That company has just revealed its latest success: a successful testing round for a 3D printed injector for the RL10 upper-stage rocket engine, arguably the most reliable upper stage rocket engine in the world right now.
This paper discusses the design and implementation of an extended Kalman filter (EKF) for model-based engine control (MBEC). Previously proposed MBEC architectures feature an optimal tuner Kalman Filter (OTKF) to produce estimates of both unmeasured engine parameters and estimates for the health of the engine. The success of this approach relies on the accuracy of the linear model and the ability of the optimal tuner to update its tuner estimates based on only a few sensors. Advances in computer processing are making it possible to replace the piece-wise linear model, developed off-line, with an on-board nonlinear model running in real-time. This will reduce the estimation errors associated with the linearization process, and is typically referred to as an extended Kalman filter. The nonlinear extended Kalman filter approach is applied to the Commercial Modular Aero-Propulsion System Simulation 40,000 (C-MAPSS40k) and compared to the previously proposed MBEC architecture. The results show that the EKF reduces the estimation error, especially during transient operation.
The world’s first 3D-printed Cubesat nanosatellite will be launched to the International Space Station later this month, RIA Novosti reported, citing the Tomsk Polytechnic University press service.
The U.S. Air Force awarded the Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering a $545,000 contract to study additive manufacturing techniques to make cooling chambers for liquid rocket engines, according to a Nov. 4 press release from the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center.
“Using technologies we’ve developed over the past 10-15 years, we can do this cheaper than the Russians do it today,” says Steve Cook, director of corporate development for Dynetics and a former manager of the Ares Projects Office, the last major NASA initiative to develop new rocket engine technology.
This work reports a thesis research done in the field of air launch at TU Delft’s faculty of Aerospace Engineering. During the entire era of space flight air launch is seen as a very promising concept. Despite its claimed advantages, air launch is up till now only a marginal success with the Pegasus launch vehicle from Orbital Sciences. In this study is investigated for which conditions expendable air launched vehicles can achieve a performance gain compared with expendable ground launched vehicles. The scope of this study is limited to near-term feasible concepts. Therefore, only existing carrier aircraft that require minimum modifications are evaluated. Solid propelled rockets are more promising for air launch than liquid rockets, therefore, only solid propelled rockets are considered during this study. Potential markets for launch vehicles with a 10 kg and 2,000 kg payload capability to low earth orbit are identified. The influences of different launch parameters and the presence of a wing on the potential performance gain of air launch are investigated.
A Multidisciplinary Design Optimization (MDO) is deemed the most suitable approach for the comparison between air launch and ground launch. In earlier thesis work performed at the TU Delft an MDO tool in the Tudat framework is developed by Jan Vandamme. This tool is used as a starting point for this work but is heavily modified and expanded. For the typical disciplines of launch vehicle design models are developed and validated. The Multidisciplinary Design Analysis (MDA) and MDO validation tested the ability of the tool to model the design and the trajectory of launch vehicles. During the MDA validation it is shown that the tool is capable to do this for the design as well as for the trajectory. From the MDO validation it can be concluded that the optimized designs have realistic configurations and a lower cost per flight than the designs for the MDA validation.
The work presented here addresses the use of multidisciplinary optimization methods to the design of solid rocket propelled launch vehicles, thereby taking into account both air- and ground-launch as well as the addition of lifting devices (use of wings). The method combines both vehicle and trajectory design in a a sequential approach
