con- sonic dynamics tunnel. upper stage thrust vector control engineering tinued ground testing of JSF systems (airframe program to evaluate the TVC integrated hy- and propulsion systems) as flight testing pro- draulic system, control dynamics, and various ceeds, and aviation-safety-related icing re- failure-mode and off-nominal behaviors. search conducted regularly at the Glenn Icing •The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency Research Tunnel. completed a series of firing tests of a hyper- Ground testing growth markets likely in- sonic precooled turbojet engine at its Taiki clude unmanned air systems, environmentally Aerospace Research Field on Hokkaido Island. responsible aviation research, commercial •A NASA Mars Science Laboratory para- space transportation, component and weap- chute was tested at the Glenn 10x10-ft su- ons/stores integration for USAF fighter sys- personic wind tunnel. tems, and improvements and research in ma- •Store separation testing of the F/A-18E/F terials, acoustics, planetary reentry flow took place at the Arnold Engineering Devel- physics, and aviation safety. by Steven Dunn

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Materials material to rise dramatically; it may even cause explosive vaporization of the resin. As a result, damage from lightning strikes to CFRPs can vary from degradation of the fiber-resin inter- face to fragmentation of the laminate. To address these issues, the Automobili Lamborghini Advanced Composites Structures Laboratory in the Dept. of Aeronautics & As- tronautics at the University of Washington has opened a new facility that can simulate the ef- fects of lightning strikes on CFRP. The labora- tory’s 44-kV generator can generate up to 100,000 amps and can release it in less than 50 microsec. The generator is used to study the fundamental interactions of lightning strike on CFRP specimens, including the effects of material characteristics, lightning strike protec- tion systems, and repair methodologies. The lightning damage tolerance characteristics of CFRP carbon fiber composite structures are being evaluated in a manner consistent with A long-exposure picture shows a 30,000-amp strike with incandescent CFRP debris. the framework of impact damage characteriza- tion, including visibility thresholds and allow- able damage limits for repair as well as regula- Recent advances in the manufacturing, analy- tory agency load requirements. sis, and characterization of materials by NASA Marshall has recently manufactured NASA, the Air Force, academia, and industry a friction stir welded (FSW) Al-Li 2195 dem- will lead to lighter and more durable aero- onstration article for the Ares I rocket. This is space structures. the first time a complex curvature dome has NASA has initiated an advanced compos- been welded using the FSW technique. This ites technologies project to develop compos- innovative process produces high-strength, ite materials and structures technologies for high-quality welds without melting the alloy. Ares V and Altair applications. This effort in- The dome, completed in July, is the first de- cludes participation from six NASA centers, velopment hardware assembled for the Ares I industry, and universities. The project is work- upper stage liquid hydrogen fuel tank. The as- ing collaboratively with the Air Force Re- sembly took place at Marshall’s Weld Devel- search Laboratory to develop out-of-auto- opment Facility using a specially designed ro- clave (OOA) composite processing technology botic weld tool. FSW will be used for all of the for large aerospace structures. A demonstra- major structural welds on the Ares I upper tion of the potential for OOA technology was stage, including welds at difficult angles re- part of the Air Force’s Advanced Composite quired for the bulkhead and other large metal- Cargo Aircraft (ACCA), which developed an lic structures. OOA composite fuselage for a Dornier 328J As part of NASA’s subsonic fixed wing that flew in June 2008. Manufactured by project, metallic open-cell foams are being de- Lockheed Martin, the ACCA had 90% fewer veloped for use in aircraft engines because of parts and 98% fewer fasteners than the origi- their ability to reduce engine noise, absorb im- nal aircraft. pact, and reduce structural weight. Work is The effects of lightning strike on aero- under way at NASA Glenn to identify and cor- space structures made of composite materials relate the relationship between key character- are an ongoing concern. Although aluminum istics of the foam microstructure and impor- airframe structures are highly conductive, car- tant acoustic properties such as the noise bon fiber reinforced polymers (CFRPs) have attenuation parameter. Detailed quantitative very low electrical conductivity because of the measurements are currently under way at dielectric nature of the polymeric matrix. A Glenn to characterize the microstructures of large amount of energy is delivered very rap- FeCrAlY and stainless steel foams and to cor- idly during a lightning strike, which may cause relate them with the acoustic impedance char- the ionized channel to expand with supersonic acteristics and the pressure flow resistance of by Edward H. Glaessgen speed and the temperature of the neighboring the foams.

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Survivability jettisoned from the ISS in 2007 burned and disintegrated during reentry more than 15 months later on November 3, 2008. Then, in The twin-prop, fixed-wing tactical Joint Cargo January of this year, a Russian nuclear-pow- Aircraft was subjected to triservice live fire test ered satellite, Cosmos-1818, partially disinte- and evaluation (LFT&E) under the auspices of grated, posing both debris and radiation haz- the mandatory Title 10 testing requirement. ards. And this February, debris was splashed The Army tested the flight controls, armor, into orbit from the accidental collision of two energetic materials, and oxygen systems communications satellites, one Russian and against ballistic threats. The Air Force tested one U.S., over Siberia. Overall, it is estimated the engine nacelle fire extinguishing system that 19,000 debris pieces larger than 10 cm and made initial evaluations of the wing lead- are floating in orbit (among 300,000 pieces ing- and trailing-edge dry bays. The Navy as- larger than 1 cm). They are monitored closely sisted by evaluating wing fire, hydrodynamic at NASA Johnson by the agency’s Orbital De- ram effect, and propeller vulnerabilities to bal- bris Program Office. NASA, ESA, and the listic threats. The Air Force also performed U.N. have held meetings recently to consider LFT&E on the four-engine fixed wing mod- formulating regulations to curb collisions and ernized Super Galaxy C-5M transport aircraft protect satellites and space vehicles. to evaluate its survivability against potential fire initiation and sustainment in the engine A tool bag lost in space by an pylon areas due to ballistic threats. Endeavour astronaut during a After the January 15, 2009, multiple bird spacewalk to repair the ISS solar panel on November 18, strike to the US Airways aircraft resulted in 2008,orbited for more than complete loss of power in its two jet engines eight months before burning and an emergency landing on the Hudson during its reentry on August 3. River in New York City, bird strike warning devices began receiving more attention for civilian aircraft survivability and safety. The New York Airport Authority is preparing to in- stall and test a bird radar (very much like any other radar) at JFK airport. If it proves suc- cessful, LaGuardia and New Jersey’s Newark airport will each receive one. The FAA is re- fining a system at Seattle’s airport first, to en- sure that the device does not “see” too much or too little. Other avian radars are now also being developed by some vendors. Space debris is becoming a serious prob- lem. In October 2008, NASA celebrated its 50th anniversary with a proposed vision cen- tered on establishing a permanent manned lu- nar station as a base for further planetary ex- ploration. This vision must take into account survivability against space debris, an issue that literally exploded into the front pages follow- ing several major incidents in 2008 and 2009. First, the ISS had to use thrusters on Au- gust 27, 2008, in a maneuver to avoid a piece of space junk that NASA described as part of Other survivability-related R&D efforts the Cosmos-2421 satellite that had separated continued this year. The Air Force is studying the previous March. Next, a 30-lb repair tool the degradation in composite materials due to bag was lost in space on November 18, 2008, brief but intense fuel fires. Also, an aircraft fire by an astronaut of the Endeavour space shuttle prediction model is being validated through a during a spacewalk to repair the ISS. The bag series of tests involving ballistic impacts orbited for more than eight months before it against generic fuel tank and dry-bay configu- by Ameer Mikhail, burned during reentry on August 3. Third, a rations. The goal is to enhance fire survivabil- Adam Goss, and 1,400-lb refrigerator-sized ammonia servicer ity after impact. Dan Cyphers

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Nondeterministic at the Naval Academy, together with the approaches Army Cold Regions Research and Engineer- ing Laboratory. This method provides sensi- tivity information throughout both the spatial Nondeterministic approaches (NDA) are es- and parameter domains of a computational sential for the effective application of model- mechanics model based on sampling of surro- based simulations in engineering. A 2009 gate models. Researchers at the University of World Technology Evaluation Center (WTEC) Arizona are developing techniques for con- panel report, “International Assessment of structing explicit nonlinear limit state func- Research and Development in Simulation- tions using support vector machines (SVM), a Based Engineering and Science” (SBE&S), type of supervised machine learning. The emphasized the importance of SBE&S for fu- SVM-based limit state functions are developed ture technical and economic development, with both computational and experimental and the necessity of NDA both for quantifying data, and form the basis for an efficient relia- uncertainty in SBE&S models and for verifica- bility-based design optimization algorithm for problems with competing failure modes. NDA techniques and nondeterministic SBE&S made headway in real-world applica- tions this year as the desire to lower operating costs drove operators to consider alternate ways of doing business. Nondeterministic serv- ice life management tools developed by VEX- TEC are being used to establish the warranty periods and maintenance intervals for indus- trial equipment, automotive fleets, and aero- space vehicles. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) assessed the impact of condition-based NDA can be used to propagate maintenance on the reliability of dynamic hel- uncertainty through a model tion and validation (V&V). The panel noted icopter components. In collaboration with the and compute the sensitivity of the strong leadership shown in NDA develop- Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and the outputs to input parameters. ment by the DOE and DOD, but pointed out Naval Air Systems Command, SwRI devel- the lack of organizational structures in the oped a probabilistic methodology to predict U.S. for further developing and capitalizing the risk of fracture of engine disks subjected to on it. The panel also decried the worldwide fretting fatigue, a major source of damage in lack of graduate curricula in stochastic model- aircraft turbine engine components. ing and simulation. Engineers also looked at NDA to improve A critical frontier for development identi- the efficiency of products by reducing the fied by the WTEC panel is the development of weight resulting from overly conservative de- sophisticated approaches toward V&V, uncer- signs. SwRI and AFRL developed a rigorous tainty quantification (UQ), and risk assessment probabilistic framework to assess turbine en- to provide confidence in SBE&S. Develop- gine reliability when multiple (competing) fail- ments in these three areas occur in islands of ure mechanisms, each involving multiple excellence at national labs and universities. anomalies, are simultaneously active at multi- Sandia National Laboratories has been ac- ple locations. The purpose was to provide a tively working these areas for years and con- more accurate estimate of lower bound lives, tinues to do so. Techniques for reducing the eliminating the overconservatism that may oc- discretization (mesh) dependence in physics cur when failures resulting from different models where results do not deterministically mechanisms are lumped together into a single converge with mesh refinement were investi- population. gated. In addition, Sandia and partner institu- SwRI also worked with NASA and other tions worked to improve the efficiency of team members to develop practical guidelines propagating uncertainties in input parameters for performing probabilistic fracture mechan- through models to estimate the uncertainty in ics assessments. The ability to identify and cat- output variables. alog overconservative design margins result- Universities are responsible for many of ing from applying safety factors on top of the mathematical developments in V&V, UQ, other safety factors using NDA is being and risk assessment. Improvement of a global, demonstrated by VEXTEC and Vanderbilt by Eric Tuegel full-field sensitivity analysis method continued University.

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The STAR blades on a Zond Z-48 Structural dynamics turbine are one example of structurally efficient turbine blades. Every few decades, structural dynamicists get an opportunity to conduct a modal survey test on an integrated launch vehicle to verify the dynamic loads and control models in prepara- tion for the first flight. This summer provided that rare chance. Engineers and analysts from NASA Glenn, Johnson, Langley, and Mar- shall converged on Kennedy Space Center to perform such a test on the Ares I-X flight test vehicle, a 327-ft-tall, 1.8-million-lb rocket constrained to the mobile launch platform at four hold-down locations. NASA recently completed Ares I-X stack subassembly modal tests, followed by a full vehicle test. The ac- quired data verify the accuracy of Ares I-X dy- namic models for loads prediction and vehicle pleted a three-year study on the effects of control analyses. power and signal cables on the dynamic re- NASA Marshall is preparing for the Ares I sponse of large precision structures. The integrated vehicle ground vibration test study aimed to discover practical ways of up- planned for 2012. The test will verify fre- dating dynamical models of cabled structures. quencies, modes, and damping for the Ares I Modal models treating cables as nonstructural launch vehicle at five points in flight (full stack masses cannot capture high frequencies. liftoff, full stack first stage end-of-burn, and Hence a more complex, yet practical, ap- three upper stage flight points) to support proach to cable modeling was studied. Exper- guidance, navigation, and control as well as imental and computational techniques were loads requirements. The landmark Marshall developed to extract structural properties of Dynamic Test Stand (TS4550) has undergone cables used in the space industry and create extensive renovations. The access platforms an extensive database. used for the shuttle are being replaced with a Flapping wing micro air vehicles could rev- “mast climber” for the Ares I test. olutionize information gathering in areas such Sandia developed new computational as environmental monitoring and homeland tools for massively parallel structural dynamics security. At the University of Michigan, new analysis, and evaluated a novel wind turbine computational tools have been created for pre- blade design. These tools enable high-fidelity dicting aeroelastic effects on these vehicles. In July, ULA and Ball Aerospace finite-element analysis of structural-acoustic Using high-fidelity finite-element simulations, interns launched four rockets to various altitudes. systems. A quadratic eigenvalue solver and these tools can determine the amount of wing mesh tying options for structure-acoustic in- flexibility for enhancing aerodynamic perform- terfaces were implemented in Salinas, San- ance. A low-order framework, involving non- dia’s massively parallel code, for better cou- linear beam, potential flow aerodynamics, and pled analyses. Sandia has been developing nonlinear flight dynamics, is used for coupled innovative concepts for structurally efficient flight dynamic and aeroelastic simulations. turbine blades. The 27-m STAR (sweep-twist United Launch Alliance and Ball Aero- adaptive rotor), developed with Knight and space summer interns held their annual high- Carver, is one such blade. power rocket launch event in July, launching First-of-a-kind computations were con- four rockets that attained above-ground-level ducted at NASA Ames for rotor blades using altitudes of 4,494 ft, 4,000 ft, 8,809 ft, and RUNEXE, a C++ based process that facili- 4,632 ft. The third one exceeded Mach 1. tates time accurate coupling of CFD and rotor The last one, 20 ft 4 in. tall and weighing 137 blade CSD (computational structural dynam- lb, successfully deployed its main payload at ics) codes. Unlike works that rely on linear apogee. Then, at 1,700 ft, an egg drop con- aerodynamics codes and the measured thrust traption was ejected and deployed a para- coefficient, validations were performed by us- chute that returned it safely to the ground. In ing only primitive independent parameters: just 10 weeks, the 60 interns built the rocket rotating and forward speeds. and payloads, built a load test fixture, and The Air Force Research Laboratory com- conducted avionics validation tests. by Suresh Shrivastava

