Daily Archives: July 28, 2017

The Ariane 6 launcher will propel the next generation of satellites into Earths orbit, and could take future European astronauts towards destinations unknown.

The rocket is designed to carry a variety of payloads ranging from satellites to science experiments and is set to fulfil its first contracts in 2020, when it will help launch the first parts of the OneWeb global internet network.

Ariane 6 is 63m tall and 5.4m in diameter, and when its finished it will weigh at least 530,000kg. It will be capable of carrying payloads of 26 tonnes into orbit. But all that power doesnt come cheap.

The rocket, which is being built by Airbus Safran Launchers, comes with a hefty price tag: 3.6bn of development, plus an estimated 90m per launch.

Yet our demand for new launches is only going to go up, and so its important to bring down the cost of making these rockets. Thats where 3D printing can help.

The internal parts of a rocket have to withstand tremendous forces and extreme heat, and they need to be reliable. Thats particularly true of the injection head, one of the core elements of the propulsion module.

This complex part feeds the fuel mixture into the combustion chamber of the rocket, where it is ignited to generate thrust. Traditionally, its made up of 248 separate components which are produced and assembled in a series of steps including casting, brazing, welding and drilling.

However, the nature of those processes can introduce weak points thats risky at the best of times, but particularly so when thousands of kilograms of flammable fuel are passing through them. Its also time-consuming and expensive more than 8000 cross holes have to be drilled into copper sleeves, which are then precisely screwed on to each of the 122 to injector elements where hydrogen is mixed with oxygen.

For Ariane 6, the team working on the rocket decided to take a different approach. Theyre using 3D printing to create the complex injection head in a single piece, in conjunction with 3D printing technology supplier EOS.

Only additive manufacturing can combine integrated functionality, lightweight construction, a simpler design, and shorter lead times in a single component, said Steffen Beyer, head of production technology in the materials and processes department of the Ariane 6 project.

They used a heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant nickel-based alloy, and were able to 3D print it into the desired shape. Instead of 248 parts, its now just one. Thats not the only benefit the new nozzle is twice as fast to make, 25 per cent lighter, and it can all be built in one location.

Theres actually a 3D printer in space. NASA are testing the technology on the International Space Station with a view to using it on longer missions to Mars and beyond.

The hope is that 3D printing will remove the need for the kind of high-pressure improvisation that occurred on the Apollo 13 mission, when the crew had to cobble together a solution to a technical problem from the odds and ends they could find on the ship. In the future, theyll be able to print whatever they need.

Last June, the 3D printer on the International Space Station received a CAD design file transmitted from earth, and got to work. Four hours later, it had printed a tool a 5-inch long ratchet wrench comprised of 104 layers of plastic.

We wanted to work this just like we would for tools that the astronauts will 3-D print and use on the station, said Niki Werkheiser, who manages the 3D printing program from NASAs Marshall Space Flight centre in Huntsville, Alabama. This wrench will not be used in space, but what if it were a tool the crew needed? We are breaking new ground not only in the way we manufacture in space but also in the way we operate and approve space hardware that is built in space, rather than launched from Earth.

The wrench is now back on earth, where it will be tested to see if there are any differences in its structure caused by being printed in a microgravity environment. NASA are also exploring whether certain objects might actually be easier to print in space than they are on Earth because of gravity.

3D printing is being used to build the rockets that will take the next generation of satellites into space. As well as Ariane 6, New Zealand-based Rocket Lab have launched a 3D printed rocket this year.

Additive manufacturing will also be used to make those satellites more quickly and efficiently too Boeing and SpaceX are among the companies exploring this. Beyond that, the possibilities are almost endless. If you can transmit a file to the station as quickly as you can send an email, it opens up endless possibilities for all the types of things that you can make from CubeSat components to experiment hardware, said Werkheiser. We even may be able to make objects that previously couldn't even be launched to space.

More here:

How 3D printing is enabling the next generation of space exploration - Professional Engineering (subscription)

Every year about this time in Wisconsin, the Wittman Regional Airport becomes the busiest airport in the world. busier than Chicagos OHare, than New Yorks La Guardia, than Los Angeles, London, Singapore, and all the rest.

Oshkosh, Wisconsin is the home of EAA AirVenture, an annual gathering of more than 500,000 flight enthusiasts.

