LT September 2013 by Anouk Scholtes

SEPTEMBER 2013

Leonardo Times Journal of the Society of Aerospace Engineering Students â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Leonardo da Vinciâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

page 24

DSE Special

number 3

An overview of the Design Synthesis Exercise

To Mars and beyond

An interview with JPL director Solar System Exploration Dr. Firouz Naderi

From concept to certification

An interview with AD&C co-founder and CEO Marcus Basien

Astrobiology research with Cubesats

Year 17

Cubesats: powerful science platforms for space exploration

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9/4/13 13:56

Global environmental concerns call for future innovative products. Currently, the aircraft industry is seriously considering to install Contra-Rotating-Open-Rotors (CROR) on mid-range 150-200 seater aircraft by the year 2020. Today, NLR (National Aerospace Laboratory) specialists work in close coรถperation with aircraft & engine manufactures to investigate noise, vibration and safety aspects of these novel aircraft concepts.

www.nlr.nl Advertentie_NLR.indd 1

8-12-2009 15:59:05

Contents

Editorial

From Leonardo’s desk

Current affairs

Hummingbird eye view for the US

Cover articles

Table of contents

An overview of the Design Synthesis Exercise

military Interview - To Mars and beyond

LVD - Comeback of the Dreamliner

Interview - From Concept to Certification

Interview - The future of commercial air

The Design Synthesis Exercise is the closing piece of the third year of the BSc course. It requires weeks of enormous effort by the student groups, with impressive results. Some of these results are featured in this DSE Special.

DSE Special

To Mars and beyond

transport Design Synthesis Exercise 2013

RVD - Skylon

Astrobiology Research with CubeSats

We vlogen met een knal... - Ambassadors of humankind

An interview with JPL’s Dr. Firouz Naderi Dr. Firouz Naderi is the director for solar system exploration within the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Ample reason to interview Dr. Naderi, to discuss working at JPL, success and failure, and the future of solar system exploration.

From concept to certification

Column - The Times They Are a-Changin’

Advertisement index NLR

An interview with Marcus Basien

Dynaflow

DAG

KLM

Certification of small aircraft is not done by EASA, but by companies like Aircraft Design & Certification Ltd. The Leonardo Times sat down with AD&C co-founder Marcus Basien to discuss the certification process, future developments and possibilities for Aerospace Engineering students.

Fokker

Astrobiology research with Cubesats

Powerful science platforms for space exploration The improvements in miniaturization of satellite technology has resulted in flexible, inexpensive and scalable solutions like CubeSats. These could provide a platform for a host of space missions, including science missions in the field of astrobiology.

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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Editor’s letter Dear reader, This is something of a special editorial, as it will be my last as editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Times. Many things have been said about goodbyes, including that it is like dying a little bit. However you may feel about a particular goodbye or goodbyes in general, it seems that goodbyes in all shapes and sizes are inevitable in life. After a year of editor-in-chiefing – perhaps verbing nouns is not always such a good idea – and subjecting another generation of Leonardo Times editors to sometimes overly contrived puns, it is time to hand over the proverbial reins. I am not sure how prone to punning my successor will be, but there is bound to be a lot of ‘masala’ in his stories1. I will be leaving the Leonardo Times in very capable hands: Sushant Gupta will be new the editor-in-chief. In this, he will be supported by a number of editors that will be staying on and also by the new additions to the team, each bringing a fresh look and a lot of enthusiasm into an already great editorial team. I am confident we will all see the result of their effort and inspiration in the December edition. It will be an interesting change to be ‘just a reader’ of the Leonardo Times.

Colophon However, ‘just a reader’ does not seem a fair characterisation. Just as we are grateful to everyone else that makes the Leonardo Times possible, we are also grateful to our readers. Without readers, a magazine would, after all, be rather pointless. So, thanks go out to you as well. I would also like to thank the sponsors, the authors and everyone else who has made this magazine possible and will continue to do so in the future. I would like to thank the editorial staff in particular for a great time. I would also like to thank Céline Dohmen, our dedicated connection to the board, who also was an integral part of the team. I would be remiss were I not to mention Dafni Evangelou, who has produced another year of eye-catching and professional magazines. The sleek design is the result of her hard work and she has shown great flexibility in the face of rapidly approaching deadlines. In conclusion: it has been a great year as editor-in-chief and I wish everyone involved in the Leonardo Times good luck and all the best. Of course, the same goes for all the readers. It has been an honour and a privilege. Benjamin Broekhuizen 1 I will leave the explanation up to Sushant in his first editorial.

Year seventeen, number 3, September 2013 The ‘Leonardo Times’ is issued by the Society for Aerospace Engineering Students, the VSV ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The magazine is issued four times a year with a circulation of 5500 copies. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Benjamin Broekhuizen FINAL EDITOR: Pattareeya Srongpapa EDITORIAL STAFF: Céline Dohmen, Aryadad Fattahyani, Konark Goel, Sushant Gupta, Robert-Vincent de Koning, Benedict Krautheim, Jules L’Ortye, Alisa Nevinskaia, Stefan Scortescu, Lubi Spranger, Jeroen Wink, Nout van Zon THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED: DSE groups, P. Ehrenfreud, A. Elsaesser, Shahrzad Hosseini, Raoul de Jonge, Ivo van der Peijl, A.J. Ricco, Lakshmi Sabbapathy, Marijn Veraart DESIGN, LAY-OUT: dafdesign, Den Haag PRINT: DeltaHage B.V., Den Haag Articles sent for publishing become property of ‘Leonardo Times’. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher. ‘Leonardo Times’ disclaims all responsibilities to return articles and pictures. Articles endorsed by name are not necessarily endorsed editorially. By sending in an article and/ or photograph the author is assured of being the owner of the copyright. ‘Leonardo Times’ disclaims all responsibility. The ‘Leonardo Times’ is distributed among all students, alumni and employees of the Aerospace Engineering Faculty. VSV ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ Kluyverweg 1, 2629 HS Delft Phone: 015 - 278 53 66 Email: VSV@tudelft.nl For more information the website can be visited at www.vsv.tudelft.nl At this website the ‘Leonardo Times’ can also be digitally viewed. Remarks, questions and/or suggestions can be emailed to the following address: LeoTimes-VSV@student.tudelft.nl

