NASA Materials Research

NASA has selected 20 new research and technology proposals to provide a total of $15m in funding to promote the agency’s future deep space missions and benefit the US economy.

Forming part of NASA’s Phase ll Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programme, the proposals were selected from 19 small businesses based in the US following a competitive process.

Each of the selected business will work together with various research institutions from different parts of the US, including New Jersey, Alabama, Indiana, Illinois and California, to develop technologies in the fields of aeronautics, science, human exploration and operations, and space technology.

NASA Washington Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) acting associate administrator Jim Reuter said: “Our STTR programme focuses both entrepreneurs and leading research institutions on Nasa’s long-term goals, bringing the latest in aerospace research to our programmes.”

Lockheed Martin has started the final assembly of NASA’s Orion spaceship, after completing the construction on the spacecraft’s capsule structure.

The structure, which is designed to carry astronauts to the Moon as part of NASA’s Orion Exploration Mission-2 (EM-2), has already reached the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, US, for final assembly.

Welded together by a team from Lockheed Martin over a period of seven months at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans, the structure will serve as a pressure vessel for the EM-2 spacecraft.

The vessel features seven large, machined aluminum alloy pieces that form a lightweight, air-tight capsule.

Bob Richards remembers watching the gray, ghostly figures bounce across his family’s black-and-white TV screen nearly a half-century ago: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first humans walking on the moon.

Enthralled by the success of Apollo 11, which touched down 49 years ago on July 20, and by the future portrayed in pop culture by “Star Trek” and “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Richards was certain that routine flights to the moon and space stations were inevitable within a few decades.

It never happened: The United States canceled its big-budget moon program just a few years after an epic Space Race victory over Russia, and astronauts haven’t left orbits near Earth since.

But Richards, the CEO of Cape Canaveral-based Moon Express and a self-described “orphan of Apollo,” now is confident that Americans are within a decade or so of returning to the lunar surface — this time to stay.

With the go-ahead from NASA for a first mission to the International Space Station (ISS), the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) Dream Chaser spacecraft team is now reviewing flight performance data and refining the vehicle’s design adaptations to meet mission requirements and changing payloads, using Collier Research's HyperSizer software.

The HyperSizer tool provides insights into the strength, weight and manufacturability of designs for both composite and metal structures. Typically able to reduce the weight of existing designs by 20-40%, the software plays an important role in margin-of-safety certification for aerospace projects and is also valuable for wind, marine and other fields that demand performance with durability.

Nasa is set to send a helicopter to Mars as part of the agency’s next rover mission known as Mars 2020.

The ‘Mars Helicopter’ is a small, autonomous rotorcraft expected to show the viability and potential of flying heavier-than-air vehicles on Mars.

Developed at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) over four years, the helicopter will be used to demonstrate that big things can come in small packages.

The 1.8kg Mars Helicopter features fuselage that is about the same size as a softball.

The helicopter is also equipped with a pair of counter-rotating blades that will cut into the thin Martian atmosphere at almost 3,000rpm.

Orbital ATK has launched its ninth cargo delivery mission to the International Space Station (ISS) from Nasa’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, US.

The mission was launched on-board an Orbital ATK Antares rocket on behalf of Nasa under the CRS-1 contract.

As part of the launch, the Antares rocket carried Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft, which was loaded with around 3,350kg of supplies and scientific equipment.

The rocket deployed the spacecraft into orbit around nine minutes into the flight.

Orbital ATK has established reliable communications with the spacecraft, which has already fully deployed its solar arrays to receive necessary electrical power to operate.

MERRIMACK — Huntsman Corp. of Texas announced this week that it has acquired Merrimack based Nanocomp Technologies.

Although the financial details of the acquisition were not released, both companies say they are pleased with the new development.

Nanocomp Technologies was founded in 2004 and is known for its Miralon products made from pure carbon nanotube materials that have a variety of uses. Two years ago the company’s carbon nanotubes were on board NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter, a solar-powered spacecraft that broke the record for traveling the farthest from the sun.

Nasa has selected two concepts for a new robotic mission, one of which aims to explore potential landing sites on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.

The concept is named Dragonfly, which is a drone-like rotorcraft that would use the environment on Titan to fly to a number of locations to sample materials and determine surface composition to examine Titan’s organic chemistry and habitability.

It also intends to monitor atmospheric and surface conditions as well as image landforms to evaluate geological processes and perform seismic studies.

The other concept, Comet Astrobiology Exploration Sample Return (CAESAR), aims to return a sample from 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet to determine its origin and history.

Selected from a set of 12 proposals, both the concepts are expected to be launched in a mission by the mid-2020s.

The proposals were submitted in April as part of Nasa’s New Frontiers programme.

The time taken for an average flight from Miami to Seattle is about six hours and 40 minutes, but imagine if it were possible to reduce that time to 50 minutes or less. A new study by Researchers at NASA and Binghamton University, State University of New York, could result in a substantial decrease in flight times.

