GPIM spacecraft to validate use of "green" propellant

Artist rendition of NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) that will demonstrate and test the capabilities of a high-performance, non-toxic, “green” fuel on orbit. 

Credit: Image courtesy of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

Milestone progress is being made in readying NASA's Green Propellant Infusion Mission (GPIM) for launch in 2016, a smallsat designed to test the unique attributes of a high-performance, non-toxic, "green" fuel on orbit.

The GPIM marks the first time the United States will use a spacecraft to test green propellant technology, thereby showcasing the innovation needed to develop a fully domestic, green propellant solution for the next generation of space flight.

GPIM is a Technology Demonstration Mission made possible by NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) and draws upon a government-industry team of specialists.

"The GPIM project symbolizes what we do best in STMD," said Timothy Chen, program executive for Technology Demonstration Missions at NASA Headquarters.

"We invest in break-through technologies that will fundamentally change the way industry does things."

"We enable critical technologies such as the green propellant to buy down the risk of development so that NASA, industry and other government agencies can use the technology as close to off-the-shelf as possible."

"The GPIM project has continued to make significant progress towards proving a mission-capable green alternative to mono propellant hydrazine thrusters."

The propellant and new propulsion technology offer several advantages for future commercial, university, and government satellites, such as longer mission durations, additional maneuverability, increased payload space, and simplified launch processing.

Alternative fuel
The propellant, a Hydroxyl Ammonium Nitrate fuel/oxidizer mix, also is known as AF-M315E. This fuel may replace the highly toxic hydrazine and complex bi-propellant systems in-use today.

Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado is the prime contractor for GPIM and is leading the demonstration of the alternative fuel for future space vehicles.

"Green fuel is not only great in terms of handling and safety, it is also a very high-performance rocket fuel," said Chris McLean, principal investigator for GPIM at Ball Aerospace.

"It opens the mission trade space for expanded science operations and/or increased durations."

The green propulsion system will fly aboard the tried-and-true Ball Configurable Platform 100 spacecraft bus, a cost-saving approach, McLean added, since this is the third build of this bus.

The AF-M315E fuel for GPIM was developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

The propellant offers nearly 50 percent higher performance for a given propellant tank volume compared to a conventional hydrazine system.


Credit: NASA Marshall Space Flight Center

Ball Aerospace technicians use specialized equipment to build the GPIM satellite so that the space vehicle instruments and thrusters align perfectly with the payload interface. 

Credit: Courtesy of Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.

GPIM team
The GPIM is among several other payloads to be lofted in 2016 by a SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster.

GPIM team co-investigators also include NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory at Edwards Air Force Base, with additional mission support from the U.S. Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center at Kirkland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

The GPIM effort is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

"One of the things that I love about technology demonstration missions is that for a relatively low dollar amount we are capable of doing significant technology advancements," said McLean of Ball Aerospace. "Everybody on the program is contributing to the success of GPIM."

NASA Plans to test making rocket fuel ingredient on Mars

NASA plans to make oxygen, a key ingredient of rocket fuel, on Mars early next decade.

Space agency officials Thursday unveiled seven instruments they plan to put on a Martian rover that would launch in 2020, including two devices aimed at bigger Mars missions in the future.

The $1.9 billion rover will include an experiment that will turn carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere into oxygen.

It could then be used to make rocket fuel and for future astronauts to breathe, said NASA associate administrator for exploration Bill Gerstenmaier.

Taking fuel to Mars for return flights is heavy and expensive.

The device, named MOXIE, works like an engine but in reverse, said Michael Hecht, the scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is running the test project.

It will make about three-quarters of an ounce of oxygen an hour.

If it works, then a larger scale device, 100 times bigger than MOXIE, would be launched two years before astronauts go, currently slated for some time in the 2030s. NASA first plans to send astronauts to an asteroid.

The bigger device would start making enough oxygen for the return trip before astronauts ever launch to Mars, Hecht said.

The other part of rocket fuel, the propellant, can be made from light hydrogen that is brought from Earth or other chemicals mined from Martian dirt or atmosphere.

John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science, said the new rover, a clone of the chassis of the current Curiosity machine, "will lead to getting humans to Mars in the future."

