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NASA, SpaceX Share Data On Supersonic Retropropulsion
http://aviationweek.com/space/nasa-spacex-share-data-supersonic-retropropulsion
NASA, SpaceX Share Data On Supersonic Retropropulsion
Data-sharing deal will help SpaceX land Falcon 9 on Earth and NASA put humans on Mars
Oct 16, 2014 Frank Morring, Jr. | Aviation Week & Space Technology
An innovative partnership between NASA and SpaceX is giving the U.S. space agency an early look at what it would take to land multi-ton habitats and supply caches on Mars for human explorers, while providing sophisticated infrared (IR) imagery to help the spacecraft company develop a reusable launch vehicle.
<snip>
“This is the kind of thing that NASA couldn’t have done five years ago,” says Braun, who was chief technologist for the agency in 2010-11.
He learned that the hard way. After returning to Georgia Tech, Braun—a specialist in entry, descent and landing (EDL)—worked with engineers from the university and various NASA centers to develop a proposal for a $50 million sounding-rocket program to flight-test supersonic retropropulsion (AW&ST May 20, 2013, p. 30).
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) rejected the plan “because of its cost,” Braun says. But the agency still needs a way to land payloads weighing more than 20 tons to support a human expedition to Mars, leading Braun and his colleagues to find common cause with SpaceX.
<snip>
NASA, SpaceX Share Data On Supersonic Retropropulsion
Data-sharing deal will help SpaceX land Falcon 9 on Earth and NASA put humans on Mars
Oct 16, 2014 Frank Morring, Jr. | Aviation Week & Space Technology
In this thermal imagery captured shortly after stage separation, the top of the SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage appears as a dim dot with a fading plume within the brighter upper-stage plume.
In the inset, the restarted first-stage engines power the first stage as it performs a propulsive descent to Earth.
NASA/Scifli Team/Applied Physics Laboratory Images
An innovative partnership between NASA and SpaceX is giving the U.S. space agency an early look at what it would take to land multi-ton habitats and supply caches on Mars for human explorers, while providing sophisticated infrared (IR) imagery to help the spacecraft company develop a reusable launch vehicle.
<snip>
“This is the kind of thing that NASA couldn’t have done five years ago,” says Braun, who was chief technologist for the agency in 2010-11.
He learned that the hard way. After returning to Georgia Tech, Braun—a specialist in entry, descent and landing (EDL)—worked with engineers from the university and various NASA centers to develop a proposal for a $50 million sounding-rocket program to flight-test supersonic retropropulsion (AW&ST May 20, 2013, p. 30).
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) rejected the plan “because of its cost,” Braun says. But the agency still needs a way to land payloads weighing more than 20 tons to support a human expedition to Mars, leading Braun and his colleagues to find common cause with SpaceX.
<snip>
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