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June 2016 Ambition: Europa NASA might find more than life in this moon’s ocean. It could find a new strategy for exploring other worlds. Page 22 Oklahoma’s Bridenstine on climate, term limits/8 20 years of Design/Build/Fly/30 Smart bombs for wildfires/38 A PUBLICATION OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS • COVER-0616ƒ.indd 1 5/19/16 1:18 PM 2O16 13–17 JUNE 2016 WASHINGTON, D.C. AIAA AVIATION 2016 is the only aviation Exclusive Premier Sponsor event that covers the entire integrated spectrum of aviation business and technology. Confirmed Speakers Charles F. Michimasa Maj. Gen. Mike Delaney John S. Richard A. Clarke Bolden Jr. Fujino Joe Engle Langford Vice President, Chairman & CEO, Administrator, President & CEO, United States Air Airplane Chairman and Good Harbor NASA Honda Aircraft Force (Ret.) Development, Chief Executive Security Risk Company The Boeing Officer, Aurora Management, LLC Company Flight Sciences Corporation REGISTER TODAY! AIAA-AVIATION.ORG 16-1132 June 2016 DEPARTMENTS Page 16 EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK 2 Congress’s dynamic aerospace duo IN BRIEF 4 3D-printed drone; status change at Ames? smart repair manuals; Page 34 subscale aircraft CONVERSATION 8 Change agent for aerospace CASE STUDY 12 Preventing more MH370s ENGINEERING NOTEBOOK 16 Making a money saver OUT OF THE PAST 46 Page 4 CAREER OPPORTUNITIES 48 FEATURES AMBITION: EUROPA 22 Jupiter’s moon Europa could have life in the ocean under its shell. NASA came up with a step-by-step plan to find out. Then, along came a congressman from Texas. by Debra Werner Page 38 DESIGNING A WINNER 30 AIAA’s Design/Build/Fly contest gives college students a chance to pit their engineering smarts against international competitors in a remote-controlled aircraft flyoff. This year’s event was arguably one of the most challenging. by Joe Stumpe VIEWPOINT: STATISTICS MATTER NOW, MORE THAN EVER 34 University aerospace engineering curriculums are packed with foundational Page 12 courses, but statistics is not typically one of them. It’s time to fix that. by Dave Finkleman SMART WEAPONS FOR FIGHTING FIRES 38 Massive wildfires have become almost a summer ritual in the U.S. But airtankers, the air cavalry of forest fires, are in short supply. by Michael Peck BULLETIN AIAA Meeting Schedule B2 Page 30 AIAA News B5 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Event Preview B12 AIAA Courses and Training Program B15 ON THE COVER An artist’s rendering of Europa’s surface. Credit: NASA Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 200 Reston, VA 20191-5807 [703/264-7500]. Subscription rate is 50% of dues for AIAA members (and is not deductible therefrom). Nonmember subscription price: U.S., $200; foreign, $220. Single copies $20 each. Postmaster: Send address changes and subscription orders to address above, attention AIAA Customer Service, 703/264-7500.Periodical postage paid at Reston, Va., and at additional mailing offices. Copyright 2016 by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved. The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. 40,000 copies of this issue printed. This is Volume 54, No. 6. • toc.JUN2016.indd 1 5/19/16 1:14 PM ® Editor’s Notebook is a publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Ben Iannotta Editor-in-Chief Kyung M. Song Congress’s dynamic aerospace duo Associate Editor Greg Wilson Production Editor We spent some time in this edition talking with U.S. Reps. John Culberson, R-Texas, Jerry Grey and Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma. Inevitably, not everyone will agree with them Editor-at-Large Christine Williams on some core issues, from their doubts about the human role in climate change Editor AIAA Bulletin to Culberson’s push to increase funding for exploring Europa. But the two are a dynamic duo when it comes to injecting fresh thinking about matters of aerospace Contributing Writers into lawmaking. They are not merely overseeing plans put forth by the White Keith Button, Henry Canaday, House, NASA and NOAA. They are determined to direct them and inspire them. Michael Peck, Joe Stumpe, The ideas they propose can sound outlandish, but even outlandish concepts have Robert van der Linden, Debra Werner, a way of forcing change that can be rational in its final form. At least, that’s the hope. Frank H. Winter Bridenstine is a big advocate for the companies that plan to gather and sell Jane Fitzgerald weather forecasting data by encircling Earth with cubesats to receive GPS signals Art Direction and Design and measure how far they bend as they cross though the atmosphere along the curve of the Earth. The concept might sound hokey when you first hear it, but James F. Albaugh, President