Research Paper   1

 

Space and spacecraft technology

 

 

 

EE 460

 

Tarek Mamlook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Technology has been part of our lives and it helped us enrich our lives and create a better place to live in  and ensured a safer environment. The advanced technology helped us achieve a lot of great invention and guided us to look into the sky . We started looking into visting other planets and install new technologies in space that helped make our lives  much easier . But to get to space we need to manufacture space crafts that will carry us to new heights and enable us to reach new things . To manufacture a space craft there are a lot of techniques and specifications that need to be considered and met , in addition the techniques changed over time .

 

A space craft is  a special kind of vehicle equipped with a lot of equipment that make it functional in space . “Every space craft has to have some essential system some of those systems are  the Spacecraft structures  , Electrical power systems Attitude control systems ,Command and data handling systems  ,Thermal control systems ,Propulsion systems .Those system should be fit together in able to work as one unit so the space craft can do the job it asked to do ..

 

Space craft have a big , unique structure that includes a lot of parts and pieces for example  some space crafts have parts that can be divided in two groups : the primary and secondary . the primary ones  are mainly used to transmit loads and the secondary  are independent but must support the primary parts . we can say that   those parts should have some features like low power consumption , adapt easily to the pressure and other space element so the space craft can hold up to do it object precisely and with ease and away from problems. “.(http://www.au.af.mil,).

Example of parts that forms the  space craft structure are the payload door , the delta wings , the vertical stabilizer  , side hatch in addition to all the electronics and the compartments and the equipments  to help ensure a  good quality of  life for those who will mount it to go to space for some time  and here is a picture viewing a space craft structure:

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Now when it comes to manufacturing those space crafts there are a lot of things to consider you have to look into the  objective of the space craft what is its purpose , there are a lot of purposes for it and so there are a lot of kinds   there is the  space craft that lands , there is the one that hovers , it could be manned or unmanned  , there is really a lot of types that really needs different manufacturing technique , so a good tip to take can be to write down some requirements and go over the budget and the features it should have before starting the manufacturing process .

 

Being prepared  and really knowing  what we want, means we  can choose the correct techniques  to manufacture the correct  space craft which ultimately  reflects   on the time we save and the budget that is satisfied .

 

Space crafts have gone through a lot of changes to improve performance and one thing was the decrease in weight ,also those space crafts are being equipped with material that are stronger and can withstand and last in the space environment like never before and also be undetectable or at least hard to detect.  The technique of manufacturing a space craft differs depending on a lot of elements but the core technique are same. If we look at the manufacturing technique used on the CST-100 this was a space craft designed by boeing for NASA . to manufacture it , the company used light material and reduced the storage space .So for the storage space it only manufactured specific number of seats for the passenger to meet the budget and for the control system , existing systems, Did not manufacture a new system from scratch, were used to operate  the space craft , it also designed the interior of the craft and manufactured the technology part of it in a way that ensured an easy access to all systems and the ability to control the craft with just very simple and easy training in their facilities , some of those systems included radiators, forward heat shield and the craft was divided into two compartments the crew half and the craft systems and the fuel place in the other half , this project had a very limited budget since the customer only needed the product to go up to space to get to other space stations , it was like a transportation tool to get to space facilities so everything had to be right on the size and did not include very fancy equipments  .the design had very limited things it can do , it was able to carry only 7 people and the unfiled seat of those seven can be taken off an replace with cargo , it was manufactured in a way that It cannot stay for more than 200 days with power given to it on a consistent basis . the manufacturing technique were very constrained and somewhat limited because the resources need very small in particular the money.(NASA.GOV)

 

In the process of manufacturing crafts there are always some challenges that face the technologies input into such product , for instance , NASA is  constantly evaluating its technologies it uses to only choose the best one that will do the job with no problem and/or more efficient .To do that the NASA appointed a committee for that job , so the committee started by categorizing technologies into 3 that are :Technology Readiness Level (TRL),Tipping Point,NASA Capabilities.for technology Readinessliness level: A TRL scale is used to test the current state of the technology in place , but the TRL should not

 

 

 

 

 

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be used  alone to determine the  technology prioritized of usage.for the Tipping point:it is just a scale to check if a small twist in the already existing technologies would cause a

big advancement into the technology which make it more important to use .for the NASA capabilities : it is a measurement that helps decide if the technologies in NASA can help the research on going in other places .