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

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FROM LEONARDO’S DESK

Dear readers, It is always a pleasure to write another edition of From Leonardo’s Desk, this time for the September edition of the Leonardo Times. Currently, I am enjoying the view of the Mediterranean Sea as I am staying in Turkey for a small holiday before getting back to Delft and starting my MSc. September is always a special month in Delft. First and foremost because of the start of the new academic year: after a summer full of parties over 400 first year students have arrived at our beautiful faculty. I want to congratulate those students on making the right decision to start their careers at Aerospace Engineering. With over 500 subscriptions they are the lucky ones that have survived the numerus fixus. A special message to those freshmen; you are privileged to start your studies here at the faculty. However, in order to make your stay successful you will have to work hard right from the start. Do not underestimate the 45 ECTS BSA. The idiom ‘well begun is half done’ certainly holds for your first year here at our faculty. I wish you the best of luck! The start of the academic year also means a new start for our society. Each year a new group of enthusiastic students gets the chance to lead the VSV ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ for an entire year. For me and my fellow board members, this means that our time has come to an end. It has been a truly amazing year and I am quite sad that

it is already over. However, it is our time to say goodbye. After this edition my successor Jef Michielssen, the 69th President of the VSV ‘Leonardo da Vinci’, will have the honour to write to you from Leonardo’s desk. While you are reading this article, the biggest activity of the 68th board will be taking place, namely the study tour ‘Limitless’. The preparations for this already started in the 67th year of the VSV. Six students have been working for more than a year to make this journey of a lifetime reality. The participants, thirty in total, will be staying in the United States of America and Canada for an entire month. During this month they will visit the some of the biggest aerospace engineering companies in the world, such as Boeing, NASA, Pratt & Whitney and many more. From Amsterdam, the study tour will travel to Washington D.C., after which we will continue to Montreal. Subsequently, they will cross the border again back into the U.S.A. and visit Boston, Orlando, Fort Worth, Los Angeles and end the journey in Seattle, where they have been invited by Boeing to visit their facilities for two days. I guess we could say the Study Tour will end with a bang. Shortly after the study tour the final activity of the 68th board will take place. Our Master Department ‘Apollo’ has been working on a trip of their own. In October they will travel to London for a week with thirty master students. The Case Tour has

been organised together with the VvTP, the study association of Applied Physics. During this week we will visit general technical companies and work on several interesting cases. We hope this week will help students to decide on their future careers. After the Case Tour, our year as board of the VSV will be over completely. However, in October the brand-new board, 69, will have already had the chance to organise a few activities of their own. I am sure they are just as eager as we were a year ago to lead the VSV to new heights. I would like to wish Jef, Douwe, Ivo, Melchior, Yvonne, Michelle and Jasper the best of luck in the coming year. Enjoy every moment, because before you know it the 70th board of the VSV will be celebrating the 14th lustrum of the VSV. As for now, it is time to say goodbye to you, readers of the Leonardo Times. It has been an honour to keep you updated from behind Leonardo’s desk every three months. I would like to wish everyone the best of luck in their future endeavours, no matter whether this is another year of courses, your internship or the start of your professional career. For the last time, On behalf of the 68th board, Raoul de Jonge President of the VSV ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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Current Affairs

UAV LANDING AT SEA

12-07-2013, Maryland, USA

drone designed for aircraft carrier operations has successfully landed on the deck of the USS George H.W. Bush, an event that marks a new milestone for unmanned combat air systems (UCAS). Northrop Grumman and the US Navy completed the first arrested landing of the X-47B UCAS on July 10, 2013. The Northrop Grumman-built aircraft landed while the aircraft carrier was under way off the coast of Virginia. During testing, the X-47B completed the 35-minute journey from Patuxent River to the carrier and caught the three-wire with the aircraft’s tail hook. The arrested landing effectively brought the aircraft from approximately 75m/s to stop in less than 110m. (S.S.) The Engineer

RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM SETBACK

03-07-2013, Baikonur, Kazakhstan

EXPANDING LONDON HEATHROW

17-07-2013, London, UK

ondon Heathrow Airport’s owner today unveiled a radical plan to build up to two more runways to solve the airport’s capacity issues. In its submissions to the U.K. Airports Commission, Heathrow Airport Ltd. is proposing three options for a third runway placed either to the north, northwest or southwest of the existing airport. While the options would mean major changes to the surrounding area including the demolition of nearby villages, the company claims that the options are quicker to build and implement than the creation of a new hub airport, as suggested by London mayor Boris Johnson. The company claims that the number of residents affected by aircraft noise will fall, even with the third runway. As the runways will be placed west of London, arriving aircraft are placed approximately 300ft higher over London (J.L.) NASA

INDIA’S REGIONAL AIRLINER

10-07-13, New Delhi, India

he investigation is under way on the Proton M failure at Baikonur cosmodrome, which destroyed the launch vehicle and its payload of three Russian Glonass satellites. An emergency shutdown occurred 17 seconds into the flight, and the launcher hit the ground inside about 2.5km from the launch pad. But while determining what caused the incident may take months, it is certain that the reliability of the Proton M lags far behind its Western peers. Whereas ESA’s Ariane 5 boasts a reliability rate larger than 94%, and the BoeingUnited Launch Alliance Delta IV has achieved nearly 96%, Proton M is running at less than 90%. Analysis of the Proton failure record shows a scattering of diverse failure points suggesting a problem in quality control. Such a management problem may prove more difficult to resolve than any design fault, as oversight shortcomings appear to pervade the Russian programme. (S.S.)

