Space Vehicles Commons^™

Rasc-Al Large Scale Lunar Crater Prospector, Austin Arnold, Coleman Alvarez, Mark Suberu

Senior Design Project For Engineers

The purpose of this project is to design a conceptual layout of a lunar rover capable of exploring craters at the lunar south pole. The rover should be autonomous and capable of self-sustainment for at least one year in extreme cold and darkness. While determining the location and accessibility of water ice and other volatiles within the crater. This document will contain all information related to the team's conceptual design. Including research, component selection, electrical design, and mechanical design.

Lunar Rascals Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdcjzVMtzaI

Rapid Response Satellite Launcher, Nathan Jones, Joey Cosentino, Jayson Layton, Afek Adar

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Air launch to orbit is a new style or spacecraft where rockets are attached to a large aircraft and released at cruising altitude to then ignite and launch into space. Companies such as Virgin Orbit are using it as a cheap and efficient way to move satellite payloads into lower or upper Earth orbit. These styles of launchers can be designed to be much smaller than ground-launched spacecraft, reducing cost and weight of the launcher in comparison. With many private companies coming into the space and satellite industry, the design and manufacturing of these launchers have become a focus within …

Cosmic Object Space Management Operations System (C.O.S.M.O.S.), Riah Ivy, Tyler Bumpus, Gabriel Soter

Senior Design Project For Engineers

In the expansive realm of outer space, humanity has ventured into new territories, yet this progress is accompanied by challenges. Among the most significant challenges confronting space exploration today is the growing amount of space debris within low earth orbit. Satellites, spent rocket stages, and assorted fragments orbiting Earth present a considerable hazard to spacecraft and astronauts, and this issue is steadily worsening. For years, the task of remedying this orbital congestion has remained formidable and unresolved. This design provides a novel and innovative solution to this growing problem.

Caelus: Cubesat Array For The Exploration Of The Uranus System, Dylan George Heidenrich Barnes

Theses and Dissertations

Following recommendations from the 2023-2032 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey, we propose a novel Pre-Phase A level Uranus exploration mission concept that is centered on using swarms of small spacecraft to observe the Uranus system. This mission could act as a supplement to the Flagship Uranus Orbiter and Probe mission detailed in said Decadal Survey. We propose launching a 4,500 kg spacecraft on an Earth-Jupiter-Uranus gravity assist transfer trajectory with a transfer time of six years, launching in 2033 and arriving at Uranus in 2039. This shorter transfer time and accelerated development timeline would allow for an earlier arrival …

Experimental And Numerical Analysis Of Laminar And Transitional Flow Through Annular Corrugated Pipes, Joseph Russell Sargent

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents studies on pressure loss through annular corrugated pipes to determine a friction factor coefficient using nitrogen. Ten different corrugated pipes’ geometries were evaluated via testing and experimentation. The ratio of corrugation height to inner diameter varied from 0.233 to 0.333 and the ratio of corrugation pitch to inner diameter varied from 0.181 to 0.446. Nitrogen flow rates between 0.25 to 94.4 standard liters per minute were used, resulting in Reynolds numbers, based on the corrugated pipe inner diameter, from 100 to 23,000. The experimental set-up was validated using smooth-pipe pressure loss measurements and the derived friction factor …

Martian Atmospheric Rover Simulation (M.A.R.S.), Matt Berard, Shelby Beddard, Alexander Brunette, Emma Conti, Collin Duke, Delaney Novak, Keelin Weaver

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Student Publications

While rovers have been used by various agencies to explore Mars, their travel is limited by terrain obstacles, which may prevent mission completion. Creating a vehicle equipped with both driving and flight capabilities would allow greater range of motion on extraterrestrial planets. Integrating the technology for both transportation modes into one rover allows for efficiency and advancements in technological and planetary research.

