aerospace america february 2016

2016·5.5 MB·English

February 2016
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Page 20
Flight Safety’s Beatty
on airliner tracking,
congestion/10
Seeing shockwaves/14
An atomic clock in space/40
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16-948v4
February 2016 Page 4
DEPARTMENTS
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK 2
Page 28
Contrails and climate change
LETTER TO THE EDITOR 3
Missed significance
IN BRIEF 4
GEO platform; hydrogen fuel cells; emission standards; Space Renaissance Act Page 40
SCITECH 2016 8
Highlights from San Diego
CONVERSATION 10
Making air travel even safer
ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK 14
Visualizing shockwaves
OUT OF THE PAST 46
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 48
FEATURES
CURBING CONTRAILS 20
Airliners leave cirrus clouds in their wakes, and if these contrails could
be reduced or eliminated, their climate warming contribution could
instantly be erased from the climate change equation.
by Keith Button
LIBERATING CUBESATS 28
Light launchers under development with the support of venture
capitalists and NASA could transform how cubesats and other
small satellites reach space.
by Marc Selinger
ANALYSIS: SPACE COLLABORATION AT RISK 34
International cooperation was all the rage after the fall of the Soviet
Page 34
Union and establishment of the International Space Station program in
the 1990s. But that consensus is lacking today regarding the future of
human space flights.
by Anatoly Zak Page 14
KEEPING TIME IN DEEP SPACE 40
NASA plans to launch an atomic clock for better navigation in space.
by Debra Werner
BULLETIN
AIAA Meeting Schedule B2
AIAA News B5
AIAA Courses and Training Program B16
ON THE COVER
NASA’s DC-8 flying laboratory in this photo was taken from an HU-25 Falcon.
Image credit: NASA
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®
Editor’s Notebook
is a publication of the American Institute
of Aeronautics and Astronautics
Ben Iannotta
Editor-in-Chief
Kyung M. Song
Contrails and climate science
Associate Editor
Greg Wilson
Production Editor
Our cover story this month on efforts to predict the size and duration of
Jerry Grey
contrail cirrus clouds strikes me as a microcosm of the overall climate-
Editor-at-Large
Christine Williams change topic.
Editor AIAA Bulletin For one thing, the impact of jet flight on the atmosphere is complex.
The correct policy prescriptions are not always arrived at by following
Contributing Writers one’s common sense.
Keith Button, Warren Ferster, Consider airliner flight routes. Before I read our story, common sense
Lawrence Garrett, Michael Peck,
would have told me that a longer route burns more fuel and emits more
Marc Selinger, Hannah Thoreson,
carbon dioxide and would be worse for the climate than a shorter route.
Robert van der Linden, Debra Werner,
Frank H. Winter, Anatoly Zak That’s not always the case, as the graphic on page 23 shows. A longer
route can be preferable if a jet flies at an altitude and in weather conditions
Jane Fitzgerald that produce smaller or shorter-lived contrails. These human-made cirrus
Art Direction and Design clouds hold in heat like insulation, and if they can be reduced significantly
James F. Albaugh, President enough, the effect can more than offset the extra CO2 from flying farther.
James “Jim” Maser, President-Elect This means that a policy prescription that only looks at carbon would
Sandra H. Magnus, Publisher not be the right answer.
Craig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution That complexity reminds me a little of the years after the Toyota Prius
hybrid sedan hit the market. Scientists and economists soon counseled
STEERING COMMITTEE
us that calculating a product’s climate change footprint requires taking
John Evans, Lockheed Martin; Steven E.
into account manufacturing, not just the emissions of the end product.
Gorrell, Brigham Young University; Frank Lu,
University of Texas at Arlington; David R. Riley, That didn’t mean that hybrid cars were bad for the environment. It meant
Boeing; Mary L. Snitch, Lockheed Martin; that automakers should also clean up their production processes. Today,
Annalisa Weigel, Fairmont Consulting Group in fact, the Toyota website has a graphic showing how it seeks to reduce
carbon emissions throughout its chain, from the factory floors to its
EDITORIAL BOARD
Ned Allen, Jean-Michel Contant, dealerships and the performance of its vehicles.