 

Every piece of technology has an objective that changes depending on some factors and those objectives are extremely important to meet if the technology involved in things going to space , NASA has a lot of objectives to its technology , some of those objectives are keeping and lengthen the human work farther than the lower Earth orbit and also look for life and any interesting activities in other planets and objects other than the earth.The first objective s concerned with the method that will be applied to insure the total safety of the crew and passengers that will be on the space craft ,so this objective contains more than the seat built and the oxygen tanks , this objective includes

Maintaining  the life of those abroad it felt very safe , the advancing technology in that will help to make the space a  commercial destination in the future for ordinary people who have money and got board of the entertaining  destination on earth. For the other objective it is mainly concerned with the detailed study and the deep understanding  of the planets and the objects around us which will enable more discoveries and may find evidence of some life in the future .(NASA .Gov)

 

space craft technological development has started long time ago , one space craft  , the space probe has been created in early 20^th century .  it carried machines and equipments to space , beyond the earth orbits, and it was unmanned so it did not carry people into space  , it helped discover more facts and increased information about orbits and objects far into space , there was many of this space crafts depending on the goals of it . Always to make the project successful the space craft designers and engineers should be able to answer some  question like how far can the space craft go and where can it get you , how safe does it get you to there , and how can it get you back .

 

Space probe is uniquely engineered  , it is consists of  the work of a lot of systems together there is the craft itself and the place where it is launched and the launching equipments , it is a state of art how those system are compactable with each other and how they work perfectly with each other .

 

This kind of space crafts has helped enrich te knowledge over the years about new things in space and so new technologies with the same concept has emerged for example NASA has lately came up with a new project that help figure out the reason for a series of probe failures that have gotten to space without really being able to achieve some goals and were very expensive .There was a lot of failures around mars .Exampe of such crafts were  the mars polar lander and the the mars orbiter these were a huge blow to the system and the expectation after those two took a big blow.

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But some of the adjustment made by the program (the discovery program ) which included less expenses and more expeditions gave everybody a lift when one probe was able to get near mars and do its job , so new ways of approaching such planet and so there is new planning in the future of  sending  more missions and space crafts to gain more in depth insight into possible finding a much bigger evidence of possible life on mars and other places and so NASA had planned some new probs to go there .

 

 Some of those probes are  Mercury orbiter, a Pluto mission, a Venus environmental satellite. Many countries started following the united states in that it has launched some space crafts that will explore and maybe get back to earth . For a start  it will on a limited scale since doing that is very costly but at the same time very valuable.

(The Gale Encyclopedia of Science,2004)

Going back to  space technology aspect of space crafts , well there are many things that the space craft should be equipped with  a lot of essential things but since there is the weight limitation , companies and organizations that  need to satisfy that yend to use micro technology .space micro technology is very big part of what NASA and other space programs do , there devices should be power efficient and able to withstand stress and pressure at space high altitude , new material has been added to the manufacturing procees of such unique devices .Some devices have been  supplied with micromechanical functional devices that can sense the ultimate temperature and any condition so it will help visualize how the mission will be and so then determining if there is going to be unnecessary load that will help to decrease the payload which means less weight and less expenses.(d. K. Lee Lerner and Brenda Wilmoth Lerner., 2004.)

 

 

Absollutley there are drastic changes in technology and manufacturing a space craft for exploring purposes or a space craft that carryies crew to the space stations and the outer space , there a lot of differences one is that of the safety measurement that need to take place , it is not the same to carry people or equipment , for people you try to fight hard to save there lives and bring them safely but when you have an unmanned air craft that is in danger , you would weight in what to do and what action you may take on , do we leave it or try hard to save it , another thing is the complexity of the design is more in manned space crafts since that would mean life support and places to live in should be very well done so the people who will be working in space would refer to their space craft for reenergizing purpose  and going to work again, manned crafts are most of the time expensive .

 

 

 

 

 

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One manned craft example can be seen in Apollo space craft which was an American space craft and the Soyuz which was of the Russianians , both of them were designed to take humans to the moon. . Apollo space craft consisted of three parts which are the service module ,the lunar module and the command module  . on  the other hand The Soyuz is consisting of three things as well : the vehicle   ,the service module and the orbital module .

 

 The Apollo space craft it had a main objective of getting people into the moon , basically the crew with be taken to the moon being allowed to walk on the moon and use the equipments to collect valuable info and then return safely to Earh.the crew was able to live and perform the work in a very high quality environment inside the craft , the lunar module was able to move two astronauts to the moon from its orbit . for the service module was a place to keep the systems needed for maneuvering ,running the space craft in the outer space .

There was 11 manned flight that happened using Apollo and this space craft was the first to get to the moon, there were 6 stops on the moon through the whole life of this space craft  ,it had the ability to take 2 astronauts there on each trip.