From its beginnings in 1953, the Experimental Airplane Associations premier event has become the biggest fly-in in the world, featuring everything from kit planes to Warbirds, acrobatics to antiques, unique one-of-a-kind experimental aircrafts to hundreds upon hundreds of private planes piloted by enthusiasts from all over the world. It is a one-of-a-kind event that runs from July 24-30 this year.

But EAA AirVenture doesnt just focus on the skies it also looks to the stars. As in years past, the event includes several panels, presentations, movies, and sessions relating to space, and provides the opportunity to meet representatives from NASA and the space industry.

This year is special because 2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of the Apollo program that placed Americans on the Moon 2 years later.

It is, therefore, fitting that EAA AirVenture host a Salute to Apollo on Friday, July 28 featuring Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman, Joe Engle, Dick Gordon, Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, Al Worden, and iconic flight director Gene Kranz, who will discuss their experiences and talk about Americas future in space.

It is also fitting that this reunion will take place in Wisconsin. Milwaukees AC Electronic Circuits and later Delco (forerunners of todays Delphi Electronics & Safety) were responsible for the Apollo guidance system and built the lunar roving vehicle that first traveled on the moon.

Today, the United States is getting ready to leave earths orbit once again, preparing to launch into deep space by the end of this decade. Wisconsin is playing a vital role.

Almost two dozen companies including several in Milwaukee and one right in Oshkosh are helping build NASAs next great spacecraft, the massive Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion crew capsule. Together, they will take humans farther into space than ever before.

Wisconsins manufacturing and engineering expertise will go with them. Companies such as Amorim Cork Composites, 3M, Maynard Steel Casting Company, Pierce Manufacturing, Snap-On, and Oshkoshs own Multicircuits PCB are contributing manufacturing, engineering, analysis, technology, and exquisite quality control to the exacting task of creating the components and knowledge necessary to launch Americans once more into deep space.

These Wisconsin businesses join hundreds of other companies throughout the nation in forming the backbone of Americas aerospace and aeronautical manufacturing and technology industry.

As important as manufacturing the rocket and crew capsule are, astronauts are of course integral to human space exploration, and Wisconsin is the proud home to half-a-dozen former astronauts.

Curt Michel (La Crosse), 3-time space shuttle astronaut Leroy Chiao (Milwaukee), Deke Slayton of the Apollo-Soyuz test project (Sparta), 3-time shuttle and Soyuz team member Jeffrey Williams (Superior), 4-time shuttle astronaut Mark Lee (Viroqua), and 4-time shuttle astronaut Daniel Brandenstein (Watertown) all hailed from Wisconsin.

Today, we especially highlight Deke Slaytons contributions to the Apollo project. Slayton was an American World War II pilot, aeronautical engineer, and test pilot who was selected as one of the original NASA Mercury Seven astronauts and became NASAs first chief of the astronaut office. Wisconsinites are proud of our historic contributions to space exploration, and we honor the work of Deke Slayton.

President Trump and Vice President Pence have also signaled their strong support of human space exploration by signing recent legislation to fund and advance NASA programs and reestablish the National Space Council. As a fully-invested space state, Wisconsin joins them in looking to the stars, ushering in a new era for American leadership and discovery in space.

Scott Kevin Walker is the 45th and current governor of Wisconsin

A veteran of four space missions, Jim Lovell became the first man to journey twice to the moon.

More:

Guest column: Wisconsin remembers Apollo era, looks to future of ... - hngnews.com

By Kelly O'Mara | Jul 28, 2017 Special to espnW.com

Christiane Heinicke

Every element of the HI-SEAS mission was set up to simulate the conditions of a Mars mission, including the dome seen here behind Carmel Johnston.

For a year, whenever she wanted to go outside, Carmel Johnston would put on her airtight suit and helmet, make her way through the dome's airlock with another crew member and then step out into a volcanic landscape, where she would begin to explore the network of lava tubes.

Only Johnston wasn't on a faraway planet. She was in Hawaii.

It was all part of NASA's Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation Mission (HI-SEAS). From August 2015 to August 2016, the 28-year-old was commander of a six-person crew that spent the year living inside a 1,200-square-foot dome stuck on the side of a volcano in the middle of the Big Island of Hawaii.

It was all to simulate how things really would be if a crew traveled to Mars. If they went outside the dome, they wore spacesuits. They cooked with dehydrated foods and could only communicate with the outside world via a 20-minute email delay. "We had to do everything as if we were living on Mars," Johnston says.

