NASA engineers crush fuel tank to build better rockets

NASA's Mark Hilburger prepares to buckle an aluminum-lithium cylinder about the size of fuel tank barrels for the largest rockets ever built. 

The black and white dots on the upper portion of the tank helped 20 high-speed cameras record minute changes in the tank as almost a million pounds of force pressed down upon the tank in a test at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. 

Credit: NASA/Fred Deaton

NASA completed a series of high-tech can-crushing tests last week as an enormous fuel tank crumbled under the pressure of almost a million pounds of force, all in the name of building lighter, more affordable rockets.

During the testing for the Shell Buckling Knockdown Factor Project, which began Dec. 9 at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., force and pressure were increasingly applied to the top of an empty but pressurized rocket fuel tank to evaluate its structural integrity.

The resulting data will help engineers design, build and test the gigantic fuel tanks for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket NASA is developing for deep space missions.

"These full-scale tests along with our computer models and subscale tests will help NASA and industry design lighter, more affordable launch vehicles," said Mark Hilburger, senior research engineer in the Structural Mechanics and Concepts Branch at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va.

Hilburger is conducting the tests for the NASA Engineering and Safety Center. "We were looking at real-time data from 20 cameras and more than 800 sensors during the final test."

The aluminum-lithium tank was made from unused space shuttle tank hardware and decked out in 70,000 black and white polka dots that helped high-speed cameras focus on any buckles, rips or strains.

"When it buckled it was quite dramatic," Hilburger said. "We heard the bang, almost like the sound of thunder and could see the large buckles in the test article."

Engineers are updating design guidelines that have the potential to reduce launch vehicle weight by 20 percent.

Lighter rockets can carry more equipment into space or travel farther away from Earth for exploration missions to asteroids, Mars or other distant locations.



"In addition to providing data for the Space Launch System design team, these tests are preparing us for upcoming full-scale tests," said Matt Cash, Marshall's lead test engineer for the shell buckling efforts and the SLS forward skirt and liquid oxygen tank structural testing.

"Performing structural tests on hardware that is the same size as SLS hardware is providing tremendous benefit for our future development work for the rocket."

The testing was conducted at Marshall's load test annex, part of the Structural and Dynamics Engineering Test Laboratory previously used to test large structures for the Saturn V rocket, space shuttle and International Space Station.

NASA's Space Launch System will provide an entirely new capability for human exploration beyond Earth orbit.

Designed to be flexible for crew or cargo missions, the SLS will be safe, affordable and sustainable to continue America's journey of discovery from the unique vantage point of space.

SLS will carry the Orion spacecraft's crew to deep space destinations including an asteroid and eventually Mars.

Engineers design spacesuit tools, biomedical sensors

Several Kansas State University engineering students are working with a model spacesuit to explore how wearable medical sensors can be used in future space missions to keep astronauts healthy. 

Credit: Kansas State University

Kansas State University researchers are improving astronauts' outerwear for outer space.

The collaborative team—which includes electrical and computer engineering professors and more than a dozen students—envisions a future spacesuit that could monitor astronauts' health and use body heat to power electronics.

By working with a model spacesuit, the engineers are exploring how wearable medical sensors can be used in future space missions to keep astronauts healthy.

William Kuhn

The project is supported by a three-year, $750,000 NASA grant and involves the College of Engineering's electrical and computer engineering department, the Electronic Design Laboratory and the College of Human Ecology, including the kinesiology department and the apparel, textiles and interior design department.

William Kuhn, professor of electrical and computer engineering, and Steven Warren, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, are two key faculty members working on the engineering portion.

Steven Warren

"This project supports a number of undergraduate and graduate students in doing systems-level engineering research and making them the technologists of the future," Kuhn said.

The project involves five parts, with several students involved in each part:

Kansas State University engineers are developing new energy harvesting methods that use body heat and a spacesuit's cooling garment to power radios and other electronics inside the spacesuit. 

Credit: Kansas State University

• Developing and testing biosensors that can monitor astronauts' vital data, such as breathing rate or muscle activity.
• Creating a specialized wireless network so that spacesuit biosensors can communicate with each other and with a space station.
• Using energy harvesting technology to power radios and biosensors while an astronaut is in a spacesuit.
• Building hardware prototypes for biosensors and energy harvesting electronics.
• Producing spinoff technologies, such as new radio technologies and devices that apply to home care.

