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Space CAE – The First and Final Frontier …

By Doug Neill and Keith Hanna, MSC Software

n the development of any technology, it is recognized that Introduction the right catalyst can propel a nascent capability into a I necessary component of . And, 56 years ago, As we approach the 50th anniversary of the first NASA Apollo finite element analysis (FEA) really took off (some might say 11 landing when Commander Neil Armstrong uttered quite literally so!) with the invention of MSC’s Nastran FEA the words, “One small step for (a) man, one giant leap for solver for the NASA American program mankind”, we thought it was worth looking backwards (a (reference 1, 2). little nostalgically) and forwards (boldly, and with vision) to

22 | Engineering Reality Magazine the application of CAE in the yesterday, was possible. It was a resounding success just after Christmas today and in the future. We believe that we are approaching 1968. And the Moon Landings made history in 1969 as we all another golden age of both space travel and space know. If you want to read of the sobering speech that President exploration by humans, where technology advances are Richard Nixon had prepared should the mission have democratizing and expanding beyond the failed, check out the Space.com article (reference 3) to show realms of national governments. This development will how risky this Mission was that made history. necessitate even more CAE simulations than ever before, in ever more challenging environments, where no other ‘Cold War’ Drives cost-effective solution exists than CAE for predicting the Adoption of CAE performance and mitigating risks of failure and expensive write-offs. What a time to be alive, and to be a CAE engineer After the Second World War, and with the fall of the ‘Iron in the space industry! Curtain’ - as Sir Winston Churchill called it - across Europe, the world went into a ‘Cold War’. As with nearly all wars, It is worth pointing out that following the success of the Soviet science and engineering got an unexpected dividend; space program in the 1950s and 1960s, and U.S. competing governments started to embrace simulation President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1962 speech imploring his software for both design of defense related nuclear missiles, fellow Americans to get a man onto the moon and back by and space exploration, in a race between the Western 1970, the subsequent tragedy of three Apollo 1 Powers and Soviet for technological world dominance dying on their in 1967 meant that the 1969 moon and global propaganda. Indeed, it can be argued that the landing was inherently very risky. In an excellent radio space industry, and its associated missile and engine design documentary broadcast last year by the BBC in the UK challenges, were probably one of the biggest catalysts for (reference 2), the manned 1968 moon-orbiting mission CAE advances in the mid to late 20th century, and ultimately was a major precursor to the Apollo 11 moon landing. It even the emergence of the commercial CAE industry as we know it resulted in the now famous ‘Earthrise’ photograph (left) taken by today (see references 4,5,6). William Anders, that helped to fuel the environmental movement on and showed how precarious, unique, and Dr. Richard H. MacNeal (pictured left, sitting on the right) beautiful our blue planet is in the vast darkness of our solar founded MSC along with Robert Schwendler (not shown in this system. This mission was the first time that humans left the orbit photo) in 1963 under the name of MacNeal-Schwendler of their mother planet with the risk of not coming back. The Corporation. Under their leadership, MSC developed its first sling shot trajectory Apollo 8 took around the moon was structural analysis software called SADSAM (Structural Analysis hazardous but essential to show that a manned moon landing by Digital Simulation of Analog Methods) and they were deeply

Volume IX - Summer 2019 | mscsoftware.com | 23 involved in the early efforts of the aerospace industry to improve It is less well known, or even appreciated, in this the half early finite element analysis technology. In response to a 1965 century anniversary year of the manned mission to request for a proposal from the National Aeronautics and Space the Moon with Neil Armstrong’s first step on the lunar Administration (NASA) for a general purpose structural analysis landscape (on July 20th 1969), that the application of CAE in program, Dr. MacNeal contributed greatly to the early efforts of space has been going on diligently and quietly for the last 50 the aerospace industry by successfully simulating on-the-ground years. Moreover, MSC Software’s tools and solutions have physical testing through computing to deliver the right answers been in the vanguard of modern space industry simulations and right physics to take humans to the moon (reference 1). The and related equipment design - from multi-body dynamics to core of MSC Nastran was the code that NASA used to acoustics, FEA to CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics), and, structurally analyze the Apollo Space Program. In 1971, MSC latterly, materials analysis and novel manufacturing techniques Software released a commercial version of the same software (like additive manufacturing). MSC’s unprecedented and unique and since then its value to society (both tangible and intangible) co-simulation capabilities in CAE have allowed for a very wide in the creation, extension and spread of FEA simulation range of some of the most accurate and reliable engineering technologies was calculated by a NASA valuation of MSC simulations possible for the space industry yesterday and Nastran in 2003 to be $10B in economic value (reference 2). today (see Figure 1).

