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Air & Space
Propulsion
Part 2 1 |
Helios Sets
Unofficial New World Altitude Record!
AeroVironment |
QUANTUM
Awarded
Contract By AeroVironment
for NASA-Sponsored Program
IMPCO/PRNewswire |
On August 13, 2001, Helios Prototype took off
from Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF) at Barking Sands, Kauai, Hawaii, and flew to a
peak altitude of greater than 96,500 feet.
...After holding on the ground for 36 minutes to wait for
low-altitude clouds to clear the path between the aircraft and sun, Greg Kendall, the
"Mobile Pilot", advanced the throttle and the giant aircraft took-off at 8:48
AM. Helios rolled about 600 feet before lift-off. After reaching the end of
"solar" runway 16, Greg turned the aircraft to the west and climbed toward the
island of Niihau.
Wyatt Sadler, the "Stationary Pilot", took
control of the aircraft when Helios reached an altitude of about 2000 feet. The crew got
help from the Niihau Ranch helicopter and an up-looking fish-eye camera mounted on Helios
to avoid flying under clouds. Once Helios was above the clouds, the climb to the altitude
achieved on the previous flight (76,271) was rather uneventful.
Rik Meininger, the second "Stationary Pilot",
flew Helios to 77,000 feet and then handed control to Wyatt. Wyatt was at the controls as
Helios shattered the 80,201 foot altitude record set by AeroVironment's Pathfinder Plus in
1998. Then Greg took the controls as Helios broke the altitude record of just over 85,000
feet set by the Lockheed SR-71 in 1976. The final ascent to peak altitude was completed by
Wyatt. A peak altitude over 96,500 feet was reached at about 4:10 PM and we stayed above
96,000 feet for over 40 minutes. The record flight was witnessed by Stanley Nelson,
chairman of the National Aeronautic Association's contest and records board. Peak altitude
was where the power available from the sun matched the power required for level-flight. At
peak altitude, while we were still getting about 24 KW from the sun, several stars were
visible in the up-looking, fish-eye camera. Also, it's interesting to note that the
aircraft climbed above 99% of the earth's atmosphere. |
QUANTUM Technologies WorldWide,
Inc. (Nasdaq: IMCO) announced today that it has been awarded a
major contract by AeroVironment and NASA to design, fabricate, test and supply large
advanced hydrogen and oxygen tanks for the next generation Helios fuel cell prototype
aircraft. The Helios fuel cell aircraft is a remotely piloted flying wing prototype for
NASA's Environmental Research Aircraft
and Sensor Technology (ERAST) project -- demonstrating the capability to carry a
payload of scientific instruments and telecommunications relay equipment for the next
generation of broadband communications.
The unique system to be developed by QUANTUM is a key enabling technology that will allow
Helios to fly continuously for up to 6 months at altitudes up to 60,000 feet.
Ultra-light-weight, low permeability, hydrogen and oxygen tanks are critical for achieving
the high specific energy and for minimizing reactant gas loss required for the energy
storage system.
...The Helios prototype is the fourth
generation of all-wing aircraft designed and built by AeroVironment at its Design
Development Center in Simi Valley, CA, as technology demonstrators for future
solar-powered high-altitude aircraft platforms for science and commercial missions. The
Helios prototype has a wingspan of 247 feet-longer than the wingspans of the Air Force C-5
military transport (222 feet) or the Boeing 747 commercial jetliner (195 feet) -- the two
largest operational aircraft in the United States. The lightweight, electrically powered
Helios is constructed mostly of composite materials such as carbon fiber, graphite epoxy,
Kevlar, Styrofoam, and a thin, transparent plastic skin.
The Helios fuel cell aircraft uses an
electrolyzer to disassociate water molecules using excess electrical energy generated by
the solar cells. Oxygen and hydrogen gases are accumulated in separate tanks. At night,
when the solar cells stop producing electricity, the process is reversed. The oxygen and
hydrogen gases are fed into a fuel cell that produces water and electricity. The
electricity is used to power the Helios prototype until the next morning, when the cycle
starts all over again. more |
Harvesting
for Fuel - The Engineer
February 15, 2001
The proposed new fuelling system, called Alchemist, would allow a plane
the size of a Boeing 777 to take off from a runway with an orbiter on its back. It would
fly around in the atmosphere for a few hours, storing oxygen in liquid form, which would
then be combined with liquid hydrogen and used to blast the space-shuttle-sized orbiter
into space. 'Normally, you carry six pounds of liquid oxygen for every pound of hydrogen.
