331 research outputs found
Perspective and Projective Geometries: a Comparison
Paper by Dr. James C. Morehead, Jr
Combustion Stability Characteristics of the Project Morpheus Liquid Oxygen / Liquid Methane Main Engine
The project Morpheus liquid oxygen (LOX) / liquid methane (LCH4) main engine is a Johnson Space Center (JSC) designed ~5,000 lbf-thrust, 4:1 throttling, pressure-fed cryogenic engine using an impinging element injector design. The engine met or exceeded all performance requirements without experiencing any in- ight failures, but the engine exhibited acoustic-coupled combustion instabilities during sea-level ground-based testing. First tangential (1T), rst radial (1R), 1T1R, and higher order modes were triggered by conditions during the Morpheus vehicle derived low chamber pressure startup sequence. The instability was never observed to initiate during mainstage, even at low power levels. Ground-interaction acoustics aggravated the instability in vehicle tests. Analysis of more than 200 hot re tests on the Morpheus vehicle and Stennis Space Center (SSC) test stand showed a relationship between ignition stability and injector/chamber pressure. The instability had the distinct characteristic of initiating at high relative injection pressure drop at low chamber pressure during the start sequence. Data analysis suggests that the two-phase density during engine start results in a high injection velocity, possibly triggering the instabilities predicted by the Hewitt stability curves. Engine ignition instability was successfully mitigated via a higher-chamber pressure start sequence (e.g., ~50% power level vs ~30%) and operational propellant start temperature limits that maintained \cold LOX" and \warm methane" at the engine inlet. The main engine successfully demonstrated 4:1 throttling without chugging during mainstage, but chug instabilities were observed during some engine shutdown sequences at low injector pressure drop, especially during vehicle landing
Combustion Stability Characteristics of the Project Morpheus Liquid Oxygen/Liquid Methane Main Engine
The Project Morpheus liquid oxygen (LOX) / liquid methane rocket engines demonstrated acousticcoupled combustion instabilities during sealevel groundbased testing at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and Stennis Space Center (SSC). Highamplitude, 1T, 1R, 1T1R (and higher order) modes appear to be triggered by injector conditions. The instability occurred during the Morpheusspecific engine ignition/start sequence, and did demonstrate the capability to propagate into mainstage. However, the instability was never observed to initiate during mainstage, even at low power levels. The Morpheus main engine is a JSCdesigned ~5,000 lbfthrust, 4:1 throttling, pressurefed cryogenic engine using an impinging element injector design. Two different engine designs, named HD4 and HD5, and two different builds of the HD4 engine all demonstrated similar instability characteristics. Through the analysis of more than 200 hot fire tests on the Morpheus vehicle and SSC test stand, a relationship between ignition stability and injector/chamber pressure was developed. The instability has the distinct characteristic of initiating at high relative injection pressure drop (dP) at low chamber pressure (Pc); i.e., instabilities initiated at high dP/Pc at low Pc during the start sequence. The high dP/Pc during start results during the injector /chamber chillin, and is enhanced by hydraulic flip in the injector orifice elements. Because of the fixed mixture ratio of the existing engine design (the main valves share a common actuator), it is not currently possible to determine if LOX or methane injector dP/Pc were individual contributors (i.e., LOX and methane dP/Pc typically trend in the same direction within a given test). The instability demonstrated initiation characteristic of starting at or shortly after methane injector chillin. Colder methane (e.g., subcooled) at the injector inlet prior to engine start was much more likely to result in an instability. A secondary effect of LOX subcooling was also possibly observed; greater LOX sub cooling improved stability. Some tests demonstrated a lowamplitude 1L1T instability prior to LOX injector chillin. The Morpheus main engine also demonstrated chug instabilities during some engine shutdown sequences on the flight vehicle and SSC test stand. The chug instability was also infrequently observed during the startup sequence. The chug instabilities predictably initiated at low dP/Pc at low Pc. The chug instabilities were always selflimiting; startup chug instabilities terminated during throttleup and shutdown chug instabilities decayed by shutdown termination
Demonstration of superluminal effects in an absorptionless, non-reflective system
