Суборбитальные пуски (научные и экспериментальные)

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 37 мин. назад

SubTec-7 Mission, Black Brant IX launches from Wallops Island. More info about the launch experiments, click https://go.nasa.gov/2pogtUm

NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 34 мин. назад

Our view of Black Brant IX launch, 7 miles from launch site. Got any pics? Share with us!

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Black Brant IX launches SubTec-7


SciNews

Опубликовано: 16 мая 2017 г.

A Black Brant IX sounding rocket launched the SubTec-7 mission from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on 16 May 2017. The SubTec-7 mission tested technologies to improve the capabilities of sounding rockets.

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NASA Wallops ‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 1 ч. назад

Cool pic from the Black Brant IX launch at Wallops.

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Jonathan McDowell‏Подлинная учетная запись @planet4589 18 мин. назад

NASA's SubTec-7 suborbital technology payload, flight NASA 36.317GP, launched at 0945 UTC from Wallops Island to 248 km apogee.

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SubTec-7 tested improved sounding rocket recovery systems. Splashed in Atlantic 170 km out and was successfully recovered

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ScienceCasts: NASA's Sounding Rockets
 

ScienceAtNASA

Опубликовано: 16 мая 2017 г.

Sounding rocket missions can often be the key to getting a quick answer to a tightly focused science question.

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nanotechnology-flight-test-material-impact-on-the-future

May 16, 2017

Nanotechnology Flight Test: Material Impact on the Future

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A carbon nanotube Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessel (COPV) is to fly this month as part of the SubTec-7 mission using a 56-foot tall Black Brant IX rocket launched fr om NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Shown here is the SubTec7 payload undergoing final testing and evaluation at Wallops Flight Facility.
Credits: NASA/Berit Bland


NASA worked with industry partner, Nanocomp of Merrimack, New Hampshire to produce carbon nanotube (CNT) fibers to fabricate a carbon nanotube Composite Overwrap Pressure Vessel.
Credits: Nanocomp


Tensile strength tests were performed in advanced of the flight test to help engineers predict the loads the article could experience before failing.


A demonstration flight article is wound with carbon nanotube composites.


COPV tank snug inside sounding rocket.
Credits: NASA

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Mastering the intricacies of controlling matter at the nanoscale level is part of a revolutionary quest to apply nanotechnology to benefit industrial processes. A key element of that technology is the use of carbon nanotubes.

Carbon nanotubes are small hollow tubes with diameters of 0.7 to 50 nanometers and lengths generally in the tens of microns. While ultra-small, carbon nanotubes offer big-time attributes.

For instance, materials can be manufactured that exhibit superior strength but are still extremely lightweight. Think in terms of 200 times the strength and five times the elasticity of steel. For good measure, add in that they offer highly-efficient electrical and thermal conductivity.

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Reduce mass, improve performance

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No wonder then that NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) is keenly interested in nanotechnology – an approach that can reduce the mass and improve the performance of aerospace systems.

For example, NASA computer modeling analysis has shown that composites using carbon nanotube reinforcements could lead to a 30 percent reduction in the total mass of a launch vehicle.

"No single technology would have that much of an impact to reduce the mass of a launch vehicle by that much," explains Michael Meador, Program Element Manager for Lightweight Materials and Manufacturing at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. "I'm not trying to be cliché, but that is a game changer!"

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Flight testing
Soon-to-fly hardware will test the tensile properties of a carbon nanotube fiber-based composite tank over that of conventional carbon fiber epoxy composites. A Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel – COPV for short – will take to the skies aboard a sounding rocket launched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia on May 16.

"We're going to use the COPV as part of a cold-gas thruster system," Meador explains, noting that this involves moving the rocket's payload during its flight, as well as spinning up the payload to improve the rocket's aerodynamics during its descent to Earth. "We are one experiment in that payload, but it's a pioneering flight. This is first time that carbon nanotube-based composites have been flight-tested in a structural component," he said.

NASA-industry collaboration

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The COPV project has involved several NASA centers – Glenn Research Center, Langley Research Center, the Marshall Space Flight Center – as well as industry.

NASA collaborated with Nanocomp in Merrimack, New Hampshire to make nanotube yarns and sheets, with the space agency developing specialized processing methods to fabricate COPVs.

"We were interested not just in developing high-strength composites from carbon nanotube yarns but also in demonstrating their performance by building an actual component and flight testing it," Meador adds. "The COPV flight test will go a long way in showing that these materials are ready for use in future NASA missions."

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Nanotube yarns

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The suborbital rocket flight of a COPV is a first step, explains Emilie Siochi, a research materials engineer at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. "This COPV represents the first large item that we've built" by turning nanotube yarns into composites. Early on at the start of the initiative, she says carbon nanotube fiber material was only available in small quantities. That needed to change.

"We had to improve the properties, improve the quality and the quantity," Siochi points out. The NASA-industry relationship was invaluable to scale up the material for space agency use, she says, and qualifying the COPV for a flight test has assisted in maturing the technology too.

"There's potential for the structural properties of carbon nanotubes to be much stronger than carbon fiber composites, now the state of the art for structural material," Siochi says. "So if it's stronger, we'll be able to build lighter structures needed for access to space."