 

For the Soyuz it had a lot of goals and objective that were among sending people and crew into space but at the end things took a turn and the space craft was sent multiple times to space to achieve a whole different goals some of which were send it and have it in space for some time to act like an orbiting space station .(NASA.GOV)

 

On the other side for unmanned space crafts ,there were a lot of them that were sent to space over the years with different missions and from different destination all over the planet, funded from different  parties , examples of such space crafts were the  Magellan probe and the  Cassini-Huygens.

 

The manned space craft had many different equipment that helped work and improve discoveries and also some of those equipments were expensive and the budget was somewhat open and things were more sophisticate and more ambitious since most of those  space crafts were expected to come back , make good use of their information that they took in space and then give them the option to reuse the space craft more than once with maintains and  service given to it in between. On the other hand unmanned crafts were having some budget limit and equpments were not expensive nor the best onces were included in it because they knew that these space crafts may never return or are designed to not return.

 

In addition to all the space crafts that are developed there are a lot more of technological things that helps maneuver the space  and creates Endless possibilities

for creating better environment and live more happily.

 

 

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Space crafts as a whole have been very important and essential to the development and expansion of the space exploration over the years , this process of getting people into space has helped expand the knowledge of people on earth and go farther in discoveries . Some times you may run into a really honest question , why do we have  to go to space waste our money ? truth is the although this space industry has taken too much time and effort from us over the years , it was the right thing to do and the continues to be. Space technology has evolved and equipments are more complex and more functional and that helped open new doors and get to places that were out of our reach back in the day .

 

Space is wide and hugh and there are lot of things that can be accomplished when getting there , it is not just get there for example to mars get some sand and come back , before arriving there each mission has something in mind to do and hope to achieve , some of those objects are revel the unknown , enriching the lives of humankind on earth , knowing what is out there , and check if there is really a life in other planets also check for the ability or the likelihood of maybe us going to a near by planet and live there or simply use it as a vacation site if somebody ever gets board of earth . All these dreams helps us encourage ourselves to work harder and shoot for the stars , before people called out others who though we would have a transportation that would take you from one part to another and now it became an ordinary thing .because all the benefits the space has to offers and when evaluation risk and gain it turns out that getting more involved in space technology and industry is worth the risk  and so more countries get involved with it and more and more programs have been established over the years. For examples there is some U.S  organizations that are fully invested like NASA , Japan has the  Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, Germany has the  German Aerospace Center, France has the French Space Agency  in addition to many others .

 

Having such agencies for a country involves meaning it is heading in the right direction and ebnables the country to evolve and improve and advance and help its people move forward with there lives .so each country budgets some money for any research or operational activates that involves space and the technology that comes with it. The budgets for that range between thousands of millions and tens of thousand of millions of dollars depending on how big the country is in terms of resources for example the united  states of America spends around 17,700 millions of dollars a year on the other hand Sweden spend 100 million dollars on resources involving space mechanism . space has offered us a way of communicating wirelessly and help us  get to know other nations like never before with the invention of satellite and we also are now able to track and get to our destination with the press of a button  , so the space has showed us some new technologies but on the other hand space is no merciful , people who go there have to train hard and be able to prepare for the unexpected and being able to achieve some goals ..

 

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There are a lot of technology going on  the technology going on during the launch , the pre-launch and the after launch period . There is many equipments in a space craft that help make the  journey a success.  there are many complex  things in it .

 

One equipment piece that is very essential in a space craft are the sensors such as the  thermocouples, this sensor helps convert temperature  values into voltages, and  because those readings were very important  they were sent back to the earth and this was accomplished using the specialized communications system.A very important space craft systems that forms part of the technology

in the space craft is the telemetry system  which basically is a group of electronic devices that were built to receive orders from the Earth stations for those Earth based mission controllers this system is also known as tracking and command (TT&c)subsystem. This system and the new ones  helped ensure a communication method between the space craft and the earth station and also eliminated some problems that were associated with any communication.

 

Some of those problems were  the low altitude of the space craft orbit ,  since that made a contradiction with the physics involved  because lower altitude means a muh smaller orbital periods which means it only spend very little time  on top of an earth station which causes not enough time to set up the communication using the simple methods using in space crafts in the early stages .