he Indian government has given the go-ahead for the development of an indigenous airliner, a project that has been in limbo for years. The prime minister’s office stated the committee on manufacturing took a major strategic decision for the development of a civil aircraft, with a capacity of maximum ninety seats. Furthermore, he added it’s a strategic sector, particularly in view of the rapid growth of India’s aviation sector. While the design capabilities of state-owned airframer Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd and R&D agency National Aerospace Laboratories will be drawn on for the development of the aircraft, the country also expects to collaborate with companies in India’s private sector as well as overseas institutions on the project. If developed, the new aircraft will enter a crowded field, competing with aircraft such as the Mitsubishi MRJ regional jet, Embraer 190 and Bombardier CS100. (J.L.)

Flightglobal

Flight Global

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

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Current Affairs

SOLAR IMPULSE: SF TO NYC

06-07-2013, John F. Kennedy Airport, New York, USA

ince May, the solar-powered plane Solar Impulse has been on a cross-country trip across the U.S., soaring from San Francisco to St. Louis, D.C., and finally, to New York. But its last leg was more distressing than celebratory. The Swiss-made aircraft took off on an early morning flight out of Washington en route to New York, in what was supposed to a victory lap. But by Saturday afternoon, the pilots reported balance problems with the wings, and an 2.5 metre. wide hole was discovered in fabric covering the wings. The team considered emergency options but ultimately opted to land the plane three hours ahead of schedule at John F. Kennedy International Airport, hitting the runway in a low, slow landing at 11:09 p.m. The team’s next step? An even more ambitious trip: a flight across the world in 2015. (J.L.)

THOUGHT GUIDED HELICOPTER

05-06-2013, Minneapolis, USA

model helicopter developed at the University of Minnesota can now be steered through an obstacle course by thought alone. The aircraft’s pilot operates it remotely using a cap of electrodes to detect brainwaves that are translated into commands. The new chopper can be guided up and down, as well as left or right, and it offers precise control. To move it in a particular direction, a user imagines clenching his or her hands — the left one to go left, for instance, or both to go up. That mental image alters brain activity in the motor cortex. Changes in the strength and frequency of signals recorded by electrodes on the scalp using electroencephalography, are deciphered by a computer program, to reveal the pilot’s intent. Ultimately, the developers of the copter hope to adapt their technology for medical devices. (S.S.) nature

NBC News

ARIANE 6 DESIGN SELECTED

TARDIS IN SPACE

14-03-2013, Beijing, China

09-07-13, Paris, France

he design for Europe’s next generation rocket, the Ariane 6, has been selected. It will be powered by two solid fuel lower stages and incorporate the liquid-fuelled upper-stage currently being developed as an upgrade for the existing Ariane 5 vehicle. The new launcher is expected to enter service at the start of the next decade. The Ariane 6 will have less lifting capacity than the Ariane 5, but it will launch just one spacecraft at a time, not the two routinely orbited by the Ariane 5 now. Also, the primary driver for the new configuration is the quest to reduce manufacture and operation costs. The target is to produce and launch the Ariane 6 for no more than €70m, with a development cost of about three billion euros.(S.S.)

BBC

Kickstarter

he TARDIS, a time- and space-traversing, police-boxshaped ship from the sci-fi TV show Doctor Who, might be heading to space. Doctor Who will turn 50 this November, and to celebrate, a father-daughter pair built a tiny TARDISreplica satellite. In May, they sought $33,000 on Kickstarter to launch of the satellite. Now they’ve even gone way past that goal: backers donated $88,880 to strap the satellite onto a rocket and drop it into a LEO orbit. It’s loaded with a camera for snapping shots of the Earth below, along with a hard drive, so backers can send a small amount of data on board. Now if only there were some kind of mechanism for traveling to November. (J.L.)

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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9/9/13 19:33

HUMMINGBIRD’S-EYE VIEW FOR THE US MILITARY The US research defense agency, DARPA has once again breached the innovation barrier by developing a miniature flying robot project, a humming bird mimicking Nano Air Vehicle (NAV) with AeroVironment Inc. This bio-inspired flying machine has been recognized among TIME Magazine’s 2011 best fifty inventions. The drone copies a humming birdNANO to the Drones extent of flying backwards, hover & rotate - all accomplished Invasion of the with the maneuverability of just two flapping wings. TEXT Lakshmi R Sabbapathy, Student Aerospace Engineering, Control and Simulation

io-inspired engineering has evolved over the years to pave way for solutions to various human problems. In the effort of mimicking nature, engineering has pushed the brink to hitherto unperceived research and development. DARPA Corporation is a United States military Support research organization aimed at preventing technological threats from harming their national security and is involved in important research to support the Pentagon’s classified missions. On such a quest for ‘first-of-its-kind’, DARPA financed AeroVironment Inc. for the NAV program, to develop a bio-mimicry like small flying aircraft to specifications provided by the defense agency. Thus the AeroVironment Nano Hummingbird was conceived, which is a tiny remote controlled aircraft built to resemble and fly like a hummingbird. The Hummingbird drone is equipped with a small video camera for surveillance and reconnaissance purposes and, for now, operates in the air for up to eleven minutes. It can fly outdoors, or enter a doorway to investigate indoor environments. NAV PROGRAM: The Nano Air Vehicle program’s mission was to create extremely small, ultra-light weight air systems with the ability to perform indoor, outdoor and urban military operations. The NAV proposed to explore flapping wing design to provide war fighters with unprecedented military operational configurations. Thus, the program had to push the limits of aerodynamics, power conversion efficiency, endurance and maneuverability for such small air vehicle systems.

