Posted on 05/06/2005 10:03:16 PM PDT by iso
ATK Solar Sail Technology Will Enable Solar-powered Interplanetary Probes and Solar Observatories
Minneapolis, May 6, 2005 – Alliant Techsystems (NYSE: ATK) and NASA have successfully tested the functional deployment and attitude control of an ultra-lightweight, high-performing solar sail propulsion system. This was the first in a series of ground-tests for ATK’s sailcraft technology that will be conducted through July. All initial test objectives were met.
The test marks a critical milestone in developing an alternative in-space propulsion technology that uses the sun’s energy instead of onboard propellant to provide thrust. The new propulsion system enables unique orbits critical for communication links and solar activity observatories as well as long-term space exploration programs.
The 20 by 20 meter solar sail system was fully deployed in the 100-ft.-diameter vacuum chamber at NASA Glenn Research Center’s, Plum Brook facility, Sandusky, Ohio. Retroreflective targets measure the shape and dynamics of the system. The gossamer masts, located between the sail quadrants, weigh less than 70 grams per meter of length when sized for an 80-meter sail system.
ATK’s graphite coilable mast technology facilitates the gentle tensioning of reflective films on the sail that are 1/30 the width of a human hair. The ATK-developed scalable square solar sail (S4) architecture allows the system to be compacted by a factor of 100 for launch and remote deployment. Additional hardware includes payload fairing interfaces, in-space structural validation elements, an instrument extension boom, propellantless attitude control mechanization, and solar power panels.
Solar sail technology is being developed by the In-Space Propulsion Technology Program, managed by NASA's Science Mission Directorate and implemented by the In-Space Propulsion Technology Office at Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
ATK is a $2.4 billion advanced weapon and space systems company employing approximately 14,000 people in 23 states. News and information can be found on the Internet at www.atk.com.
Ping
Big into ammunition too. For military and commercial. Some big names like Federal, CCI, Speer, Outers, and RCBS.
> ATK? I wonder where I have heard it before...
It's the company that makes the Shuttle boosters.
About fourty years ago Arthur C. Clarke wrote a pretty neat short story about this: "The Wind From the Sun"
HOME > SPACE NEWS >
ISAS Deployed Solar Sail Film in Space
ISAS succeeded in deploying a big thin film for solar sail in space for the first time in the world.
ISAS launched a small rocket S-310-34 from Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshima, Japan, at 17:15, August 9, 2004 (Japan Standard Time). The launch was the culmination of a historic new technology, and the success this time has really made a great achievement in the history of solar sail.
A solar sail is a spacecraft without a rocket engine. It is pushed along directly by light particles from the Sun, reflecting off its giant sails. Because it carries no fuel and keeps accelerating over almost unlimited distances, it is the only technology now in existence that can one day take us to the stars.
Although both scientists and science-fiction authors have long foreseen it, no solar sail has ever been launched until now.(http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/index2.html) It is because superlight material for thin film which could bear extremely critical environment in space. Now due to the development of material and production technology, we can utilize promising film materials for solar sail, and the experimental deployment trials toward realization of solar sail have been initiated in some countries.
The S-310 rocket which was launched from Uchinoura Space Center at 15:15 of August 9, 2004, carried two kinds of deploying schemes of films with 7.5 micrometers thickness. A clover type deployment was started at 100 seconds after liftoff at 122 km altitude, and a fan type deployment was started at 169 km altitude at 230 seconds after liftoff, following the jettison of clover type system. Both experiments of two types deployment were successful, and the rocket splashed on the sea at about 400 seconds after liftoff.
On February 4, 1993, a 2—meter thin film structure onboard Progress M-15 was deployed for the first time in the solar sail development history. By this experiment, the first illumination from space was demonstrated before sunrise over Western Europe. (http://www.space-frontier.org/Events/Znamya/)
And in 2001, the Cosmos 1 test spacecraft was launched from a submerged Russian submarine, but the command for separate the spacecraft did not function, and the solar sail experiment by this sub-orbital flight not carried out. This experiment was done by the Planetary Society and the Cosmos Studio who are going to launch a Voina missile in a few months from a Russian nuclear submarine to carry out a solar sail. As is shown on its Website (http://www.planetary.org/solarsail/index2.html) , the spacecraft is now being built in Russia by the Babakin Space Center and the Space Research Institute. The spacecraft will begin the mission in a near circular orbit, 800 kilometers above the Earth, and gradually increase its altitude by means of photonic pressure on its luminous sails. The goal of Cosmos 1 is to achieve a controlled solar sail flight, demonstrating the feasibility of solar sail propulsion.
JAXA is now planning to launch the next deployment experiment onboard a large scientific balloon from Sanriku Balloon Center this fall.
The deployment of clover type film taken by a camera onboard S-310 rocket.
The jettisoned clover type film after separation taken by a camera onboard S-310 rocket.
2004/8/9
HOME > SPACE NEWS >
I use it for check SWL problems, myself.
huh? U thought the boosters were made by Morton Thiokol?
Thiokol is a division of ATK.
I should know... I'm a ballistician on the RSRM program here at the Promontory facility.
ah. thanks.
totally unrelated: you have any idea who I should talk to over at Lockheed to get some design specs on the vertical lift fan on the Marine variant of their JSF?
Nope. I have some vague suggestions:
1: Contact their PAO. Unlikely to work... most likely you'll get some nice pretty prints of Lockheed products, maybe a wall callender.
2: Search for AIAA papers on this topic (there should be a number of them). If the information you want isn't in the paper... you nevertheless have contact info for the people who *wrote* the paper. Contact 'em and see what they can tell you (which may be nothign due to restrictions)
3: Contact the Marines. Maybe they can tell you.
thanks. I'll try all of the above.
I want the information as a baseline reference for an unrelated project I'm playing with, with the help of a Marine Major - perhaps inquiring through the Corps will prove the most profitable method.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