Aerodynamics Design & Sizing Manufacturing Process Multibody Dynamics Structural Inegrity during • Drag, lift, torque, shocks • CAD cleaning Simulation • Forces mission • Aerothermal heating • Parts & Assembly based modelling • Additive Manufacturing • Loads • Loads • Avionics & fluidics • Structural performance analysis • Joining, Foming Assembly • System dynamics

Advanced Materials • Mechanical and thermal properties of separation metal & composite microstructures • Material Life Cycle Management • Forces • Virtual allowables • Loads • Effect of defects • Light weighting

Orbital Heating Electronics Thermo-Mechanical Controls Vibro-Acoustic Analyses • Thermal Radiation • Thermal Management • Analysis • Systems • Thermal analysis • Payload survival • Fatigue • Launch Loads • Virtual Testing

Figure 1: Assortment of Multiphysics CAE applications of MSC Software tools in the Space Industry today

24 | Engineering Reality Magazine Unprecedented Interest in Space Travel, Further Moon Landings and Interplanetary Exploration

Space has today again become truly a frontier for technology advancement with larger-than-life multi-billionaires like Elon Musk (SpaceX, Tesla) making ever more extravagant claims and stunts - a Tesla car playing David Bowie tracks on an infinite loop is flying into deep space as we write - and hosting regular press conferences with amazing projections for what his company will do next in space. Richard Branson () and Jeff Bezos (, Amazon) - the world’s richest man - are jumping on the space bandwagon and are in a race to successfully launch passenger- carrying suborbital flights from earth by a commercial airline for the first time (references 7,8). The emergence of Musk’s privately owned and very profitable SpaceX corporation, founded in 2003 to make money from space, has revolutionized the commercial satellite industry, but ever more ambitious plans for geostationary telescopes, lunar polar manned space stations, human colonies on , and even plans for lunar mining and smart factories are being explored. There are even six geostationary in orbit around the planet Mars today. Figure 2: Chinese Robotic was simulated in MSC Adams and connected Emerging nations like , and India are staking claims to space. The recent to EDEM for Lunar terrain modeling landing of the Chang’e 6 Lunar Module and Rover on the dark side of the Moon in December 2018 illustrates this (reference 9), the privately funded SpaceIL craft that set off for a soft landing on the moon in February 2019 (reference 10), and India’s ambitious Chandrayaan-2 Mission to put a man back on the moon by the end of 2021 (reference 11). Japan has a healthy space program and its -2 lander successfully intercepted the Ryugu in February 2019 (reference 12). Even President Donald Trump announced plans in 2018 for a US , to be the 6th branch of the American (reference 13).

Figure 3: Italian Flexible Membrane Space We reviewed a broad sweep of space related projects using MSC Software solutions Station Simulated in Adams and MSC over the last few years and noted some cool applications being tackled today. Nastran Researchers in Harbin University in China (reference 14) last year successfully coupled MSC’s Adams multi-body dynamics solver to EDEM from DEM Solutions in a co- simulation chain to model a novel new spider-like robotic lander vehicle capable of dealing with rough terrain on other planets (Figure 2). Research at the Politecnico di Torino in Italy last year also analyzed multibody mechanisms for inflatable structures in manned space applications using the Adams and MSC Nastran SOL400 co- simulation solver (reference 15). Their numerical results showed what was possible for the inflatable manned space module with rigid components and a flexible coating made of Kevlar (Figure 3), and led to some recommendations related to its optimal Figure 4: Russian Lunar Landing & Ascent Vehicle dynamics simulated in Adams structural performance.

Many researchers in the last 10 years have used MSC Software to examine the dynamics of lunar landers and ascent vehicles and a typical study can be seen in Figure 4 from the S.P. Korolev and Space Public Corporation (RSC Energia) in Russia in 2018. They used Adams coupled with Python scripts to look at the dynamics of landing and taking off from the lunar surface. A MSc Thesis involving a design study at the University of Delft in the Netherlands to investigate the optimal structural design for an inflatable lunar greenhouse module was carried out in 2014 (reference 17). The student verified preliminary design calculations and compliance with requirements for thermal and load-bearing structural properties of a Kevlar composite, using the FEA tool MSC Nastran (Figure 5). And, finally, a Masters Thesis from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in America in 2016 (reference 18) employed SimXpert and MSC Nastran to investigate whether a CubeSat satellite design that uses a combination of propulsion and solar arrays stresses the dynamics of the solar panels and their hinges that hold Figure 5: Dutch University proposal for an Inflatable Lunar Greenhouse simulated in them in place (Figure 6). MSC Nastran