Mars on average is about 140 million miles from Earth and opportunities to send spaceships to there come only every 26 months. The trip to Mars takes about 9 months, but can be as short as half a year.

The rover is scheduled to land on Mars in 2021.

NASA also plans to collect interesting rocks, put them in sealed vials for future flights to pick them up and return them to Earth for detailed study.

This would likely be another robotic mission or it could just wait for astronauts. NASA hasn't yet figured out how the rover will store the rocks.

Russia reports successful launch of new Angara rocket

Russia successfully test-launched its new Angara rocket on Wednesday after a planned maiden flight overseen by President Vladimir Putin had to be aborted last month.

Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Putin that the next-generation Angara rocket was launched from Plesetsk at 1200 GMT, Russian news agencies reported, citing a defence ministry spokesman.

Twenty-one minutes after the launch, the rocket reached its planned target in the Far Eastern region of Kamchatka 5,700 kilometres (3,540 miles) away from the launch pad, the spokesman said.

"Yes to Angara!" deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozin exclaimed on Twitter.

The Angara was initially scheduled to blast off from Plesetsk late last month when officials reported a sudden automatic launch abort in an embarrassing glitch broadcast live on national television.

Designed to succeed Soviet-era launchers, Angara is the first rocket to have been completely built after the collapse of the Soviet Union and it is designed to reduce Russia's reliance on other former USSR countries.

Officials say it is more environmentally friendly than its predecessors because it is fuelled by oxygen and kerosene rather than hugely toxic heptyl.

NASA Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project sets new record

While the Dawn spacecraft is visiting the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, NASA Glenn has been developing the next generation of ion thrusters for future missions.

NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Project has developed a 7-kilowatt ion thruster that can provide the capabilities needed in the future.

Schematic of a Hall effect thruster electric propulsion device

An ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, but does so at higher specific impulse (or higher exhaust velocities), which means that an ion thruster has a fuel efficiency of 10-12 times greater than a chemical thruster.

The higher the rocket's specific impulse (fuel efficiency), the farther the spacecraft can go with a given amount of fuel.

Given that an ion thruster produces small levels of thrust relative to chemical thrusters, it needs to operate in excess of 10,000 hours to slowly accelerate the spacecraft to speeds necessary to reach the asteroid belt or beyond.

Diagram of how a gridded electrostatic ion engine (Kaufman type)

The NEXT ion thruster has been operated for over 43,000 hours, which for rocket scientists means that the thruster has processed over 770 kilograms of xenon propellant and can provide 30 million-newton-seconds of total impulse to the spacecraft.

This demonstrated performance permits future science spacecraft to travel to varied destinations, such as extended tours of multi-asteroids, comets, and outer planets and their moons.

Image Credit: NASA

NASA shows off new Mars lander - Morpheus, fueled by Methane

NASA unveils the prototype of a remarkable new landing vehicle this week that is set to form the basis of new space probes to explore the Solar System.

Named Morpheus, the lander is designed to fly to a variety of destinations including Mars, planetary moons or asteroids.

It will incorporate intelligent technology that allows it to register the presence of surface hazards such as boulders and avoid them.

It will also be powered by new "green" propulsion system that uses liquid oxygen and methane because these are fuels that could be readily produced on other worlds.

Another benefit of using methane is that it can be stored for longer in space than can other common rocket propellants. Methane also is cheaper and safer to operate and could be made from ice found on the moon or Mars.

Video of a tethered test of Morpheus. Credit: NASA

The NASA-designed vehicle was manufactured and assembled at JSC and Armadillo Aerospace, and is the second vertical test bed built by the project team. The first, Pixel, was literally put together from spare parts supplied by the commercial company.

NASA converted the Pixel lander to use liquid oxygen and methane as its fuel, fitted it with instruments and carried out early guidance, navigation and control testing. Pixel was flown last year under tether 17 times and three free flights, at Armadillo’s facility near Dallas.

NASA JPL Project Morpheus: Lander undergoes engine testing

Morpheus is a vertical test bed demonstrating new green propellant propulsion systems and autonomous landing and hazard detection technology.

Designed, developed, manufactured and operated in-house by engineers at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Morpheus Project represents not only a vehicle to advance technologies, but also an opportunity to try out “lean development” engineering practices

Engine Testing
After sticking to the ground for upgrades the past several months, the Project Morpheus prototype lander took to the skies at Johnson Space Center again on Tuesday.

