aerospace america september 2018

2018·6.1 MB·English

HUMAN SPACEFLIGHT 22 ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING 18 OPINION 44
Astronaut Tom Jones visits Orion 3D parts on Boeing 787s Lifting the aerospace workforce
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Worried about cybersecurity and
aviation? Don’t look up: The biggest
problem may be on the ground. PAGE 28
50TH
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SEPTEMBER 2018 | A publication of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org

FEATURES | September 2018 MORE AT aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org
28 22 36 42
Making Orion Unlocking En route
a reality Mercury’s to the sun
Soft targets
secrets
Former astronaut Engineers describe the
The aviation industry is realizing the Tom Jones visited The BepiColombo complexity of designing
the assembly fl oor at the heat shield on
benefi ts of increased connectivity mission includes a
Kennedy Space Center in NASA’s Parker Solar
probe built to withstand
while confronting increased
Florida for a close-up. Probe.
the planet’s searing
vulnerability to cyberattacks.
temperatures so that
By Tom Jones By Tom Risen
instruments can gather
By Joshua Hatch
data about Mercury’s
core.
By Adam Hadhazy
aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | SEPTEMBER 2018 | 1
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AEROSPACE
IN THIS ISSUE
★ ★ ★ A M E R I C A ★ ★ ★
SEPTEMBER 2018, VOL. 56, NO. 8
Henry Canaday
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Ben Iannotta A former energy economist, Henry has written for Air Transport World,
[email protected] Aviation Week and other aviation publications for more than two decades.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR PAGE 18
Karen Small
[email protected]
STAFF REPORTER
Tom Risen Adam Hadhazy
[email protected]
Adam reports on astrophysics and technology. His work has appeared in
EDITOR, AIAA BULLETIN
Christine Williams Discover and New Scientist magazines.
PAGE 36
[email protected]
EDITOR EMERITUS
Jerry Grey
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Joshua Hatch
Henry Canaday, Adam Hadhazy, Joshua Hatch,
Tom Jones, Robert van der Linden, Josh is an editor at The Chronicle of Higher Education and was a 2018
Debra Werner, Knight Science Fellow at MIT.
Frank H. Winter PAGE 28
John Langford AIAA PRESIDENT
Daniel L. Dumbacher PUBLISHER
Rodger S. Williams DEPUTY PUBLISHER Tom Jones
ADVERTISING Tom fl ew on four space shuttle missions. On his last fl ight, STS-98, he
Katie Taplett, 202-904-0782 led three spacewalks to install the American Destiny Laboratory on the
[email protected] International Space Station. He has a doctorate in planetary sciences.
[email protected] PAGE 22
ART DIRECTION AND DESIGN
THOR Design Studio | thor.design
Debra Werner
MANUFACTURING AND DISTRIBUTION
A frequent contributor to Aerospace America, Debra is also a West Coast
Association Vision | associationvision.com
correspondent for Space News.
PAGE 64
LETTERS AND CORRESPONDENCE
Ben Iannotta, [email protected]
DEPARTMENTS
Aerospace America (ISSN 0740-722X) is published monthly
except in August by the American Institute of Aeronautics
and Astronautics, Inc., at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 4 Editor’s Notebook 8 10
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address changes and subscription orders to Aerospace Test your knowledge Get an early look at the
America, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 47 AIAA Bulletin of the early universe events planned to mark
at 12700 Sunrise Valley Drive, Reston, VA, 20191-5807, the 50th anniversary
Attn: A.I.A.A. Customer Service. Periodical postage
paid at Reston, Virginia, and at additional mailing 60 Career Opportunities
offi ces. Copyright 2018 by the American Institute of 16
Aeronautics and Astronautics, Inc., all rights reserved.
The name Aerospace America is registered by the AIAA 62 Looking Back
in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offi ce. Q & A 64
Jeff Babione of Lockheed
Martin Skunk Works Trajectories
Tamarack Aerospace
fl ight group lead
aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | SEPTEMBER 2018 | 3
EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK POLICY
What Apollo 11 says
about our future
The run-up to the Apollo 11 50th anniversary has begun, and that has me thinking about the
passage of time and the power of culture to shape our future.
Looked at one way, humanity needed just eight years to reach the moon, measured from
President John F. Kennedy’s speech to Congress in 1961 [See Page 10]. But looked at another
way, humanity needed 200,000 years, taking as a starting point the evolution of a brain about
the size of ours.
What explains the sudden surge of science and engineering breakthroughs capped by the moon landing?
In a word: culture. Societies from Asia to Europe and North America grew to value science, technology
and facts. In the U.S., we married our love of learning with a determination to protect and spread free-
dom and market economics. We welcomed immigrants including a former Nazi rocket scientist named
Wernher von Braun. As imperfect as we were, someone at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia had
the moxie to let a group of African-American women perform their trajectory math.