L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Michael Francis, Another similarity to the broader issue has to do with the temptation
Cam Martin, Don Richardson, to say: “My sector isn’t a big part of the climate problem.” It’s true that
Douglas Yazell aviation produces just 11 percent of the overall U.S. transportation
ADVERTISING greenhouse-gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection
Joan Daly, 703-938-5907 Agency. But as our story points out, matters are not so simple. If a predictive
[email protected] capability can be achieved for contrails, action to reduce contrails could
produce faster climate results than in the energy sector, for example,
Pat Walker, 415-387-7593
[email protected] where action to reduce CO emissions will pay off more slowly because
2
of how CO remains in the atmosphere.
2
LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE I also see similarities with the climate issue in the scientific culture.
Ben Iannotta, [email protected] Our cover story shows scientists who are working hard to stay in their
lanes as simply producers of scientific explanations, perhaps to avoid
QUESTIONS AND ADDRESS CHANGES
[email protected] getting bogged down in the policy debates over what to do about climate
change. If researchers can define the fuels, routes, designs and weather
ADVERTISING MATERIALS
conditions that produce the biggest or longest-lived contrails, other experts
Craig Byl, [email protected]
can step forward and decide whether or how to reduce them. Even so,
the sense of urgency among the scientists shines through in the article.
February 2016, Vol. 54, No. 2
Ben Iannotta
Editor-in-Chief
Letterto th e Ed itor
Missed significance
Events Calendar
14 - 18 February 2016
The January 2016 issue overlooked
26th AAS/AIAA Space Flight
a piece of historical aviation trivia.
Mechanics Meeting
Napa, California The item dated Jan. 18, 1941 [Out
of the Past, page 43] shows a China
5 - 12 March 2016
National Aviation aircraft. The air-
2016 IEEE Aerospace Conference
craft illustrated was actually nick-
Big Sky, Montana www.feldgrau.net
named the DC-2½. The story goes
8 - 10 March 2016 that a DC-3 had its right wing shot
AIAA Defense and Security Forum up in a strafing attack, but a DC-2
(AIAA DEFENSE 2016) right wing was available. So, this
AIAA National Forum on Weapon wing was installed and the aircraft
System Effectiveness flew safely out. Correction
AIAA Strategic and Tactical Carl Ehrlich The year-in-review article,
Missile Systems Conference Calabasas, California “Expandable space habitats ready
Missile Sciences Conference AIAA Associate Fellow for launch,” (December, page 63)
Laurel, Maryland [email protected] omitted the byline of one of the
authors, Mark Kerr.
16 March 2016
Congressional Visits Day 2016
Washington, D.C.
All letters addressed to the editor are considered to be submitted for possible publication,
19-21 April 2016
unless it is expressly stated otherwise. All letters are subject to editing for length and to
16th Integrated Communications
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Please join us as we inspire, inform and
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AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016 3
In Brief
DARPA’s giant Legos
in space
Launching satellites today is like rein-
venting the wheel. In the factory, each
set of cameras or communications an-
tennas must be fitted to a satellite bus
that provides power and navigation.
DARPA has a better idea: Instead of ex-
pending mass on a satellite bus for each
mission, why not position permanent
satellite support platforms in geosyn-
chronous orbit, and then simply send
the payloads to them?
This is the concept behind DAR-
PA’s Persistent Platform in Geosynchro- DARPA wants to launch a giant
geosynchronous spacecraft a
nous Earth Orbit project. The goal is
component at a time aboard its
ambitious: create orbital platforms in
Payload Orbital Delivery systems,
geosynchronous orbit that could even- or PODs, which would ride on
tually be larger than the International commercial satellites.
Space Station. Small payloads would be
lofted into GEO and then robotically
added to the sustaining structure.