When you take off with only hydrogen, you carry only one seventh of the propellant
weight,' said Dana Andrews, chief technology officer at US aerospace company Andrews Space
& Technology. Since 90 per cent of a conventional rocket's take-off weight is fuel
cutting that figure leads to a huge saving, said Andrews. The company has proposed its
oxygen-harvesting scheme as part of NASA's Space Launch Initiative, a program that's
studying emerging technologies for a reusable launch vehicle that is safer and cheaper
than the space shuttle. By doing without liquid oxygen at take-off, the plane's total
weight would be cut almost in half. Because there would be no chance of liquid oxygen
coming into contact with liquid hydrogen, the likelihood of an explosion during launch
would be considerably reduced, theoretically making it possible for a carrier plane and
orbiter to take off from a commercial airport.
Futurists See
Living 'Off the Land' of the Moon
June 8, 2000 by James McWilliams Huntsville Times
(Alabama)
|
Robots
could lay the groundwork for lunar-mining colonies and orbiting solar-power stations could
turn space trips into profitable commercial ventures, said Gregg Maryniak, executive
director of the X Prize Foundation, a St. Louis-based group promoting space-based
commerce.
''You could get 99 percent of the materials for a solar-power station
from the moon,'' Maryniak said at the conference, hosted by NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center at the Von Braun Center.
... Building colonies in space from materials in space could allow
people to live ''off the land,'' like the first explorers visiting the Americas did, said
Maryniak and other speakers.
The rocks and soil on the moon have aluminum, iron, silicon, calcium,
glass and other materials that could be useful in building a power station, and have
oxygen and hydrogen that could be used in rocket fuel for propelling lunar materials into
orbit or toward Earth, Maryniak said.
''The moon is 40 percent oxygen, by weight,'' said Maryniak. Hydrogen
is at the lunar poles. |
 Will
We
Live on Mars?
by Jeffery Kluger
April 10, 2000 Time
Magazine |
| For the past decade--ever
since NASA's 1989 proposal laid its half- trillion-dollar egg--the space community has
been intrigued by a mission scenario known as the Mars Direct plan. Developed by engineers
at Martin Marietta Astronautics, a NASA contractor, Mars Direct calls not merely for
visiting the Red Planet but also for living off the alien land. As early as 2005, when Earth and Mars are in
their once
every-26-months alignment, the plan envisions launching a four-person spacecraft to
Mars--but launching it with its tanks empty of fuel and its cabin empty of crew. Landing
on the surface, the craft would begin pumping Martian atmosphere--which is 95% carbon
dioxide--into a reaction chamber, where it would be exposed to hydrogen and broken down
into methane, water and oxygen. Methane and oxygen make a first- rate rocket fuel; water
and oxygen are necessary human fuels. All these consumables could be pumped into tanks
inside the ship and stored there.
Two years later, when Mars and Earth
are again in conjunction, another spacecraft--this one carrying a crew--would be sent to
join the robot ship on the surface. The astronauts could work on Mars for 18 months,
living principally in their arrival craft, and then, at the end of their stay, abandon
that ship, climb into the robot craft and blast off for home. |
High-Altitude Airship Concept Design
Nears Completion at Lockheed Martin
February 16, 2000 Defence Systems Daily, UK |
Lighter-than-air
vehicles operating at altitudes of 21 kilometres (70,000 feet) are nearing a reality
thanks in large measure to the technical savvy of Lockheed Martin Naval Electronics &
Surveillance Systems-Akron and the convictions of Stratcom President Lt. Gen. James A.
Abrahamson, USAF (retired), and other members of its stratospheric airship industrial
team.
All vital technologies were evaluated individually during the recently
concluded concept feasibility phase, which began in October 1998, and are ready for
integration into a demonstration vehicle.
