Spacecraft Design Standards 5

[cavelle]

Hey,<br>
Is anyone working on a set of standards for spacecraft designs? I know it may seem a little silly but I am very interested having spaceflight privatized and the one way this could be feasible if some set of standard space vehicle requirements be made.

 

[MikeVV]

NASA, the US Air Force and (I'm sure) other government agencies have numerous standards for spacecraft design, materials, testing and operation. You might consider searching the US Air Force Space Command web site. NASA will most likely have (at one of its research labs or via the NASA Technical Exchange program) a full collection of such standards too.<br>
<br>
Good luck,<br>
<br>
MikeVV

 

[DanCo9]

From a standpoint of launching your own spacecraft, you may be concerned with only FAA rules and regs. Most of the military standards and specs apply, as MikeVV said, to the actual craft itself, while FAA rules apply to the pilot, and passenger safety, jurisdiction of Air Traffic Control, etc. You may also find some help at the Space Frontier Foundation. <A HREF="

http://www.space-frontier.org"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.space-frontier.org</A>

. You may even be able to get some funding from FINDS (foundation for the international non-governmental development of space). You should be able to contact FINDS through the Space Frontier group. Good luck

 

[MikeVV]

DanCo9 is correct - I was specifically referring to the spacecraft itself (&quot;Type&quot; certification). Suborbital launches can still cover thousands of miles (the Air Force missile test range at Cape Canaveral is 10,000 miles long, that goes from Florida to the coast of Africa!) and the entire area needs to be informed of launches so that &quot;inhabitants&quot; can clear out if needed. Many orbital flights have failed and become sub-orbital so this is always a consideration. (what goes up...) ProfessorGersty also brings up a good point - the cost of launches is still VERY high because of the amount of energy needed to achieve orbital velocity at high altitude. Tell us more about your dream, many people share it and are trying to achieve low cost access to space...

 

[benjamca]

Hey,<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This is Cavelle .. I have switched handles due to job purposes.&nbsp;&nbsp;I have kept up with innovations in space propulsion technologies, but I have yet to see anyone work on a set of standards for various vehicle types.&nbsp;&nbsp;I think there may be a company working on modularized satelites for future launches, but as yet there are no standards for spacecrafts themselves.&nbsp;&nbsp;If anyone is interested in looking into this with me I'd be very greateful.<br>

 

[MikeVV]

Benjamca, I am aware of three organizations that are proceeding along the &quot;standard&quot; spacecraft philosophy.&nbsp;&nbsp;Ball Aerospace, Colorado Springs, CO, has a spacecraft bus specifically designed for use as a secondary payload for Boeing's (formerly McDonal Douglas) Delta II launch vehicle.&nbsp;&nbsp;This bus has all components required for a small stabilized spacecraft (spaceframe, power, communications, attitude adjustment) and is &quot;readily&quot; available.&nbsp;&nbsp;(I say readily in quotes because there are no spaceraft in production that are purchased without very specific integration steps.)&nbsp;&nbsp;The Center for Aerospace Technology at Weber State University has created a similar spaceraft for use on Minitaur and Pegasus (Orbital Sciences Corp) with a similar philosophy.&nbsp;&nbsp;They spun off a company, OS^3, that seeks customers for this spacecraft bus.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;All the spacecraft manufacturers (little and big) seek such standardized products because of their economical advantages over &quot;one-time&quot; projects.&nbsp;&nbsp;The satellite constellations (GPS, OrbComm, Iridium, etc) make up the majority of this business.&nbsp;&nbsp;<br><br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am interested in pursuing the concept of a spacecraft &quot;standard&quot; and interpret to mean a common design that has broad application to specific launch vehicles.&nbsp;&nbsp;Each launch vehicle manufacturer would be able to offer these products to potential customers and may, themselves, become integral participants in such standards.&nbsp;&nbsp;The actual drawings and specifications for these products could be created as new documents under the coordination of any organization recognized by the spacecraft community.&nbsp;&nbsp;There are many options available for this idea and further discussion is needed.<br><br>Mike Van Voorhis<br><A HREF="mailto:MJVanVoorhis@CS.com">MJVanVoorhis@CS.com</A><br>&nbsp;

 

[LiKiang]

To add to MikeW comments on standardised spacecraft, I can point you to a database: <A HREF="

http://www.eurospace.org.&nbsp"