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Adaptive structures tive damping technology to reduce vibrations in fan, compressor, and potentially turbine blades, using piezoelectric materials, plasma- Rotorcraft technology was an area of signifi- sprayed damping coatings, and high-damp- cant activity this year in the field of adaptive ing, high-temperature shape memory alloy structures. The Army and Sikorsky will dem- materials. onstrate an adaptive rotor system that im- The Adaptive Structures Team at the Air proves rotor performance, reduces vibration Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) has fabri- levels, and lowers acoustics. Technologies in- cated representative morphing skin concepts clude active trailing-edge flaps, leading-edge to demonstrate single-material shape-memory slats, and a hub-mounted vibration suppres- polymer solutions that allow morphing with sion system. Full-scale hardware will be tested minimal strain energy while maintaining outer on the Sikorsky rotor whirl stand and in the mold line integrity. They have also investi- National Full-Scale Aerodynamic Complex gated thermally activated actuation of a de- wind tunnel at NASA Ames. ployable system using available ambient heat Eurocopter and EADS Innovation are also caused by high-speed delivery. The concept investigating active trailing-edge actuator con- relies on thermal switches and internal heat cepts. The actuator is a multimorph bender storage in phase-change materials before ac- including piezoelectric ceramics and glass tivation of the deployment mechanism. fiber-reinforced plastics. Advantages of the For micro air vehicles (MAVs), AFRL con- tinues to investigate poststall transient aerody- namics loads for perching MAV concepts, and anticipates mechanism, vehicle, and control design to begin late this year. Another element of adaptive structures is structural health monitoring. Arizona State University developed an adaptive prognosis model based on improved kernel functions to enhance on-line Gaussian process models and physics-based models. The team is investigat- ing multiscale modeling of woven composites, Penn State and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research optimal sensor placement, and sensor fusion. developed a novel clapping-wing nano airframe Alpha STAR and the University of California developed a diagnostic prognostic system us- concept are smoothly deflected contours in ing optical fiber sensing, wireless strain gauge, chordwise and spanwise direction. Eurocopter and remote data transmission. Software was has built a blade segment for testing. DARPA developed to determine the failure location, is leading a mission adaptive rotor program failure cycle/load, and the contributing failure that could enable morphing of the rotor and mechanisms. University of Michigan research possibly boost payloads by 30% and range by focused on the design of directional transduc- 40%, reduce sound by 50%, and decrease vi- ers for efficient guided wave excitation, em- bration by 90% compared to the usual fixed phasizing composite materials. Damage inter- rotor blades. rogation approaches are using a composite NASA is using adaptive structures technol- long-range variable-length emitting radar ogy for airframe noise reduction and engine vi- transducer, which is able to inspect a com- bration reduction. Noise produced by unsteady plete structural surface from a central location. flow around gaps, cavities, edges, and articula- Penn State and the Air Force Office of Sci- tion mechanisms associated with multielement entific Research and have developed a novel airfoils of transport aircraft has emerged as an 4-cm-wingspan, 1-g clapping-wing nano air- important contributor to airport community frame. The aircraft’s four wings are driven by noise. Research is directed at developing prac- three piezoelectric T-beam actuators monolith- tical concepts and prototypes for low-noise ically fabricated from bulk 1-mm-thick PZT- transport wing structures. Notional solutions 5H. A hinge and lever mechanism amplifies include slat-cove filler, drooped leading-edge, the small actuator displacements to produce and conformal trailing-edge link concepts. 60-deg wing motions from DC to 12 Hz using Vibrations in engines lead to thicker blade 0.4 V/μm applied electric field. The polymer design, fatigue, and reduced life. NASA has wings clap together at the end of the stroke to by David Voracek developed and demonstrated a smart adap- amplify thrust.

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Aerospace structures woven and braided composite responses. The Air Force Institute of Advanced flying wing configurations like the Technology conducted impact blended wing body offer superior operating studies at 108 Joules of titanium economics, but such benefits will not material- and titanium boride monolithic ize until fundamental structural challenges in- and functionally graded com- volving pressurization and producibility are posite plates. A finite-element solved. NASA Langley and Boeing are devel- model was developed to com- oping pultruded rod stitched efficient unitized pare with material response us- structure concepts. Complex stitched panel ing a local random distribution assemblies are built without exacting toler- of constituents. Hawk moths ances, and then accurately net molded in sin- have proven to be valuable mod- gle oven-cure operations. Soft-tooled fabrica- els for MAV design. tion methods, where bagging films conform to Ball Aerospace is emphasiz- inner moldline surfaces, eliminate current ing high-g-level shock testing costly tooling. and analysis for electronic com- At MIT, numerous advances are continuing ponents and assemblies. Its re- Ares I-X stands on launch pad to drive nanocomposite research upward in searchers have tested numerous board config- 39b at the Kennedy Space Center on Oct. 26 awaiting its flight scale and complexity to aerospace structural urations, creating software tools, engaging test launch. (Photo Credit: applications. Taking advantage of scale and experts, and implementing the most current NASA/Bill Ingalls.) exceptional properties of carbon nanotubes data reduction techniques. The program also (CNTs), thin films and hierarchical materials focuses on practical uses of “pseudo velocity” are now being realized. Examples include na- techniques, which can bring crucial insight in noengineered composites—hybrid composites deciphering test results. with 3D aligned CNT reinforcement. NASA’s Orion crew exploration vehicle is Mississippi State is using multiscale design a complex state-of-the-art spacecraft that will methodologies to investigate nanoreinforce- have more capability, flexibility, and adapt- ment effects on primary structure fiber-rein- ability than any previous vehicle. The full-sized forced composite properties. Critical issues in- module will be ground tested in vibration, clude selection of key combinations of fibers, acoustics, and water landing loadings equiva- matrix materials, and nanoreinforcements; lent to flight environments. The initial weld fabrication of fine- and coupon-scale testing joined an aluminum-lithium 2195 cone panel samples; and multiscale material modeling stra- and AL 2219 longeron using an innovative tegies for assessing high-performance nano- friction stir welding process. composites material processing influences. In June 2008, AFRL and Lockheed Mar- Arizona State University, in collaboration tin launched a new era of aircraft manufactur- with the AFRL/RB/Boeing structural hot- ing technology and performance with the suc- spots program, is researching structural health cessful demonstration flight of the advanced management (SHM) and damage prognosis composite cargo aircraft (a modified Dornier for existing and future structures. A multi- 328J). Lacking traditional rivet fasteners, the scale-modeling framework has been devel- composite structure is aerodynamically clean. oped for tracking the nucleation of damage in The fuselage is wider and stronger, and the metallic materials from grain level to structural vertical tail features integrally stiffened skin. failure. Other efforts include the development Fuselage materials and processes reduced the of robust online/offline SHM and prognostic number of parts by an order of magnitude tools using system identification and Bayesian over metallic designs. statistics. NASA Glenn spent two years designing NASA’s integrated vehicle health manage- and building the upper stage Ares I-X rocket ment program has brought significant accom- simulator (which has since been delivered to plishments in multiscale modeling, guided- the launch pad and had its first test launch). wave-based damage detection, and novel sig- Glenn examined many transportation options nal processing techniques for information because of the sheer part sizes. Twelve trac- management. Through the use of machine tor-trailer rigs were used to load the 11 18-ft- learning and data reduction techniques, sen- wide, under 10-ft-tall cylinders, each weighing sor signals and training time storage require- between 24,000 and 60,000 lb. The 100- ments have been reduced. High-velocity im- yard-long Delta Mariner is designed to navi- pact research is under way to determine gate both rivers and oceans. by Harry H.Hilton

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Missile systems

This was an exciting and productive year for new rocket and missile systems and for those nearing completion. The laser-guided Zuni, the LOGIR (low-cost guided imaging rocket), and the HSAD (high-speed antiradiation dem- onstration) programs all completed significant tests. As a result, there is continuing accelera- tion toward use of new elements with proven technology to create weapons that meet war- fighters’ current needs. The laser-guided Zuni, a high-performance forward-firing semiactive weapon, incorpo- rates a baseline 5-in. Zuni rocket motor with a laser guidance kit attached. In a very suc- cessful test, the weapon made a direct hit on a A laser-guided Zuni impacts the target board. target board less than 1 m from the laser spot. LOGIR, as its name implies, is designed to provide a low-cost guidance enhancement ca- pability for unguided rockets. Its technology ramjet demonstrator supporting a turbine- will significantly reduce a pilot’s exposure to based combined cycle hypersonic vehicle. attack by improving standoff and reducing en- Over 30 test runs were completed at Mach 3, gagement timelines, as well as enhancing the 4, and 6. The Mach-6 runs were also the cen- Navy’s ability to deal with asymmetric threats. ter’s first hypersonic air-breathing propulsion A LOGIR firing test was conducted this year test of a near-flight scale engine, and thus rep- against a representative fast inshore attack resent a significant milestone for AEDC. craft target. When the rocket was fired, the in- Joint rocket/missile tests and launches ertial measurement unit (IMU) reset as a con- proved to be effective. A USAF Minotaur I sequence of pyroshock, and the weapon im- rocket launched the Air Force Research Lab’s pacted the sea shortly thereafter. Even so, the TacSat-3 satellite, and NASA’s PharmaSat test proved invaluable for understanding the microsatellite and CubeSat technology dem- launch environment of the rocket motors and onstration experiments into LEO in May. This the limitations of low-cost IMUs. Based on the mission marked the third launch of a Minotaur findings from this firing, the weapon is under- I launch vehicle from NASA Wallops and the going design changes, and a repeat test is eighth Minotaur I mission. scheduled for early 2010. The MDA, U.S. Pacific Fleet ships, and The HSAD program included the success- their crews successfully conducted an Aegis ful flight demonstration of an integral rocket ballistic missile defense at-sea firing event in ramjet propulsion system, which incorporates July. It was the 19th successful intercept in 23 a nozzleless booster and variable flow ducted at-sea firings for the Aegis BMD program. rocket ramjet technologies. This project’s ob- Also completing successful intercept tests this jective was to flight test a near-tactical-config- year were THAAD (terminal high-altitude ured vehicle with an advanced propulsion and area defense), a mobile system now in devel- control system. The focus was on increased opment and designed to intercept short-to- range and reduced time of flight at critical dis- medium-range ballistic missiles, and a ground- tances, as well as compatibility with evolving based interceptor missile. guidance, navigation, and control compo- The Air Force conducted routine opera- nents. The ultimate goals were performance tional tests of a strategic missile from Vanden- simulation models and an “as-built” design berg AFB as part of a continuing program to data package, to be validated starting from the evaluate and demonstrate the operational component level all the way through vehicle- readiness of a ground-based strategic deter- level free flight tests. rent force. These tests also were used as tar- Arnold Engineering Development Center gets of opportunity for MDA to conduct im- by Jeannie Lee Borden, (AEDC) accomplished testing on the Falcon portant exercises and obtain extensive data Rick Gamble, Shawn Hertz, Ronald Miller, combined cycle engine technology (FaCET) without incurring the expense associated with and Randy Sturgeon program. FaCET is a pathfinder dual-mode launching a test-specific target missile.

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Space colonization included UAV flights, remote rover operation, and an in-situ resource utilization demonstra- tion recovering water and plaster of Paris Progress toward future space settlement is from local minerals. measured in small ways, mostly as incremen- Automated ISS resupply capability demon- tal changes in perception and advances in tar- strated by European and Japanese space ve- geted applied engineering that supports infra- hicles are welcome signs of cooperation and structure development. The past year contin- cost-sharing in these tough economic times. ues this trend. Similarly, the launch of remote sensing mis- It has long been recognized that although sions to the Moon by other nations new to the space settlement/colony development may be space arena is refreshing. Tantalizing evi- technically feasible, it is economically and po- dence of the presence of surface water on the litically unlikely in the foreseeable future. Sev- Moon was found recently, and the eagerly eral books published just this year indicate a awaited results from the NASA Lunar Crater more general acceptance of the concept that Observation and Sensing Satellite mission space settlements are natural extensions of may provide a new boost to the Moon-first human civilization. These include Living in scenario for space exploration. Space by the Aerospace Technology Working As space shuttle operations prepare for Group, Lunar Outpost—The Challenges of Es- another year and start to wind down, work tablishing a Human Settlement on the Moon continues on the Ares I and Ares V vehicles, (Seedhouse; Springer/Praxis), and Space En- terprise: Living and Working Offworld in the Although space settlement may 21st Century (Harris; Springer/Praxis). The re- be technically feasible, it is still economically and politically cently concluded Review of US Human Space- unlikely in the foreseeable future. flight also reports on a strong consensus to (Image produced for NASA by “...the ultimate goal: charting a path for hu- John Frassanito and Associates.) man expansion into the solar system.” Evidence of popular acceptance of space settlement concepts is increasing. The AIAA- sponsored International Space Settlement De- sign Competition involved more than 1,000 high school students worldwide in designing large space settlements in Earth orbit, in lunar orbit, and on the lunar surface. Similarly, the Space Design Contest, a competition organ- and a test flight has been conducted for the ized by the National Space Society (NSS), at- Ares I-X mission. Work continues on the Al- tracted hundreds of entries, primarily from in- tair lunar lander and its ascent and descent en- dividual students. gines. The year also brought progress in work Space settlement concepts and infrastruc- on evaluating the benefits of a small nuclear ture supporting future space settlement were reactor to provide surface power on the featured topics at the AIAA Space 2009 Moon. Any long-term lunar mission will Conference, the 47th AIAA Aerospace Sci- clearly benefit from augmented power for fu- ences Meeting, and the NSS International ture lunar surface operations. Space Development Conference. A Space El- In the short term, the most significant influ- evator Conference provided conceptual de- ences on U.S. national space policy will likely sign refinements for a transportation system come from responses to recommendations by that could reduce costs to GEO to $3,000/ the Augustine commission, which have had a kg, although some challenges were identified. mixed reception in the public forum. The one These include space debris and the realization consistent theme in the commission’s work— that carbon nanotubes may not be as strong that NASA budgets are insufficient to do every- as originally thought. thing the agency is presently attempting, and Private and commercial projects press for- only barely enough to do useful parts of it—is ward toward enabling more people to visit right on target. These discussions are of critical LEO and live above the Earth’s atmosphere. interest to the space settlement community: Bigelow Aerospace advocated an “Orion Lite” Space infrastructure is an initial condition for spacecraft to enable tourist visits to LEO. The establishing space settlements, and decisions by Anita Gale Mars Society’s simulated missions in arctic Ca- made today establish the foundations of to- and Narayanan nada are becoming more sophisticated—these morrow’s space infrastructure. Ramachandran

