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Shaping the Future of Earth, Air, and Space
Shaping the Future Of Earth, Air, and Space
By Edward Goldstein
– George Bernard Shaw
To imagine the future of NASA’s Langley Research Center, perhaps it’s best to assume that a past of historic accomplishments is prelude to another century in which Langley engineers and scientists positively shape the agency’s future from the ground up.
The center that helped conquer the sound barrier more than 50 years ago will no doubt also help make cleaner and quieter supersonic flight a routine part of future air travel.
The determined researchers who developed the instruments that helped scientists better understand the “Ozone Hole” problem will continue to pursue scientific knowledge vital to understanding atmospheric conditions and our ever-changing climate.
And the heirs to the visionary Langley engineers who made human spaceflight and robotic exploration of Mars possible will help establish human beachheads on Mars.
At the Spear Point of NASA’s New Aviation Horizons Initiative
Even prior to Langley’s 100th anniversary, policy decisions made at the highest levels of NASA were giving shape to ambitious goals that required Langley’s essential participation if they are to be realized in coming years.
For example, in 2016, NASA announced its New Aviation Horizons Initiative. This 10- year plan aims to achieve major reductions in fuel use, emissions, and noise through improved aircraft design and operations, including the return of quieter supersonic aircraft.
The plan leans on Langley expertise in air vehicle and systems design to work with industry and other NASA centers on the demonstration and deployment of several flight demonstration vehicles, or “X-planes.” These will showcase technologies such as advanced, high-efficiency engine designs, new methods for building pressurized composite structures, and advanced propulsion-airframe integration techniques.
Red Planet. The idea came from a team of NASA experts and passionate designers and architects from industry and academia who came together to work on the challenge at Langley’s Engineering Design Studio.
NASA Image
Seventy years after the first X-plane – the Bell X-1 – broke the sound barrier, the X-57, the first all-electric aircraft, is being tested at Langley. The next potential X-plane, called QueSST, or Quiet Supersonic Transport flight demonstrator, has Langley working with Lockheed Martin on a design to change the shape of airplane bodies to reduce the shock waves that produce sonic booms.
Brandon Litherland, of Langley’s Aerospace Vehicle Design & Mission Analysis Group in the Aeronautics Systems Analysis Branch, works on the X-57’s unique folding propeller concepts. He’s excited not only about the project, but also the future of Langley aeronautics research.
“In the overall scheme, many of the New Horizons concepts are based on trade studies and on designs that are the brain children of studies that were done at NASA Langley,” he said.
“When they talk about things like quiet supersonic technology and distributed electric propulsion and things like hyper-clean body vehicles that have very strange geometries compared to the things we’re used to flying in, a lot of the geometry and the sizing of these types of vehicles are born within the Aeronautics Systems Branch,” he said. “That’s our bread and butter to do the studies and designs of these vehicles before we start partnering with private industry and moving the concepts along to actual testing phases and experimental phases.”
An artist’s concept of a Low Boom Flight Demonstration Quiet Supersonic Transport (QueSST) X-plane design. The award of a preliminary design contract is the first step toward the possible return of supersonic passenger travel – but this time quieter and more affordable.
Lockheed Martin Image
Langley is also at the forefront of research to hasten the time when unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), also known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, are safely integrated into the national air space system. A key challenge Langley engineers are taking on is determining the methods and technologies needed for drones to safely fly beyond visual line of sight. This development will be key to more ubiquitous use of UAS for package delivery, precision agriculture, and wildlife monitoring, among others.
Using New Technologies to Upgrade Our Understanding of Earth
Langley researchers are already investigating how to use new technologies such as UASs and small satellites to advance Langley’s atmospheric science mission.
“We’ve been working with our Langley colleagues on the aeronautics side who have expertise in autonomous flight and long-standing connections with the UAV industry. We’ve been successful in starting a dialogue about the next generation of UAVs, where hopefully you have less need for control, like you do with satellites,” said David Young, director of Langley’s Science Directorate.
“You can utilize UASs that are out of the commercial airline corridors and do great science without having to go into space,” he said. “In a place like Greenland, where you have scientific objectives that are either temporarily or spatially defined, UAVs would be phenomenal. Or if you want to devise UAVs that are intelligent enough to do targeted direct science, you could program them to look for certain phenomena and navigate themselves to where they need to be to achieve the science. I think there’s a real future there.”
Young also pointed out that Langley is working with the National Research Council’s effort to develop a decadal plan for earth science and applications from space. Among Langley’s aspirations, said Young, would be support for a satellite version of SAGE,
an instrument responsible for monitoring the Earth’s ozone layer, and a future mission to improve the accuracy of existing Earth-viewing missions in ways that expand their scientific and societal benefits.