State Omniscience For Cooperative Local Catalog Maintenance Of Close Proximity Satellite Systems, Chris Hays

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Resiliency in multi-agent system navigation is reliant on the inherent ability of the system to withstand, overcome, or recover from adverse conditions and disturbances. In large part, resiliency is achieved through reducing the impact of critical failure points to the success and/or performance of the system. In this view, decentralized multi-agent architectures have become an attractive solution for multi-agent navigation, but decentralized architectures place the burden of information acquisition directly on the agents themselves. In fact, the design of distributed estimators has been a growing interest to enable complex multi-sensor/multi-agent tasks. In such scenarios, it is important that each local …

Preliminary Architecture Assessment Of Lunar Surface Sensors For Cislunar Ssa, Clint J. Spesard

Theses and Dissertations

The exploration of the lunar and cislunar realm is becoming increasingly active as several entities, private and public, foreign and domestic, set their sights beyond traditional Earth-centered space operations. Along with this renewed activity is a growing need for comprehensive Space Situational Awareness (SSA) and Space Traffic Management (STM) in the inherently chaotic cislunar system. This thesis seeks to embolden the study of cislunar SSA by considering the lunar-surface as a platform from which to conduct optical SSA. In this thesis, a lunar-based SSA system is heuristically optimized via a genetic algorithm through three separate implementations. All surface locations considered …

Statistical Reliability Estimation Of Space Launch Vehicles, Brooke N. Wagenblast

Theses and Dissertations

Space launch vehicle reliability is imperative to understand since launch vehicles are crucial in getting payloads into space for a hopefully successful mission. This thesis examines the reliability of commercial, civil, and military space launch vehicles through trend analysis and a variety of statistical methods. Data sets obtained from the Seradata database are analyzed for trends by looking at data subsets including launch date, launch country, final mission orbit, section (commercial, civil or military), launch vehicle family and failed subsystem. First-level Bayesian analysis and mean success rates are performed, primarily split up by launch vehicle family and total launches, and …

Your New Astronautics Assignment, Robert J. Twiggs

Robert "Bob" Twiggs STEM Education Collection

A PowerPoint Presentation created by Professor Bob Twiggs titled "Your New Astronautics Assignment" from January 31, 2024.

Immersive Framework For Designing Trajectories Using Augmented Reality, Joseph Anderson, Leo Materne, Karis Cooks, Michelle Aros, Jaia Huggins, Jesika Geliga-Torres, Kamden Kuykendall, David Canales, Barbara Chaparro

Publications

The intuitive interaction capabilities of augmented reality make it ideal for solving complex 3D problems that require complex spatial representations, which is key for astrodynamics and space mission planning. By implementing common and complex orbital mechanics algorithms in augmented reality, a hands-on method for designing orbit solutions and spacecraft missions is created. This effort explores the aforementioned implementation with the Microsoft Hololens 2 as well as its applications in industry and academia. Furthermore, a human-centered design process and study are utilized to ensure the tool is user-friendly while maintaining accuracy and applicability to higher-fidelity problems.

Development Of Advanced Instrumentation For High-Enthalpy Flow Characterization For The Onr-Uta Arc-Jet ”Leste” Facility, Ian Raybon

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Sustained hypersonic flight is an exceedingly challenging task comprised of a myriad of complex physical processes. At hypersonic speeds, which is defined by the presence of unique phenomena like high-temperature nonequilibrium flow, viscous and vorticity interactions, and thin shock layers, which are not seen in supersonic, transonic, or subsonic vehicles, the vehicle design is principally driven by the high levels of aerodynamic heating caused by the conversion of kinetic energy to internal energy. Gaining an understanding of how these physical processes interact with each other is required to develop a design methodology for this class of vehicles. Arc-jet wind tunnels …

Optimizing Multi-Agent Network For Target Localization Through Mutual Information Maximization, Bibek Adhikari

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

A multi-agent network is a system comprising multiple interacting agents that coexist collaboratively within a networked, autonomous environment. The thesis addresses the target localization problem using a multi-rover network, described as autonomous agents, using an information-theoretic distributed control framework. The objective of the mission, through the integration of the particle filter representation of the posterior probability distribution of the target state and the observable, is to compute control input to arrange agents’ locations, maximizing the mutual information between the target’s position and sensor measurements. Consequently, the method leads to future observation which minimizes the future uncertainty of the target state. …

Magnetic Separation Of Lunar Regolith Simulants With Applications To In Situ Resource Utilization On The Moon, Peter Bachle, Jeffrey Smith, Fateme Rezaei, David Bayless, William Schonberg, Daoru Han

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) for metal extraction is imperative as a steppingstone for habitation construction in lunar and non-terrestrial environments. Separation of minerals by chemical composition is important to optimize metal and oxygen liberation from lunar ore. To this effect, devices capable of separating aluminum bearing minerals from iron-bearing minerals from the lunar regolith simulants have been developed. Twenty-eight different simulants have been used in this study. A dual-belt separator was designed to reduce middling. Para-magnetic minerals were reliably separated using a neodymium N52-magnet-separator system. Effective separation of aluminum-bearing minerals from iron-bearing minerals was greater than …