Nano-UAV.indd 8

Developed as part of the NAV program, the humming bird drone platform turned out to be revolutionary in its ability to harness low Reynolds number physics, navigate in complex environments and communicate over significant distances. The subtle technology was made possible with massive creative investments in the field of aerodynamics to achieve high lift to drag airfoils, light-weight & efficient propulsion and power systems, guidance & navigation communication subsystems, advanced manufacturing & packaging configuration layouts etc. THE BEGINNING: Early stages of development were marked by numerous prototype errors and crashes. The trial rooms were padded with sheets of foam and plastic to avoid critical damage to the drone during test flights. The drone was improved in incremental steps, with the first flight lasting just about twenty seconds. But the progression of propulsion and control developments culminated in a final flight of up to eleven minutes, through two and six minutes, respectively. And in the last phase, stabilization and control was achieved to the extent that the remote controller could take a few minutes off the radio to catch the drone. THE FINAL DESIGN: After four and a half years of funding and an intense combination of creative, scientific, artistic problem-solving skills from the AV team, the final prototype aircraft has a wingspan of 16cm tip-to-tip and has a total flying weight of 19grams, which is less than the weight of a common AA bat-

tery. This includes all the systems required for the flight; such as batteries, motors, communication systems and a video camera. The video camera angle is defined by the pitch of the Nano’s body. Forward motion view is a very good navigation aid for the Operator and hovering motion is effective for surveying rooms. The Nano Hummingbird can fly at 18km/ hour and move in three axes of motion. Its backward flight speed range is 8 km/hour. It can withstand 2.5m/s wind gusts, can operate inside buildings while continuously sending back video imagery to the pilot, and has up to a kilometer range of command and control. MIMICKING THE HUMMING BIRD: The Aircraft is fitted with a removable body fairing, shaped to have the appearance of a real hummingbird but the drone has landing skids instead of feet and a tail. The wing is a skeleton of hollow carbonfibre rods wrapped in fibre mesh and coated in a polyvinyl fluoride film. The aircraft is larger and heavier than an average hummingbird, but is smaller and lighter than the largest hummingbird currently found in nature. The artificial hummingbird maneuvers using its flapping wings for propulsion and attitude control. The final craft is highly efficient owing to the biometric design which borrows some of the features found in small birds. At very small scales, the Reynolds number of a wing (the ratio of inertia to drag) is much lower than with manned aircraft. Under these circumstances flapping wings are more effective in providing lift than propellers or rotors. The aircraft can climb and descend verti-

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

9/4/13 14:02

AEROVIRONMENT INC.

Figure 2. Demonstration of the drone by Matthew Keennon, the humming bird UAV Project manager

cally; fly sideways left and right; forward and backward; rotate clockwise and counter-clockwise; and hover in mid-air. Such a pity that it does not indulge in nectar from flowers! It is able to fly in all ways, just by changing the curvature, the shape and different aspects of the wing movement at a very high speed. In order to fly by beating its wings back and forth, the UAV creates lift by deflecting air downward, creating an area high pressure directly below the wings and low pressure above. If the nano hummingbird sharpens the angle of its right wing on each forward stroke, and does the opposite on each backstroke, the craft rotates clockwise. The wings of this drone beat symmetrically. If the angle on the wing at the end of the forestroke and beginning of the backstroke decreases, the nose dips downward and the aircraft moves forward. By increasing the angle of only its left wing, the nano hummingbird creates more upward thrust on its left side, which will cause the bird to roll to the right. This camera-equipped bird beats its wings twenty times a second, whereas natural hummingbirds clock up to eighty. Nevertheless, it can hover like the real thing, perform rolls and even fly backwards. THROUGH THE DEVELOPMENT STAGES: This is the first aircraft to be developed that flies with two flapping wings and it is tailless. This drone is smaller than the drones now being used by the United States military. From the first day of the mission, the biggest challenge, according to experts was to develop viable propulsion and control systems with two flapping wings and a tailless configuration. This aircraft is designed to generate all necessary lift and control forces through the use of the only two moving aerodynamic parts: the two flapping wings. AV has tested over ninety different wing designs till date, many flapping mechanisms as well as many control configurations, most of which used only manipulations of the wing dynamics for a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;taillessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; design. This configuration is inherently unstable

and once flying, it immediately wants to tumble out of control, making it impossible for a human pilot to fly, without assistance from an automatic control system. Some early developmental flying prototypes used tails and propeller thrusters to research various control algorithms. Once the basic control algorithms were established, the extra control structures were removed and all control was shifted to the wings, the only active aerodynamic components on the aircraft. The above design led to the successful twenty seconds long controlled flapping flight demonstration. Once the viable propulsion system and control system was achieved, the next effort focused on optimizing the aircraft for longer flight endurances, further develop the flapping flight mechanisms, transition capability from hover to forward flight and back, as well as reducing the size, weight, and acoustic footprint. All the above are distinct technical challenges in their own right but they actually conflict with each other. As AV continued to perform flight tests, hover and fast forward flight in a single flight with integrated aircraft was achieved using a ground control system and video display. During these flights, pure hover flight endurance, pure forward flight endurance, and hover duration against added payload mass was measured. The resulting system was then tested to assess its operational utility in both indoor and outdoor missions. This amazing invention definitely did not succeed without significant failures and setbacks. Nevertheless, DARPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s consistent vision for groundbreaking inventions exceeded their own expectations. Some technical goals that marked the success of the project are: t 5IF %SPOF EFNPOTUSBUFE QSFDJTJPO hover flight within a virtual 2m-diameter sphere for one minute. t )PWFS TUBCJMJUZ JO B XJOE HVTU Ă¸ JHIU which required the aircraft to hover and tolerate a 2m/s wind gust from the side, without drifting downwind more than 1m. t $POUJOVPVT IPWFS FOEVSBODF PG FMFWFO minutes with no external power source.