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Weapon system will hopefully include some of the information effectiveness technology and network elements, but many of the platforms will no longer be procured in their originally planned design. Topics of emerging interest are the network Another downside of networks is their vul- and networks of networks, often falling under nerability to either disruption or other forms the heading of network-centric warfare. Mili- of breakage. Research is ongoing into the sur- tary systems have been developed that handle vivability of networks of networks and under- large amounts of in- standing critical paths and how information formation, and work crosses networks of networks. Included in is ongoing to link these networks are not just the dedicated mili- these various systems tary hardware but also civilian and commercial together in a usable networks over which the military passes infor- fashion. On the posi- mation. To better understand some of the tive side, these net- weaknesses, this year the military held several works of networks “day without space” exercises to examine the can convey more in- ability of information to be transferred if the formation at a faster physical networks of certain space assets were rate than ever be- no longer effectively passing information. fore. It is these net- Given the importance of communications works, for example, and other information processes typically han- that enable the sig- dled by spacecraft, there are a number of op- nificant success of erational thrusts aimed at making these por- UAVs in the battle- tions of the networks more robust. Oper- A Battalion Tactical Operations Center relies on constantly field, from support- ationally Responsive Space (ORS), a joint pro- updated information. The tactical ing their flights through command and control gram office, is coordinating the development readouts are vital for today’s to distributing the collected information to sol- of satellites with common spacecraft compo- Army. (Photo courtesy USA.) diers. It is the networks that enable requests nents that can be quickly assembled and for battlefield support and calls for air strikes— placed in orbit to address specific needs in a and that are allowing soldiers to maintain con- very short time. tact with their homes and families during their On May 19 an Orbital Minotaur I rocket deployments. launched Tactical Satellite-3 from Wallops Is- There are great hopes for networks of net- land as part of the ORS initiative. TacSat-3 in- works and the ability to provide even more in- cluded a hyperspectral imager, a communica- formation. This year U.S. Army Natick an- tions package, and an avionics experiment. nounced its Future Soldier 2030 Initiative, Also, work is ongoing looking at blimps, air- with 25% of the described program goals ships, and high-altitude UAVs to act as relays falling under the headings of “network” and or otherwise replace the information creation “sensors.” In the current theater, pilots are and handling roles of various space assets. asking for iPhones in the cockpit so that they These platforms will be able to maintain net- can be updated continuously regarding devel- work links in an adverse environment. opments on the ground to assist in close-in air Also of concern are direct, intentional support. They would like to see what is hap- electronic attacks on the networks themselves, pening on the ground and have clear identifi- not just physical attacks on the various nodes. cation of targets in dynamic, adverse environ- In November 2008 the military restricted the ments, and these needs for information can use of thumb drives due to difficulties in en- only be achieved by having more bandwidth suring that they were not propagating viruses and data handling capabilities. In other words, and worms. Controlling access into a network by having improved networks. is one way to prevent cyber attacks, but as the Networks have a number of downsides, networks become larger and more interlinked however. One is cost. This year, the Future other methods are being explored to make Combat Systems, a system of systems includ- network communications more robust and re- ing networks linking vehicles and soldiers to- silient, regardless of the physical means of gether on the battlefield and with command transference of information. These ideas and centers in theater and stateside, had its pro- programs are aimed at integrating the net- curement phase canceled by Secretary of De- works and ensuring their success and thus fall fense Gates due to cost. The follow-on pro- squarely in the vision and areas addressed by by James D. Walker gram, Brigade Combat Team Modernization, weapon system effectiveness.

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The Honeybee Robotics/NASA Space resource utilization Kennedy pneumatic mining system was tested on a NASA Ames robotic rover in a vacuum chamber with GRC-1 lunar soil The ability to use local resources will be an en- simulant. abling technology for future exploration of the Moon and beyond. This year was very excit- ing and marked important achievements for several lunar resource utilization technologies. A field demonstration was held at the lunar analog test site on the slopes of Mauna Kea, Hawaii, from November 1 to 16. The test site, operated by PISCES (Pacific International Space Center for Exploration Systems), is lo- cated at an elevation of 9,000 ft and serves as a lunar analog in terms of terrain and soil composition. The RESOLVE, ROxygen, and mit the concentrated so- PILOT projects all successfully operated pro- lar energy to the reactor totype systems during the field demonstration. through fiber optic ca- The RESOLVE system combined a rover bles. The integrated sys- and a drill to identify and extract water ice and tem will be tested at the volatile gases such as hydrogen, helium, and PISCES lunar analog test nitrogen that may exist in the permanently site in February 2010. shadowed craters of the Moon’s poles. Equip- Molten Regolith Elec- ment from the Northern Centre for Advanced trolysis, a joint NASA/ Technology extracted and crushed core drill ASRC Aerospace/MIT/ samples that were then heated in a high-tem- Ohio State University proj- perature reactor from NASA Glenn. The prod- ect, accomplished electro- ucts released from the samples were analyzed winning of silica with an The PILOT system and the using a gas chromatograph and captured with inert anode and performed withdrawal of Lockheed Martin bucketwheel absorbent beds provided by NASA Kennedy molten ferrosilicon alloy from the reactor. excavator were field tested. and Johnson. The entire system was mounted Five NASA in-situ research utilization proj- aboard a rover built by Carnegie Mellon Uni- ects were awarded reduced gravity aircraft versity. The field demonstration tested the ca- flights under the FAST (Facilitated Access to pabilities of all the systems in this lunar the Space Environment for Technology De- prospector in a full end-to-end (roving, drilling, velopment and Training) program. These proj- processing) operation. ects studied size sorting methods and hopper The ROxygen project conducted by John- design assisting regolith flow using a pulsed son and Kennedy and the PILOT project from magnetic field, tribocharged beneficiation of Lockheed Martin both demonstrated proto- regolith, a pneumatic regolith transport device type systems to extract oxygen from lunar re- with electrostatically enhanced cyclone sepa- golith using the hydrogen reduction process at rators, and gas fluidization in a mock reactor. a scale large enough to support a lunar out- All projects were successfully tested. The data post. During the test, Glenn’s CRATOS rover are being analyzed and the results are feeding was used to collect and deliver soil to the directly into the next-generation ISRU oxygen ROxygen system for processing. Lockheed production plants. Martin used a bucket drum excavator to col- Honeybee Robotics, partnered with NASA lect and deliver soil to the PILOT system for Kennedy, developed pneumatic and percus- processing. Both projects successfully ex- sive approaches to regolith excavation and tracted oxygen from the test site soil. transport. The pneumatic approach utilizes Two alternative methods to extract oxy- low-pressure gas to sort and loft regolith parti- gen from the lunar regolith were also further cles over long distances, while the percussive developed. ORBITEC demonstrated the first approach uses a high-frequency hammer to carbothermal reduction of lunar regolith simu- drive a scoop into regolith or push a dozer lant to produce oxygen using direct solar en- blade across the regolith surface. The main ergy. The carbothermal reactor is designed to advantages of the pneumatic system are its be operated remotely and is scaled to produce lack of moving parts and high efficiency. The oxygen at a rate of 1 MT/year. Physical Sci- percussive system significantly reduces the ex- ences built the hardware to collect and trans- cavation force required. by Robert Gustafson

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Life sciences and systems icated shielding, and lunar soil and regolith. In 2008, researchers measured radiation trans- port in lunar soil simulants and Apollo sam- The life sciences and systems community is ples. Shielding properties of carbon foam and conducting numerous aerospace-related ef- ballistic fiberglass were studied this year. forts, with a major focus on enabling human BioServe Space Technologies, a research exploration of space. center at the University of Colorado in Boul- At NASA centers across the country, sys- der, provided payload support for the ISS Na- tems needed to maintain breathable air in tional Lab, which was designated under the spacecraft are being developed. Researchers NASA Authorization Act of 2005. Seven dif- at Johnson have confirmed the functionality ferent biotechnology investigations took place of pressure swing amine bed technology in- this year in BioServe payloads flown on four tended for Orion, Altair, EVA, and lunar elec- shuttle flights under the auspices of the Na- tric rover applications. Complementary devel- tional Lab Pathfinder missions. The commer- opment of air revitalization systems for long cially sponsored experiments focused on vac- duration missions is also under way at NASA cine development and control of cellular Ames, where a closed-loop CO2 removal sys- replication and differentiation processes. The tem is being built incrementally to reduce fate of ISS utilization after 2010 remains un- power associated with water recovery and to certain; however, NASA and the National In- integrate CO2 compression with the CO2 re- stitutes of Health partnered to release a solici- moval function. NASA Marshall held a loop tation for proposals aimed at space-based closure technical interchange meeting, kicking biomedical research on board the ISS. off the effort to “close the air loop” by recov- ORBITEC demonstrated the first carbo- ering oxygen from CO2. thermal reduction of lunar regolith simulant to At NASAJohnson, a simulated Northrop Grumman is supporting space produce oxygen using direct solar energy. crew performs suit loop testing of CAMRAS, an open-loop system for radiation shielding research critical to vehicle The carbothermal reactor, which is designed CO2 removal. to be operated remotely, is scaled to produce oxygen at a rate of 1 metric ton a year. Phys- ical Sciences built the hardware to collect the concentrated solar energy and transmit it to the carbothermal reactor through fiber optic cables. The integrated system will be tested at the PISCES (Pacific International Space Cen- ter for Exploration Systems) lunar analog test site in February 2010. This year saw the initiation of two major efforts for evaluation of current national pol- icy. The National Research Council undertook a “Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space” in response to congres- sional legislation. The objective of the study is to set clear priorities for microgravity research for the coming decade, incorporating biologi- cal, physical, and engineering disciplines to address a wide range of issues in basic and ex- ploration-driven research. On a broader scale, the Obama adminis- tration established a special committee to con- duct an independent review of ongoing U.S. human spaceflight plans and programs, as and habitat design as part of mission planning well as alternatives, to ensure that the nation for the Constellation project. Ground-based is pursuing a safe, innovative, affordable, and particle accelerators produce beams of pro- sustainable trajectory for human spaceflight. tons and heavier ions characteristic of the The life and physical sciences community sub- most hazardous elements of space radiation. mitted a public statement to this committee by Bernadette Luna and the AIAA Life Sciences These beams are directed at materials under regarding the importance of recreating robust and Systems Technical consideration for use in spacecraft and lunar ground and flight programs in biological and Committee habitats, including structural applications, ded- physical research.

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Space tethers The T-Rex test of a new EDT may lead to a generation of propellantless propulsion systems. In this past year, the space tethers community has been preparing for several upcoming flight experiments and developing new sys- tems, applications, and technologies. Early next year, an international team headed by the Kanagawa Institute of Technol- ogy/Nihon University, will launch a Japanese Space Tether Experiment called T-Rex (previ- ously Fortissimo) that will be a suborbital test of a new type of electrodynamic tether (EDT) that may lead to a generation of propellantless propulsion systems for LEO spacecraft. T-Rex will launch from Uchinoura, Kagoshima, Ja- pan on an S-520 sounding rocket. During as- cent, and above approximately 100 km alti- tude, the 300-m-long tape tether will be deployed at a rate of approximately 8 m/sec. to develop system concepts, key elements, Once deployed, the tether will serve as an an- and technology road maps for their use. ode, collecting ionospheric electrons that will A student team from the University of be expelled into space by a hollow cathode Glasgow in Scotland and the KTH Royal Insti- device, thereby completing the circuit and al- tute of Technology in Sweden are designing lowing current to flow. The interaction of the and constructing a tether-based space web tether current with Earth’s magnetic field cre- structure. The system consists of a central hub ates a drag propulsive force. that deploys and stabilizes the web, a specially Drag propulsion is also the principle be- designed reaction wheel with full control, and hind the “terminator tape” deorbit module four daughter units at the web corners provid- that Tethers Unlimited (TUI) is developing for ing web tension and containing inertial meas- microsatellites at altitudes above 1,000 km. urement units for measuring the system’s The module is a “pizza-box”-shaped device forces acting during deployment and stabiliza- that mounts to any face of a satellite. The host tion. The structure will be launched on a spacecraft, once it has completed its mission, REXUS sounding rocket from Esrange, Ki- will activate the system, which will then de- runa, Sweden in early 2010. ploy a 50-150-m-long conductive tape. The Through proof-of-concept studies and ini- tape significantly increases the aerodynamic tial experiments, the Jet Propulsion Labora- drag on the system and also generates passive tory has been investigating tethered systems electrodynamic drag, which deorbits the satel- that deploy an end-effector tens to hundreds lite within 25 years. of meters from a spacecraft, collect a few kilo- The Naval Research Laboratory is also grams of asteroidal regolith, and return the conducting research on spacecraft propulsion sample to the spacecraft. Utilizing shape using EDTs. NRL has a first flight experiment memory alloys allows controlled small-body now in space on board the CP6 CubeSat de- sampling at a much longer distance with lower veloped by CalPoly, launched on TacSaT-3 in risk to the spacecraft and longer sampling du- May. NRL’s experiment will demonstrate and rations than are possible with existing articu- evaluate techniques for collection and emis- lated arms and booms. sion of electrons in Earth’s plasma. Planned North Carolina State University is design- for flight in 2012, the next experiment being ing a tether-ballast system for diverting the tra- developed at NRL is the use of CubeSats as jectory of potentially hazardous asteroids the end masses for a complete 1-km-long (PHAs). By using detailed dynamic computer EDT system. models, they have determined parametrically AFOSR has funded a team from Penn the tether length and ballast mass necessary to State, University of Michigan, and TUI to ex- divert the asteroids currently cataloged in amine the use of EDTs for energy harvesting NASA’s PHA database. The system works by on spacecraft. The goal is to develop a better changing the location of the center of mass of by Sven G. Bilén and the understanding of the power generation capa- the system and changing the asteroid’s trajec- AIAA Space Tethers bilities of EDT systems on various scales, and tory to a non-Keplerian orbit. Technical Committee