James “Jim” Maser, President-Elect NOAA forecasters don’t think Bridenstine is crazy. From the data they’ve received Sandra H. Magnus, Publisher so far, they’d like more of this GPS radio occultation data, as long as that doesn’t Craig Byl, Manufacturing and Distribution come at the expense of NOAA’s weather satellites. Culberson addresses that concern in our interview on page 8. STEERING COMMITTEE The other half of the dynamic duo, Culberson, has inserted himself into NASA John Evans, Lockheed Martin; Steven E. exploration planning in something of a Kennedy-like way. John F. Kennedy gave Gorrell, Brigham Young University; Frank Lu, University of Texas at Arlington; David R. Riley, NASA before the end of the 1960s to land humans on the moon. Under language Boeing; Mary L. Snitch, Lockheed Martin; Culberson shepherded into law in December, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory is Annalisa Weigel, Fairmont Consulting Group supposed to launch a robotic orbiter and a lander toward Europa by 2022. The Kennedy comparison shouldn’t be taken too far. JFK was president of a nation EDITORIAL BOARD Ned Allen, Jean-Michel Contant, of 180 million people. Culberson has 770,000 people in his Houston district. But L.S. “Skip” Fletcher, Michael Francis, members of Congress are allowed to put bold ideas on the table, too. Cam Martin, Don Richardson, I don’t know that Culberson’s timeline or vision will prove realistic in the end, Douglas Yazell but I do know that his passion for Europa has experts at JPL working in overdrive ADVERTISING to find out. If you’re an advocate of space exploration, perhaps that’s not a bad Joan Daly, 703-938-5907 process to see set in motion. [email protected] Near the end of my conversation with Bridenstine, I mentioned that the nuance in his views about weather forecasting and climate change surprised me. Pat Walker, 415-387-7593 [email protected] “That’s the way politics is. Everybody wants to create a picture of who they think you are and not who you really are,” he said. LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE One of the values of Aerospace America is that we go beyond personalities Ben Iannotta, [email protected] to dig into the logic underlying debates over such issues as the role of privately operated weather satellites, Europa exploration and climate change. We will QUESTIONS AND ADDRESS CHANGES continue to do that. [email protected] ADVERTISING MATERIALS Ben Iannotta Craig Byl, [email protected] Editor-in-Chief June 2016, Vol. 54, No. 6 • editorial.JUN2016.indd 1 5/19/16 1:20 PM Participation is Power Shaping the future of aerospace is no simple task. AIAA forums and expositions are catalysts for Shaping the future of aerospace takes passion, inspired idea exchange, progressive problem discussion, innovation, collaboration, and most solving, and industry innovation. importantly, it takes YOU! AIAA Forums and Expositions “Your return on investment will be high. The multiple opportunities AIAA AVIATION 2016 13–17 June 2016, Washington, D.C. you have to advance your career AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2016 personally by learning, to advance 25–27 July 2016, Salt Lake City, Utah your career professionally by AIAA SPACE 2016 networking…is worth the price of 13–16 September 2016, Long Beach, California admission.” AIAA SciTech 2017 —Lt. Gen. Larry D. James, USAF (Ret.), 9–13 January 2017, Grapevine, Texas NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory AIAA DEFENSE 2017 25–27 April 2017, Laurel, Maryland Learn More! aiaa.org/forums 16-1193 In Brief Printing a quadcopter out of plastic Specialized missions require spe- about 46 meters. When it receives an custom aircraft. The quadcopter could cialized aircraft, and designing a cus- acoustic signal, a launch container re- have been bigger or smaller, faster or tom unmanned aircraft can be ex- leases the quadcopter, which floats to slower, weaponized or unarmed, de- pensive and time consuming. the surface and lifts off, reaching a pending on the requirements. Engineers at the John Hopkins speed of 30 kph. “Gone are the days when you University Applied Physics Labora- A smaller version, the 3-kilogram have to buy an expensive UAV and tory are working to solve that prob- Mini-CRACUNS, will be compact shove your 10-pound payload into its lem by 3-D printing aircraft to meet enough to be launched from an un- one-pound volume,” says CRACUNS customers’ needs. manned underwater vehicle, but will project manager Tom Murdock. Us- APL engineers demonstrated the require some fiberglass parts that ing off-the-shelf parts and additive technique by additively manufactur- can’t be additively manufactured. printing shows how “you can create ing an unmanned aircraft out of plas- CRACUNS was built