t 'MZJOH JOEPPST iIFBET EPXOw XIFSF UIF pilot operates the aircraft only looking at the live video image stream from the aircraft, without looking at or hearing the aircraft directly. t 5IF BJSDSBGU Ă¸ FX JO IPWFS BOE GBTU GPS ward flight with bird-shaped body and bird-shaped wings. FUTURE PLANS FOR THE HUMMING BIRD: The humming bird Droneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s primary aim is to assist the Pentagon as an unconventional military helicopter. Its camouflaged size and appearance is believed to increase the flexibility of accessing deemedimpossible warfare and tight quarters of city environments. In the future, DARPA plans to use the teeny NAV for secret indoor and outdoor government missions, like dropping off listening devices and other cargo, and transmitting sound and video to locations as far as a kilometre away. Although there are no immediate plans to implement these drones in real-life situations, the cutting technology, which was indigenously developed to materialize this mission, could definitely be used to aptly aid other existing or future research. This bio-inspired conception has without doubt stretched our understanding of novel technology development for flight at these small sizes. In the future, DARPA has plans to invent a mechanism for these UAVs to power itself in mid-air (to increase its operation time), indoor navigation without GPS, automated collision avoidance, quieter and wind resistant systems, and improved power and communication systems; or who knows - maybe even pollinate Begonias!

References DARPAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S funding and Mission Objectives: http://www.darpa.mil AeroVironment technology Integration: http://www.avinc.com/nano Specifications of the Drone: http:// en.wikipedia.org

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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Interview

TO MARS AND BEYOND Interview with Dr. Firouz Naderi, the director solar system exploration at NASA JPL

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is the leader of the planetary missions. Located in Pasadena, California, this laboratory is responsible for the operation of NASA’s planetary spacecraft and its deep space network. The Leonardo Times was able to have an interview with Dr. Firouz Naderi, who is the director of the solar system exploration program at JPL, to talk about the new exciting missions NASA has planned for future. TEXT Aryadad Fattahyani, BSc student Aerospace Engineering, Editor Leonardo Times

Could you tell our readers about yourself and what you have been doing at JPL? Well, seeing as I have been at JPL for 33 years, there is a lot of ground to cover. Let me begin by telling you about what I am currently doing at JPL. Right now, I am the director for solar system exploration and discovery missions to all target bodies in the solar system except for Mars, which is a different program. We are currently doing a number of things right now: we have a spacecraft that has visited and orbited asteroid Vesta, the second largest asteroid, and it is now headed to the largest asteroid, Ceres. This is the first time that we can actually go into orbit around one body and come out and go into orbit of another body, and this is because we are using solar electric propulsion, which enables us to do this. We have also have

a mission around Saturn, called Cassini. It has been there since 2004, so almost ten years, and it is studying Saturn, its rings, and its moons Titan and Enceladus. We also have a mission that is on its way to Jupiter, which called JUNO; it is the first solar powered mission to deep space. Usually, nuclear power is used for such deep space missions. In addition, we are working on a mission that we are going to land on Mars in 2016, which will put a seismometer on the surface of Mars, so that we are be able to use the seismic waves to understand the interior of Mars. Another two mission are very exciting and are currently in the planning stage: first, we will be sending a spacecraft to study Jupiter’s moon Europa, to better understand the nature of the ocean on Europa. Perhaps the most exciting mis-

sion, which was announced by NASA only a short time ago, is that we are going to try a deep space rendezvous with an asteroid and correct its orbit so that when it comes back to Earth, it can be captured by the Moon, and then astronauts can fly to it and study it. You started working at JPL in 1979; in your opinion, what is the most challenging aspect of working at JPL? Well, the space exploration is a challenging activity; basically all the activities we do at JPL are challenging projects. They are usually novel and first-time missions and nobody has attempted them before, so I would say the very nature of space exploration is perhaps the most challenging aspect.

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

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NASA

Figure 1. Dr. Firouz Naderi

Figure 2. NASAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s JUNO orbiter is to enter its orbit around Jupiter in 2016

TU Delft is renowned for its aerospace programs. Have ever worked with people from TU Delft or have you ever heard about the programs? No, unfortunately I have not had an opportunity to work with your university. A Dutch private company is planning to establish a permanent colony on Mars by 2023. This is the Mars One program and entails people volunteering for a one-way trip to Mars. Do you think this is a feasible project? Do you think that people can live on Mars with the current developing technology? If not, what would be the major problems?

Mars, we would need to land something in order of 40 tons. The problem is that basically, the technology of how to land something of that size is not available. An additional problem is that we also do not have the technology right now to sufficiently protect the humans biologically during the time it takes to travel to Mars. All in all, I think the whole notion of land-

Well, it has to be Europa, which offers the most promise for existence of life. It certainly has the water required. In fact, the ocean in Europa is estimated to contain two times as much water as all of the oceans on Earth combined. There might be chemical energy, which is required for metabolism and biological activity. We believe that the molecules, the organics, will also be available. So, that would be the location or the target in the solar system with the most promise for biology today. Furthermore, finding life on Europa is more exciting than finding life on Mars, because there is always a probability that the life that has evolved on Earth might have been seeded by Mars, or vice versa, through some kind of meteorite. This means that the source for life on Mars and Earth could conceivably have been the same. If we were to find life under the crusty ice of Europa, that would be a definite second genesis of life in the solar system, which would be very exciting in the sense that life, independently, arose in two different and separate locations in the solar system.

â&#x20AC;&#x153; All the activities we do at JPL are challenging projects.â&#x20AC;?