 

Another thing that in any space craft is the power it uses to operate through out the technology of such systems has became better and better over the years at the start  the operation time of a space craft or a satellite was around  was running from some days to few weeks but no more because of many failures or power need .Technology at the start in power matter as poor compared to today’s advanced  standards and advanced theories of today.in the past space crafts used to operate on batteries with no real idea on how to recharge them  so obviously the trips to space were short. But with the time passing there were new ways coming out one was adding  a big number of   electrically coupled photovoltaic   as a number one source of power for vehicles going out to space but without getting rid of the batteries which are still in use as a secondary source. After several years of having  a some what good solution to the problem, we ran into another problem , with the advancement of everything and with the building of new equipment that can do more  , space crafts had to carry a lot more things but the power supplied was around the same amount so every bit of power had to be used efficiently  in the meantime of creating a better solution so the power consumption was on the top of the list of requirements  when building and complex , new components.   ( Williamson,2006)      

 

 

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And with all that happening , it became evident to all the countries who invested heavily in space like the united states of America and the European countries

and all the people who are in that industry that  the only way for the space crafts , satellites and all the other object  to be sent out  with a lot more complex and to be a lot more productive in terms of goals is to manufacture and develop very high capacity of power supply with photovoltaic cell arrays and big voltage distribution ,  after testing  space crafts  were able of powering a wide range of application and so those new additions became the standard of how the space crafts should be built. These systems In addition to others are part of how space crafts technology is changing with time .

 

There are a lot of space crafts , probes ,vehicles and satellites that have been sent to space  and will be sent . Satellites have changed our lives forever and will continue to do so , our lives have been effected with it and so the way we communicate with each other , satellites enables us to watch channels from other countries , different cities right from the comfort of our homes .they also have enable us to get to destination never possible before  with the GPS system , you can literally go to another country and get to you destination with only an electronic device it is really that simple. It also changed the way we communicate with others or do work and have fun , the world has become a small , exciting and full of adventure  town . satellites have helped improve our freedoms and security and made exchanging cultures , ideas and tradition a very easy , inexpensive and available service to everyday people.(NASA.GOV)

 

Satellite have a very unique and complex design that has been improved over the years and it consists of many of the devices and pieces , frames , body and the systems that include transmitting and receiving , in addition to the sophisticated power system that enables maintaining it for a long time up there were it can provide quality service and help making the technological advances an achievable dream to mankind .

 

The basic structure of a satellite that is sent to space consists of a lot of devices and components . when designing a satellite there is always the manufacturing of a model design that will help figure out how the satellite will be put together and what and how much payload can be added to the real model of such a design   . The structure  supports the satellites subsystems and the weights that it carries  so first of all it should be strong enough , also it helps maintain the important satellite in the desired locations in space like the thermal control , sensors the cables it has.

 

 

 

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And  that structure helps ensure good protection to component of the satellite from environmental effects during the different stages that includes  ground operations , launch and other mission stages.

 

Space crafts have been consider a key part in discovering the big space and so building such things require very much precision and good  measurements to be able to function on a high level in a place that pretty much shows no mercy .

And as mention earlier that space is a huge place and working with it has a necessity of knowing what we are dealing with and there are some new and old technologies that helped us adapt to such place , for example  there is the booster ,the atmospheric braking, lunar rover in addition to all the systems that can be reused with time and new mission . there is also all  new technologies that are implemented and will be on display in the near future there is solar –power crafts and satellites , non rocket space launch. Although there are a lot of accomplishment over the years there are still things that one days will be achieved and life luxuries will also be more fascinating.

 

 The most big new technology that will have a big impact on everything that we do is if we can build satellites that are solar powered , since at first  it will be able to stay up there for as long as we want with providing little maintenance and support throughout , this will help decrease the costs and maybe focus the research after that on making new components and making it more efficient .

 

Making a solar powered satellites  , will also be able to not only support themselves but also save energy that can be sent back to the earth to support and provide power enough to solve the energy problem forever .

One example of a solar powered  satellite the one which was built by boeing during the 1982 this ideas was projected to provide power to it self and get enough energy to support the united states with electricity , this system is though to have a platform of the size of a small city covering about more than 20,000 miles  above the equator , and it was thought that those platforms  would carry around billions of silicon solar cells  that would transform sunlight into electrical energy then sent to earth  as microwaves through the antennas provided with it then the antennas in the earth station would pick up those waves and convert them into  current electricity . after some studies on how to implement this ideas and what are the advantages , scientists came to conclude that 1 satellite of such kind can provide a revenue of about $105billion in 30 years , it is expensive to throw the satellite up there but it will not have much expenses after that . This idea has been developing over the years and every time there is an energy crisis , this idea resurfaces again

 

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and  there are some voices that rise to support such ideas. So by the late decade of the 21^st century , the Boeing company had people who had experience of about 30 years on this idea , they were ready to propose some ideas and contracts for NASA, these proposals included  some satellites that will do such job. They also proposed building a space

 

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