Each of these platforms would be
“designed to last decades, perhaps
even longer than the ISS. Systems that
permit a large number of secondary
payloads would ferry these payloads
DARPA artist’s concept
to GEO on a regular basis,” says Jer-
emy Palmer, a program manager in
DARPA’s Tactical Technology office.
“Robotic systems on this platform that the individual units comprising the platform will require cellular
would have the ability to swap out the the platform must each fit within DAR- components that can be assembled
new arrivals for the old ones.” PA’s Payload Orbital Delivery launch into whatever support nodes, such as
The impetus for the project is system, which is scheduled for a test communications, are needed.
sheer economics. GEO satellites are launch in 2017. POD aims to cheaply “Instead of exquisite and unique
elaborate, long-term projects. By the loft payloads into orbit by piggyback- bus components launched to this plat-
time the payload is inserted into orbit, ing them aboard commercial satellite form, imagine instead a collection of
the electronics might already be obso- launches. However, POD payloads Lego bricks,” Palmer says.
lete. A platform could include support- must be only 90 to 130 kilograms and Commercial firms must also be
ing infrastructure, which ages more less than a cubic meter in volume. willing to invest the necessary capital.
gracefully, while upgraded payloads While the concept of on-orbit as- And therein lies the thorniest problem
and their high-value electronics could sembly isn’t new, Palmer sees DARPA of a GEO platform: If the platform is
be attached as technology improves. as spurring commercial use of GEO by international and services everyone’s
Palmer says construction of small creating what could be described as satellites, who owns the platform?
GEO platforms could be accomplished essentially a satellite office park in “There are a lot of regulatory and
within the next 10 to 15 years, though space. “The platform operator would policy issues that have to be addressed
larger, kilometers-wide structures be akin to a building manager that is with the presence of robotic — espe-
might take far longer. For now, DAR- leasing apartment space.” cially robotic servicing technology —
PA’s goals are more modest. The indus- The technology to build a GEO in GEO,” Palmer notes. “The law has
try is competing to be included in the platform is almost ready, Palmer says. to catch up with the technology first.”
first phase of a Small Business Innova- There will need to be advances in as- Michael Peck
tive Research project that could begin sembling structures and fabricating [email protected]
in September. DARPA has specified structural members in space. Also, @Mipeck1
4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016
Powering
reaction that releases the hydrogen, “now more and more electric, a lot of
which is then run through a purifying the [manufacturers] are looking at al-
airliners with filter and into a fuel cell to convert the ternative power supplies,” he says.
hydrogen to energy. The power sys- “They’re looking at: Can they take
hydrogen tem — including the fuel rods, gas that electrical power not from systems
generator and the fuel cell — weighs that attach to the main engines or
one-third as much as comparable- auxiliary power systems that ulti-
power lithium ion batteries, Benning- mately all use jet fuel?”
Airliners might one day draw electric ton says. The main drawback for batteries
power from rods or pellets of solid For larger, 100-kilowatt fuel cells, is their weight. Some experts also
hydrogen. A small London company, which would provide auxiliary question their safety, citing overheat-
Cella Energy, has been working on power, the hydrogen rods won’t ing lithium-battery incidents aboard
the technology and hopes to fully de- work, because hundreds of kilo- Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
velop it under a five-year contract that grams of the material would have to Hydrogen backers pitch the fuel
could be signed by April with Herak- be loaded into the hydrogen genera- as an environmentally friendly alter-
les, a subsidiary of Safran based in tor. So Cella is developing a form of native that will help airplane manu-
Paris. The solid hydrogen would sup- solid fuel that can be pumped like a facturers align themselves with future
ply hydrogen to fuel cells for the aux- liquid fuel, but in 1-millimeter solid emissions regulations. The emissions
iliary power units on airliners. pellets. The pellets could be pumped would be water, and the technology
Cella began working on the tech- pneumatically, just as pellets are could be lighter than batteries.