We present an experimental and theoretical study of a simple, passive system
consisting of a birefringent, two-dimensional photonic crystal and a polarizer
in series, and show that superluminal dispersive effects can arise even though
no incident radiation is absorbed or reflected. We demonstrate that a vector
formulation of the Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations facilitates an
understanding of these counter-intuitive effects.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, accepted on Physical Review Letter
Constraining the False Positive Rate for Kepler Planet Candidates with Multi-Color Photometry from the GTC
Using the OSIRIS instrument installed on the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias
(GTC) we acquired multi-color transit photometry of four small (Rp < 5 R_Earth)
short-period (P < 6 days) planet candidates recently identified by the Kepler
space mission. These observations are part of a program to constrain the false
positive rate for small, short-period Kepler planet candidates. Since planetary
transits should be largely achromatic when observed at different wavelengths
(excluding the small color changes due to stellar limb darkening), we use the
observed transit color to identify candidates as either false positives (e.g.,
a blend with a stellar eclipsing binary either in the background/foreground or
bound to the target star) or validated planets. Our results include the
identification of KOI 225.01 and KOI 1187.01 as false positives and the
tentative validation of KOI 420.01 and KOI 526.01 as planets. The probability
of identifying two false positives out of a sample of four targets is less than
1%, assuming an overall false positive rate for Kepler planet candidates of 10%
(as estimated by Morton & Johnson 2011). Therefore, these results suggest a
higher false positive rate for the small, short-period Kepler planet candidates
than has been theoretically predicted by other studies which consider the
Kepler planet candidate sample as a whole. Furthermore, our results are
consistent with a recent Doppler study of short-period giant Kepler planet
candidates (Santerne et al. 2012). We also investigate how the false positive
rate for our sample varies with different planetary and stellar properties. Our
results suggest that the false positive rate varies significantly with orbital
period and is largest at the shortest orbital periods (P < 3 days), where there
is a corresponding rise in the number of detached eclipsing binary stars...
(truncated)Comment: 13 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables; revised for MNRA
Integrated Pressure-Fed Liquid Oxygen / Methane Propulsion Systems - Morpheus Experience, MARE, and Future Applications
An integrated liquid oxygen (LOx) and methane propulsion system where common propellants are fed to the reaction control system and main engines offers advantages in performance, simplicity, reliability, and reusability. LOx/Methane provides new capabilities to use propellants that are manufactured on the Mars surface for ascent return and to integrate with power and life support systems. The clean burning, non-toxic, high vapor pressure propellants provide significant advantages for reliable ignition in a space vacuum, and for reliable safing or purging of a space-based vehicle. The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Morpheus lander demonstrated many of these key attributes as it completed over 65 tests including 15 flights through 2014. Morpheus is a prototype of LOx/Methane propellant lander vehicle with a fully integrated propulsion system. The Morpheus lander flight demonstrations led to the proposal to use LOx/Methane for a Discovery class mission, named Moon Aging Regolith Experiment (MARE) to land an in-situ science payload for Southwest Research Institute on the Lunar surface. Lox/Methane is extensible to human spacecraft for many transportation elements of a Mars architecture. This paper discusses LOx/Methane propulsion systems in regards to trade studies, the Morpheus project experience, the MARE NAVIS (NASA Autonomous Vehicle for In-situ Science) lander, and future possible applications. The paper also discusses technology research and development needs for Lox/Methane propulsion systems
Characterization of a Pressure-Fed LOX/LCH4 Reaction Control System Under Simulated Altitude and Thermal Vacuum Conditions