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Investment payoff

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Meador sees a bright and long-lasting future for carbon nanotube materials.

"When we first started to get into nanotechnology research we were looking at wh ere did it make sense for NASA to invest...where could a huge payoff be for the agency, be it in weight savings, performance, or reduced power consumption," Meador suggests.

There's more work to be done in terms of improving the material's mechanical properties, as well as fabricating the yarn fiber in quantities to make it competitive with conventional carbon fiber.

"There's a big payoff, not just for aerospace applications," Meador observes. Use of carbon nanotube materials, say in cutting down the weight of ground transportation vehicles, could lead to a huge savings from less fuel consumption and also lessening carbon dioxide emissions. Likewise, the insertion of the technology into aircraft is another area that deserves further attention, he adds.

"We're not looking at magic materials. Rather, we're finding that when you get down to the nanoscale, there are certain features of materials at that scale that give rise to new properties, new physics that you don't see above that scale," Meador concludes. "And that's what it's all about. Seeing how you can control and exploit those properties."

For more information on NASA's work in nanotechnology, see this episode of NASA EDGE about how this technology is being used in sensors and various materials. It is high risk, high reward:

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Last Updated: May 16, 2017
Editor: Loura Hall

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/student-made-mars-rover-concepts-lift-off

May 24, 2017

Student-Made Mars Rover Concepts Lift Off


Virginia Tech students watch a Black Brant IX sounding rocket with their Mars rover concepts take off from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
Credits: NASA/Allison Stancil

Witnessing a rocket launch is a special occasion. Watching a rocket launch with materials you made go up into the sky is priceless.

That's how it felt for researchers from NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and students from Virginia Tech and the University of Central Florida as they watched a sounding rocket launch on Tuesday, May 16 from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. On board: Mars rover concepts designed by the students.

"Very few students get the opportunity to design something, put it on a NASA rocket and fly it," said Jamshid Samareh, ‎research engineer at NASA Langley's Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate (SACD), who assisted the students.

Funded through NASA's SACD Internal Research and Development (IRAD) program, the project saw more than 30 Virginia Tech students and one Central Florida student conceptualize, design and build 3-D printed test models of deployable Mars rovers.

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NASA Langley research engineer Jamshid Samareh poses with a scaled design of a Mars rover concept made by the students in the project.
Credits: NASA/David C. Bowman

The Mars rover concept has its roots in recreational vehicles that have elements that can fold, going with the theme that collapsible items make for easier transport to Mars. This concept has pop-out sections like RVs that would deploy once on Mars.


Students at Virginia Tech are pictured working an assembling their Mars rover concept.
Credits: Courtesy of Ian Stewart

"It's always fun when practical solutions necessitate creativity – not to mention it always looks cool!" said Central Florida student J.T. Madigan.


NASA Langley research engineer Jamshid Samareh, left, poses with Virginia Tech students after the successful rocket launch.
Credits: Courtesy of Jamshid Samareh

The test models were launched on a 56-foot-tall Black Brant IX sounding rocket as part of the SubTec-7 payload mission.

The Mars RV rover concepts were part of the nearly 1,200-pound payload, which flew to an altitude of about 154 miles before descending by parachute and landing in the Atlantic Ocean to be recovered. SubTec-7 provided a flight test for more than 20 technologies to improve sounding rocket and spacecraft capabilities.

A sounding rocket's overall time in space is brief, typically five to 20 minutes, and at a lower speed than vehicles designed to go into orbit or beyond. The short time and lower speed are more than adequate (in some cases they are ideal) to carry out a successful scientific experiment.

Solving a packaging problem

Samareh has worked on many projects in his time at Langley, and says that getting materials to the Red Plant safely and efficiently is one of the bigger challenges.

"Part of the problem we keep running into is packaging," he said. "We have to carry a lot of payloads – rovers, habitats and such. We want to package them on top of the launch vehicle."

That problem-solving drive led to teams of undergraduate and graduate students from Virginia Tech and Central Florida to work on this project on campus with the support of Langley researchers.

The researchers and students designed 18 Mars rover concepts using Computer-Aided Design, or CAD, software.  Four of those designs were fabricated, assembled and tested before they were delivered to Wallops for flight on the sounding rocket.

"I have always thought of mass to be the limiting factor in space travel," said Virginia Tech student Alex Matta, who was also the team's graduate advisor. "Participation in this project led me to realize that minimizing volume of the cargo is important as well."

"A rover is one the big pieces that we want to be able to see if it can be packaged in any way," Samareh said.

The objective of the project is to develop rigid and deployable Mars rover concepts to improve lander packaging efficiency and aerodynamic stability during entry, descent and landing, and aerocapture, which is a flight maneuver that inserts a spacecraft into orbit around a planet or moon by using the destination's atmosphere like a brake.

Previous concepts for rovers on Mars from decades ago were not the sleek designs of today – they were big, bulky and heavy, something Samareh did not want to recreate.

"They're not realistic," he said. "They cannot be efficiently packed."