This was how we met JFK’s challenge and how we went on to win the Cold War against the Soviet Union.
The Apollo 11 anniversary will be fun, and I feel blessed to be here to enjoy it. Hopefully the anniversary
also will lead to self-refl ection in the U.S. about whether we still have the right stuff to do the things we want
to do, or that we might need to do. We’re living on what is essentially a giant but delicate spacecraft, and we’re
going to have to do our part to treat it better. We want to out-compete China and Russia; get back to the moon
and onto Mars; fi nd out if we are alone in the universe; fl y supersonically, and bop around like the Jetsons.
We want to do those things soon, and in some cases, we might have no choice. Can we still work
fast? I’m not sure. NASA and the industry achieved the moon landing in fewer years than it took to build
and launch the unmanned Parker Solar Probe that’s now headed toward the sun [Page 42]. That’s not to
blame the Parker managers. Something similar could be said of just about any government-led space
or aviation program. As Jeff Babione of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works notes in this month’s Q and A
[Page 16], today’s government acquisition processes are not what they were when Clarence “Kelly” Johnson
founded Skunk Works. I’m not sure the private sector is immune either.
If we want to do these amazing things, we’ll need faster acquisition; we’ll need the best minds; we’ll
need international coalitions and alliances. It’s the culture we choose that will determine the way ahead.
The question is whether we will choose wisely. ★
Ben Iannotta, editor-in-chief, [email protected]
4 | SEPTEMBER 2018 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org
CORRECTION
COVER STORY
Even before Russian
President Vladimir Putin’s
saber rattling this year The June article
about high-speed weapons,
the U.S. was laying plans “Hypersonic
to sharpen its focus on
hypersonic weapons, weapons race”
motivated mainly by China’s
ambitious research and overstated
weapons tests. The Trump
Pentagon wants to put this the velocity of
new focus in place in the
hypersonic missiles
2019 budget. Keith Button
examines what could be the
relative to the
next great weapons race.
HBY KEITH BUyTTON | [email protected] fastest bullets in the
world. Hypersonic
weapons are only
WEAPONS RA CE
marginally faster
than those bullets.
20 | JUNE 2018 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | JUNE 2018 | 21
17–21 JUNE
2019
DALLAS, TX
CALL FOR PAPERS OPENS 11 SEPTEMBER
The AIAA AVIATION Forum is the only global event that covers
the entire integrated spectrum of aviation. AIAA is soliciting
papers for the 2019 forum in the following technical disciplines:
(cid:105) Aerodynamic Measurement Technology and Ground Testing
(cid:105) Air Traffic Operations, Management, and Systems
(cid:105) Aircraft Design
(cid:105) Applied Aerodynamics
(cid:105) Computational Fluid Dynamics
(cid:105) Multidisciplinary Design Optimization
(cid:105) Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing
(cid:105) And many more!
Submit an abstract starting 11 September 2018.
aviation.aiaa.org/CFP
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FLIGHT PATH
How Do We Prepare for Ever-Increasing
Levels of System Complexity?
In 2012, I was asked to participate in the inaugural also great examples of how CASE embraces the lessons inherent
AIAA Complex Aerospace Systems Exchange, or CASE. in success and failure.
That year CASE was held in conjunction with the AIAA Since those early exchanges, we have expanded our program-
Space Conference in Pasadena. I recall sitting on ming and have held CASE sessions at many AIAA forums. The CASE
the beach on Monterey Bay wondering what I could community has evolved to include both practitioners and theorists.
possibly say that would get attendees thinking about system We have a core of energized professionals from industry, govern-
complexity and how, as aerospace engineers, to better design, ment, and academia who organize events that attract those who
develop, and test and evaluate increasingly complex space research and develop approaches to the engineering of complex
and aeronautical systems. systems. We have also hosted workshops and panels on developing
I remember seeing these freakishly long blackish tubes with a engineers and the engineering workforce to deal with complexity.
bulb on one end that had washed up on the beach. Never having The work of the CASE organizers will be vital to the future given
been to Monterey before, I had no idea what they were. Visiting the rapid state of technology convergence in aerospace.
the Monterey Bay Aquarium the following day, I learned how kelp However, we have not fully engaged our core target audience.