...Since it is not practical to carry fuel aloft in a long-endurance
buoyant vehicle, all power must be generated on station. This includes payload and
propulsive power. A combination of photovoltaic (PV) and fuel cell systems likely will be
used to provide the multiple kilowatts of power necessary for these functions. The PV and
regenerative fuel cell technologies required by the vehicle are being developed based on
work at NASA-Glenn in Cleveland and NASA-Dryden at Edwards AFB. |
Hubble
Finds Much of the Universe's Missing Hydrogen
"Atomic fuels will make
possible rockets with liftoff weights one-fifth that of today’s or with payloads
three to four times more massive."
-- Bryan Palaszewski, Glenn principal investigator
|
Rocket
fuels researchers at NASA Glenn Research Center have made for the first time tiny
particles of frozen hydrogen suspended in liquid helium. This is the first step toward new
rocket fuels that can revolutionize rocket propulsion technology needed for getting off
the Earth.
In the experiments, small amounts of liquid hydrogen were poured onto
the surface of liquid helium. The liquid hydrogen was at a temperature of 14 kelvins
(minus 435 degrees F), just above freezing point; and the liquid helium was held at 4
kelvins (minus 452 degrees F), or just above absolute zero. As the liquid hydrogen fell
toward the surface of the helium, small, solid hydrogen particles formed and then floated
on the surface of the helium.
The suspension will be used to make futuristic atomic fuels that take
advantage of the chemical recombination of atoms into molecules.
...Using atomic fuels could reduce or eliminate on-orbit assembly of
large space vehicles, thereby eliminating multiple launches and years of assembly time and
making flights to all parts of the solar system less expensive and more practicable.
NASA Glenn Research Center/Science Daily |
Boeing Rocketdyne and Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries
Partner to Develop New Upper-Stage Rocket Engine
NASA TERMINATES X-33
Next
Generation Spaceplane Project Killed
X-33 Fuel Tank Cracks
November 5, 1999 |
A joint NASA-Lockheed Martin team
is meeting at Marshall to analyze the nature and extent of the damage, and to determine
the probable cause, Marshall spokesman Dave Drachlis said this morning.
At 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, engineers observing the tank through video
monitors discovered damage near one of its seams, said Drachlis. The damage went through
the tank's outer skin and exposed honeycomb material underneath. Engineers need to
investigate to find out what other damage might exist, he said.
Two hours earlier, the tank had been through a test cycle that appeared
to have normal results, Drachlis said. The tank had passed a pressure test with a full
load of liquid hydrogen, and had passed a structural-loads test to simulate the force of
the X-33's fully loaded, liquid oxygen tank sitting atop the liquid hydrogen tank.
The X-33 is a more than $1.2 billion project. NASA is investing just
under $1 billion in the vehicle, while Lockheed Martin and its business partners are
investing $287 million, said Drachlis.
by James McWilliams
The Huntsville Times (Alabama) |
|
|
The 29-foot, 4,600-pound
graphite epoxy tank is called a "protoflight" article because it is being used
for testing but was also intended to be installed on the X-33 for test flights.
On Wednesday, the hydrogen tank had successfully completed a
cryogenic pressure test while it was fully fueled with the super-cold rocket propellant.
Test engineers filled the tank with 29,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen. They then brought
the tank's internal pressure to 42 psi, or 105 percent of its design. The pressure was
maintained for seven minutes before being reduced.
by Justin Ray
Flordia Today |
X-33 Liquid Hydrogen Fuel Tank Ready
For Tests
September 7, 1999 |
Tests are to begin this week on the first of two 4,600-pound graphite
epoxy tanks, each designed to carry approximately 29,000 gallons of rocket fuel -- liquid
hydrogen -- at -423 degrees Fahrenheit. The twin hydrogen tanks form the flanks of the
X-33 vehicle and comprise roughly half its airframe.
The X-33 is being developed in a partnership between NASA and the
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, Palmdale, Calif. The vehicle is a half-scale,
sub-orbital technology demonstrator of a proposed future reusable launch vehicle Lockheed
Martin calls "VentureStar™."
...Before testing the tank with liquid hydrogen, it will be partially filled
with liquid nitrogen and then pressurized to test its structural integrity. Once nitrogen
testing is complete, Marshall engineers will fill the tank with liquid hydrogen to
simulate internal pressure loads.
...The vehicle is scheduled to conduct flight tests beginning in summer
2000. It will fly faster than 13 times the speed of sound and at an altitude of 60 miles
to prove its technologies and systems.
NASA/Marshall Space
Flight Center |
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