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Full-Text Articles in Structures and Materials
Recent Developments In Smart Adaptive Structures For Solar Sailcraft, Mark Whorton, Young Kim, Jerry Oakley, Olawale Adetona, Lee Keel
Recent Developments In Smart Adaptive Structures For Solar Sailcraft, Mark Whorton, Young Kim, Jerry Oakley, Olawale Adetona, Lee Keel
Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications
The "Smart Adaptive Structures for Solar Sailcraft" development activity at MSFC has investigated issues associated with understanding how to model and scale the subsystem and multi-body system dynamics of a gossamer solar sailcraft with the objective of designing sailcraft attitude control systems. This research and development activity addressed three key tasks that leveraged existing facilities and core competencies of MSFC to investigate dynamics and control issues of solar sails. Key aspects of this effort included modeling and testing of a 30 m deployable boom; modeling of the multi-body system dynamics of a gossamer sailcraft; investigation of control-structures interaction for gossamer …
Propulsion Enhancement Contributions To The Performance Of Space Launch Vehicles, Russell H. Edwards
Propulsion Enhancement Contributions To The Performance Of Space Launch Vehicles, Russell H. Edwards
Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations
A research effort has been undertaken to investigate critical aspects of launch vehicle performance as affected by variations in specific launch vehicle parameters. The major portion of the study involves liquid propellant systems. However, since solid propellant systems also play a role in today's launch systems, a representative solid-propellant launch vehicle has also been analyzed. The research undertaken determined that the payload capability of a space launch vehicle, or, conversely, the vehicle total liftoff mass, is highly sensitive to the manner in which the space launch vehicle is staged. The research has led to the development and programming of a …