ALBERT

Description: In this paper, the natural and induced space environment factors affecting materials performance on ISS are described in some detail. The emphasis will be on ISS flight experience and the more significant design and development issues of the last two years. The intent is to identify and document the set of space environment factors, affecting materials, that are producing the largest impacts on the ISS flight hardware verification and acceptance process and on ISS flight operations. Orbital inclination (S1.6 ) and altitude (nominal3S0 km to 400 km altitude) determine the set of natural environment factors affecting the functional life of materials and subsystems on ISS. ISS operates in the F2 region of Earth's ionosphere in well-defined fluxes of atomic oxygen, other ionospheric plasma species, and solar UV, VUV, and x-ray radiation, as well as galactic cosmic rays, trapped radiation, and solar cosmic rays (1,2). The high latitude orbital environment also exposes external surfaces to significantly less well-defined or predictable fluxes of higher energy trapped electrons and auroral electrons (3 ,4). The micrometeoroid and orbital debris environment is an important determinant of spacecraft design and operations in any orbital inclination. Environment factors induced by ISS flight operations include ram-wake effects, magnetic induction voltages arising from flight through Earth's magnetic field, hypergolic thruster plume impingement from proximity operations of visiting vehicles, materials outgassing, venting and dumping of fluids, ISS thruster operations, as well as specific electrical power system interactions with the ionospheric plasma (S-7). ISS must fly in a very limited number of approved flight attitudes leading to location specific environmental exposures and extreme local thermal environments (8). ISS is a large vehicle and produces a deep wake structure from which both ionospheric plasma and neutrals (atomic oxygen) are largely excluded (9-11). At high latitude, the ISS wake may produce a spacecraft charging environment similar to that experienced by the DMSP and Freja satellites (800 to 100 km altitude polar orbits), especially during geo-magnetic disturbances (12-14). ISS is also subject to magnetic induction voltages (VxB L) on conducting structure, a result of high velocity flight through Earth's magnetic field. The magnitude of the magnetic induction voltage varies with location on ISS, as well as the relative orientation of the vehicle velocity vector and planetary magnetic field vector, leading to maximum induction voltages at high latitude (15). The space environment factors, natural and induced, that have had the largest impact on pre-launch ISS flight hardware verification and flight operations during the first two years of ISS flight operations are listed below and grouped according to the physical and chemical processes driving their interaction with ISS materials.

Description: An independent twelve degree-of-freedom simulation of the X-43A separation trajectory was created with the Program to Optimize Simulated trajectories (POST II). This simulation modeled the multi-body dynamics of the X-43A and its booster and included the effect of two pyrotechnically actuated pistons used to push the vehicles apart as well as aerodynamic interaction forces and moments between the two vehicles. The simulation was developed to validate trajectory studies conducted with a 14 degree-of-freedom simulation created early in the program using the Automatic Dynamic Analysis of Mechanics Systems (ADAMS) simulation software. The POST simulation was less detailed than the official ADAMS-based simulation used by the Project, but was simpler, more concise and ran faster, while providing similar results. The increase in speed provided by the POST simulation provided the Project with an alternate analysis tool. This tool was ideal for performing separation control logic trade studies that required the running of numerous Monte Carlo trajectories.

Description: The Dawn Ion Propulsion System is the ninth project in NASA s Discovery Program. The Dawn spacecraft is being developed to enable the scientific investigation of the two heaviest main-belt asteroids, Vesta and Ceres. Dawn is the first mission to orbit two extraterrestrial bodies, and the first to orbit a main-belt asteroid. The mission is enabled by the onboard Ion Propulsion System (IPS) to provide the post-launch delta-V. The three Ion Engines of the IPS are mounted on Thruster Gimbal Assembly (TGA), with only one engine operating at a time for this 10-year mission. The three TGAs weigh 14.6 kg.

Description: Following the Colombia accident, the Extravehicular Mobility Units (EMU) onboard ISS were unused for several months. Upon startup, the units experienced a failure in the coolant system. This failure resulted in the loss of Extravehicular Activity (EVA) capability from the US segment of ISS. With limited on-orbit evidence, a team of chemists, engineers, metallurgists, and microbiologists were able to identify the cause of the failure and develop recovery hardware and procedures. As a result of this work, the ISS crew regained the capability to perform EVAs from the US segment of the ISS.