Young sees great promise in a technology that Langley helped pioneer, the use of active remote sensing in the form of LIDAR – light detection and ranging – for measuring the constituents of the atmosphere.
“With three-dimensional wind profiling – getting data from space – you can improve weather forecasts,” he said. “We’re working on LIDAR measurements that are key to weather predictions and understanding the changing Earth.”
A 6 percent scale model of a Boeing blended wing body design is tested in the 14-by-22- Foot Subsonic Tunnel at Langley. The test is part of NASA’s ongoing research, in partnership with industry, to develop greener, quieter, and faster aircraft.
Dzyne Technologies Image By Brendan Kennelly
“We’re hoping to continue the evolution of a follow-on to CALIPSO [Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation mission], to advance LIDAR technologies not only from the point you can identify aerosols in the atmosphere, but to where you can identify exactly what they are in terms of their composition, and that’s going help eliminate uncertainty in the climate forecasts,” Young continued.
“These are all areas where we’ve had strength in the past,” he said, “and we’ve always had an eye on the future to see where we could help knock down the next tall pole in our analysis of the Earth.”
Building for the Future
Technologies like those Young just described can’t be fully developed without the proper facilities. As Langley enters its second century, one good indicator of the institution’s future is NASA’s commitment to an ambitious project to keep the center in the forefront of 21st century research facilities.
The facility is named for former NASA mathematician Katherine G. Johnson, seen here after President Barack Obama presented her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Nov. 24, 2015.
NASA Image
The 20-year Langley revitalization strategy, already well underway, will ensure the center remains responsive to evolving programs, projects, and technologies with state-of-theart, energy-efficient buildings.
Langley’s revitalization was driven by the fact that Langley has been around longer than any other NASA center. The center’s oldest building is nearly 80 years old, and the average age of facilities is close to 40.
Buildings already completed include a new headquarters, an integrated engineering services building and a 40,000-squarefoot computational research facility named in honor of Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Katherine G. Johnson, who personally attended the building’s naming ceremony in 2016.
In April 2017, U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, and other VIPs gathered to break ground for what will be Langley’s newest building. The 175,000-square-foot Measurement Systems Laboratory will have about 40 modular labs for research and development functions such as electronics, lasers, clean rooms, and instrumentation in support of Langley’s mission activities.
Future buildings being planned include a new flight dynamics research lab, a materials research lab, and an integrated systems development lab. The ongoing revitalization will serve as a factory for new ideas and technologies that will drive critical contributions and allow Langley to lead the way for the next 100 years.
The Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility scheduled to open in 2017 will allow NASA Langley to replace and consolidate a number of aging data centers and will enhance the center’s computational strength
NASA Images
Airships Over Venus and Base Camps on Mars
As movies like The Right Stuff and Hidden Figures remind us, much of the impetus for the early space program’s success came from the tireless problem-solving of Langley scientists and engineers. And for those Langley people today who dream of designing the next great spaceship or charting the most efficient flight path to the planets, the possibilities seem endless.
Langley’s Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate (SACD) does just that – it examines existing systems and defines futuristic architectures, vehicles, or operational concepts – that help inform decision-makers about potential ideas and solutions, the art of the possible, for challenges that lie ahead.
One concept that drew a lot of public excitement and attention was called HAVOC, the High-Altitude Venus Operational Concept. One day we may want to know a lot more about Venus’ runaway greenhouse effect, so the people in SACD came up with a futuristic, conceptual notion to do just that.
“As an internal research and development program, we wanted to look at what it would take to explore Venus with humans, and determine what kind of technology would be needed to make that happen,” said Dale Arney, of Langley’s Aerospace Vehicle Design and Mission Analysis Group in the Space Mission Analysis Branch.
“The concept is for an airship about twice the size of a Goodyear blimp and about half the size of the Hindenburg that could carry two crew for 30 days in the Venusian upper atmosphere. The airship would have a launch vehicle strapped to the bottom of it, so that at the end of the 30 days they would get into that vehicle and ascend back up to their in-space habitat.”
While Venus is clearly not at the top of NASA’s human exploration plans, an animation of the conceptual mission attracted more than 739,000 views on the NASA Langley YouTube channel.
The goal of sending humans to Mars, however, is likely to be achieved in the coming decades, with Langley’s active participation.
“If you look at it from the perspective of the technology you need to get to Mars, you will see us contribute by making sure that the vehicles are as lightweight as possible so we can save on the energy needed at launch,” said J.F. Barthelemy, Langley’s chief technologist.