nology with Herakles in December pumped in pharmaceutical and min- The Cella technology is aimed at
2014, and now plans to extend the ing industries. solving a challenge of hydrogen for
work. The first power plants devel- According to Bennington, Cella is use in passenger aviation. Whereas
oped under this initial arrangement — the only commercial dry-hydrogen automobile designers can compress
2.5-kilowatt generators —were tested generator under development for con- hydrogen gas inside carbon-fiber-
by Safran in its Paris laboratories, says ventionally piloted airplanes. wrapped tanks, on an aircraft that
Stephen Bennington, Cella Energy’s Cella Energy was spun out of the would be extremely hazardous. The
managing director, who also heads Science and Technology Facilities advantage of Cella’s system is that
technology efforts. The new contract Council, a U.K. government research the hydrogen is stable, its toxicity is
would extend the exclusive arrange- institute, to develop ways to safely similar to gasoline, it’s lightweight
ment for five more years to develop store hydrogen without high pressures and its performance is similar to
2- to 20-kilowatt power plants and or low temperatures. The company compressed gas, but without the
methods for loading solid hydrogen branched out into developing power safety issues, Bennington says.
onto aircraft. supplies for small unmanned aircraft, Cella and Safran hope to develop
For small power plants, Cella which today is about half of Cella’s a power system that could be used in
uses dry hydrogen in the form of rods business. Cella is working with Israel commercial aircraft by the early
measuring 20 centimeters long by 2.5 Aerospace Industries on a solid-hy- 2020s, Bennington says. Among the
centimers wide, each with a hole drogen-powered fuel cell to power challenges: Convince regulators that it
down the center. These rods are IAI’s BirdEye mini drone. can operate safely under extreme
packed into an insulated bed, and Bennington says the company temperature and vibration conditions.
then heated one by one to 120 to 150 anticipates growing demand for its Keith Button
degrees Celsius to create a chemical power plants because aircraft are [email protected]
Cella
Each gram of flowable hydrogen pellets from Cella Energy of London can produce as much as a liter of hydrogen gas. Cella expects to sign a contract with a subsidiary
of Safran to develop solid hydrogen to supply electric power to airliners.
AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016 5
InBrief
ICAO inching toward CO Development Complex in Tennessee.
2 The instructions, negotiated with
regulators over two years, were for-
emissions standards
mally adopted in November, and will
guide mandatory emissions data col-
lection that engine makers will have
New standards on carbon dioxide Agency would also have a role. Today, to abide by while ICAO builds a data-
emissions that would change the air- EPA sets aviation air quality standards base of results that will help it deter-
worthiness certification process for based on ICAO standards, and the FAA mine what the new standards will be,
airplane manufacturers are winding enforces the standards through the cer- Howard says. ICAO has been gather-
their way through the approval pro- tification process for new airplanes and ing non-volatile particulate emissions
cess of the International Civil Aviation their engines. With the proposed CO data using an informal testing script
2
Organization. standards, the EPA is expected to wait from the SAE subcommittee for about
ICAO’s Committee on Aviation and see what CAEP proposes and then a year.
Environmental Protection, or CAEP, decide whether to go along or come up The testing measures mass and
will meet in February to discuss the with different, possibly more stringent, number of non-volatile particles in the
carbon dioxide standards and could standards. exhaust. Any emission that exists as a
The International Civil Aviation Organization
is debating standards that would tie carbon
dioxide emissions to airworthiness certification.
Wikipedia Commons
Wikipedia Commons
then pass the proposal to the ICAO CAEP is also discussing regulat- particle when the exhaust leaves the
assembly for ratification in Septem- ing non-volatile particulate matter — engine is defined as a non-volatile.
ber, an ICAO spokesman says. At that meaning soot —in emissions. CAEP Particles that form later in the exhaust
point, the FAA and similar aviation was expected to decide at the Febru- stream are volatile particles, meaning
regulators in other countries would ary meeting whether to proceed, and they can shift easily between solid
decide whether to adopt the stan- if so, whether to enact an interim and gaseous forms. The SAE subcom-
dard, which could go into effect in standard while the final rules are de- mittee has been tasked with coming
2020. veloped, says an industry expert who up with a protocol for measuring vol-
The CO standards would be the asked not to be named discussing in- atile particles, too.