Since its last round of tests in 2011, the Morpheus team has given the liquid oxygen/liquid methane-fueled lander a new engine, new avionics and a power unit redesign.

In addition, the vehicle software has been substantially updated in preparation for the integration of its Autonomous Landing and Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) payload.

The lander has the same oxygen and methane tanks, and the same structure, but otherwise it’s practically an all-new vehicle.

“The first series of tests gave us a basic understanding of our ability to control the vehicle and allowed us to initially characterize the performance of the subsystems on the vehicle,” Morpheus Project Manager Jon Olansen said.

“With that information we were able to go back and design in upgrades to improve performance and reliability.”

Once the upgrades were complete, it was time to start up a new series of tests. Like last time, they started with hot fire tests to demonstrate engine operation, and this week worked up to tethered testing.

On Tuesday, the refitted lander successfully hovered 15 feet above the ground for 40 seconds, firing the engine for a total of 50 seconds with ignition, ascent and descent.

ESA prepares new technologies for future launchers

ESA and the DLR German Space Center fired a Texus rocket 263 km into space on 27 November to test a new way of handling propellants on Europe’s future rockets.

Texus 48 lifted off at 10:10 GMT (11:10 CET) from the Esrange Space Centre near Kiruna in northern Sweden on its 13-minute flight.

During the six minutes of weightlessness – mimicking the different stages of a full spaceflight – two new devices were tested for handling super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen propellants and then recovered for analysis.

Building on over 30 years of Texus missions, flight 48 was the first to demonstrate a new technology for future launchers.

DLR procured the rocket for this flight, which was performed under ESA’s Cryogenic Upper Stage Technologies (CUST) project as part of the Future Launchers Preparatory Programme (FLPP).

ESA Portal - Europe prepares new technologies for future launchers

Improved upper stage
ESA is working on a restartable cryogenic upper stage to improve Europe’s launchers.

Liquids naturally float around in weightlessness but to ensure engine ignition after a long coast in low-gravity, propellant must be held ready at the tank’s outlet using ‘capillary’ forces – the same force that helps paper towels soak up water.

Although this has already been mastered for launchers and satellites that use storable liquids, higher-performance cryogenic fluids are more difficult to handle.

On Texus 48, liquid nitrogen represented the cryogenic propellants to ease cost and safety constraints, and simplify the thermal design.

“The launch of Texus 48 demonstrating new technologies for future rockets was a success. It also shows great cooperation with DLR, where joint efforts made this flight possible on time,” said Guy Pilchen, Future Launchers Preparatory Programme Manager.

ESA: Green’ satellite fuel designed to make space safer

On the day running up to launch when a spacecraft is fuelled, ground personnel look more like astronauts than engineers, putting on spacesuit-like protective gear.

This is an essential precaution when dealing with the current hydrazine fuel, but a new development could make satellite fuelling no more dangerous than filling up a car.

First used in rocket engines by the German Luftwaffe during World War Two, hydrazine remains the main propellant of choice for a satellite’s onboard thrusters, used for orbit correction or stationkeeping during its working life.

It is a high-performing storable propellant that is also ‘hypergolic’ – meaning it ignites spontaneously on contact with oxidiser or by itself with a catalyst, which makes a spacecraft designer’s job a lot easier.

Unfortunately hydrazine is also highly corrosive and extremely toxic. When leaked into the environment, it degrades in a few days but has the potential to harm plants and marine life, while exposure is considered harmful to people at just 50 parts per million.

Seeking an alternative, ESA has been working with a Swedish company called ECAPS, part of the Swedish Space Corporation Group, to build and test a thruster that runs on a safer, more environmentally friendly fuel.

ECAPS informs us that the development of High Performance Green Propulsion (HPGP) was initiated with the goal of meeting the requirements for future satellite missions. After more than 10 years of R&D, the HPGP technology is emerging as an enabling technology for improved performance, enhanced volumetric efficiency, reduction of propellant handling hazards and safer launch operations.

The HPGP technology developed by ECAPS, includes a storable monopropellant blend based on Ammonium DiNitramide (ADN) and thrusters with high-temperature resistant thrust chamber and catalyst.

For more information you can download ECAPS HPGP brochure here