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Space logistics kg of waste cargo to be burned up during re- entry. The next of the new cargo vehicles scheduled to fly to ISS, the SpaceX Dragon, This year the most complex space logistics has three demonstration missions scheduled project ever conceived continued to unfold be- for 2010. The third mission will be a full ISS fore our eyes. Assembly of the ISS is nearing rendezvous, berthing, cargo delivery, and re- its 2010 completion date after a multidecadal turn mission. The third new craft slated to fly international design and construction effort. to the station is Orbital Sciences’ Cygnus Maintaining this human outpost in a healthy cargo vehicle. Its demonstration mission to and productive state is an unprecedented logis- rendezvous, berth, and deliver cargo to ISS is currently scheduled for early 2011. The high resupply demand associated with maintaining six full-time crewmembers on the ISS means these vehicles, in addition to the Russian Progress and the European ATV, are critical to the success of the ISS beyond 2010. Much work and logistics research are un- der way in other areas of the space enterprise. The NASA Constellation program is continu- ing the process of creating detailed plans for the development of Orion and Ares systems as well as lunar surface systems and a lunar outpost, potentially beginning in 2020. This effort includes the definition of an ILS (inte- grated logistics system) to populate a single system with data that identifies the entire transportation, habitation, and mobility sys- tem. This includes estimates of reliability and maintainability for use in spares and support equipment projections, and time-based data for provisioning planning and consumables management. On the research front, progress continues HTV performed its first successful berthing at the in the area of space exploration campaign ISS on September 17. tics challenge. Coordinating flight schedules, modeling, with a number of software tools (Photo courtesy JAXA.) cargo manifests, docking port availability, and such as CMAT (NASA Langley) and SpaceNet reverse logistics is an enormous task for NASA (MIT/JPL) maturing rapidly. Commercial lo- and its international partners. Maintaining a gistics services in Earth orbit and beyond con- robust set of spares and high closure rates for tinue to attract interest and draw increasing consumables is also a major challenge. levels of investment. These activities range With just six space shuttle missions re- from resupply services for cargo to the ISS and maining and six crew members permanently potential extension to shuttle services for hu- living on the ISS, excitement is mounting for man crews, to the establishment of fuel depots the maiden flights of the “visiting vehicles” in Earth orbit, to futuristic plans for resource that will soon carry most of the U.S. and in- mining of the Moon and other locations. ternational cargo to the station. These vehi- The Air Force and other military services cles include the Japanese H-II transfer vehicle continue to invest in space-related assets and (HTV), SpaceX’s Dragon, and Orbital Sci- capabilities, with logistics (including supporta- ences’ Cygnus. HTV executed its first success- bility) over the life cycle playing a major role. ful berthing on September 17. Among the areas of particular interest to DOD On its first mission, the HTV transported is the development of a partially reusable nearly 6,000 kg of supplies to the ISS. Up to launch vehicle as part of an operationally re- 4,500 kg of this was pressurized cargo; the re- sponsive space capability. Researchers at the mainder was unpressurized external cargo re- Air Force Institute of Technology and the Air movable by the ISS robotic arm. HTV will stay Force Research Laboratory have made signifi- berthed at ISS for up to 45 days; undocking cant progress in simulating flight performance ocurred as scheduled on November 1. HTV and integrated ground operations, including by Olivier de Weck will undock from ISS with as much as 6,000 manpower requirements.

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Space systems SSTL-150 satellites will comprise the RapidEye constellation.

In an otherwise tumultuous year of financial crises, space systems quietly provided en- abling capabilities to ensure mission success on hundreds of platforms throughout the so- lar system. As the economic downturn of the last year forced many to downsize where pos- sible, it seemed appropriate to highlight some “downsized” advances in space systems that offer huge “upsize” capabilities. Demonstrating low-cost satellite design and operations, the Aprizesat-3 and Aprize- sat-4 microsatellites, built by SpaceQuest, Fairfax, Va., were launched in July. Space- Quest built, tested, and delivered the 25-lb, 10-in.-cube satellites in only 10 months for Aprize Satellite, a provider of low-cost wire- less services for worldwide asset tracking and data monitoring. Aprize will offer low-cost satellite data services such as monitoring the fuel level of propane tanks, mobile tracking of shipping abled them to achieve a factor of two mass re- containers and rail cars, and space-based au- duction. PRESSUREMAXX technology was tomatic identification system (AIS) data serv- given the Award for Excellence and Innovation ices to the global maritime community. The in Composites Engineering by the American AIS signal decoder operates in real time, in Composites Manufacturers Association. contrast to more costly large satellite systems Developed in cooperation with Micro- that require the download of digitized AIS data cosm, the technology employs a monolithic files that must be postprocessed to recover the linerless unibody construction offering supe- user data. Both satellites were commissioned rior performance and significant weight re- autonomously on first orbit and commenced duction compared to conventional carbon- global AIS operations on the second orbit. fiber-overwrapped metal tanks, achieving an In August 2008 the commercial five-satel- unmatched performance index of more than lite RapidEye constellation was launched, pro- 2,000,000 in. viding multispectral imagery at 6.5-m resolu- The Operationally Responsive Space tion. The cost of the complete constellation (ORS) Office located at Kirtland AFB is lever- with a “daily imaging” capability is consider- aging these types of space system technolo- ably less than that of a single U.S. Landsat gies in an effort to corral costs of DOD space satellite. All five satellites were developed by systems and shorten their development cycle Surrey Satellite Technology, U.K. times to the “speed of need.” Established in To achieve high performance at low cost, May 2007, the ORS Office is taking a new the Surrey team leveraged commercial elec- approach to risk and mission assurance to tronics along with materials science such as rapidly deploy affordable capabilities that are carbon fiber and silicon carbide structures. In “good enough” to satisfy warfighter needs. addition, the use of a novel optical design re- One significant milestone in this daunting duced the size and mass of the payload. Use effort was the successful launch of the TacSat- of better detectors on the focal plane incorpo- 3 spacecraft on a Minotaur-I rocket from Wal- rating programmable time delay and integra- lops Island in May. This small satellite carried tion allowed the use of smaller apertures. a Raytheon-built hyperspectral sensor and a Armadillo Aerospace completed the two panchromatic imager developed by the Air successful flight tests with their SCORPIUS ve- Force Research Lab. Currently, the ORS Of- hicle in September, using PRESSUREMAXX fice is collaborating with the AFRL. The helium tanks. Scorpius Space Launch of Haw- Space Development & Test Wing located at thorn, Calif., sponsored the Armadillo Team Kirtland is operating the TacSat-3 spacecraft in its quest for the Lunar Lander Challenge while assessing its utility to support combatant prize and provided all-composite tanks that en- commanders. by Jerry Jon Sellers

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Space transportation remain before the end of the year. Notable missions include the final Air Force Delta II flight, launching the GPS IIR-21 satellite; The global launch community continued to launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Or- see high success rates. biter/LCROSS by an Atlas V; and launch of The space shuttle’s STS-119 mission de- the Delta IV Heavy carrying a national secu- livered the final set of solar arrays to the inter- rity payload. national space station. This completes the SpaceX’s second successful launch of its ISS’s solar power system, which will support Falcon 1 rocket orbited Malaysia’s Razak- the station’s expanded crew of six. The STS- SAT satellite. Falcon 1 is the first all-liquid-fuel 125 crew made repairs and upgrades to the commercial vehicle to reach orbit. Hubble telescope. Hubble is In international news, the A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket blasted off with NASA’s now capable of at least five Ariane V has delivered two as- LRO/LCROSS mission from Cape or more years of research. tronomical satellites to the L2 Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., STS-127 installed the JAXA Lagrange point, the largest on June 18. (Photo courtesy Kibo laboratory complex at telecommunication satellite ULA/Pat Corkery.) the station. STS-128 will (the 6.9-ton TerreStar-1) to a carry the Leonardo supply geostationary orbit, and six module to ISS, with science other communications satel- and storage racks, a research lites. Two more launches are sample freezer, a new sleep- scheduled by year’s end. ing compartment, and the The first Soyuz flight from Colbert treadmill. STS-129 the Kourou launch site is will deliver the first two Ex- planned for early 2010. This press logistics carriers with version of the Soyuz was flight- an array of spare parts. qualified in Russia in 2008, Shuttle launch pad 39B while the new, smaller Vega was turned over to the Con- launcher completed its third- stellation program in June. and fourth-stage ground quali- Initial development testing of fication tests in 2009. the new five-segment booster Japan has ground qualified was conducted in Septem- the dual H-IIB LE7 first stage ber, confirming performance engines. The H-IIB will be predictions. The Orion crew used to launch the HTV auto- module passed its prelimi- matic servicing module to the nary design review. The Ares ISS in September. I-X was moved to the launch NASA announced a plan pad and was launched on to invest stimulus funding in October 28. the commercial sector toward The Human Space Flight development of human orbital Plans Committee, led by spaceflight capability. These Norm Augustine, conducted competitively awarded/funded an independent review of agreements would be for com- ongoing U.S. human space- mercial crew concepts. flight plans and programs, as WhiteKnightTwo, the car- well as alternatives. The rier aircraft for Virgin Galac- committee’s final report was tic’s SpaceShipTwo, made its released on October 22. Key alternatives in- flying debut for the general public at the clude, in part: fund shuttle through 2011, annual EAA Oshkosh air show. The eight- when the current manifest will be completed; seat SpaceShipTwo is expected to roll by possibly extend the shuttle to close the human year’s end. spaceflight gap; or focus on technology plus XCOR has finished a series of wind tunnel heavy-lift launch capability. It endorsed com- tests of the aerodynamic design of its Lynx mercial crew launch to LEO. suborbital launch vehicle. The Armadillo As of September 14, United Launch Al- Aerospace Super Mod successfully completed by Carl Ehrlich and the liance had conducted 12 successful launches Level 2 of the Northrop Grumman Lunar AIAA Space Transportation this year with its Delta II (7), Delta IV (2), and Lander Challenge, qualifying for the $1-mil- Technical Committee Atlas V (3) rocket systems. Up to 4 missions lion first prize.

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Space operations nate their respective and support spacecraft for a radar ex- periment that could have taken advantage of the This year the increasing number of countries unique, bistatic radar re- making space operations headlines demon- sponse of water ice. The strated clearly that the world now has more effort was an attempt to than just a handful of spacefaring nations. The increase the chances of greatest number of firsts occurred in the area detecting the substance of satellite launch capability: In February Iran on the Moon’s polar was added to the list of countries confirmed to caps. However, the two have this capability; it launched its Omid satel- spacecraft could not lite in April. North Korea’s discounted claim reach the needed align- to its first successful satellite launch was the ment, and the experi- most serious attempt to date by that country’s ment failed. One week regime to perform such a test. Although their later the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft failed to reach a stable orbit due to failed completely because a fairing separation malfunction, South Korea of overheating. Hope for joined the list of countries with launch capa- finding water on the bility, sending its KSLV-1 aloft in August. Asia Moon, which will repre- Flight operations teams for LRO saw other significant space activity as well, sent a quantum leap forward toward a human and Chandrayaan-1 attempted with China’s successful launch of its second outpost and eventual settlement, now rests to coordinate their spacecraft for a bistatic radar experiment geostationary navigation satellite and a re- with these three spacecraft. The LRO radar to detect water ice on the mote sensing spacecraft; ISRO’s successes mission is ongoing and continues its search. Moon’s polar caps. with radar imaging RISAT-2 and student-built Post-mortem analysis of Chandrayaan-1 radar ANUSAT in April; and Malaysia’s RazakSAT data is ongoing. All nine instruments aboard launch in July, marking the fifth SpaceX Fal- LCROSS successfully captured each phase of con 1 launch and Malaysia’s second launch the impact sequence, and analysis of its data this year, following MEASAT in June. may yet uncover the signature of water. With more nations participating in the Several events that occurred this year, space adventure, and more satellites with no taken collectively, could be seen as the sign of or limited maneuver capability, there is also a a space industrial revolution. In June, Space- growing need to address the issue of safe con- port America broke ground in Upham, N.M., trol and disposal of space assets at the end of soon to be home of Virgin Galactic. SpaceX their operational life. One incident in particu- announced the formation of a new Astronaut lar again highlighted the issue of space debris Safety and Mission Assurance Dept., with and the vulnerability of critical orbits to such former NASA astronaut Ken Bowersox as events, namely, the unprecedented February vice president. The third commercial astro- collision of Kosmos-2251 with Iridium-33, naut corps, after Scaled Composites and Vir- adding a significant debris cloud across low gin Galactic, was formed this year. Two com- Earth orbits. The event itself called attention mercial space operations companies, Galactic to the deficiencies in the world’s tracking and Suite (GS) and Excalibur Almaz (EA), an- reporting mechanisms for space. nounced their intent to offer on-orbit destina- NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter tions for private space travel. (EA’s impres- (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and sive leadership includes Walter Cunningham Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) were launched in of Apollo 7, Leroy Chiao of ISS Expedition June on a mission critical to future human lu- 10, and Vladimir Titov, as well as several al- nar operations: the search for lunar water. liances with space contractors such as United The LCROSS part of the mission centered on Space Alliance. Both GS and EA are well po- its Centaur upper stage crashing into the sitioned to make good on their offers.) Cabeus crater to create a plume through In addition, NASA’s Commercial Crew which it could pass to take in-situ measure- Development contract was awarded. Finally, ments. The plume was considerably smaller the Augustine committee has among its op- than predicted—a possible clue to its proper- tions that of pumping $2.5 billion into com- ties—but LCROSS successfully collected data mercial human transport, and turning the ISS looking for water. over to a private contractor. These events In August, LRO and India’s Chandrayaan- could well mark a new paradigm for commer- by J. Paul Douglas 1 flight operations teams attempted to coordi- cial human spaceflight. and Franz Newland

