AEDC support for NASA's Orion aids in first launch preparation

  • Published
  • By Deidre Ortiz
  • AEDC/PA
Arnold Air Force Base, TENN. --  Testing at Arnold Engineering Development Complex (AEDC) has assisted NASA in preparing the Orion spacecraft for its first trip into space, anticipated in December.

It was announced this month that the spacecraft has completed several milestones at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Engineers have finished building the Orion crew module, attached it and the service module to the adapter that will join Orion to its rocket.

"Nothing about building the first of a brand new space transportation system is easy," said Mark Geyer, Orion program manager, said. "But the crew module is undoubtedly the most complex component that will fly in December. The pressure vessel, the heat shield, parachute system, avionics - piecing all of that together into a working spacecraft is an accomplishment. Seeing it fly in three months is going to be amazing."

A team of engineers, technicians and machinists at AEDC conducted a test last year in the 16-foot transonic wind tunnel (16T) in support of NASA's Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), the first planned, flight test of the Orion Multi-Purpose Vehicle without a crew.

A United Launch Alliance (ULA) team, led by Mike Schoonmaker, gathered dynamic pressure and steady state pressure data for the 5.9 percent scale modeled Orion crew capsule mounted on a Delta IV booster.

EFT-1 will take Orion to an altitude of approximately 3,600 miles above the Earth's surface, more than 15 times farther than the International Space Station's orbital position.

"The 'Orion' Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) is a beyond-low-earth-orbit manned spacecraft that is being built by Lockheed Martin for NASA," Schoonmaker said. "With the retirement of the Space Shuttles, Orion will provide the U.S. with manned access to space."

Installed in AEDC's 16T wind tunnel was the entire three-body configuration of the Delta IV Heavy with the Orion, the Orion Service Module and the Orion Launch abort system on the front end.

Data received during the test was beneficial to ULA in determining how the vehicle would function.

Nathan Payne, Aerospace Testing Alliance (ATA) project engineer for the test, said, "This was a buffet/acoustic test in our 16T wind tunnel facility. The Orion's test objectives were to gather dynamic pressure data over the entire model's surfaces. ULA can then use this data to provide vehicle forcing function for axial, pitch, yaw and their respective moments.

"We were defining the surface acoustics and vibrational environment on the model to support a component that will be used on the full scale vehicle."

Payne added, "We gathered static pressure data over selected areas of the vehicle's surface and obtained [Background-Oriented] Schlieren images of shock interaction between the payload and the strap on liquid rocket nose cone geometries."

Schoonmaker explained AEDC's 16T wind tunnel facility was the test site of choice for an entry like the ULA Orion configuration.

"AEDC was chosen because the previous Atlas V Heavy test was conducted at AEDC and reuse of those elements for a cost and schedule savings required a tunnel of the size of AEDC," he said.

Not only has AEDC conducted flight testing of the Orion spacecraft, in early 2007 a team at the Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 made use of conventional and advanced measurement techniques during the NASA-sponsored aerothermal testing on a scale model. The primary objective of the Orion testing at Tunnel 9 was to obtain heating data over the model's surface covering the full operational range of the facility at Mach 8 and 10 freestream conditions.

That same year NASA engineers specializing in arc heater testing teamed with their counterparts at AEDC to conduct validation runs at the Complex's High Enthalpy Aerothermal Test H2 test facility. The arc heater tests helped pave the way for successful screening and performance evaluation testing of Orion's heat shield candidate materials.

Since the testing performed at AEDC's various facilities, NASA has continued to get ready for Orion's initial launch.

Finishing the Orion crew module marks the completion of all major components of the spacecraft. The inert service module and the launch abort system were completed in January and December, respectively. The crew module was attached to the service module in June to allow for testing before the finishing touches were put on the crew module.

The adapter that will connect Orion to the United Launch Alliance (ULA) Delta IV Heavy rocket was built by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. It is being tested for use on the agency's Space Launch System rocket for future deep space missions.

On Sept. 11, NASA, Lockheed Martin and ULA managers oversaw the move of the spacecraft from the Neil Armstrong Operations and Checkout Building to the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at Kennedy, where it will be fueled with ammonia and hyper-propellants for its flight test. Once fueling is complete, the launch abort system will be attached. The spacecraft will then be ready to stack on the Delta IV Heavy.

Though there will not be a crew onboard during the December flight test, in the future, the module will be used to transport astronauts safely to and from space. Many of Orion's critical safety systems will be evaluated on this mission.