The answer to the first questions is no, it will not happen. Humans on Mars are at least two or more decades away. The single biggest problem would be the entry, descent, and landing on Mars. The largest thing we have landed on Mars was Curiosity. Curiosity weighed a ton and the delivery system near the surface of Mars weighed in at another ton, so we have delivered two tons to the surface of Mars. In order to land humans on

ing humans on Mars by 2023 is, with all due respect, preposterous. Time to talk about some technical aspects of your job. With the current Mars missions and the InSight mission, there is a lot of emphasis on the exploration of Mars. We know that our solar system might have more to offer. For example Europa has an ocean under its surface, so life could potentially exist over there. What would you say is the most promising candidate for future non-Mars missions?

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NASA NASA

Figure 3. NASA’s Cassini orbiter was accompanied by ESA’s Huygens probe

Figure 4. NASA’s Mars Odyssey has been on-mission since 2001

Other than the JUNO mission that was discussed earlier, do you have any plans regarding the exploration of Europa?

month. Instead, we are going to put the spacecraft into an orbit around Jupiter with 32 flybys of Europa. Every time we fly by, we are going to use the gravity from Ganymede and Calisto to change the orbit of the spacecraft to obtain full coverage of Europa. The name of this mission is Europa Clipper and it would likely cost about 2.5 billion dollars. We are currently in negotiation with NASA and Congress to get it funded.

“ Humans on Mars are at least two or more decades away.” Yes, we do. In fact, we are trying get a mission funded to go to Europa in 2021, although we will not be putting the spacecraft into orbit around Europa itself. Because of the radiation, such a mission could probably not last for more than a

With the current budgetary difficulties, how does JPL try to maintain the absolute leading role in the field of planetary exploration it has been playing over the past decades? As you may know, JPL has had more planetary missions than the rest of the world combined. So, as you mentioned, it is the global leader in planetary exploration, and NASA is committed to maintaining the expertise that has been developed and evolved over five decades at JPL. The USA, and California in particular, sees a rise in commercial space companies such as SpaceX and Xcor. Does JPL, apart from NASA COTS/CCAP grants, plan any collaboration with these entities and do you think that it would be beneficial to collaborate with these companies? Well, SpaceX builds rockets and we make spacecraft, so the chances are quite high that in the future, we will use SpaceX to launch some of our spacecraft. For example, the Falcon 9 Heavy would be a promising launch vehicle to go to deep space. So yes, we will be using their rockets. Looking at the JUNO satellite, we see that it is the first beyond-Mars mission without RTGs, i.e., Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, do you think that this will be a trend for future deep space missions? Well, it is not truly the first one beyond a Mars orbit to do this. There is also the Dawn spacecraft, which uses solar electric propulsion and solar arrays, which is currently operating in the asteroid belt, which is also beyond Mars. JUNO would indeed the first mission without such generators that we have sent to any of the outer planets. It is a law in the USA that every time we want to use a nuclear powered spacecraft, we have to show that there was absolutely no alternative. This means that every time we even contemplate using technologies as ASRGs, i.e., Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generators, or MMRTGs, Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators, we need to show that solar powered spacecraft would not have been a possibility. For now we believe that we will probably be using nuclear power again for the Europa Clipper mission. Over the past years, there has been a trend towards miniaturization and use of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components in spacecraft. Do you foresee a similar trend in planetary exploration spacecraft? For example, the use of multiple micro rovers instead of one single larger rover. At JPL, in order to make sure that our engineers develop a broad range of skills, from mega spacecraft to small spacecraft, we are also now looking at cubesats that

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Since you have been involved in the projects such as Spirit and Opportunity, our readers might wonder how long it usually takes to go from the preliminary design of such rovers to the final design. How long does this whole process take? Well, Spirit and Opportunity were actually exceptions. Typical cycles from the very beginning to actual launch for planetary missions take five years. We did Spirit and Opportunity in two years, which was very remarkable and will probably be very hard to duplicate again. But, as I said, the process takes approximately five years for typical mission. Time to move on to the wellknown Curiosity mission. How satisfactory has the mission been so far? How long are you expecting the rover to be operational?

NATIONAL AIR AND SPACE MUSEUM

could be delivered to the target by the mothership. While at target, the cubesats will separate and do some complementary science. For example, for the Europa orbiter, even though we are in an orbit around Jupiter, we are thinking about including potentially five or six cubesats that would separate. They would go towards Europa and eventually crash into it, and along the way, they would be using magnetometers, spectrometers, and imagers to get close-up data from Europa. We are also using cubesats in other ways. So far, all the cubesats that have been launched have been in Low Earth Orbit; JPL is working on the world’s first interplanetary cubesat that we can hopefully launch sometime in 2014. I mentioned the asteroid retrieval mission earlier, of which I do not know whether it has publicized it in Europe yet, in which we are planning to bag an asteroid. We think we will take a cubesat and release it, so that it could image or video the actual capture of the asteroid.

Figure 5. Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons

ogy on Mars; this was not the objective of Curiosity. The objective was to find out whether it could have been a habitat and the answer is yes. As far as the lifetime, consider that we designed Spirit and Opportunity with a period of ninety days in mind and Opportunity has now been operational for nine years. Curiosity has been designed for two Earth years, i.e.,

so it has to basically stand down for a month. As the director for solar system exploration, what do you see for the future of space exploration for the next decade or two? How much progress are you expecting NASA to make regarding this issue by that time?