almost en- an airframe specific to your mission tic and flying it in an unusual way. tirely out of plastic, the exception be- much faster and much more cheaply The 6-kilogram Corrosion Resistant ing some metal fasteners and engine than buying a commercial off the Aerial Covert Unmanned Nautical parts. A pressure vessel made of plas- shelf UAV and retrofitting it.” System, or CRACUNS, rose from the tic protects electronic components The CRACUNS team estimates bottom of a flooded quarry, and took from corrosion, while the craft’s mo- that if the 15.2-centimeter-diameter off, carrying a GoPro camera to dem- tors are sheathed in commercially pressure vessel were cast out of onstrate low-altitude surveillance. available protective coatings. metal, that part alone would have CRACUNS is designed to be sta- The APL team says it took the air- cost $50,000 and taken 10 weeks to tioned on the bottom in shallow wa- craft from concept to flight in four build. The team would not disclose ter for months down to a depth of months, which is unusually fast for a the cost of CRACUNS, noting that any figure would have to include research as well as materials, but they did The 3D manufactured underwater drone Corrosion Resistant Aerial Covert Unmanned Nautical System is made almost entirely out of plastic, except for metal fasteners say the materials part of and some engine parts. the project cost in the thousands of dollars. The success of CRA- CUNS does not mean that hobbyists can just start developing custom unmanned aircraft off their home 3-D printers, Murdock cautions. “The craft’s underwater and aerial capabilities reflect the expertise and experience of its design- ers. More important, CRA- CUNS is a demonstration of rapid prototyping rather than cheap manufacturing,” Murdock says; until industrial 3-D printing costs come down, the process isn’t economical for mass production. Michael Peck [email protected] Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory @Mipeck1 4 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JUNE 2016 • In Brief_JUN2016.indd 2 5/19/16 1:20 PM Former directors chime in on private management for NASA Ames Rising housing costs in the San Francisco Bay Area make it hard for NASA Ames Research Center to attract and retain top scientists and engineers, because the federal pay scales require NASA to follow hard caps. U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, the chairman of the House subcommit- tee that sets NASA’s annual budget, is Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas,is pushing the latest to raise to turn operating control of NASA’s the possibility of Ames Research Center over to a involving local uni- university, partly in order to lift salary versities in running caps to better attract talent. NASA Ames, and possibly other NASA centers, in a manner similar to the way those of two of his predecessors, idea. It should have been done long the California Institute of Technol- Hans Mark and William Ballhaus, Jr., ago,” he says. ogy manages NASA’s Jet Propulsion failed for two main reasons: It is il- Hubbard would go further and Laboratory in Pasadena, California. legal for a government employee to turn all NASA centers into FFRDCs. JPL is a Federally Funded Research leave his or her job and take the That “would make more sense ... and Development Center, or same job as a private contractor. than doing it piecemeal,” he says. FFRDC, operated for NASA by And even if Congress were to pass NASA headquarters appears Caltech. The FFRDC arrangement legislation waiving the criminal stat- cool to the idea, possibly because of gives JPL freedom to establish a ute for a group of NASA employees, the independence that FFRDCs like competitive pay scale. a local university or corporation JPL can at times exhibit. At a March The question is whether the lat- would have to agree to manage hearing, Culberson said he was est discussion about management of Ames, which employs 2,480 people “keenly interested” in the idea of Ames will meet the fate of efforts and has an annual budget of about converting Ames and possibly other during the tenures of three previous $900 million. centers, but NASA Administrator directors to change the structure. I Ballhaus, who directed Ames Charles Bolden responded that he wasn’t able to get anyone at NASA from 1984 to 1989, says it’s worth ap- was “leery,” although open to study- Ames to weigh in, but I spoke to two proaching universities again about ing the idea. of those past directors. running the center. As an FFRDC, Bolden explained that when the “I was able to recruit some of the Ames would be free from civil-service time comes to plan a mission, he best and brightest who thought work- employment rules. When Ballhaus likes to “bring all the center