The study, funded partly by the U.S. Air Force, is one of the principal steps toward the development of planes capable of moving at hypersonic speeds, five to 10 times the speed of sound. There are presently quite a few problems when it comes to construction of these super planes, said Binghamton University Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Changhong Ke. The first of which is identifying a material that can handle hypersonic travel.

Normally, carbon nanotubes have been employed in planes for their strength - they are stronger than steel - and their ability to conduct heat. However, BNNTs possess high potential when it comes to air travel.

Orbital ATK (Dulles, VA, US) reported on Nov. 7 that it has successfully completed an important milestone in developing advanced solid rocket propulsion and other technologies to be used in a new generation of intermediate- and large-class space launch vehicles. The company is in early production of development hardware for its Next Generation Launch (NGL) system, and on Oct. 27 successfully completed the structural acceptance test on the first motor high-strength composite case for this program.

The applied structural loads during the test demonstrated more than 110% of maximum expected motor operating pressure and 110% of operational/flight and pre-launch compression/tensile line loads. This full-scale motor case segment will be cast with inert solid rocket propellant in early 2018 and shipped to the launch site for check-out of ground operations.

“NGL is one of Orbital ATK’s top growth initiatives,” says Scott Lehr, president of Orbital ATK’s Flight Systems Group. “This milestone clearly shows the progress being made by the hundreds of engineers and technicians in Utah and Arizona who are developing the NGL system.”

The International Space Station will receive about 7,400 pounds of cargo, including new science and technology investigations, following the successful launch of Orbital ATK’s Cygnus spacecraft from NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia Sunday.

Orbital ATK’s eighth contracted cargo delivery flight to the station launched at 7:19 a.m. EST on an Antares rocket from Pad 0A at Wallops, and is scheduled to arrive at the International Space Station Tuesday, Nov. 14.

This is the fifth flight of an enhanced Cygnus spacecraft, and the second using Orbital ATK’s upgraded Antares rocket. The spacecraft for this mission is named in honor of Gene Cernan, the last human to step foot on the Moon. Cernan, who passed away in January at age 82, set records for both lunar surface extravehicular activities and the longest time in lunar orbit.

Expedition 53 astronauts Paolo Nespoli of ESA (European Space Agency) and Randy Bresnik of NASA will use the space station’s robotic arm to grapple Cygnus, about 4:50 a.m. Tuesday. Cygnus will remain at the space station until Dec. 4, when the spacecraft will depart the station and deploy several CubeSats before its fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere as it disposes of several tons of trash.

The resupply mission will support dozens of new and existing investigations as Expeditions 53 and 54 contribute to about 250 science and research studies.

Nasa’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security - Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-Rex) asteroid-hunting spacecraft has flown past Earth, using the planet’s gravity to slingshot itself towards its destination asteroid, Bennu.

Launched last September, the OSIRIS-Rex mission received the latest gravity boost when it came within 17,237km of Antarctica, south of Cape Horn, Chile.

The boost has forced the spacecraft to follow a new route north over the Pacific Ocean and has changed its velocity to 3.778km/s.

Bennu’s current orbit around the Sun is tilted 6° from Earth’s orbit, and the latest thrust has changed OSIRIS-Rex’s direction to manoeuvre it towards the asteroid.

US-based satellite rideshare and mission management provider Spaceflight has won a contract from Nasa to launch up to 24 U-Class payloads.

The contracted launch procedure has a potential value of more than $5m and is expected to be carried out next year.

The multi-year deal also includes options for the launch of up to 24 additional payloads, which are slated to be lifted off by 2019 and 2020.

U-Class payloads are small space research satellites that typically use unique and commercial electronic components.

The majority of Nasa’s U-Class payloads are developed by universities and non-profit organisations, and are designed to play significant roles in Nasa’s technological development.

A thrilling epoch in the exploration of our solar system came to a close today, as NASA's Cassini spacecraft made a fateful plunge into the atmosphere of Saturn, ending its 13-year tour of the ringed planet.

"This is the final chapter of an amazing mission, but it’s also a new beginning,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Cassini’s discovery of ocean worlds at Titan and Enceladus changed everything, shaking our views to the core about surprising places to search for potential life beyond Earth."

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will be humanity’s first-ever mission to explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Media are invited to see the spacecraft and learn about the mission from noon to 2 p.m. EDT Monday, Sept. 25, at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, where the probe is being built.

The spacecraft will be in full flight configuration, complete with its revolutionary heat shield, and members of the engineering and science teams conducting this historical mission will be available for interviews.

The spacecraft, about the size of a small car, will launch in mid-summer 2018. It will travel directly through the Sun's atmosphere about four million miles from our star's surface – facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history – and make critical observations to answer decades-old questions about how stars work. Mission data ultimately will improve forecasts of major space weather events that affect life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.

A presentation on the progress of the Materials Genome Initiative.

NASA is funding the future of materials development through not only research, but also through education by training future engineers and researchers in the field of computation, manufacturing, material synthesis, and testing.