plants were the foundation upon which the entire Monterey Bay We initially sought to attract aerospace chief engineers, program
ecosystem is based. It dawned on me that I was amidst one of the managers, and systems engineers who face important system de-
most complex and dynamic systems on the planet. Think about velopment challenges. These are your colleagues and co-workers
it for a moment — on any given day, the bay is a stable system, who probably don’t see AIAA as the organization that offers them
albeit a complex one. Nature has a self-correcting way of dealing practical tools that relate directly to their job responsibilities. Wilson
with emergent behavior associated with a complex system that Felder, in preparing for one of the early exchanges, correctly noted
would otherwise upheave, and possibly destroy, more fragile that designers, developers, testers, and program managers must be
systems, certainly one less robust than Monterey Bay. As a result prepared to react with fl exibility to changing requirements, oppor-
my message became that we, engineers, need to be inspired by tunities for design modifi cation, and insertion of new technology
bio-mimicry not only in singular design aspects, but in complex into previously designed systems. By concentrating on topics such
systems as well. Complex systems need to be as robust as pos- as minimizing cost and schedule overruns, strategies for integra-
sible, and designers and developers of those systems need to be tion, test, and verifi cation early in product life cycles, strategies for
adaptable to changing conditions, to external variables, and to program management and integrated planning tools, we believe
the evolution of the system itself. we are presenting and discussing the most relevant and pressing
The inaugural CASE made a big splash, attracting several challenges that engineering organizations face as they deal with
hundred participants who spent two days discussing aerospace ever-increasing levels of system complexity.
system complexity. One topic covered at the 2012 event was a case As exemplifi ed by Monterey Bay, with its spectacular bio-
study of the Air France 447 accident where a highly automated diversity, remaining dynamically connected and balanced for
twin-aisle aircraft defi ed attempts, incorrect as it turns out, by the the benefi t of all inhabitants, the engineer of today must be
crew to avert disaster. At the second CASE in 2013, we fl ipped the prepared to think through the dynamic connectivity in engi-
script and focused on what is still a stunning aerospace success neered complex systems. Many of us know the hardware store
story — the successful entry, descent, and landing (EDL) of the jingle “Ace is the Place.” To borrow that jingle, CASE is the place
Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity rover. You’ll recall that — to increase your knowledge and hone your skills necessary to
MSL was successfully placed on the surface via the untried sky- succeed in an era of ever-increasing system complexity. Please
crane system. Adam Steltzner, the engineer in charge of the MSL invite a colleague who you feel would benefi t from an exchange
EDL, attributed the success of that mission to a dedicated team of best practices associated with complex aerospace systems to
that was “personally respectful, but intellectually disrespectful.” It the next CASE program. You, your colleague, your organization,
struck me that both Air France 447 and MSL show the importance and AIAA will all benefi t. ★ (cid:29)
of human–machine interaction and teaming in complex systems,
regardless of the phase of the engineering project — design and Thomas B. Irvine
development, test and evaluation, or operations. Both studies are Managing Director, Content Development
aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org | SEPTEMBER 2018 | 7
Do you have a puzzler to suggest? Email us at [email protected]
Time machine
When it is launched in 2021, the James Webb
FROM THE JULY/AUGUST ISSUE
Space Telescope will look back in time at
GIANT FRUIT FLY
the early universe by collecting light that has
been shifted to infrared wavelengths by the We asked whether a fruit fl y as big as
a Cessna could fl y. An ideal answer
expanding universe. In 250 words or fewer,
would have discussed the concept of
explain why the following statements are
the Reynolds number (the ratio of
true or false: Webb could very well detect inertial forces to viscous forces in the fl ow that increases with
energy and particles that eventually coalesced scale and impacts fl ow behavior) and also the square-cubed law
(as the surface area increases, volume and mass increase at a
into the sun, Earth and its 7.6 billion human
faster rate). But given our 250-word limit, here is this month’s
inhabitants. Scientists could get a glimpse of
winner:
the stuff that became us.
The short answer is “no,” and the simplest explanation is
Email your response to: something called the “square-cube law.” A fact of life in our
[email protected] three-dimensional world, when the size of an object increases, the
volume and mass increase faster than the surface area. A fruit fl y
is properly sized for wing area and body mass at a typical length
of about a millimeter. A 1975-model Cessna 172 is an inch under
ABOUT THE AEROPUZZLER 27 feet long [8.2 meters]. A quick weight estimate for a 27-foot-
Your task is to boil down a complex concept into a long fruit fl y, using the proportions shown in the picture and water
maximum of 250 words that anyone could understand density as an approximation for the fl y’s biomass, yields a weight
(without equations or drawings). Email your response to in the 100,000 pound [45,000 kilograms] range, compared to the
[email protected] by midnight Sept. 7 for a chance to Cessna’s 2,300 pound [1,000 kg] gross weight.
have it published in the next issue. Include your city or town
David Mayhew
and a phone number (we won’t publish it). For an early start,
AIAA senior member
remember that each AeroPuzzler is published online on the
Stratford, Oklahoma
fi rst of the month at aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org .
8 | SEPTEMBER 2018 | aerospaceamerica.aiaa.org