directors ing on space stuff was beyond cool,” wanted to establish Ames as a super together and hear all the dissenting says Scott Hubbard who directed computing center in the 1980s, the opinion.” Then, he said, “I make a Ames from 2002 to 2006 and is now a civil service system didn’t have a cat- decision and we all go in that direc- professor at Stanford University. “But egory for computer scientists. The tion. The Journey to Mars, for exam- when they started to have kids and only related category was payroll pro- ple, you could not do that with a buy a house, they went to work for cessors, whose salaries were far too bunch of FFRDCs.” Google or Microsoft.” low for computer scientists. Debra Werner Hubbard’s conversion effort and Conversion is “a really good [email protected] AEROSPACE AMERICA/JUNE 2016 5 • In Brief_JUN2016.indd 3 6/15/16 10:42 AM In Brief Repair manuals get smart For aircraft mechanics,especially for relevant data has been ingested like a book index, but specific to the less experienced ones, finding the and a Google-like search capability maintenance domain. The NLP algo- right information to address the has been implemented. Next comes rithms were chosen from an open- problem in front of them can be ex- the ability for mechanics to type in source library and were then opti- tremely challenging. Digital manuals questions and receive answers. mized for speed and the specific or other documents are stored, orga- Siri-like speech recognition may be maintenance task. nized and updated in ways much dif- added someday. A mechanic who types in “hy- ferent than the way most people Airbus Chief Engineer Greg Myer draulic power control” might be think, speak or read. says his shop now performs 12 to 18 asked to choose from a list of ob- served faults or errors. Selecting one would generate several possi- ble corrective actions, as well as probabilities of success. The mechanic tries each fix and then reports what worked. Machine learning applies statistical tech- niques to retain and build on the knowledge from users. If mechanics consistently select a particular fix to a problem, then that solution will be rated the highest. In addition to add- ing the question-and- answer capability, Air- Airbus bus and 1Ansah will Airbus Helicopters Chief Engineer Greg Myer holds a binder of maintenance documents at Airbus Civil Helicopter facilities add illustrations to in Sydney, Australia. Airbus has digitized most of these documents and is now making the data more easily accessible parts catalogues. to mechanics with natural-language software. 1Ansah CEO An- The maintenance-software scheduled heavy maintenance visits ant Sahay says his toughest chal- company 1Ansah of Sidney has a year, with increasing modifications lenges were finding enough people taken on that problem. The com- and customizations. Airbus digitized with the right NLP skills. Apart from pany has devised natural-language its maintenance data six years ago, Stanford, few universities teach NLP. processing software, or NLP, that well before 1Ansah’s involvement. The specialty is in high demand due ingests digital maintenance manu- Even so, Myer says, “it is hard to find to consumer applications, and work- als and related documents and then information in the same place in the ers command high salaries and fees. applies artificial intelligence and manual and hard to communicate “These people are not cheap.” machine learning to iteratively subtle differences in document logic Sahay has worked with other learn from past search results. A to other people. This hurts turn- maintenance aids but says the short- mechanic working on a plane will around time and has real effects on coming of those tools is that they as- type in search terms or a question, efficiency.” sume they know all the questions and the appropriate information NLP first ingests digital mainte- that can be asked. will be displayed. nance manuals, component manuals, “We had to tinker if there was a The software is not yet fully service bulletins, airworthiness di- new problem. These systems cannot operational, but 1Ansah is collabo- rectives and fault-isolation manuals retain new knowledge, and we are rating with Airbus Group Australia into its memory. NLP then breaks trying to move beyond them.” Pacific to apply it to the company’s down related sentences and analyzes Henry Canaday helicopter maintenance. To date, their grammar. It creates an index, [email protected] 6 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JUNE 2016 • In Brief_JUN2016.indd 4 5/19/16 1:20 PM Up next for NASA’s mini-airliner The best way to test new aviation Center in Virginia needed a subscale propel NASA’s X-48 and X-56 subscale technology is to actually fly it. But aircraft that resembled a regional