“You are going to see us contribute to protection from harmful radiation – we will design it into the vehicle going to Mars and the habitats on Mars. And you are going to see us contribute heavily in the process of designing the entry, descent, and landing vehicles, the materials that are going to withstand the type of heat and heat processes that we’ll encounter when we start entry with a payload of 20 metric tons, not the 1 metric ton that we’ve landed with up until this point. So, we’re not only looking at what kind of architecture and what kinds of vehicles need to be in place, but also at all of the contributing technologies.”
Beyond just getting to Mars, Langley engineers are also looking at the hard work of keeping an expeditionary crew safely on the planet’s surface, not just for a few days, but for months.
This artist’s rendering of the High Altitude Venus Operational Concept shows airships that could carry two crew for 30 days in the Venusian upper atmosphere.
NASA Image
“We’re looking at concepts for the Martian surface – what are those habitats going to be looking like, how many do we need, and how big should they be,” said Barthelemy. “We also have been doing quite a bit on the technologies that would make those habitats possible. We’re looking at inflatables because we want to be able to pack those habitats easily and deploy them when we are on the surface. Also, we are looking at what it takes to protect the humans once they are in the habitat from harmful radiation. 3D printing of materials for habitats is certainly one of the approaches that is being considered. We do a fair amount of advanced manufacturing here, particularly the application of metallic and composite materials. And it is a natural extension to bring that into the realm of in-space manufacturing and particularly habitat manufacturing.”
The best building material for a new home on Mars may lie in an unexpected material: ice. Starting with a proposed concept called “Mars Ice Dome,” a group of NASA experts and passionate designers and architects from industry and academia came together at Langley’s Engineering Design Studio in 2016 to work on the challenge. The project was competitively selected through the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s (STMD) Center Innovation Fund. The ice dome could be a way to shield astronauts from harmful radiation without having to build underground habitats. This lightweight structure could be transported and deployed with simple robotics, then filled with water before a crew arrives.
This is just one of many potential concepts for sustainable habitation on the Red Planet in support of the agency’s journey to Mars.
Barthelemy added that Langley planners are excited about taking flight concepts into the work of Mars exploration, including a vertical takeoff and landing Mars Electric Flyer drone concept that is planned to be drop-tested over rugged terrain in Oregon in 2017.
“This is a fairly small electrically powered type of drone that would obviously recharge on Mars and be able to carry a small payload that would basically be an extension to rovers or to seek out areas for possible human habitation,” he said.
Because of Langley … A Fundamentally Different World
Because anniversaries are as much about the future as the past, a number of Langley people were asked what they thought a citizen some 30 to 50 years from now might say about Langley’s contributions to the world of their time. Here are a few of the responses:
“I think you are going to see in 30 years a transportation system that’s going to be fundamentally different,” said Barthelemy. “You’re going to see a much better integration between ground transportation and air transportation. This could have a historically fundamental impact on how you look at the landscape of the country and the world in terms of the division between urban and rural areas and how we move from one to the other. And I think you will see the same integration between Earth transportation and space transportation, and Langley will be right in the middle of that.”
Brandon Litherland observed that half of the world’s population growth in the next 50 years will come in developing nations in Africa and elsewhere.
“If we advance these highly efficient small aerial vehicles to the point of high affordability and we can start distributing them through the world, then things like deserts, jungles, tundra, rivers and mountains won’t be hindrances to human travel anymore and we can just pop around at will,” he said. “If you bring that kind of integration and infrastructure to global communities, it will be a complete game-changer to human society.”
Drawing on a hero from Langley’s past, Dale Arney said, “The lunar orbit rendezvous concept was developed by Langley’s John Houbolt. He said if you want to go to the moon, here’s how you do it. I think in the space side, you’re going to see the ideas of how to solve real problems coming out of Langley, the strategic view of how to do space exploration and where do we go from here. That legacy from John Houbolt to today is going to persist.
The Mars Electric Reusable Flyer is a concept for an autonomous, vertical-launch drone to scout Mars from the air for minutes at a time, recover aboard a rover, and recharge for multiple flights.
NASA Image
Finally, Hillary Blakeley, a young engineer in the center’s Aerospace Flight Systems, Mechanical Systems Branch, also turned to past Langley heroes for inspiration about the future.
“To me, looking at Katherine Johnson and the Hidden Figures women, we think, ‘Look at the amazing people who came out of here.’ Thirty years from now maybe someone then will say, ‘Look at the people who have come out and created all these ideas that have enabled all this technology,’” she said.
“I’m challenged every day to think innovatively. The leadership around here is open to the concept that the next big crazy idea can really come from anywhere. So, I think 30 years from now people will say, ‘Look at how they put people in a position to create these amazing things that we take for granted today.’”