Modelling Of The Viscoelastic Relaxation Of A Stowed Telescope Starshade, Rahul Raghu

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

The Habitable Worlds Telescope Starshade is an occulting disk that orbits in tandem with a telescope that occludes and diffuses the light from stars to observe the relatively dim exoplanets in orbit around them. It achieves this in part with tailored petals that diffuse light to soften the light from the star. Due to the relative sizes of the star and the planet, NASA considers the shape stability of the Starshade's petals to be a Key Technology Gap. The Starshade is developed to be a deployable composite structure that folds on itself to fit within modern rockets. Due to the …

Electrostatic Sorting Of Lunar Regolith Simulants For Sustainable Resource Utilization: Modeling And Characterization Of Particle Size Distribution, Abdullah Al Moinee, Peter Bachle, Kyle Newport, William Schonberg, David Bayless, Jeffrey Smith, Daoru Han, Fateme Rezaei

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In pursuit of sustainable resource utilization on the Moon, this paper delves into modeling and characterization of particle size distribution (PSD) of lunar regolith simulants in an electrostatic system. A prototype electrostatic sieve was built and tested with four sample simulants mirroring properties of lunar mare and highland regolith. An alternating four-phase (90 degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees, 360 degrees) traveling square-wave was utilized for particle-directed transport to model the diverse trajectories of the particles. Numerically, we scrutinized how the distribution functions of the particles are manifested as the electrostatic field propagates, with a focus on three distinct particle ranges …

Electrostatic Sorting Of Lunar Regolith Simulants For Sustainable Resource Utilization: Modeling And Characterization Of Particle Size Distribution, Abdullah Al Moinee, Peter Bachle, Kyle Newport, William Schonberg, David Bayless, Jeffrey Smith, Daoru Han, Fateme Rezaei

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In pursuit of sustainable resource utilization on the Moon, this paper delves into modeling and characterization of particle size distribution (PSD) of lunar regolith simulants in an electrostatic system. a prototype electrostatic sieve was built and tested with four sample simulants mirroring properties of lunar mare and highland regolith. an alternating four-phase (90 degrees, 180 degrees, 270 degrees, 360 degrees) traveling square-wave was utilized for particle-directed transport to model the diverse trajectories of the particles. Numerically, we scrutinized how the distribution functions of the particles are manifested as the electrostatic field propagates, with a focus on three distinct particle ranges …

A Concept Of Producing Aluminum In-Situ On The Moon Through Molten Salt Electrolysis, Jacob N. Ortega, Jeffrey Smith, Fateme Rezaei, David Bayless, William Schonberg, Daniel Stutts, Daoru Han

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a concept of producing aluminum in-situ on the lunar surface, namely, the Lunar In-Situ Aluminum Production through Molten Salt Electrolysis (LISAP-MSE) method developed at Missouri University of Science and Technology. This paper aims to demonstrate the use of electro-deoxidation to reduce aluminum oxide (i.e., alumina) into aluminum and oxygen gas via electrolysis in a molten salt bath for the production of aluminum on the Moon. It is shown that with a steady supply of hydrogen chloride, this in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) method could supply several necessary materials consumed in the electro-deoxidation process except hydrogen chloride to produce …

Gravity Fed Hopper Flow Of Bulk Solids For Lunar Isru, Jason Bendixen Noe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

With the return to the moon in the decade of the 2020s, there has been a renaissance of lunar technology development and innovation. This has been particularly true for the area of lunar ISRU (In-Situ Resource Utilization). One key area in ISRU that has been neglected is lunar regolith storage hopper research. Many lunar regolith ISRU researchers use storage hoppers in their work but do not document the properties when designing the hoppers or do not have the information at hand. Because of this, hopper design and documentation are poorly understood, and more research is needed. Hoppers are vital for …

Mobile Robot Adhesion Methodology And Development Of An Automatous Robot Module, Lauren Baird, Zachariah Stone, Madison Lemons, Jonathon Moody

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Due to the increasing availability of space travel as not only a scientific exploration but a commercial exploration, there is a need for an onsite repair station that can be deployed in the event of aircraft maintenance, damage, or failure. We have been tasked with researching and creating a prototype of an automatous robot that can be attached to a spacecraft body, move along the surface while avoiding obstacles, scan for damage, 3D print a repair piece, and then make the repair, all without the need of direct human input. Our team, as will be discussed throughout, was tasked with …