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Homeland security The director of innovation is responsible for putting advanced capabilities into the hands of DHS agencies/operators via the Homeland Security Advanced Research Proj- ects Agency, which concentrates on home- land security research and development that could lead to significant technology break- throughs and greatly enhance departmental operations. Within the innovation portfolio is the Small Business Innovation Research Of- fice and Homeworks. Finally, the director of transition focuses on delivering capabilities that department components and first responders can rely on to meet their operational needs. The transi- tion portfolio includes the Commercialization Office, Tech Clearinghouse, and the Safety Act Office. Among the six divisions, five apply directly to aerospace. The Borders and Maritime Se- curity Division develops and transitions tools and technologies for the largest civilian air force in the world. The Command, Control, and Interoperability Division concerns itself with interoperable communication for opera- tors, transmission and control of images and data from air- and space-based platforms, and On March 27, 2009, Thomas Muir briefed DHS Secretary Napolitano automated capabilities to recognize and ana- about the flooding in North lyze potential threats. The Explosives Division Dakota and Minnesota at the The Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS), with develops the technical capabilities to detect, National Operations Center. its prevention and response goals, continues interdict, and lessen the impacts of non- (DHS Photo/Barry Bahler.) its aggressive pursuit of the tools it needs to nuclear explosives used in terrorist attacks meet these responsibilities. From geospatial to against mass transit, civil aviation, and critical man-portable air defense systems to critical in- infrastructure. frastructure risk assessments, DHS is leaning The Human Factors Behavioral Sciences hard within the aerospace domain to equip its Division applies the social and behavioral fledgling agency with both the understanding sciences to improve detection, analysis, and and the technology it needs to fulfill its mis- understanding and response to homeland se- sion. The quest spans the spectrum of acade- curity threats. The Infrastructure and Geo- mia, DOD, and the public sector contractors physical Division focuses on identifying and for these needs. DHS needs extend far be- mitigating the vulnerabilities of the 17 critical yond aerospace, requiring flexible teaming infrastructure assets that keep our society and among aerospace, systems, maritime, and economy functioning, including our air trans- communications experts. portation and shipping infrastructure. To support the component agencies Besides the directors and divisions, addi- within DHS, providing technology solutions to tional DHS S&T offices dealing with aero- meet these complex needs, DHS has estab- space include the Homeland Security Insti- lished the DHS Directorate of Science and tute, Interagency Programs, International Technology (DHS S&T). The directorate is or- Programs, Operations Analysis, Special Pro- ganized under three directors and six division grams, Test & Evaluation, and Standards. heads. The director of research oversees long- Within the new administration and DHS term research needs to support DHS mission leadership, one primary focus is mission inte- areas that will provide the nation with an en- gration. This focus is of utmost importance in during capability in homeland security. The order to draw together the various agencies research portfolio includes the Office of Na- and technologies/capabilities that must work by the AIAA Homeland tional Labs, the Office of University Programs, together when responding to crises/emergen- Security Program and the Program Executive Office—Counter cies. These interagency imperatives contribute Committee Improvised Explosives Devices. strongly to integration efforts.

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Space station ations of microbial growth rates, antibiotic re- sistance, microbial invasion of host tissue, organism virulence (the relative ability of a mi- The past year has seen tremendous achieve- crobe to cause disease), and genetic changes ments and progress in the capability, function, within the microbe. Understanding how the and use of the ISS. There is now less than one space environment affects microorganisms is year remaining before assembly is complete critically important for understanding the risks and full utilization begins. The ISS is a collab- they pose for future spaceflight missions. orative international space venture that in- During ISS Increments 18, 19, and 20, cludes partnerships between NASA, the numerous physical and life sciences experi- Canadian Space Agency, ESA, Roscosmos ments have taken place. The major NASA-de- (Russian Space Agency), and JAXA (Japan veloped physical science facilities, namely the Aerospace Exploration Agency). These part- combustion integrated rack, the fluids inte- ners have been responsible for the assembly grated rack, and the materials science re- that has taken place in space for the past 11 years. Besides demonstrating long-term multi- national collaboration and commitment to building the largest and most complex occu- pied space station to date, the ISS is a labora- tory that allows for expanding knowledge of how the space environment affects biological and physical systems, and for testing the tools needed to expand human exploration and set- tlement of space. In 2008 the addition of ESA’s Columbus and JAXA’s Kibo scientific modules to the U.S. Destiny and Russian segment modules tripled the station’s laboratory space and re- search facilities. NASA is currently working on launching and installing the remaining ma- jor research facilities that will be housed in the Destiny, Columbus, and Kibo modules. These facilities will include physical sciences hard- ware for combustion, fluid physics, and mate- rials science research, as well as additional multipurpose and supporting infrastructure. The ISS also had its crew size doubled to six members in May. These changes are already contributing to a major increase in the num- ber of research experiments conducted on the station. From September 2000 through April Astronaut Michael Barratt tends of this year (Expedition 18), more than 400 search rack, now are also installed on the ISS. to science hardware in the U.S. investigations have taken place on the ISS, These facilities will enable the conduct of sig- Laboratory. (NASA photo.) with participation by more than 600 scientists nificant experiments for the life of the station. from nations across the world. The ISS also promotes the commercializa- ISS science and technology facilities are tion of space through programs such as designed to accommodate a broad range of NASA’s COTS (commercial orbital transpor- experiments, from cell biology to human tation services) and the U.S. ISS National Lab- physiology to materials and physical science oratory designation. As the era of the space studies, as well as tests of technologies and shuttle comes to an end, commercial resupply systems support for human exploration. vehicles will be key to the launch and return of Among the most exciting biological results samples from this unique laboratory. Although reported from ISS research is the confirma- constraints on up-mass to orbit and crew avail- tion that common pathogens change and be- ability on the station have limited the scope of by Jacob Cohen, Julie come more virulent during spaceflight. The research during assembly, the science return Robinson, and the AIAA space environment has been shown to induce to date provides strong evidence for the high Microgravity and Space key changes in microbial cells that play a di- potential of ISS science return after assembly Processes Technical rect role in infectious disease, including alter- is complete. Committee

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Energy optimized The need for integration and the impor- tance of architectural choices were highlighted aircraft and equipment again this year during the TEOS III (technolo- systems gies for energy optimized aircraft equipment systems) Forum and the MOET (more open electrical technologies) Project Consortium meeting, both held in Barcelona this Septem- ber. The TEOS Forum included a presentation from the USAF regarding its INVENT (inte- grated vehicle energy technology) Program, which seeks to enable an energy optimized aircraft in the short term and revolutionary more electric aircraft in the future. INVENT seeks to accomplish this by fo- cusing on five main areas of research: The Boeing 787, with its bleedless architecture, is evidence of the reality of the more-electric aircraft. •High-performance electric actuation sys- tems to ensure fault resistance and an appro- priate treatment and eventual reuse of regen- The search for aircraft with better efficiencies erative power. has never been more vital than it is today as •Robust electrical power systems less sen- fuel prices rise and environmental constraints sitive to external conditions and power quality tighten. That search for efficiency has led air- issues. craft manufacturers and their suppliers to re- •Adaptive power and thermal manage- consider traditional systems architectures and ment taking advantage of the potential versa- seek alternative equipment technologies. tility of electrical systems. Hybrid hydraulic/pneumatic/mechanical/ •Smart integration of these aircraft subsys- electrical energy architectures are deeply en- tems with advanced propulsion systems. trenched in today’s aircraft designs. This tra- •Integrated modeling and simulation envi- ditional approach is nearly tapped out, making ronment with hardware in the loop. it increasingly difficult to improve capacity and The integration approach using both mod- efficiency. “More-electric” technologies, on eling and simulation and hardware test facili- the other hand, have the potential to be more ties was echoed by the MOET Project consor- efficient due to fewer losses, being “on-de- tium sponsored by the EU under the 6th mand” in nature, and more dependable since Framework Programme and including over they are easier to maintain. It is important to 62 industrial and research partners. While note that more-electric technologies and ar- much of the project was dedicated to the ex- chitectures continue to evolve and show po- ploration of enabling technologies, cross-cut- tential, although not yet achieved, platform ting working groups were also organized to benefits for modern highly integrated plat- consider system architectures and modeling forms that conventional/mature methods can- and simulation concerns. Two integration test not offer. rigs were built as part of the project: one for More-electric equipment systems are al- larger aircraft at Airbus that “powered on” in ready in use for aircraft flying today. The Air- March, and one for smaller aircraft at Alenia. bus A380, for example, includes electrohy- The preliminary conclusions from the drostatic flight control actuators, powered and MOET Project, which will end this year, high- controlled electrically with only local hy- light the criticality of architectural choices in draulics, as well as electromechanical actua- intermediate hybrid more-electric solutions, tion of its thrust reverser. But this consists of and the need for further technological devel- no more than a conventional aircraft equip- opment in the weight and thermal efficiency ment system layout with a few hydraulic users of system components. replaced by electrical ones. Indeed, the con- The MOET conclusions see the all-electric clusions reached by the Power Optimised Air- aircraft as a relevant long-term trend, espe- craft project, sponsored under the 5th EU cially in light of tightening environmental reg- Framework Programme that concluded in ulations. For now, more-electric aircraft are 2006, indicate that within conventional archi- indeed a reality, with the F-35 JSF currently tectures, electric technologies yield only a undergoing flight test, and the Boeing 787 fraction of potential benefit, and functional with its bleedless architecture scheduled to fly by Elena Garcia thinking is needed for true integration. by the end of the year.

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Unmanned systems ian UAS in the NAS. Predator B manufac- turer General Atomics rolled out the Predator C Avenger, the company’s first turbofan-pow- The exploitation of unmanned air systems ered unmanned aircraft. (UAS) in military operations abroad, especially The Air Force presented its Unmanned in southwest Asia, continued to expand, as did Aircraft Systems Flight Plan, which lays out a reliance on these systems for intelligence, re- roadmap to the year 2047, the 100th anni- connaissance, and surveillance (ISR) informa- versary of the Air Force, while the second edi- tion. Global Hawk, the premier unmanned tion of the DOD 2009-2034 Unmanned Sys- ISR platform, surpassed a milestone of tems Integrated Roadmap “…represents the 25,000 flight hours. department’s first truly synchronized effort At home, access to the National Airspace that increases the focus on unmanned sys- System (NAS) remains the major challenge for tems, and through interoperability with the development of a viable “beyond-military” manned systems, establishes a vision of sup- UAS market in the U.S. This year saw an in- port of our warfighters.” creasing emphasis on addressing the integra- As an example of efforts to coordinate tion of nonmilitary UAS operations into the UAS development for the armed forces, the NAS. For small UAS, this was highlighted Navy reportedly announced that it will award with the FAA Small Unmanned Aircraft Sys- a sole-source contract to Northrop Grumman tem Aviation Rulemaking Committee recom- for the development of a sense-and-avoid ca- mendations for the operation of civil (com- mercial) unmanned aircraft with gross takeoff weight of 55 lb or less. FAA anticipates that the recommendations will provide a frame- work for regulatory changes that enable the safe operations of unmanned aircraft in the national airspace. FAA and AAI announced a cooperative re- search and development agreement for a sim- ulation test bed that will include AAI’s Shadow with a GE Aviation advanced flight manage- ment system to simulate the interactions of manned and unmanned aircraft in the NAS. After last year’s purchase of ScanEagle manufacturer Insitu, Boeing Integrated De- fense Systems announced its new Unmanned Airborne Systems Division. The acquisition of small UAS manufacturer Advanced Ceramics Research (ACR) by BAE Systems continued this trend of acquisition of successful small UAS manufacturers by large airframe and sys- The Predator B that flew at the tems companies. ACR manufactured three pability with a common autonomous system Oshkosh air show this year was the first UAS of this type to be small unmanned aircraft systems for military for its high-altitude, long-endurance Air Force flown to a nonmilitary air show. and civilian agency customers—the gas/electric RQ-4B Global Hawk and the Navy derivative, Silver Fox, the gas-powered Manta, and the the RQ-4N Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Coyote, an electric mini aircraft designed to be aircraft. deployed from a sonobuoy tube or from a heli- After receiving two Global Hawks, NASA, copter in flight. in partnership with NOAA, unveiled the first The U.S. Customs and Border Protection of these systems to be transitioned to nonmil- (CBP) Unmanned Aircraft Operations Center itary use, with initial flights over the Pacific of North Dakota officially opened in February now planned for next year. On the opposite in Grand Forks. Predator B UAS continue to end of the size scale, after demonstrating its operate from this center to conduct patrols hurricane penetration capabilities that in- along the Canadian border. The arrival of a cluded probing of the eyewall of Hurricane CBP Predator B at the Oshkosh air show this Noel in 2007, AAI announced a blanket pur- year marked the first time a UAS of this type chase agreement with NASA to provide by the AIAA Unmanned had been flown to a nonmilitary air show, aerosonde systems and crews for time-sensi- Systems Program possibly a bellwether for the operation of civil- tive missions. Committee