TARGET="_new">

http://www.eurospace.org.&nbsp</A>;&nbsp;It

contains a list and brief spec. of European (standard) spacecraft platforms.&nbsp;&nbsp;It is a common philosphy for&nbsp;&nbsp;company to launch a spacecraft or come up with a design and try and re-use as often as possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;In theory, you could call any satellite a standard design if you use it more than once.<br>A company that pioneered this approach was SSTL back in early 80s with their modular satellites.&nbsp;&nbsp;The electronics was all stored on modular trays, these trays are then stacked and form the spacecraft primary structure.&nbsp;&nbsp;They were designed specifically for the Ariane 4 ASAP and fact flew on the first ASAP.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Ariane ASAP 5 microsatellite and minisatellite slots have become fairly standard and are also used on the PSLV (India's small/medium lift launcher) another common slot is 500x500x500mm microsatellite such as on the H-2 and some Russian ones.&nbsp;&nbsp;However the Russians adopt a much more ad hoc approach and are used to customising at very low cost, accommodating secondary payloads where possible on the launcher or primary spacecraft.

 

[DanCo9]

It has been a while since anyone posted on this, but I want to put in a few cents worth about standardizing.&nbsp;&nbsp;If you try to seek and use an existing standard, you will probably end up with less than you desire for economizing spaceflight.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Arianne card cage packaging standard is an example of how to start, though.&nbsp;&nbsp;Begin with what your payload needs to be, and modularize out from there.&nbsp;&nbsp;(i.e., a human capsule, 2 human capsule, etc,, then to cargo compartments, control systems, actuators, and finally, to the hull.&nbsp;&nbsp;By working from a team concept (you may be all the members, but play different roles), you should be able to come up with a highly integrated complete spacecraft that is mission-flexible.&nbsp;&nbsp;Don't get caught up in fear of doing it 'wrong'.&nbsp;&nbsp;If you get it right, everyone will look to your design to find out what is 'right'.

 

[BigJon]

Do you need help building your vehicle? [sig][/sig]

 

[henrik]

There seem to be a lot of people interested in a cheap acces to space and as far as i can tell there are manny engenering pros and amatuers that would be interested in working on a project.
so why not get going.
in germany they constructed gigantic zeppeliners largeley financed by contrybutions from the people.
i know that a space project is mutch bigger but we wouldent have to confine us to one country thanks to the internet we have acces to the intire planet.
and there is also the wast possibillities for profitmaking in space (mining-manufactoring ect) this could maybee interest investors.

 

space definitely needs to be more accissible to people. its a shame that the government (u.s.) is not paying as much as they did when the space program started.

 

[SThwaite]

If by standard space vehicle requirements you mean the materials requirements and workmanship specs, these are covered in (endless) documents. The NASA and ESA web-sites are a good place to start. In terms of modular design, many companies do try to work with a basic design which is tried and tested, but this frequently needs to be amended to optimise the mass. This is particularly an issue on scientific missions, which perform different tasks, carry different instruments, have different power requirements etc. This doesn't mean a 'top-level' document can't be done, certainly a lot of this information is available, just not in a coherent form.

PS Beagle2 is a privately financed Mars lander currently being developed in the UK. It will fly on Mars Express (an ESA mission) so it *can* be done, but raising that amount of money is incredibly tough!

 

[rbue]

IMO, an impediment to modular s/c bus design is that mission and payload specifications are rigidly established and the support subsystems are forcibly designed around those specs. The question I have is &quot;why aren't more people with an interest in getting a mission launched looking for well designed bus structures & modifying their mission & hardware requirements accordingly?&quot;. I know this happens and s/c designers are always looking for mission heritage but it doesn't happen on a large enough scale where a companies are agressively promoting standard bus packages.

I believe we could be launching more missions with shorter design phases, higher inheritance (reliability), and lower cost if the industry shifted to more of a bottom-up design philosophy.

Increasing demand for more frequent launch opportunities would put more pressure on launch vehicle manufacturers (and possibly entrepenures!) to find ways to decrease the ever-restrictive costs of reaching orbit. The Telcomm industry has started the standardization push & launch vehicle providers would increase their efforts to innovate and reduce costs if the science & military sectors would follow suit.

 

[hcc]

For multi-mission service platforms for satellites, see NASA site

http://rsdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/Rapidii/catalog2.cfm.