A liquid oxygen, liquid methane (LOX/LCH4) reaction control system (RCS) was tested at NASA Glenn Research Center's Plum Brook Station in the Spacecraft Propulsion Research Facility (B-2) under simulated altitude and thermal vacuum conditions. The RCS is a subsystem of the Integrated Cryogenic Propulsion Test Article (ICPTA) and was initially developed under Project Morpheus. Composed of two 28 lbf-thrust and two 7 lbf-thrust engines, the RCS is fed in parallel with the ICPTA main engine from four propellant tanks. 40 tests consisting of 1,010 individual thruster pulses were performed across 6 different test days. Major test objectives were focused on system dynamics, and included characterization of fluid transients, manifold priming, manifold thermal conditioning, thermodynamic vent system (TVS) performance, and main engine/RCS interaction. Peak surge pressures from valve opening and closing events were examined. It was determined that these events were impacted significantly by vapor cavity formation and collapse. In most cases the valve opening transient was more severe than the valve closing. Under thermal vacuum conditions it was shown that TVS operation is unnecessary to maintain liquid conditions at the thruster inlets. However, under higher heat leak environments the RCS can still be operated in a self-conditioning mode without overboard TVS venting, contingent upon the engines managing a range of potentially severe thermal transients. Lastly, during testing under cold thermal conditions the engines experienced significant ignition problems. Only after warming the thruster bodies with a gaseous nitrogen purge to an intermediate temperature was successful ignition demonstrated
Architecture of Kepler's Multi-transiting Systems: II. New investigations with twice as many candidates
We report on the orbital architectures of Kepler systems having multiple
planet candidates identified in the analysis of data from the first six
quarters of Kepler data and reported by Batalha et al. (2013). These data show
899 transiting planet candidates in 365 multiple-planet systems and provide a
powerful means to study the statistical properties of planetary systems. Using
a generic mass-radius relationship, we find that only two pairs of planets in
these candidate systems (out of 761 pairs total) appear to be on Hill-unstable
orbits, indicating ~96% of the candidate planetary systems are correctly
interpreted as true systems. We find that planet pairs show little statistical
preference to be near mean-motion resonances. We identify an asymmetry in the
distribution of period ratios near first-order resonances (e.g., 2:1, 3:2),
with an excess of planet pairs lying wide of resonance and relatively few lying
narrow of resonance. Finally, based upon the transit duration ratios of
adjacent planets in each system, we find that the interior planet tends to have
a smaller transit impact parameter than the exterior planet does. This finding
suggests that the mode of the mutual inclinations of planetary orbital planes
is in the range 1.0-2.2 degrees, for the packed systems of small planets probed
by these observations.Comment: Accepted to Ap
Design and Test of a Liquid Oxygen / Liquid Methane Thruster with Cold Helium Pressurization Heat Exchanger
A liquid oxygen / liquid methane 2,000 lbf thruster was designed and tested in conjuction with a nozzle heat exchanger for cold helium pressurization. Cold helium pressurization systems offer significant spacecraft vehicle dry mass savings since the pressurant tank size can be reduced as the pressurant density is increased. A heat exchanger can be incorporated into the main engine design to provide expansion of the pressurant supply to the propellant tanks. In order to study the systems integration of a cold-helium pressurization system, a 2,000 lbf thruster with a nozzle heat exchanger was designed for integration into the Project Morpheus vehicle at NASA Johnson Space Center. The testing goals were to demonstrate helium loading and initial conditioning to low temperatures, high-pressure/low temperature storage, expansion through the main engine heat exchanger, and propellant tank injection/pressurization. The helium pressurant tank was an existing 19 inch diameter composite-overwrap tank, and the targert conditions were 4500 psi and -250 F, providing a 2:1 density advantage compared to room tempatrue storage. The thruster design uses like-on-like doublets in the injector pattern largely based on Project Morpheus main engine hertiage data, and the combustion chamber was designed for an ablative chamber. The heat exchanger was installed at the ablative nozzle exit plane. Stand-alone engine testing was conducted at NASA Stennis Space Center, including copper heat-sink chambers and highly-instrumented spoolpieces in order to study engine performance, stability, and wall heat flux. A one-dimensional thermal model of the integrated system was completed. System integration into the Project Morpheus vehicle is complete, and systems demonstrations will follow
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