Flight Operations Analysis Tool

Flight Operations Analysis Tool (FLOAT) is a computer program that partly automates the process of assessing the benefits of planning spacecraft missions to incorporate various combinations of launch vehicles and payloads. Designed primarily for use by an experienced systems engineer, FLOAT makes it possible to perform a preliminary analysis of trade-offs and costs of a proposed mission in days, whereas previously, such an analysis typically lasted months. FLOAT surveys a variety of prior missions by querying data from authoritative NASA sources pertaining to 20 to 30 mission and interface parameters that define space missions. FLOAT provides automated, flexible means for comparing the parameters to determine compatibility or the lack thereof among payloads, spacecraft, and launch vehicles, and for displaying the results of such comparisons. Sparseness, typical of the data available for analysis, does not confound this software. FLOAT effects an iterative process that identifies modifications of parameters that could render compatible an otherwise incompatible mission set

Emerging Rideshare Activities: A Report Back to the Small Payload Rideshare Community

No abstract availabl

Access to Space for Technology Validation Missions: A Practical Guide

Space technology experiments and validation missions share a common dilemma with the aerospace industry in general: the high cost of access to space. Whether the experiment is a so-called university cubesat, a university measurement experiment, or a NASA New Millennium Program (NMP) technology validation mission, the access to space option can be scaled appropriately for the particular constraints. A cubesat might fly as one of a number of cubesats that negotiate a flight on an experimental vehicle. A university experiment might do the same. A NASA flight validation might partner with an Air Force experimental mission

Access to Space for Technology Validation Missions: Exploring the Possibilities of Suborbital Flight

This guide is written for the space experimenter seeking an understanding of the issues which will drive a large part of the design of a space experiment - the method of access to space

The Development of Small-Payload Rideshare Capabilities: A 2000-2008 Summary

This paper summarizes the development from 200 to the present of rideshare capabilities by various Government agencies and Organizations. This development will allow acceptable, low cost access to space for small satellites and payloads. The paper reviews the needs for such capabilities and provides an overview of the development and status of the enabling technologies, hardware, etc. required to achieve the desired capability. It reviews the development and status of each principal element necessary in developing an acceptable, low cost, access to space capability for small satellites and payloads