For engineering standards applicable to satellite projects (engineering, management, quality assurance), see the set of european ECSS standards, available on line at

http://www.ecss.nl.

 

[rocketdoc]

I agree with what &quot;rbue&quot; is saying.

Although following &quot;heritage designs&quot; is promoted, usually the mission requirments tend to tangent off what would be considered &quot;Heritage&quot;.

This is not neccessarily the case for &quot;standard&quot; type goestationary communications satellites where usually the largest changes are the addition of more channels (TWTA's) and larger antenna designs.

On other, more unique missions (Mars, Outer Planets, DeepSpace Communications) the mission definition dictates that the spacecraft be dictated in design. By the unique payloads, porformance and sometimes the launch vehicle or multiple dispensing.

 

[tsurani]

I have recently worked as part of the assembly, integration and testing team of a government funded microsatellite project. The whole point of the exercise was to get my country back into the aerospace industry, by providing young engineers/scientists with the opportunity to develop the skills and experience necessary to resuscitate our miniscule space industry. The only problem is that

(a)it seems like most people &quot;high up&quot; didnt believe we could do it (we launched end of last year), and therefore didnt take into consideration any future follow-on projects, and

(b)there was insufficient public exposure/media emphasis put on the project to instigate large public support/interest.

So basically, after the successful launch and operation all of the expertise and experience developed during the project has been scattered to the winds. Personally it was fantastic experience, but it leads to the question: what was the point? Unfortunately there are extremely limited opportunities to further develop a career in Australia in the satellite/aerospace industry, and thus I find myself working in other industries, not utilising this valuable experience.

We do however have a bus/platform which now could be applied to other projects, unfortunately we dont have the customer base to make it work at the moment.

 

[dpwelch]

Specifications are usually unique to the mission profile. There will be some general requirements and the remainder will be dependant on the application/purpose your vehicle/payload design.

There are some basic questions that need to be answered to derive the level of necessary requirements.
Will the launch vehicle be manned or unmanned? What is the flight plan, sub orbital, orbital, or interplanetary? Should it survive reentry and if so should it be reusable? How safe is it (Safety Analysis)? How reliable does it need to be (Reliability Analysis)? What happens if there is a failure? How many failures can be tolerated before loss of the mission/vehicle/life?

A good source for Reliability related requirements would be to start with topic R-1 “Quantitative Reliability Requirements” in “The Rome Laboratory - Reliability Engineer’s Toolkit”, which you can find here:

http://quanterion.com/KnowledgeBase/ReliabilityToolkit.shtml

NOTE as the name implies this is a “tool kit” if you were to obtain all the documentation referenced in this document you would be looking at OVER 6 ft of bookshelf space!

Good Luck

Phillip

 

[jimkeel]

I might be a wrench monkey but I've got the stars in my eyes. Here are NASA's &quot;Human Rating requirements&quot; javascriptpenNASAWindow('

http://nodis3.gsfc.nasa.gov/library/displayDir.cfm?Internal_ID=N_PG_8705_0002_&page_name=main')

I found it here,

http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/jul/HQ_n03069_human_rating.html

Good luck to all those who hope to vacation on the moon, send me a postcard or something. It was nice up there until they put up all those mars themed putt-putt courses with their neon lights and astro-turf.

 

[rocketdoc]

&quot;...but I have yet to see anyone work on a set of standards for various vehicle types.&quot;

Up to the present, it has been so extreamly expensive to design and produce spacecraft, and many spacecraft &quot;houses&quot; have done every thing that they could to &quot;standardize&quot; one or more &quot;lines&quot; of spacecraft designs (Lockheed Martin A2100, as an example).

But that has to be tempered with the differences in missions or in the case of communications satellites, their payload capacity and antenna configurations.

Many extra-earth missions have been based on existing communications buses (Mars Observer, which was an RCA Satcom communications bus derivitive).

Also, many missions demand that the spacecraft itself, be as mission specific as possible for reasons such as mass to orbit or escape, maximizing payload mass, etc.

So, each comapny is forced by &quot;cost&quot; and mostly the customer, to used a &quot;heritage&quot; spacecraft, but each company comes to a different conclusion as to what that might be.

There are many existing &quot;Spacecraft Standards&quot;, but that usually referes to the design standards and processes and standardized hardware.

So again, there really isn't a reason to have a &quot;Standard&quot; spacecraft; mission purpose will always define the design.

Peter V