Cassandra Klos

Carmel Johnston was the commander of the six-person HI-SEAS crew.

Why? To see how the six of them would react, so NASA could adjust and prepare for future space-exploration missions.

"The goal was to study the social and psychological aspects," she said, "all the things that can go wrong and do go wrong if we go to Mars."

There are lots of stories Johnston might tell us about what it was like living in such close quarters with five other people, but those stories are still confidential until the final NASA report. But one thing she will say: It was a challenge for each of them to keep their wits and emotions intact.

The key for Johnston was to spend a lot of time exercising. By just four months in, she had already walked 1.5 million steps -- most of it on a treadmill.

"Exercise, in general, was my way of staying sane," she says. There was a treadmill and a stationary bike, and Johnston would also put laundry detergent in a backpack and run up and down the stairs.

In space, astronauts have to do two hours of exercise each day to maintain muscle mass and bone density. To replicate those conditions, the HI-SEAS crew was given the same recommendations. Exercise combats depression and keeps the crew healthy -- and it also created some alone time in the small space. Maybe that's why three of them, including Johnston, ended up running treadmill marathons -- 26.2 miles all in one session -- in the dome.

"I will try my very hardest to never run on a treadmill again," she jokes.

Courtesy of Carmel Johnston

"Four months in the dome. One third down, two thirds to go!" Carmel Johnston wrote on Twitter along with this photo of the crew.

Johnston had been athletic before she went into the dome. Her dad was a runner, and, in high school, she played soccer, ran track and cross country, and snowboarded in the winter. In college she fell in love with running, and she ran a few marathons in addition to one adventure race every year in biking, running and kayaking.

From Whitefish, Montana, Johnston has a bachelor's degree in soil science and a master's in land resources. She was a soil scientist at the Air National Resource Council and loved working at the national parks near where she grew up.

She had applied to other missions similar to HI-SEAS before, so she was on a list that received an email about this HI-SEAS yearlong expedition. When she heard they were looking for people who liked the outdoors, worked well in groups and were trained in a specific kind of gas-flux measurement, she thought, "Hey, that's me."

The goal was to figure out the perfect combination of people and personality traits for a Mars mission. Johnston knew, even if it was hard on her personally, that she could add to that research.

"What is something I can do to contribute to the future of space exploration?" she says. "I'm a human being, they can learn from me."

On the mission, her days were filled with scientific research projects that mimicked what would need to be conducted if she were on Mars, exploration of the "Mars landscape" outside and the routine of life in a dome. When there was free time that wasn't spent exercising, she and her crew watched movies or listened to music stored in a large hard drive. They could also access email and the internet, so Johnston wrote blog posts and occasionally posted on Twitter.

She also relied on regular emails from her mom to keep her levelheaded and optimistic when it seemed like it was all too much. The group was close, but still, the confinement was a lot to put on six people who were strangers before the mission started. "Some of them will be my best friends forever," she says, and some of them "are civil, polite."

Based on what was learned from Johnston's group, future NASA projects will feature crews picked with an ideal combination of personalities, in anticipation of potentially sending a crew to Mars. And, in the meantime, those lessons can be applied on Earth too.

"Everything we learn on Earth will help us be better on Mars, but also, everything we learn on Mars will help us to live better on Earth," she says.

Since she finished the HI-SEAS mission, Johnston been speaking to school groups and doing education outreach. This summer she'll be back working for the National Park Service in Montana, hoping to be outside as much as possible. She has also been training for her first-ever Ironman race in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, which she'll race in August, a year to the day after getting out of the dome.

"It kind of gave me guidance and a goal to work towards," she says, of the Ironman. She was already fit and had spent a year on the treadmill and stationary bike during the mission. Attempting an Ironman combined everything she wanted and pushed her further. "My training for the Ironman has been a continuation of what we did in the dome," she says.

Though we don't yet know the results of this yearlong study of a crew on "Mars," Johnston left the dome with the feeling that she can accomplish anything she is determined to do, and next month, that means she'll tackle her most difficult race yet.

"I knew that I just survived a year of the hardest mental challenge of my life, so I was looking for a physical challenge next," she says.

Original post:

After a year in a tiny Mars simulator dome, Carmel Johnston can handle just about anything - ESPN