Description: In-Space assembly (ISA) expands the opportunities for cost effective emplacement of systems in space. Currently, spacecraft are launched into space and deploy into their operational configuration through a carefully choreographed sequence of operations. The deployment operation dictates the arrangement of the primary systems on the spacecraft, limiting the ability to take full advantage of launch vehicles volume and mass capability. ISA enables vastly different spacecraft architectures and emplacement scenarios to be achieved, including optimal launch configurations ranging from single launch and assembly to on-orbit aggregation of multiple launches at different orbital locations and times. The spacecraft can be visited at different orbital locations and times to effect expansion and maintenance of an operational capability. To date, the primary application of ISA has been in large programs funded by government organizations, such as the International Space Station. Recently, Space Systems Loral (SSL) led a study funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), called Dragonfly, to investigate the commercial applicability and economic advantages of ISA. In the study, it was shown that ISA enables SSL to double the capability of a commercial satellite system by taking advantage of alternate packaging approaches for the reflectors. The study included an ultra-light-weight robotic system, derived from Mars manipulator designs, to complete assembly of portions of the antenna system using a tool derived from DARPA orbital express and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) automated structural assembly experience. The mechanical connector that enables robotic ISA takes advantage of decades of development by NASA from the 1970's to 1980's during the Space Station Freedom program, the precursor to the ISS. The mechanical connector was originally designed for rapid astronaut assembly while also providing a high quality structural connection with linear load deflection response. The paper will discuss the business case for ISA, the general approach taken to exploit on-orbit assembly in the GEO communication satellite market, and the concept of operations associated with the ISA approach, thus laying the foundation for ISA to become an accepted operational approach for commercial in-space operations.

Description: Following gyro failures in April 2001 and April 2003, HST Pointing Control System engineers designed reduced-gyro control laws to extend the spacecraft science mission. The Two-Gyro Science (TGS) and One-Gyro Science (OGS) control laws were designed and implemented using magnetometers, star trackers, and Fine Guidance Sensors in succession to control vehicle rate about the missing gyro axes. Both TGS and OGS have demonstrated on-orbit pointing stability of 7 milli-arcseconds or less, which depends upon the guide star magnitude used by the Fine Guidance Sensor. This paper describes the design, implementation, and on-orbit performance of the TGS and OGS control law fine-pointing modes using Fixed Head Star Trackers and Fine Guidance Sensors, after successfully achieving coarse-pointing control using magnetometers.

Description: It is well known that electronics placement in large-scale human-rated systems provides opportunity to optimize electronics shielding through materials choice and geometric arrangement. For example, several hundred single event upsets (SEUs) occur within the Shuttle avionic computers during a typical mission. An order of magnitude larger SEU rate would occur without careful placement in the Shuttle design. These results used basic physics models (linear energy transfer (LET), track structure, Auger recombination) combined with limited SEU cross section measurements allowing accurate evaluation of target fragment contributions to Shuttle avionics memory upsets. Electronics shielding design on human-rated systems provides opportunity to minimize radiation impact on critical and non-critical electronic systems. Implementation of shielding design tools requires adequate methods for evaluation of design layouts, guiding qualification testing, and an adequate follow-up on final design evaluation including results from a systems/device testing program tailored to meet design requirements.

Description: The performance of ISS spacecraft materials and systems on prolonged exposure to the low-Earth orbit (LEO) space flight is reported in this paper. In-flight data, flight crew observations, and the results of ground-based test and analysis directly supporting programmatic and operational decision-making are presented. The space flight environments definitions (both natural and induced) used for ISS design, material selection, and verification testing are shown, in most cases, to be more severe than the actual flight environment accounting for the outstanding performance of ISS as a long mission duration spacecraft. No significant ISS material or system failures have been attributed to spacecraft-environments interactions. Nonetheless, ISS materials and systems performance data is contributing to our understanding of spacecraft material interactions in the spaceflight environment so as to reduce cost and risk for future spaceflight projects and programs. Orbital inclination (51.6o) and altitude (nominally near 360 km) determine the set of natural environment factors affecting the functional life of materials and systems on ISS. ISS operates in an electrically conducting environment (the F2 region of Earth s ionosphere) with well-defined fluxes of atomic oxygen, other charged and neutral ionospheric plasma species, solar UV, VUV, and x-ray radiation as well as galactic cosmic rays, trapped radiation, and solar cosmic rays (1-4). The LEO micrometeoroid and orbital debris environment is an especially important determinant of spacecraft design and operations (5, 6). The magnitude of several environmental factors varies dramatically with latitude and longitude as ISS orbits the Earth (1-4). The high latitude orbital environment also exposes ISS to higher fluences of trapped energetic electrons, auroral electrons, solar cosmic rays, and galactic cosmic rays (1-4) than would be the case in lower inclination orbits, largely as a result of the overall shape and magnitude of the geomagnetic field (1-4). As a result, ISS exposure to many environmental factors can vary dramatically along a particular orbital ground track, and from one ground track to the next, during any 24-hour period.

Description: A distributed real-time simulation of the civil air traffic environment developed to support human factors research in advanced air transportation technology is presented. The distributed environment is based on a custom simulation architecture designed for simplicity and flexibility in human experiments. Standard Internet protocols are used to create the distributed environment, linking all advanced cockpit simulator, all Air Traffic Control simulator, and a pseudo-aircraft control and simulation management station. The pseudo-aircraft control station also functions as a scenario design tool for coordinating human factors experiments. This station incorporates a pseudo-pilot interface designed to reduce workload for human operators piloting multiple aircraft simultaneously in real time. The application of this distributed simulation facility to support a study of the effect of shared information (via air-ground datalink) on pilot/controller shared situation awareness and re-route negotiation is also presented.

Description: No abstract available