jet, test aircraft. The PTERA’s engines can testing on an aircraft, especially had a T-tail empennage and a rear be mounted above or below the wing, larger ones, is expensive and time- engine mount. or on the tail. Or, other types of en- consuming. As it turned out, Area-I’s prototype gines can be mounted on the aircraft Unless the testbed is a NASA could be modified to fit both needs. So for a particular research project. mini-aircraft that looks and flies just in 2014, the company built two “For example, distributed electric like a full-sized airliner. The Proto- PTERAs: The Armstrong aircraft has a propulsion could be studied by in- type-Technology Evaluation Research Aircraft, or PTERA, a-I is an unmanned, subscale Are aircraft that resembles a twin-engined passenger jet, except that it’s one-tenth the size. Built by the aviation technology company Area-I of Kennesaw, Georgia, NASA’s 59-kilogram PTERA is 3.4 meters long and has a span of 3 meters. It can fly at 220 kph with landing gear extended, has a ceiling of 3,000 meters, and can carry a 27-kilogram payload. PTERA is helping NASA get at some of aviation’s thorniest challenges, such as a project by a team of NASA, Boeing and Area-I to de- velop adaptive wings, made of shape-memory alloy, that would change their shape during flight. Initially testing NASA’s Armstrong Research Center is using a Prototype-Technology Evaluation Research Aircraft, such technologies on a sub- a subscale model that resembles a twin-engine jetliner, to research drag. In the rear is a NASA F-18 Hornet. scale aircraft is quicker and cheaper than with a full- sized plane, while generat- ing more insight into aircraft stall cross-shaped tail that can be made stalling several electric motors in and flight characteristics than with a smaller to conduct drag reduction re- PTERA’s wing,” Cogan says. wind tunnel model. search, while the Langley model has a So far, PTERA has been conduct- PTERA was conceived in 2006, T-tail to examine loss of control issues ing test flights to establish the air- when NASA put out a research pro- with that tail configuration. craft’s baseline performance. But posal for a subscale aircraft that could Bruce Cogan, NASA’s PTERA NASA has already tested a surface test circulation control wing technol- project manager, says the little air- airflow sensor on PTERA’s wing. ogy in which streams of high pres- craft is extremely configurable. NASA, Boeing and Area-I are also sure generate more lift. But by the “Wing trailing and leading edges developing a shape adaptive wing in time Area-I had built a prototype in are non-structural, allowing evalua- which the outer wing panels, made 2011, the focus of NASA researchers tion of almost any high lift device of shape memory alloy, change their had shifted away from circulation concept,” Cogan says. “The wing is shape to control the aircraft. The control wings. Still, NASA’s Armstrong also completely reconfigurable to technology could reduce or eliminate Research Center in California wanted provide testing of many advanced aircraft rudders. a medium-range, narrow-body, twin- aerodynamical technologies.” Michael Peck jet airliner for aerodynamics research, PTERA is fitted with two Jet Cat [email protected] while the agency’s Langley Research micro-turbine engines, which also @Mipeck1 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JUNE 2016 7 • In Brief_JUN2016.indd 5 5/19/16 1:20 PM Conversation Change agent for aerospace U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma Jim Bridenstine is unusual for a U.S. congressman. References to aerospace technologies and the companies that build them flow easily and accurately from him, perhaps because of his history as a Navy pilot and now an Oklahoma Air National Guard pilot. Bridenstine is not ruffled when pressed on his skepticism about human-induced climate change, and he relishes making his cases that NOAA should make more use of weather data from privately owned satellites, and that the U.S. is financing Russian military programs. Bridenstine came to office in 2013 determined to lift the U.S. from what he sees as its declining stature as a space power and to make Oklahoma safer from the tornadoes that ravage the state every year. He may get only 2 ½ more years to do that, because he believes members of Congress should serve no more than three terms. He says this November’s election will be his last race for Congress. Bridenstine spoke with Ben Iannotta by phone from his U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Oklahoma, introduces his American Space Renaissance Act office in Oklahoma. in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in April. Space Foundation/Tom Kimmel 8 AEROSPACE AMERICA/JUNE 2016 • conversation.JUN2016.indd 2 5/19/16 1:23 PM