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Air traffic management whom the business case has not yet proved persuasive. Thus there appears to be growing recognition that some form of rule The Next Generation Air Transporta- making will be needed to acceler- tion System (NextGen) and Single ate compliance. European Sky ATM Research Another challenge to the (SESAR) continue to dominate world’s aircraft navigation the air traffic management service providers (ANSPs) landscape. The technolo- is the proliferation of un- gies—satellite navigation, de- manned aircraft systems pendent surveillance, digital (UAS) of all shapes and communications, and netcen- sizes. Spurred by their util- tric operations—are the focus ity for military uses, these of the industry and of the aca- vehicles are now being pro- demic communities concerned posed for missions in the civil with air transportation. The U.S. arena. Generally the proposed deployment of ADS-B (Automatic De- uses are for missions that would be pendent Surveillance-Broadcast) is well under risky or boring for human pilots: fire fight- way, with the immediate prospect of lower al- ing, pipeline surveillance, border patrol, vol- In the cockpit display for the Traffic Information Service-Broadcast in the titude surveillance coverage of equipped air- cano monitoring. With safeguards, the latter Anchorage Bowl area, round nosed craft over the Gulf of Mexico and the Rocky applications can be viewed as nonintrusive by targets are radar targets, arrow Mountain west. civil aviation authorities because they would nosed targets are ADS-B equipped take place where other flights either would not aircraft. operate or where the activity of manned air- craft operations is very low. However, there is growing recognition that UAS have commer- cial potential for high-value or urgent cargos. The net result of all of this activity is that the FAA and ANSPs around the world face the prospect of UAS flights sharing the air- space with planes whose pilots are on board. This is a technical challenge in that, to be fully integrated, the UAS must be able to “see and avoid” other traffic and to collaborate with air traffic control. More significant, however, is the psychological barrier to making conces- sions to technology in an area where the hu- man pilot has always had the preeminent role. On the safety front, several commercial accidents—most notably the miracle landing in the Hudson River off Manhattan—have raised concerns about safety issues. In the US Air- ways crash, birds were ingested by the engines on takeoff, causing the loss of power and sub- sequent controlled water landing. The issues raised ranged from bird control at airports to operational control and emergency proce- dures in the metroplex area. Other accidents raised concerns over au- tomation complexity and pilot proficiency. Less promising is the issue of broad user The common concern is to question our abil- equipage that requires aircraft operators to ity to foresee problems and take effective ac- make the investment in money and down time tion before an adverse event. These issues to fit their airframes with NextGen avionics will only become more relevant as NextGen and to train pilots/crews in the operation. and SESAR bring into reality the system of This hesitancy is not restricted to general avi- systems era, where ground and airborne au- ation but is also manifest in the behavior of tomation are closely linked to achieve capac- by Frank L. Frisbie commercial carriers and the military, for ity improvements.

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Hypersonic technologies TBCC propulsion system. In Phase 1, de- and aerospace plane sign reviews were successfully completed to enable hypersonic aircraft with a TBCC en- gine, consisting of a constant-volume com- Plans for four Air Force/DARPA X-51A flight bustion (CVC) engine and an aviation tur- tests are under way. Each X-51A vehicle is bine engine. Based on compelling outcome built and mated with a flow-through interstage from a business-case analysis, Phases 2 and and a modified ATACMS booster. The X51-A 3 of the program will focus on demonstrat- The X-51A stack is mated to stack has been ground tested, and its compat- ing a TBCC system consisting of a CVC a B-52H with a JDAM interface. ibility with a B-52H is being checked. The first combustor and a marine turbine engine. This captive flight on the B-52H over the Edwards system is expected to cut specific fuel con- AFB flight range and a dress rehearsal flight sumption significantly and generate additional over the Pacific were planned for this fall, be- electrical power for Navy ships. fore the X-51A’s first powered flight. The European Commission is pursuing The DARPA/Air Force Falcon hypersonic LAPCAT II to develop and validate engine-air- technology vehicle (HTV-2) program has de- frame integration and cycle analysis tools, to veloped several key technologies: efficient experimentally evaluate the design, and to aerodynamic shaping for a high lift-to-drag ra- study off-design performance of engine and tio; lightweight and durable high-temperature airframe. materials; thermal management techniques; SHEFEX (sharp edge flight experiment) II and advanced autonomous navigation, guid- represents DLR’s next step toward develop- ance, and control. These technologies will be ment of technology for atmospheric entry and demonstrated and evaluated with two HTV-2 hypersonic flight. The critical design review vehicle hypersonic flight tests. After overcom- was finalized for all subsystems. The flight test ing numerous challenges in the process of fab- is planned at Woomera in Australia. ricating the HTV-2 aeroshells, the first one MBDA and Rosoboronexport signed a was completed, for first flight before the end contract to flight test the LEA hypersonic ex- of this year. perimental vehicle, jointly developed by The DARPA FaCET (Falcon combined MBDA and ONERA. The test will use an ex- cycle engine technology) program developed isting Russian supersonic bomber, liquid and ground-demonstrated elements of a tur- rocket booster, and test range. bine-based combined cycle (TBCC) propulsion A total of nine flights are planned under system. The freejet engine ground test used the joint Australian DSTO and USAFRL an approximately 70%-scale propulsion sys- HIFiRE (hypersonic international flight re- tem model. Freejet engine tests were com- search experimentation) program. The first, pleted first at Mach 3, 4, and 6. Preliminary HIFiRE 0, flew at Woomera in Australia, with test results at Mach 4 indi- the objective of testing approximately cated that the overall mea- 60% of the technologies needed for the sured engine performance rest of the program. The flight matched pretest predictions. was almost 100% DARPA’s MoTr (mode transi- successful. tion) demonstration program is for ground testing a TBCC propulsion sys- tem. MoTr will demonstrate transition from low-speed turbojets to high-speed scramjets in a single flowpath. MoTr takes advantage of the single TBCC The Test flowpath developed under FaCET and high- Resource Mach turbine engines from the HiSTED (high- Management speed turbine engine demonstration) pro- Center of the OSD is con- grams. A facility survey was completed, and ducting the short duration propul- the Propulsion Systems Laboratory at NASA sion test and evaluation program. Glenn was selected. Modifications needed to The objective is to resolve the The SHEFEX II will perform a execute the ground demonstration were iden- consequence of the duration of the controlled hypersonic flight up to a Mach number of 11. tified. The program conceptual design review test flow and the effects of the test was completed successfully. medium on dual-mode scramjet engine DARPA’s Vulcan program is changing di- performance. The program will use numerous rection radically for the demonstration of a facilities to address this objective. by Unmeel Mehta

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25 Years Ago, December 1984 50 Years Ago, December 1959 Dec. 13 Piloted by Chuck Sewell, the Dec. 2 BOAC inaugurates its Comet service to Johannesburg, with stops experimental forward-swept-wing in Khartoum and Nairobi. The Aeroplane, Dec. 11, 1959, p. 589. Grumman X-29 flies for the first time, from Edwards Dec. 4 The third all-solid-propellant Little Joe test vehicle, which AFB, Calif. uses the rocket cluster principle, is successfully launched at NASA’s The inherently Wallops Island, Va., facility. The vehicle carries a 7-lb rhesus mon- unstable air- key named Sam to an altitude of 55 mi., then recovers the animal craft features from the ocean after the capsule lands by parachute. The Little Joe digital fly-by- is normally used to test the launch escape system and other ele- wire controls ments on boilerplate models for the Project Mercury manned Little Joe and the unique wing to test the valid- space program. Flight, Dec. 18, 1959, p. 741; Aerospace Year Book 1960, p. 457. ity of the forward-swept-wing con- cept for highly maneuverable combat Dec. 7 A Navy McDonnell F4H Phantom II twin-engine all-weather long-range aircraft. Use of such wings was not supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber, flown by Cmdr. Lawrence E. Flint, possible before the advent of ex- sets an unofficial altitude record of 98,558 ft. Aerospace Year Book 1960, p. 23. tremely stiff graphite composite struc- tures, because conventional metal Dec. 7 At The Hague, Netherlands, nine countries including the USSR approve a structures would deflect too much. new charter for COSPAR (Committee on Space Research), in which membership The aircraft is essentially a Northrop is opened to all national academies of science engaged in space research. F-5 fighter with the new wings and E. Emme, ed., Aeronautics and Astronautics 1915-60, p. 115. flight control system installed. The test program is successful, although Dec. 9 A Kaman H-43B Huskie sets a new world record for helicopters, at the design is not adopted. NASA, 30,100 ft. E. Emme, ed., Aeronautics and Astronautics 1915-60, p. 115. Astronautics and Aeronautics 1979- 84, p. 522. Dec. 11 NASA announces the cancellation of the Vega rocket, stating that other vehicles will be used to launch satellites and space probes originally planned for Dec. 15 The USSR launches Vega 1 Vega. Replacing it will be the Atlas-Agena, the Atlas serving as the first stage in a heliocentric orbit toward Venus. and the Lockheed Agena, incorporating the Bell Hustler rocket engine, as the The craft is also to perform a flyby second. Flight, Dec. 25, 1959, p. 772. mission to observe Halley’s comet us- ing a scanner. Upon encountering Ve- Dec. 12 The second stage of the Titan ICBM is launched successfully from the nus, Vega’s aeroshell opens and re- Atlantic Missile Range at Cape Canaveral, Fla. The first and second stages leases a lander, while a French-built delivered 300,000 and 80,000 lb of thrust, respectively. E. Emme, ed., balloon carrying an instrumented Aeronautics and Astronautics 1915-60, p. 115. probe transmits meteorological and other atmospheric data back to Dec. 15 A Lockheed F-104C Starfighter, flown over the Mojave Desert in Earth. NASA, Astronautics and Aero- California by Capt. Joe B. Jordan, establishes a new world altitude record of nautics, 1979-84, p. 681. 103,395.5 ft. This beats the previous record of 98,558 ft, set by a Navy McDonnell F4H Phantom II on Dec. 7, and a previous mark of 94,658 ft set on July 14 by Vladimir Ilyushin flying a Russian Tu-431. The Aeroplane, Dec. 25, 1959, p. 648; The Aerospace Year Book 1960, p. 23. F-104C Starfighter Dec. 30 The USS George Washington submarine,using the all-solid-fuel Polaris fleet-ballistic missile, is commissioned. Originally named the USS Scorpion, the ship was lengthened during its construction by the insertion of the 130-ft-long missile section and then re- named. On July 20, 1960, while submerged, it will successfully launch the first Polaris missile. E. Emme, ed., Aeronautics and Astronautics 1915-60, p. 116.

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An Aerospace Chronology by Frank H.Winter, Ret. and Robert van der Linden National Air and Space Museum

And During December 1959 Weddell, who flew an 800-hp supercharged Wasp-powered racer of his own —The first successful firings of the design. Flight, Jan. 3, 1935. liquid oxygen-liquid hydro- gen LR115 rocket engine, Dec. 28 A record long-distance air mail delivery is made developed by Pratt & Whit- when a de Havilland D.H. 88 Comet carrying 300 lb of ney, are announced. Two of Christmas packages and letters returns to Brussels after the engines will power the having left that city on Dec. 20 for Leopoldville, Belgian Centaur upper stage. Flight, Congo. The 8,000-mi. trip is covered in less than 45 hr of Dec. 18, 1959, p. 741; The flying time at an average speed of 195 mph. The British Aeroplane, Dec. 11, 1959, p. 588. pilot, Ken Waller, and the Belgian pilot, Maurice Franchomme, receive congratulations from the Belgian king and queen. Waller receives the Order of the Lion of Africa, Belgium’s highest honor. Flight, Jan. 3, 1935, p. 7. 75 Years Ago, December 1934 Dec. 4 The first Australian rocket Dec. 31 Edward Henry mail experiment takes place at Bris- Hillman, the British air bane, conducted by Alan H. Young transport pioneer who under the auspices of the Queens- founded Hillman’s Air- land Air Mail Society in connection ways, dies at age 45. A with a visit by the Duke of Gloucester. farmer’s son, he was a The solid-fuel rocket, propelled by cavalryman during WW I, gunpowder and carrying about 900 a chauffeur, and a bicycle souvenir letters, is launched from repairman. In 1928 he the deck of the Canonbar toward started a motor coach Pinkenba on the Brisbane River. J. De Havilland Dragon service and raised enough Ellington and P. Zwisler, eds., Elling- funds to begin his air ton-Zwisler Rocket Mail Catalog, p. 1. transport company in 1931 with two de Havilland Puss Moths that he offered for charter. At his suggestion, the economical two-motor Dec. 16 Giulio Macchi, 67, famed de Havilland Dragon biplane with a comfortable Italian airplane designer, dies at Varese, passenger cabin was developed and successfully used Italy. Macchi was known for the for air transport. The Aeroplane, Jan. 2, 1935. outstanding performance of his rac- ing seaplanes in the Schneider Trophy And During December 1934 races. The Macchi M-39, which won the Schneider Cup in 1926, is consid- —The new Martin M-130 flying boat, three of which ered the prototype of the modern have been purchased by Pan American Airways for its proposed transpacific high-speed machine of the era. A low- mail and passenger service, undergoes its initial tests. The all-metal seaplane, wing monoplane, it featured floats as which features four 800-hp Pratt & Whitney Twin Wasp radial engines, has part of the wing-bracing system and accommodations for 50 passengers and a crew of six with a 1,200-mi. range, has a very powerful engine. The or 14 passengers and 2,000 lb of mail for a 3,000-mi. range. The aircraft Aeroplane, Dec. 19, 1934, p. 755. subsequently becomes Pan American’s regular Pacific transport. The maximum speed of the 51,000-lb seaplane is 180 mph, with a cruising speed of 163 mph. Dec. 25 Raymond Delotte celebrates The Aeroplane, Jan. 23, 1935, p. 98. Christmas by setting a new interna- tional speed record at Istres Airport, 100 Years Ago, December 1909 France, when his low-wing Caudron monoplane, fitted with a new 370-hp —DELAG, the German Airship Transport Corp., is formed to carry passengers on Renault six-cylinder in-line air-cooled Zeppelins between Baden-Baden, Mannheim, Munich, Leipzig, Cologne, Düssel- engine, flies at an average speed of dorf, Berlin, Dresden, Essen, and Frankfurt. In effect, it is the world’s first airline, 314.3 mph over a regulation course. although it does not provide regularly scheduled service. From 1910 until 1914, The previous record was 305 mph, five Zeppelins carry some 35,000 passengers over 170,000 mi. without any fatal- set a year earlier by U.S. pilot James ities. The Aeroplane, May 12, 1915, p. 474; C. Gibbs-Smith, Aviation, p. 152.