Volume IX - Summer 2019 | mscsoftware.com | 25 References

1. ‘Getting the Right Answers”, Article by D. Gallello and D. Neill, MSC Website, 2017: https://www.mscsoftware.com/sites/default/ files/Getting_Right_Answers.pdf 2. ‘The NASA Heritage of Creativity’, Article by Theron M. Bradley, Jr., NASA Chief Engineer and Chair of the ICB, Annual Report of the NASA Inventions & Contributions Board, 2003: https://www.nasa. gov/pdf/251093main_The_NASA_Heritage_Of_Creativity.pdf 3. ‘The Engineering Design Revolution – The People, Companies and Computer Systems That Changed Forever the Practice of Engineering’ by D.E. Weisberg: http://www.cadhistory.net/ 4. ‘Christmas on the ’, BBC Radio Podcast, 27th December 2018: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0001qn1 5. ‘What If Apollo 11 Failed? President Nixon Had Speech Ready’, by N. T. Redd, July 22nd 2014, Space.com website: https://www. space.com/26604-apollo-11-failure-nixon-speech.html 6. ‘The History of MSC Software’, YouTube Video, March 8th 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueFybc6XXmo 7. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic site: https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Galactic 8. Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin Wikipedia site: https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Blue_Origin 9. ‘Chang’e-4 landing to be a step along a road of lunar exploration for China’, A. Jones, Space News Website, December 28, 2018: https://spacenews.com/change-4-landing-to-be-a-step-along-a- road-of-lunar-exploration-for-china/ 10. ‘Israel’s privately funded moon mission lifts off’, O. Liebermann and James Masters, CNN News, February 22, 2019: https://www. cnn.com/2019/02/22/middleeast/israel-moon-spacecraft- -launch-scli-intl/index.html 11. Indian Moon Landing Chandrayaan-2 Program Wikipedia site: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandrayaan-2 12. ‘Japan’s Hayabusa 2 successfully touches down on Ryugu Figure 6: US MIT study on CubeSat Satellite Solar Panels simulated asteroid’, K. Lyons, and I. Sample, Guardian Newspaper, 21 Feb in SimXpert 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/feb/22/ japans-hayabusa-2-successfully-touches-down-on-ryugu-asteroid 13. ‘President Trump announces that U.S. military will soon have a ‘space force’ to wage war beyond planet Earth’, D. Slattery and C. Sommerfeldt, New York Daily News, Mar 13, 2018 http://www. Summary & Conclusions nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-announces-u-s-military- space-force-article-1.3872617 14. ‘Adhesion mechanism of space-climbing robot based on discrete Fifty years after the first moon landing by Neil Armstrong on the element and dynamics’, Apollo 11 Mission, it is fair to say that the exploration (and 15. X. Hou, Y. Su, S. Jiang, L. Li, T. Chen, L. Sun, and Z. Deng, exploitation) of space, our neighboring planets, and , for Advances in Mechanical Engineering, 2018, Vol. 10(4) 1–15 16. ‘Multibody models with flexible components for inflatable space commercial means has never been so topical, or more structures’, M. Petrolo, G. Governale, D. Catelani, and E. Carrera, lucrative. Assorted commercial players in the space industry http://www.techno-press.org/?journal=aas&subpage=7 have started to enter the market in the last 20 years bringing 17. ISSN: 2287-5271, 2018 18. ‘Programmatic and Procedural Approach to Simulating Landing down the cost of participation. Polar moon bases, lunar mining, Dynamics of a Lunar Landing and Ascent Vehicle’, S.V. Borzykh, landing on , and colonies on planet Mars are all being and V.V. Voronin, Space Science and Technology, No. 2 (21) / 2018 examined as feasible opportunities. Even in situ 3D printer 19. ‘Design of a Deployable Structure for a Lunar Greenhouse Module’, V. Vrakking, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands, Masters facilities, lunar factories, chemical processing facilities, and Thesis, 2014 lunar greenhouses are being proposed and designed using 20. ‘Dynamic Instabilities Imparted by CubeSat Propulsion’, T. J. CAE before ever being built. MSC Software was there at the Cordeiro, MIT Masters Thesis, USA, 2016 start of Space CAE half a century ago delivering accurate FEA simulations; we continue to play a big part in the emerging commercial space industry, and the future is looking ever more exciting for space engineers in the .

26 | Engineering Reality Magazine