“ Finding life on Europa

The mission has basically achieved its scientific objective. The scientific objective of Curiosity was to find out whether Mars could have the potential to be a habitat; not that it has been, but could that it could have been a habitat. We now know that the answer is yes because we have found rivers where water which we could drink has flowed, maybe up to knee-deep. We have also shown that all the biogenic elements like oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and nitrogen are all present on Mars, and furthermore, we have found molecules in different states of oxidization, which means that they would have had the chemical energy to metabolize a biological entity. All in all, we have shown that Mars could indeed have been a habitat. We have not shown that there currently is or has been biol-

is more exciting than finding life on Mars.” one Martian year, so who knows how long it would last! I would certainly not be surprised if goes for a decade. While on this topic, let us focus on the solar conjunction between Earth and Mars that is currently happening. How did you manage to control Curiosity during this period? We have just been able to restore communication with Curiosity. And as for communication, you really do not communicate. You have minimal communication: you simply do not do anything and you do not command it to do anything,

I have mentioned to you some of the most challenging missions a decade ahead: the Europa mission, the asteroid retrieval mission, and potentially with Mars 2020, the first leg of a Mars sample return from that planet.

A hypothetical question: if you could set a mission goal for exploration without any concern for budgetary requirements or political support, what would that goal be? Maybe a Hydrosat to the ocean of Europa where you would in fact land on the surface of Europa. You could then have a nuclear jet that could melt its way through the thickness of ice. This could then go underneath the ice, leaving behind a tether so it can communicate back to the surface and eventually to Earth. From there, we could go to the ocean below and maybe a submarine of sorts would detach and explore the ocean and send information back via sonar (SOund SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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Navigation And Ranging) to the ship. This could in turn be transmitted to Earth, together with the images taken and data collected. This mission could potentially find that there is some form of evolved life in the oceans of Europa. It would be interesting for our readers if you could share with us one of the best memories of your career?

signal to come back and say that indeed we are in orbit around Mars, those were some of the hardest times. But of course, we did it successfully and we went on to build Spirit and Opportunity, and afterwards Phoenix and finally Curiosity. So, all in all, we have had the good fortune

ate about the job that you do and you need to remain curious. Every five years, I have changed focus at JPL. I started my job at JPL working on communication satellites, did that for five years and then changed focus to Earth remote sensing, which I then also did for five years. After that, I did astrophysics and managed Mars programs, each for five years. Then I did strategic planning and finally moved into my current job, which I started two or three years ago. Some people would like to stay in a single field and spend twenty or thirty years on it. That is very good because then they van become world experts in one field; I prefer to be familiar with many more aspects of space exploration and that is what has kept me interested for more than thirty years.

“ The objective of Curiosity was to find out whether Mars could have

I was named the Mars program manager after NASA had experienced two failures in 1998 and 1999. This meant that the very first activity or launch to Mars under my direction was the launch of Mars Odyssey in 2001. Seven months after the launch, at the control room, we were all waiting to get a Doppler signal indicating that the orbiter had successfully wrapped itself around Mars. Especially given that the previous two NASA attempts has resulted in failure, everyone was looking to have a success. For those two or three minutes when we were waiting for the Doppler

been a habitat. The answer is yes!” of having six successful missions to Mars whereas previously, the record of Mars exploration has not been very good. As my last question, I would like to ask you, as a person working for NASA, what your advice would be to enthusiastic students who would want to work in the same field as you do?

NASA

The success in a career does not happen overnight, so you need to be passion-

Figure 6. An aerial view of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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Has problem solving always been your passion?

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COMEBACK OF THE DREAMLINER Multiple layer protection for the 787 battery systems

BOEING

LVD

In April of this year the Federal Aviation Administration approved the new battery systems of the 787-8 Dreamliner, and after having been grounded for three months, the aircraft were cleared for take-off. Boeing dealt with serious problems when complications occurred with the batteries of the 787. Looking back, Boeing did not only solve the problems it was facing, but the aviation company took an additional step and announced the final assembly of the 787-9 Dreamliner. TEXT Shahrzad Hosseini, Student Aerospace Engineering, President of the 20th Aviation Department

PROBLEM SCENARIO ANALYSIS Since January of this year, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner faced two incidents in which the lithium ion batteries of the aircraft overheated and resulted in failure. The FAA ordered a general grounding of the aircraft which put both the Boeing Company and its Dreamliner customers in a serious situation. The last time the FAA had ordered such a general grounding was in the year 1979 after a fatal crash of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10. In an official statement, the FAA said: “The in-flight Japanese battery incident followed an earlier 787 battery incident that occurred on the ground in Boston on January 7, 2013. The airworthiness directive is prompted by this second incident in-

LVD 0913.indd 16

volving a lithium ion battery. The battery failures resulted in release of flammable electrolytes, heat damage, and smoke on two model 787 airplanes. The root cause of these failures is currently under investigation. These conditions, if not corrected, could result in damage to critical systems and structures, and the potential for fire in the electrical compartment.” With approximately sixty airliners depending on the Boeing’s Dreamliner, the company was under quite an amount of pressure since a grounded aircraft is financially far from ideal for the airline and can lead to severe situations. Yet, safety is the most important factor in commercial aviation and therefore the FAA grounded the young Dreamliner 787-8 which had been

in service for less than two years. “The safety of the flying public is our top priority and we won’t allow the 787 to return to commercial service until we’re confident that any proposed solution has addressed the battery failure risks”, said an Administrator of the FAA Michael P. Huerta, in his speech on safety and efficiency in February of this year. PLAN OF ACTION The aviation company has spent more than 100,000 working hours since the beginning of this year, on not only solving this problem but also to ensure an unfailing future for the aircraft’s battery systems. First of all, a complete knowledge of the

