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Full-Text Articles in Engineering
Solar-Powered Exploration Of The Venus Atmosphere, Marc Migliozzi, Cory Everman, Rebecca Buerhle, Umar Muhammed, Steven Abbate, Chase Champagne
Solar-Powered Exploration Of The Venus Atmosphere, Marc Migliozzi, Cory Everman, Rebecca Buerhle, Umar Muhammed, Steven Abbate, Chase Champagne
Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects
The objective of this study was to design a solar powered, unmanned aircraft to orbit in the upper Venus atmosphere and search for signs of alien life. Topics of flight conditions, signs of life, basic mission plan, source of power, design process, instrumentation, and final designs are covered. Solar energy is ideal for this type of mission because it is the only reliable and abundant energy source accessible for long term space travel. The target altitude, being 60 to 70 km, has winds of up to 95 m/s. The aircraft will need to remain stable under such conditions. Due to …
Spacecraft Fire Safety Research: Combustion Of Lithium-Ion Batteries To Predict Fire Scenarios, Elisabeth Meyer
Spacecraft Fire Safety Research: Combustion Of Lithium-Ion Batteries To Predict Fire Scenarios, Elisabeth Meyer
Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects
The purpose of this project was to research characteristics of a Lithium-ion battery fire to determine if trends exist in measured fire characteristics that can help predict different fire scenarios. These experiments will ultimately aid in developing an alarm threshold for a spacecraft smoke detector, specifically for Orion, a new, multi-purpose crew vehicle under development by NASA. Orion is the next-generation of spacecraft designed to replace the space shuttle and will play an important role in NASA’s journey to Mars.
In the experiments performed, Lithium-ion batteries were placed in a test chamber and ignited while smoke concentration was measured, simulating …