2
first of their kind for aviation. Cur- ternal deliberations. The sampling approach will use
rently in the U.S., airplane engine ICAO already has a prescription techniques similar to those already re-
makers must pass emissions standards in hand provided by a subcommittee quired for measuring other jet emis-
for nitrogen oxide, sulfur oxide and of SAE International, an engineering sions. For example, sampling probes
smoke, plus noise standards. A CO association that drafts standards, de- will be installed in the exhaust path
2
standard —assuming the FAA opts in scribing how to accurately and consis- of an engine on its test stand, and the
— would be similarly enforced: The tently measure non-volatile particulate probes will channel the exhaust 20 to
engines and the new airplanes they matter by testing aircraft turbine en- 30 meters away to isolate the measur-
power would have to pass the new gines, according to Robert Howard, ing instruments from the engine’s
standards before receiving their FAA chairman of the subcommittee and an noise and vibration.
certifications. engineer with the Aerospace Testing Keith Button
The U.S. Environmental Protection Alliance at the Arnold Engineering [email protected]
6 AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016
Nudging NOAA to use commercial data
U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, a Re-
publican from Oklahoma first
elected in 2012, has quickly
staked ground as a vocal sup-
porter of all things space, par-
ticularly the fast-growing com-
mercial sector.
Bridenstine is drafting a
bill he calls the Space Renais-
sance Act. He characterizes the
legislation as a repository of
ideas that could be tacked
piecemeal onto other legisla-
tive vehicles, such as the de-
fense authorization bill.
Bridenstine says he has no
illusions about the bill’s chances
of passage. “My goal with this
bill is to start conversations,
and where we can achieve con-
sensus then we can take ele-
ments of the bill and insert
them into parts of other bills,”
he told a Washington Space
Business roundtable audience NOAA
in January in Washington, D.C.
One of the conversations
An infrared weather image from a NOAA geostationary satellite. Privately owned satellites could soon play
Bridenstine would like to start has to
a role, too.
do with weather forecasting, a topic
important to him and his constitu-
ents due to Oklahoma’s reputation have tapped into Silicon Valley’s hyperspectral sensors aboard geosyn-
for tornadoes. Norman, Oklahoma, is ethos, technology and capital, ap- chronous communications satellites.
home to NOAA’s Storm Prediction pears to have leapt ahead of the pack An obvious target market for
Center, which tracks tornadoes and with the September launch of four these companies is NOAA, which
other severe weather. GPS radio occultation microsatellites Bridenstine and others complain has
As chairman of the subcommittee aboard an Indian rocket. been slow to lay out specific terms
that oversees NOAA and its weather PlanetIQ, meanwhile, last year and conditions under which it would
satellites, Bridenstine has been push- selected satellite and launch vehicle buy commercial weather data. The
ing the agency to bring commercial providers for its planned constella- agency last year released a draft com-
capabilities into the mix, something tion of 12 satellites. Chris McCor- mercialization strategy, but points out
the Pentagon has already done in ar- mick, CEO of PlanetIQ, said the com- that its obligation to share weather
eas such as satellite communications, pany is fully financed through the data, regardless of source, with other
launch and Earth imaging. launch of its first two satellites, which nations could undercut commercial
At least three companies, Spire, are slated to fly in December as sec- providers in other markets.
PlanetIQ and GeoOptics, are planning ondary payloads on an Indian rocket. Bridenstine in the past has
constellations of satellites equipped PlanetIQ is now raising financing for pushed legislation intended to force
with sensors that would measure dis- the remainder of the constellation, NOAA to be more proactive in engag-
tortion, or occultation, of GPS satellite McCormick said, adding that the ing with the commercial providers. So
signals caused by changes in atmo- company is already working on its far, the measure has failed to gain real
spheric conditions. Algorithms would fourth generation antenna. traction. But in a small step, this year’s
then be applied to derive temperature Another company, Tempus Global omnibus appropriations bill includes
and humidity measurements, also Data, has the rights to a different type $3 million for a NOAA pilot program
known as soundings. of sensor that also would perform at- to experiment with commercial data.