Evolution of the deployable Mars rover design started simple and changed to meet certain requirements, such as the height, width and weight needed to fit on a launch vehicle while taking up as little space as possible.

"Real estate on any type of launch is valuable, so I think it's awesome that such a novel project was given the opportunity to flight test hardware," Madigan said.

Samareh encouraged the students to come up with all of the crazy ideas they could so they could pick a few and specifically work on them.

"They come up with these ideas that I cannot come up with," he said. "They have a different mentality. That worked out nicely."

The Mars RV rover concepts also received recognition outside of NASA, winning first place in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Region I Student Paper Conference for the Undergraduate Team category in April.

When all was said and done, seeing the students' faces at the launch at Wallops was "the biggest payoff," Samareh said, adding that there is not only value in the designs, but also in getting students involved with NASA and motivated on a deeper level for space flight.

"There are things we learned from them," he said, "and there are things they learned from us."
 

Eric Gillard
NASA Langley Research Center

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Last Updated: May 24, 2017
Editor: Eric Gillard

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Из документа Notice to Mariners
 

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http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=50919

NASA Sounding Rocket will Release Early Morning Artificial Clouds Lighting up the Mid-Atlantic Coast May 31

Press Release From: Wallops Flight Facility
Posted: Wednesday, May 24, 2017



The early morning skies along the mid-Atlantic coast will light up with luminescent clouds as NASA tests a new system that supports science studies of the ionosphere and aurora with a sounding rocket launch May 31 from the Wallops Flight Facility on the eastern shore of Virginia. Backup launch days are June 1 through 6.

During the flight of a two-stage Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket between 4:25 and 4:42 a.m. EDT, ten canisters about the size of a soft drink can will be deployed in the air, 6 to 12 miles away from the 670-pound main payload.

The canisters will deploy between 4 and 5.5 minutes after launch blue-green and red vapor forming artificial clouds. These clouds or vapor tracers allow scientists on the ground to visually track particle motions in space.

The development of the multi-canister or ampule ejection system will allow scientists to gather information over a much larger area than previously allowed when deploying the vapor just from the main payload.

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Ground cameras will be stationed at Wallops and in Duck, North Carolina, to view the vapor tracers. Clear skies are preferred, but not required, at both sites for the launch to occur.

The vapor tracers are formed through the interaction of barium, strontium and cupric-oxide. The tracers will be released at altitudes 96 to 124 miles high and pose absolutely no hazard to residents along the mid-Atlantic coast.

The vapor tracers could be visible from New York to North Carolina and westward to Charlottesville, Virginia.

The total flight time for the mission is expected to be about 8 minutes.  The payload will land in the Atlantic Ocean about 90 miles from Wallops Island and will not be recovered.

The NASA Visitor Center at Wallops will open at 3:30 a.m. on launch day for viewing the flight.

Live coverage of the mission is scheduled to begin at 3:45 a.m. on the Wallops Ustream site. Launch updates also are available via the Wallops Facebook and Twitter sites.

Smartphone users can download the "What's Up at Wallops" app, which contains information on the launch as well as a compass showing the precise direction for launch viewing.

More information on the NASA sounding rocket missions and the use of vapor tracers in science research is available at:

//www.nasa.gov/soundingrockets

NASA's Sounding Rocket Program is conducted at the agency's Wallops Flight Facility, which is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Orbital ATK provides mission planning, engineering services and field operations through the NASA Sounding Rocket Operations Contract. NASA's Heliophysics Division manages the sounding-rocket program for the agency.

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/wallops/2017/nasa-sounding-rocket-will-release-early-morning-artificial-clouds0lighting-up-the-mid-atlantic-coast-may-31

Update  12:45 p.m., May 30 – The launch of a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket testing a new deployment system to support space studies originally scheduled for May 31 has been delayed until June 1. The launch window remains 4:27 – 4:42 a.m. EDT. The launch has been delayed because of weather. Clear skies are required for the launch. Blue-green and red artificial clouds that will be produced as part the test may be seen from New York to North Carolina.

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 26 мин назад

Range is red for Wallops launch. Upper level winds exceed limits. Live coverage begins at 3:45 at ustream.tv

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 2 мин. назад

Range at Wallops remains red for the sounding rocket launch this morning because of upper level winds.

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 2 мин. назад

Launch at Wallops scrubbed because of upper level winds. Rescheduled for 4:26-4:41 a.m., Friday, June 2

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/wallops/2017/nasa-sounding-rocket-will-release-early-morning-artificial-clouds0lighting-up-the-mid-atlantic-coast-may-31

UPDATE 4:41 a.m., June 1, 2017: The launch from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility of a Terrier-Improved Malemute sounding rocket testing a new deployment system to support space science studies scheduled for June 1 has been rescheduled for June 2. The launch window is 4:26 – 4:41 a.m. EDT. The launch has been rescheduled because upper level winds exceeded launch limits. Blue-green and red artificial clouds that will be produced as part the test may be seen from New York to North Carolina.

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NASA Wallops‏Подлинная учетная запись @NASA_Wallops 2 мин. назад

Wallops rocket launch this morning has been scrubbed because of cloudy conditions at both ground camera sites -- Wallops and Duck, NC.