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2009 INDEX

COMPUTERSANDSOFTWARE Growing fuels for greener skies, Sept., p. 32. Subjects Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. Electronic design speeds virtual prototyping, Feb., Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. p. 20. Aerospace 2009: Atmospheric and space National security imperatives for a new environments, Dec., p. 9. AIRCRAFTDESIGNANDTECHNOLOGY administration, March, p. 26. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. One-stop shop for design and analysis, April, p. 24. All-electric aircraft research speeds up, Jan., p. 4. The digitized paper chase, June, p. 18. F-35’s shadow grows longer, March, p. 18. Cloud computing: Coming full circle, Nov., p. 16. INSTRUMENTATIONANDTECHNOLOGY Antarctic balloon launch lifts research hopes, March, Aerospace 2009: Computer-aided enterprise p. 22. solutions, Dec., p. 50. RAX Cubesats: Keeping a weather eye on space, UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. Aerospace 2009: Computer systems, Dec., p. 33. Jan., p. 28. Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Intelligent systems, Dec., p. 30. Delicate dance for Mango and Tango, Feb., p. 16. Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. Aerospace 2009: Meshing, visualization, and Satellite System F6: Divide and conquer, Feb., p. 30. Soaring on a Solar Impulse, May, p. 32. computational environments, Dec., p. 6. Antarctic balloon launch lifts research hopes, March, p. 22. The 787 and the A350: Teasing out the facts, June, Aerospace 2009: Modeling and simulation, Dec., Satellite navigation newcomers: Cooperation or p. 32. p. 49. competition?, March, p. 32. Fuel efficiency improvements escalate, July/Aug., Aerospace 2009: Multidisciplinary design UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. p. 4. optimization, Dec., p. 26. Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. Industry’s strength offers options in downturn, Aerospace 2009: Software systems, Dec., p. 34. July/Aug., p. 24. Airborne laser aims at final tests, July/Aug., p. 44. Airborne laser aims at final tests, July/Aug., p. 44. JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. A blueprint for defense cooperation, Sept., p. 4. ECONOMICS NASA coating helps keep hearts beating, Oct., p. 22. Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., Jetliners wait for hard times, Sept., p. 16. p. 16. JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. The aviation market boom ends, Jan., p. 24. F-35’s shadow grows longer, March, p. 18. Aerospace 2009: Aerodynamic decelerators, Dec., Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24. p. 8. EASA: Moving toward proactive regulation, Sept., Satellite navigation newcomers: Cooperation or competition?, March, p. 32. Aerospace 2009: Aerodynamic measurement p. 38. technology, Dec., p. 15. Europe looks for UCAV synergies, Oct., p. 4. Liquidity crisis looms for Europe’s aerospace companies, April, p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Aerospace traffic management, Air freight revival: Real or a mirage?, Nov., p. 4. Dec., p. 74. GEO comsats up, launch programs down, April, Defense giants reshape UAV industry, Nov., p. 10. p. 20. Aerospace 2009: Fluid dynamics, Dec., p. 4. Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, Nov., p. 25. UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. Aerospace 2009: Lighter-than-air systems, Dec., p. 23. Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Missile systems, Dec., p. 60. Aerospace 2009: Aeroacoustics, Dec., p. 5. Airbus looks to U.S. for A350 XWB suppliers, May, p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Plasmadynamics and lasers, Dec., p. 12. Aerospace 2009: Aerodynamic decelerators, Dec., The economy stays in the forefront, May, p. 8. p. 8. Aerospace 2009: Sensor systems, Dec., p. 32. Airbus and Boeing: Beyond head-to-head, May, p. 18. Aerospace 2009: Aerodynamic measurement Aerospace 2009: V/STOL, Dec., p. 22. Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. technology, Dec., p. 15. Fears of protectionism grow in Europe, June, p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Air traffic management, Dec., p. 74. Navigational satellites fuel payload growth, June, Aerospace 2009: Air transportation, Dec., p. 16. p. 14. INTERNATIONAL Aerospace 2009: Aircraft design, Dec., p. 17. The 787 and the A350: Teasing out the facts, June, Aerospace 2009: Aircraft operations, Dec., p. 18. p. 32. All-electric aircraft research speeds up, Jan., p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Applied aerodynamics, Dec., p. 10. Fuel efficiency improvements escalate, July/Aug., p. 4. Launches “R” Us, Jan., p. 8. Aerospace 2009: Computer-aided enterprise Industry’s strength offers options in downturn, Angara boosts Russia’s launch prospects, Jan., p. 36. solutions, Dec., p. 50. July/Aug., p. 24. Defense cuts threaten military programs, Feb., p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Energy optimized aircraft and Business aircraft market falls hard, July/Aug., p. 26. Commercial satellites get bigger—and smaller, Feb., equipment systems, Dec., p. 72. A blueprint for defense cooperation, Sept., p. 4. p. 12. Aerospace 2009: Flight testing, Dec., p. 20. Jetliners wait for hard times, Sept., p. 16. Delicate dance for Mango and Tango, Feb., p. 16. Aerospace 2009: General aviation, Dec., p. 21. JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. Running out of runways, March, p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Ground testing, Dec., p. 51. Growing fuels for greener skies, Sept., p. 32. ISS: Closing in on completion, March, p. 16. Aerospace 2009: Hypersonic technologies and Europe looks for UCAV synergies, Oct., p. 4. F-35’s shadow grows longer, March, p. 18. aerospace plane, Dec., p. 75. Air freight revival: Real or a mirage?, Nov., p. 4. National security imperatives for a new administration, March, p. 26. Aerospace 2009: Lighter-than-air systems, Dec., p. 23. Defense giants reshape UAV industry, Nov., p. 10. Satellite navigation newcomers: Cooperation or Aerospace 2009: Sensor systems, Dec., p. 32. Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. competition?, March, p. 32. Aerospace 2009: Unmanned systems, Dec., p. 73. Aerospace 2009: Air transportation, Dec., p. 16. Aerospace 2009: V/STOL, Dec., p. 22. Addressing climate change, with help from abroad, Aerospace 2009: Economics, Dec., p. 24. April, p. 3. Aerospace 2009: General aviation, Dec., p. 21. Liquidity crisis looms for Europe’s aerospace companies, April, p. 4. AVIONICSANDELECTRONICS China on course in space, April, p. 8. ENVIRONMENT From data to knowledge: A sea change, April, p. 26. Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. All-electric aircraft research speeds up, Jan., p. 4. Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Aerospace traffic management, Planetology and the future of our species, Jan., Airbus looks to U.S. for A350 XWB suppliers, May, Dec., p. 74. p. 20. p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Digital avionics, Dec., p. 31. Antarctic balloon launch lifts research hopes, March, Airbus and Boeing: Beyond head-to-head, May, p. 18. Aerospace 2009: Guidance, navigation, and control, p. 22. ExoMars: Europe rises to the challenge, May, p. 38. Dec., p. 7. Addressing climate change, with help from abroad, Fears of protectionism grow in Europe, June, p. 4. April, p. 3. Navigational satellites fuel payload growth, June, From data to knowledge: A sea change, April, p. 26. p. 14. COMMUNICATIONS Climate change and national security—Parts of a Climate change and national security—Parts of a whole, June, p. 26. whole, June, p. 26. National security imperatives for a new Fuel efficiency improvements escalate, July/Aug., p. 4. The 787 and the A350: Teasing out the facts, June, administration, March, p. 26. GOCE adds gravity to ESA’s agenda, July/Aug., p. 32. p. 32. GEO comsats up, launch programs down, April, p. 20. Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24. Soyuz investigation lands with a thud, June, p. 38.

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Joining the space race, carefully, July/Aug., p. 8. MILITARYSYSTEMS A winning combination, July/Aug., p. 3. Business aircraft market falls hard, July/Aug., p. 26. Looking to new leaders, July/Aug., p. 12. GOCE adds gravity to ESA’s agenda, July/Aug., p. 32. The aviation market boom ends, Jan., p. 24. The promise of thinking green, Sept., p. 3. A blueprint for defense cooperation, Sept., p. 4. Angara boosts Russia’s launch prospects, Jan., Waiting for new directions, Sept., p. 8. Jetliners wait for hard times, Sept., p. 16. p. 36. Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24. JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. Defense cuts threaten military programs, Feb., p. 4. EASA: Moving toward proactive regulation, Sept., EASA: Moving toward proactive regulation, Sept., Satellite System F6: Divide and conquer, Feb., p. 30. p. 38. p. 38. F-35’s shadow grows longer, March, p. 18. Our future in space, Oct., p. 3. Europe looks for UCAV synergies, Oct., p. 4. Satellite navigation newcomers: Cooperation or Europe looks for UCAV synergies, Oct., p. 4. competition?, March, p. 32. Southeast Asia reaches toward space, Oct., p. 8. Aviation and spaceflight under scrutiny, Oct., p. 10. Space debris: A growing challenge, Oct., p. 30. UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. Is human spaceflight optional?, Oct., p. 18. Air freight revival: Real or a mirage?, Nov., p. 4. Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 24. Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. Space debris: A growing challenge, Oct., p. 30. p. 16. Gates dominates defense debate, June, p. 8. Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. Endurance near and (really) far, June, p. 22. Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. Industry’s strength offers options in downturn, Nuclear propulsion—The affordable alternative, July/Aug., p. 24. Nov., p. 3. Airborne laser aims at final tests, July/Aug., p. 44. Controversy and doubts in defense and space, Nov., A blueprint for defense cooperation, Sept., p. 4. p. 6. LIFESCIENCES JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, Sept., p. 20. Transforming human spaceflight, Nov., p. 12. Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24. ExoMars: Europe rises to the challenge, May, p. 38. Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, Nov., p. 25. Europe looks for UCAV synergies, Oct., p. 4. NASA coating helps keep hearts beating, Oct., p. 22. Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., p. 32. Southeast Asia reaches toward space, Oct., p. 8. Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. Defense giants reshape UAV industry, Nov., p. 10. p. 16. Inching toward reform, Dec., p. 3. Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, Nov., p. 25. Aerospace 2009: Life sciences, Dec., p. 64. Aerospace 2009: History, Dec., p. 25. Aerospace 2009: Hybrid rockets, Dec., p. 42. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. Aerospace 2009: Homeland security, Dec., p. 70. Aerospace 2009: Hypersonic technologies and aerospace plane, Dec., p. 75. Aerospace 2009: Missile systems, Dec., p. 60. MANAGEMENT Aerospace 2009: Survivability, Dec., p. 53. PROPULSIONANDPOWER Aerospace 2009: Weapon system effectiveness, Running out of runways, March, p. 4. Dec., p. 62. Constellation testing progresses on two fronts, May, The digitized paper chase, June, p. 18. p. 30. The 787 and the A350: Teasing out the facts, June, Soaring on a Solar Impulse, May, p. 32. p. 32. MISSILES Endurance near and (really) far, June, p. 22. EASA: Moving toward proactive regulation, Sept., Fuel efficiency improvements escalate, July/Aug., p. 38. Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. p. 4. Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 24. Aircraft protection heats up, May, p. 22. A hot rod for the solar system, July/Aug., p. 38. Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. Southeast Asia reaches toward space, Oct., p. 8. Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24. Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, Nov., p. 25. Aerospace 2009: Hybrid rockets, Dec., p. 42. Growing fuels for greener skies, Sept., p. 32. Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., p. 32. Aerospace 2009: Guidance, navigation, and control, Nuclear propulsion—The affordable alternative, Aerospace 2009: Air traffic management, Dec., p. 74. Dec., p. 7. Nov., p. 3. Aerospace 2009: Computer-aided enterprise Aerospace 2009: Missile systems, Dec., p. 60. Aerospace 2009: Aerospace power, Dec., p. 39. solutions, Dec., p. 50. Aerospace 2009: Weapon system effectiveness, Aerospace 2009: Air-breathing propulsion, Dec., Aerospace 2009: Ground testing, Dec., p. 51. Dec., p. 62. p. 43. Aerospace 2009: Homeland security, Dec., p. 70. Aerospace 2009: Electric propulsion, Dec., p. 44. Aerospace 2009: Management, Dec., p. 27. Aerospace 2009: Energetic components, Dec., p. 46. Aerospace 2009: Multidisciplinary design POLICY Aerospace 2009: Energy optimized aircraft and equipment systems, Dec., p. 72. optimization, Dec., p. 26. Aerospace 2009: Gas turbine engines, Dec., p. 40. Aerospace 2009: Systems engineering, Dec., p. 28. Building a better engineer, Jan., p. 3. Launches “R” Us, Jan., p. 8. Aerospace 2009: High-speed air-breathing Return to the Moon: Shaping a new exploration propulsion, Dec., p. 37. Aerospace 2009: Hybrid rockets, Dec., p. 42. MATERIALSANDSTRUCTURES agenda, Jan., p. 30. Sense and security, Feb., p. 3. Aerospace 2009: Hypersonic technologies and aerospace plane, Dec., p. 75. Defense cuts threaten military programs, Feb., p. 4. Soaring on a Solar Impulse, May, p. 32. Aerospace 2009: Liquid propulsion, Dec., p. 38. Washington in a time of change, Feb., p. 8. Soyuz investigation lands with a thud, June, p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Nuclear and future flight propulsion, Growing fuels for greener skies, Sept., p. 32. Finding the right balance, March, p. 3. Dec., p. 36. NASA coating helps keep hearts beating, Oct., p. 22. Taking off in turbulent times, March, p. 8. Aerospace 2009: Propellants and combustion, Dec., Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., National security imperatives for a new p. 41. p. 16. administration, March, p. 26. Aerospace 2009: Terrestrial energy, Dec., p. 45. Aerospace 2009: Adaptive structures, Dec., p. 58. Addressing climate change, with help from abroad, Aerospace 2009: Thermophysics, Dec., p. 13. Aerospace 2009: Computer-aided enterprise April, p. 3. solutions, Dec., p. 50. Changing course in a deepening crisis, April, p. 10. Aerospace 2009: Design engineering, Dec., p. 48. From data to knowledge: A sea change, April, p. 26. ROBOTICS Aerospace 2009: Materials, Dec., p. 52. Lost in space, May, p. 3. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. The economy stays in the forefront, May, p. 8. Delicate dance for Mango and Tango, Feb., p. 16. Aerospace 2009: Nondeterministic approaches, Science, technology, and the new Congress, May, One-stop shop for design and analysis, April, p. 24. Dec., p. 54. p. 12. ExoMars: Europe rises to the challenge, May, p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Sensor systems, Dec., p. 32. Asking the right questions, June, p. 3. Endurance near and (really) far, June, p. 22. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. Fears of protectionism grow in Europe, June, p. 4. Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 24. Aerospace 2009: Space tethers, Dec., p. 65. Gates dominates defense debate, June, p. 8. Aerospace 2009: Space logistics, Dec., p. 66. Aerospace 2009: Structural dynamics, Dec., p. 57. Climate change and national security—Parts of a Aerospace 2009: Space resources utilization, Dec., Aerospace 2009: Survivability, Dec., p. 53. whole, June, p. 26. p. 63.