"This project is a good example of how when you do something in space, everything needs to be rethought—human elements and nonhuman elements of the system," Warren said.

"We have a lot to learn about human physiology and what happens to a person as they physically change in a reduced-gravity environment."

NASA LADEE Moon Probe: Engineers fix Reaction Wheel Glitch after night launch

Photographer Chris Bakley captured this stunning image of NASA's LADEE moon probe launch from the beach in Cape May Point, N.J., on Sept. 6, 2013. 

LADEE launched from Wallops Island, Va., and was visible across a wide swath of the U.S. East Coast

Credit: Chris Bakley

Engineers have fixed a technical glitch on NASA's newest robotic moon explorer, bringing the spacecraft back up to full health one day after a spectacular nighttime launch Friday that wowed spectators up and down the U.S. East Coast.

NASA's LADEE moon probe launch into space Friday night (Sept. 6) in a flawless liftoff from the agency's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va. An Orbital Sciences Corp. Minotaur V rocket, making its debut flight, launched the lunar probe.

But just hours after the 11:27 p.m. EDT (0327 GMT) liftoff, NASA officials reported that the spacecraft's reaction wheels — which spin to position and stabilize LADEE in space without using precious thruster fuel — unexpectedly shut down.


By Saturday afternoon, the glitch had been traced to safety limits programmed into LADEE before launch to protect the reaction wheel system, NASA officials said.

Those fault protection limits caused LADEE to switch off its reaction wheels shortly after powering them up, according to a mission status update.

Engineers have since disabled the safety limits causing the glitch and taking extra care in restoring the fault-protection protocols.

Butler Hine

"Our engineers will determine the appropriate means of managing the reaction wheel fault protection program. Answers will be developed over time and will not hold up checkout activities," NASA's LADEE project manager at AMES, Butler Hine said in a statement.

"The reaction wheel issue noted soon after launched was resolved a few hours later," added NASA Ames Research Center director Pete Worden.

"The LADEE spacecraft is healthy and communicating with mission operators." NASA's Ames center developed and built the LADEE spacecraft, and is overseeing its mission operations.

NASA Kennedy Engineers Designing Plant Habitat For ISS

Some of the research on the International Space Station is already focusing on meeting the needs of long-term spaceflights beyond low-Earth orbit. 

During Expedition 29 in 2011, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov checks the progress of new growth in the Rastenia investigation aboard the space station. (NASA)

Some of the research on the International Space Station focuses on meeting the needs of long-term spaceflight to destinations such as asteroids or Mars.

A group of engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida is developing a plant habitat with a large growth chamber to learn the effects of long-duration microgravity exposure to plants in space.

Through most of Kennedy's history, the space center has focused on receiving, processing and launching vehicles developed at other centers.

Design projects such as the plant habitat give people at the Florida spaceport an opportunity to further use their extensive knowledge base in preparing flight hardware.

"This is the first Kennedy-led space station payload of this magnitude," said Bryan Onate, Plant Habitat Project manager in the ISS Ground Processing and Research Directorate.

"We're using in-house expertise to develop the plant habitat to go on an EXPRESS rack in the station's Destiny laboratory.

It will provide a large, enclosed, environmentally-controlled chamber designed to support commercial and fundamental plant research onboard the space station."

The plant habitat is configured as a payload that will be mounted on a standard Expedite the Processing of Experiments to Space Station, or EXPRESS, rack.

The multipurpose payload rack system stores and supports research and science experiments across many disciplines by providing structural interfaces, power, data, cooling, water and other needs to operate science payloads in orbit.

The compact facility is about 21 inches high, 36 inches wide and 24 inches deep and would use about 735 watts of power.

"NASA is conducting plant research aboard the space station because during future long-duration missions, life in space may depend on it," Onate said.

As NASA plans missions beyond low-Earth orbit, relying on plant growth aboard a spacecraft will play an important role.

"The ability of plants to provide high quality science within a tightly closed system, a source of food and recycle carbon dioxide into breathable oxygen may prove crucial for astronauts and add to the body of knowledge as they live in space for months at a time," he said.

Onate explained that most of the experiments conducted on the space station are developed by principal investigators from universities or other research institutions.

"The plant habitat is an effort to attract a broader audience of principle investigators that need a large growth area for a long duration," he said. "In order to expedite this capability on the space station, we have contracted with Orbital Technologies Corp. to help us design, fabricate and certify the plant habitat for flight."