Spire, one the new breed of en- mospheric soundings. The company is Warren Ferster
trepreneurial space companies that seeking partners that would host the [email protected]
AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016 7
HIGHLIGHTS FROM SAN DIEGO
From the Cold War to Kickstarter
World War II, Kickstarter and social existing hardware and customizing it. first commercial tiltrotor aircraft.
media don’t often come up together Manchester has raised nearly “Technology development in the
in conversations. Yet they embodied $75,000 through the online fundrais- tiltrotor business was slow,” Mark said.
some of the key themes from a Sci- ing site Kickstarter in hopes of Former astronaut William A. An-
Tech panel on aerospace innovation. launching a tiny KickSat satellite into ders candidly credited the Cold War
Four panelists — representing low-Earth orbit. for the Apollo program. The Soviet
two generational poles —spoke about Mary Popp, a propulsion engi- Union’s launch of Sputnik 1 pres-
the past and future of technological neer with the Orion program at Lock- sured Presidents Dwight Eisenhower
advances. They depicted a fast- heed Martin and Manchester’s con- and John Kennedy to expand Ameri-
changing aerospace industry pro- temporary, said social media and cans’ space ambitions.
pelled in part by revolutions in cheap more opportunities for firsthand ex- The basis for the Apollo missions
electronics, easier collaborations and perience can inspire the next genera- “was not exploration, but to beat the
quicker manufacturing. At the same tion of innovators. Popp, who ma- Russians,” said Anders, who in 1968
piloted the lunar module for Apollo 8.
Anders traced how the end of the
Cold War led to the end of the Apollo
mission, as well as the political calcula-
tions that led another president, Richard
Nixon, to give rise to the space shuttles.
That program, Anders said, was “one of
the bigger policy mistakes this nation
has made in space.”
Kyung M. Song
[email protected]
Tough love
for science,
AIAA
technology
Zak Manchester of Harvard University’s Agile Robotics Laboratory and Mary Popp of the Orion Space Program
at Lockheed Martin, left, joined former U.S. Air Force Secretary Hans Mark (center) and former Apollo astronaut
William A. Anders to offer generational perspectives on innovation.
Aversion to risk, proliferation of regu-
time, they reminded the audience of jored in bioengineering at Lehigh lations and lack of strategic focus are
how outside factors, not least of them University, switched careers after some of the challenges confronting
war and peace, politics and federal watching the final space shuttle U.S. policies on aerospace science
budgets, can shape and constrain launch in 2011, which she called “the and technology.
aerospace programs. most amazing, impressive thing I’d Panelist Timothy Persons, chief sci-
Zac Manchester, a post-doctorate ever seen.” entist with the U.S. Government Ac-
fellow at Harvard University’s Agile Two other panelists offered more countability Office, called for an Ameri-
Robotics Laboratory, pointed to the historical perspectives. Hans Mark, a can reboot for science and technology,
proliferation of low-cost, capable former secretary of the U.S. Air Force, pointing to a growing number of pat-
electronics as one of the key devel- reviewed the 65-year development of ents being created in Asia. Persons said
opments fueling advances in space. the tiltrotor technology. Work on what the U.S. should focus on international
Another is the growing ability for en- later became the XV-3 aircraft began “coopetition,” an international-partner-
gineers and innovators to easily col- in the early 1950s for the military. To- ship approach that NASA, the Depart-
laborate online, such as through day, AgustaWestland is preparing to ment of Defense and other agencies
open-source software or by tapping begin production of its AW609, the have used with success.
8 AEROSPACE AMERICA/FEBRUARY 2016