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2009 INDEX

SPACEANDATMOSPHERICSCIENCE SPACECRAFT B

Planetology and the future of our species, Jan., p. 20. RAX Cubesats: Keeping a weather eye on space, BINDER, J., Electronic design speeds virtual RAX Cubesats: Keeping a weather eye on space, Jan., p. 28. prototyping, Feb., p. 20. Jan., p. 28. Commercial satellites get bigger—and smaller, Feb., BINDER, J., One-stop shop for design and analysis, Return to the Moon: Shaping a new exploration p. 12. April, p. 24. agenda, Jan., p. 30. Delicate dance for Mango and Tango, Feb., p. 16. BINDER, J., The digitized paper chase, June, p. 18. A space truck for the Moon, Feb., p. 32. Taking wing: Liftoff for public space travel, Feb., p. 24. BINDER, J., Cloud computing: Coming full circle, ISS: Closing in on completion, March, p. 16. Satellite System F6: Divide and conquer, Feb., p. 30. Nov., p. 16. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., All-electric aircraft Antarctic balloon launch lifts research hopes, March, A space truck for the Moon, Feb., p. 32. research speeds up, Jan., p. 4. p. 22. GEO comsats up, launch programs down, April, p. 20. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Defense cuts threaten Addressing climate change, with help from abroad, Aerospace industry in the Middle East, April, p. 38. April, p. 3. military programs, Feb., p. 4. ISS: Closing in on completion, March, p. 16. From data to knowledge: A sea change, April, p. 26. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Running out of runways, Satellite navigation newcomers: Cooperation or ExoMars: Europe rises to the challenge, May, p. 38. March, p. 4. competition?, March, p. 32. Endurance near and (really) far, June, p. 22. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Satellite navigation Ares I-X: Getting Constellation off the ground, May, newcomers: Cooperation or competition?, March, Climate change and national security—Parts of a p. 26. p. 32. whole, June, p. 26. Constellation testing progresses on two fronts, May, BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Liquidity crisis looms for GOCE adds gravity to ESA’s agenda, July/Aug., p. 32. p. 30. Europe’s aerospace companies, April, p. 4. Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 24. Navigational satellites fuel payload growth, June, BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Airbus looks to U.S. for Space debris: A growing challenge, Oct., p. 30. p. 14. A350 XWB suppliers, May, p. 4. Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. Climate change and national security—Parts of a BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., With Günter Verheugen, Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., whole, June, p. 26. May, p. 14. p. 16. Soyuz investigation lands with a thud, June, p. 38. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Fears of protectionism Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., p. 32. grow in Europe, June, p. 4. Four test flights that boosted Apollo 11, July/Aug., Aerospace 2009: Astrodynamics, Dec., p.14. p. 20. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Fuel efficiency improvements escalate, July/Aug., p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Atmospheric and space Industry’s strength offers options in downturn, environments, Dec., p. 9. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., A blueprint for defense July/Aug., p. 24. Aerospace 2009: Atmospheric flight mechanics, cooperation, Sept., p. 4. GOCE adds gravity to ESA’s agenda, July/Aug., p. 32. Dec., p. 11. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., EASA: Moving toward Aerospace 2009: Balloons, Dec., p. 19. A hot rod for the solar system, July/Aug., p. 38. proactive regulation, Sept., p. 38. Aerospace 2009: Plasmadynamics and lasers, Dec., Southeast Asia reaches toward space, Oct., p. 8. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Europe looks for UCAV p. 12. Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 24. synergies, Oct., p. 4. Aerospace 2009: Space colonization, Dec., p. 61. Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., With Graham Love, Oct., Aerospace 2009: Space operations and support, Transforming human spaceflight, Nov., p. 12. p. 16. Dec., p. 69. Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, Nov., p. 25. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Air freight revival: Real or Aerospace 2009: Space resources utilization, Dec., Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., p. 32. a mirage?, Nov., p. 4. BUTTERWORTH-HAYES, P., Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 63. Defining a subsidy, Nov., p. 36. p. 36. Aerospace 2009: Space systems, Dec., p. 67. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. Aerospace 2009: Thermophysics, Dec., p. 13. Aerospace 2009: Space tethers, Dec., p. 65. Aerospace 2009: Space transportation, Dec., p. 68. C SPACESTATION CÁCERES, M., Commercial satellites get bigger—and INTERVIEWS smaller, Feb., p. 12. ISS: Closing in on completion, March, p. 16. CÁCERES, M., GEO comsats up, launch programs Aerospace 2009: Space logistics, Dec., p. 66. With George C. Nield, Jan., p. 16. down, April, p. 20. Aerospace 2009: Space station, Dec., p. 71. With Rep. Dave Weldon, Feb., p. 14. CÁCERES, M., Navigational satellites fuel payload With Jean-Yves Le Gall, March, p. 12. growth, June, p. 14. With Elon Musk, April, p. 14. CÁCERES, M., Transforming human spaceflight, SPACETRANSPORTATION With Günter Verheugen, May, p. 14. Nov., p. 12. CAMHI, E., Sense and security, Feb., p. 3. With Mike Gold, June, p. 10. Launches “R” Us, Jan., p. 8. CAMHI, E., Finding the right balance, March, p. 3. With Ken Hodgkins, July/Aug., p. 14. Return to the Moon: Shaping a new exploration CAMHI, E., Lost in space, May, p. 3. With Edward J. Weiler, Sept., p. 12. agenda, Jan., p. 30. CAMHI, E., Asking the right questions, June, p. 3. With Graham Love, Oct., p. 16. Angara boosts Russia’s launch prospects, Jan., p. 36. CAMHI, E., A winning combination, July/Aug., p. 3. Taking wing: Liftoff for public space travel, Feb., p. 24. CAMHI, E., The promise of thinking green, Sept., GEO comsats up, launch programs down, April, p. 20. p. 3. Ares I-X: Getting Constellation off the ground, May, CAMHI, E., Our future in space, Oct., p. 3. p. 26. CAMHI, E., Nuclear propulsion—The affordable Constellation testing progresses on two fronts, May, Authors alternative, Nov., p. 3. p. 30. CAMHI, E., Inching toward reform, Dec., p. 3 Soyuz investigation lands with a thud, June, p. 38. CANAN, J., With George C. Nield, Jan., p. 16. Joining the space race, carefully, July/Aug., p. 8. CANAN, J., With Elon Musk, April, p. 14. Four test flights that boosted Apollo 11, July/Aug., A CANAN, J., National security imperatives for a new p. 20. administration, March, p. 26. A hot rod for the solar system, July/Aug., p. 38. ABOULAFIA, R., The aviation market boom ends, CANAN, J., With Ken Hodgkins, July/Aug., p. 14. Is human spaceflight optional?, Oct., p. 18. Jan., p. 24. CANAN, J., Cloudy forecast for NPOESS, Oct., p. 38. Transforming human spaceflight, Nov., p. 12. ABOULAFIA, R., F-35’s shadow grows longer, March, Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., p. 32. p. 18. Aerospace 2009: Hypersonic technologies and ABOULAFIA, R., Airbus and Boeing: Beyond D aerospace plane, Dec., p. 75. head-to-head, May, p. 18. Aerospace 2009: Nuclear and future flight propulsion, ABOULAFIA, R., Business aircraft market falls hard, DAVID, L., Return to the Moon: Shaping a new Dec., p. 36. July/Aug., p. 26. exploration agenda, Jan., p. 30. Aerospace 2009: Space logistics, Dec., p. 66. ABOULAFIA, R., Jetliners wait for hard times, Sept., DAVID, L., Taking wing: Liftoff for public space Aerospace 2009: Space transportation, Dec., p. 68. p. 16. travel, Feb., p. 24.

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DAVID, L., Space debris: A growing challenge, Oct., OBERG, J., Soyuz investigation lands with a thud, SIETZEN, F., Mars laboratory lands on red ink, Oct., p. 30. June, p. 38. p. 24. DORR, R., Change and continuity, Jan., p. 12. SIETZEN, F., Choosing the pathway to space, Nov., DORR, R., Washington in a time of change, Feb., p. 8. p. 32. DORR, R., Taking off in turbulent times, March, p. 8. P SUGAR, R., From data to knowledge: A sea change, DORR, R., Changing course in a deepening crisis, p. 26. April, p. 10. PIRARD, T., With Jean-Yves Le Gall, March, p. 12. DORR, R., The economy stays in the forefront, May, p. 8. W DORR, R., Gates dominates defense debate, June, p. 8. R WESTLAKE, M., Launches “R” Us, Jan., p. 8. DORR, R., Looking to new leaders, July/Aug., p. 16. DORR, R., Waiting for new directions, Sept., p. 8. ROCKWELL, D., Aircraft protection heats up, May, WESTLAKE, M., China on course in space, April, p. 8. p. 22. DORR, R., Aviation and spaceflight under scrutiny, WESTLAKE, M., Joining the space race, carefully, Oct., p. 10. ROCKWELL, D., JSF sensors: Dominant and delayed, July/Aug., p. 8. Sept., p. 20. DORR, R., Controversy and doubts in defense and WESTLAKE, M., Southeast Asia reaches toward space, Nov., p. 6. space, Oct., p. 8. WILLIAMSON, M., ExoMars: Europe rises to the S challenge, May, p. 38. F WILSON, J., Satellite System F6: Divide and conquer, SCHECHTER, E., Aerospace industry in the Middle Feb., p. 30. East, April, p. 38. FINNEGAN, P., Industry’s strength offers options in WILSON, J., UAV worldwide roundup 2009, April, p. 30. downturn, July/Aug., p. 24. SCHONS, C., Science, technology, and the new WILSON, J., The 787 and the A350: Teasing out the FINNEGAN, P., Defense giants reshape UAV industry, Congress, May, p. 12. facts, June, p. 32. Nov., p. 10. SIETZEN, F., A space truck for the Moon, Feb., p. 32. WILSON, J., GOCE adds gravity to ESA’s agenda, FLINN, E., RAX Cubesats: Keeping a weather eye on SIETZEN, F., A hot rod for the solar system, July/Aug., p. 32. space, Jan., p. 28. July/Aug., p. 38. WILSON, J., Airborne laser aims at final tests, FLINN, E., Delicate dance for Mango and Tango, SIETZEN, F., With Edward J. Weiler, Sept., p. 12. July/Aug., p. 44. Feb., p. 16. SIETZEN, F., Growing fuels for greener skies, Sept., WILSON, J., Military acquisitions: The shifting trend, FLINN, E., Antarctic balloon launch lifts research p. 32. Nov., p. 25. hopes, March, p. 22. FLINN, E., Constellation testing progresses on two fronts, May, p. 30. FLINN, E., Endurance near and (really) far, June, p. 22. FLINN, E., NASA coating helps keep hearts beating, Oct., p.22. FLINN, E., Phantom torso takes solar blasts for science, Nov., p. 16.

G

GREY, J., Addressing climate change, with help from abroad, April, p. 3.

J

JONES, T., Planetology and the future of our species, Jan., p. 20. JONES, T., ISS: Closing in on completion, March, p. 16. JONES, T., Ares I-X: Getting Constellation off the ground, May, p. 26. JONES, T., Four test flights that boosted Apollo 11, July/Aug., p. 20. JONES, T., Is human spaceflight optional?, Oct., p. 18.

L

LAURENZO, R., Soaring on a Solar Impulse, May, p. 32. LAUTENBACHER, C., Climate change and national security—Parts of a whole, June, p. 26. LEWIS, M., Military aviation goes green, Sept., p. 24.

M

MOMIYAMA, T., Building a better engineer, Jan., p. 3.

O

OBERG, J., Angara boosts Russia’s launch prospects, Jan., p. 36.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND The Department of Aerospace Engineering in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park is a vibrant and growing department with research in hypersonics, microsystems, rotorcraft, smart materials and structures, and space robotics. It has 20 faculty, six chaired faculty positions, an annual research expenditures of over $19M, and highly ranked undergraduate and graduate programs (“top ten”). While the department is looking for highly qualified tenure-track faculty starting in June 2009 or thereafter in all areas related to Aerospace engineering, applicants in the following areas are particularly encouraged: ‘Green’Aviation, Energy, Autonomous Systems, Structural Health Monitoring, Low Reynolds Number Aerodynamics, Hypersonics, and Space Robotics. Candidates should have an earned doctorate in aerospace engineering or a closely related field at the time of the appointment. Applicants are being sought primarily at the Assistant Professor and Associate Professor level, but extremely qualified candidates at the Full Professor level are also invited to apply. Candidates should have, or must have shown, a high potential for both teaching and research excellence. For best consideration a cover letter, curriculum vitae, research and education plan, and the names of at least four references should be submitted to the chair of the search committee no later than January 15, 2010: Dr. Inder Chopra ([email protected]) Chairman Search Committee Aerospace Engineering Department Department of Aerospace Engineering University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 Information on the Department is available at the following website: www.aero.umd.edu. This is an ongoing search for highly qualified faculty members.The University of Maryland and the Department of Aerospace Engineering are an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer with a strong commitment to the principle of diversity. In that spirit, applications from members of minority groups and women are especially invited.

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