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BLOOMBERG

battery failure had to be obtained before any further steps could be taken. A team of Boeing engineers, investigators of the National Transportation Safety Board, the Japan Transport Safety Board and battery experts from various fields were assigned to analyze the batteries of the Dreamliner and to perform a variety of tests. According to Boeing, the Dreamliner has become the most tested commercial airplane ever built. FOCUSING ON SOLUTIONS The main focus of the analysis and engineering to recover and renew the battery systems of the Dreamliner was to prevent and isolate a possible occurring fault. Yet, a broader plan of action was needed to satisfy this focus since parts of production, operations and testing were adjusted and improved. A new steel enclosure system is designed, such that if the battery were to overheat, the rest of the aircraft will not be affected and consequently act as a threat to its safety. According to Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Ray Conner, “This is a comprehensive and permanent solution with multiple layers of protection. The ultimate layer of protection is the new enclosure, which will ensure that even if a battery fails, there is no impact to the airplane and no possibility of fire. We have the right solution in hand and we are ready to go.” THREE LAYERS OF PROTECTION The multiple layer protection which was announced to be the solution of the Dreamliner battery issues consist primarily of the following components. The first step of improvement is in the manufacturing field. The build processes for the cell and battery are enhanced and so are the production tests of these components. The next part of the solution is applied in the design phase, in which the company has implemented charger design improvements, tightened the voltage range and worked on the design of the battery. As mentioned before, the part that is added and thus new in the overall battery system is the enclosure system. This system is designed to deal with any type of battery failure and tests have shown that it even has the ability to contain a full-battery failure. GETTING THE 787’S BACK IN THE AIR When the improved batteries were approved by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in April of this year, it was time for customer service and installing the new systems on the 787s. With the Dreamliner customers being spread

Figure 2. Special operations vehicles surround the 787 Dreamliner after a fire broke out.

worldwide, Boeing sent teams around to install the new and improved battery systems. A number of fifty airplanes needed to be visited by the teams, in seventeen cities and nine countries. Per airplane, the work time demands a total of five days. Ray Conner: “The Boeing team is ready to help get our customers’ 787s back in the air where they belong”. The approval of the FAA also began a new phase of production deliveries, and the factory now has an increased production rate of seven airplanes per month. EXTENDING THE 787 FAMILY Improving the 787-8 Dreamliner has not been the only focus of Boeing in the past months but the company has extended the Dreamliner with a longer version of the aircraft. In June the final assembly of the 787-9 commenced and with 355 of this new Dreamliner family member ordered worldwide, the first flight is scheduled for the second half of 2013. The new Dreamliner will carry forty extra passengers and will use 20% less fuel compared to similar sized aircraft, and allow an additional 550 kilometers of flight. FOCUS OF COMMERCIAL AVIATION INDUSTRY The 787 Dreamliner started out as Boeing’s innovative aircraft which was marked by its efficiency and environmentally friendly properties. The major setback which the

company had to deal with required intensive analysis, engineering and labor. In the future, new technology will inevitably bring along new complications and concerns for any aviation company. New systems will be presented and technology will further evolve. Our main focus, which marks our responsibility in the aviation industry, is to create an environment for passengers to fly on our wings safely. CONTACT LVD-VSV@student.tudelft.nl

References www.boeing.com www.newairplane.com www.bbc.co.uk/news/business www.smh.com.au

Aviation Department The Aviation Department of the Society of Aerospace Engineering Students ‘Leonardo da Vinci’ fulfills the needs of aviation enthousiasts by organising activities, like lectures and excursion in the Netherlands and abroad.

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AD&C LTD.

Interview

FROM CONCEPT TO CERTIFICATION Interview with AD&C co-founder and CEO Marcus Basien

Before any aircraft concept takes to the sky, air travel authorities require the aircraft be certified. One would expect a big organisation like EASA would function like a centralised verification authority. However, small companies like Aircraft Design & Certification Ltd. offer certification services for general aviation aircraft. Leonardo Times sat down with AD&C co-founder Marcus Basien to discuss the process of certification, future developments of the industry and possibilities for Aerospace Engineering students. TEXT Jules L’Ortye and Lubi Spranger, BSc Students Aerospace Engineering, Editors Leonardo Times

AD&C is a design organisation that focuses on the certification of small aircraft. How was the company founded?

cally because they did not realise what it means to certify.’ What do you think it means to certify?

‘We are a design organisation. We are approved as such by EASA to certify designs, but this does not necessarily mean that we’re creating our own designs. So, the product of our company is not a specific part or an aeroplane. We deliver the service to certify an aeroplane. This started as a consequence of my annoyance with the following: every design project you start to be involved in, you start certifying the organisation first. Additionally, a lot of companies in the general aviation world start up and try to design something and then they fail economi-

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‘Certification projects always start with the certification of the organisation. Maybe we can make the certification process more efficient if we stop certifying new organisations. EASA, very early in their beginning, published that a design organisation can be in the supply chain of a product. The traditional aeroplane companies have a design office and a production office. The design office has two functions: designing the actual aeroplane and showing compliance with the requirements set by au-

thorities. EASA allowed that process to be performed by a different organisation; a service supplier. Note that this process is a highly specialised task that touches the core of your product. This is something that struck me. At the time I was working as an independent consultant. This meant that I would join a project team from a certain company and become part of the design organisation. While doing so, I performed the Compliance Verification Engineering certification and often helped them be an organisation. Then I decided to do this one last time for my own company and then offer these services, including the organisational certification, to interested companies. Therefore, the technical

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AD&C LTD.

Figure 1. Tail test of a light airplane

content of the work that we are doing is still the same as when I was working independently as a consultant, but we can go a lot broader now. Not solely because we have a larger workforce, but also because we have the approval to do so. This is why AD&C was founded and how it started almost ten years ago. The engineers that go from one aircraft project to another are called the gypsies of aviation. I try to collect those gypsies into a tribe around me that offers certification services.’ Is there always a fixed guide to certification or is it a flexible process dependent on the problem at hand? ‘One has to discriminate between the procedure and the technical content. The procedure is basically always the same. You have an application in which the problem is defined. Once you have defined the problem and determined if the aircraft at hand is actually certifiable, you accurately describe the product and the problem. This is an important step because ultimately it is your organisation that will sign for the showing of compliance, not EASA. The next step is

to hand in your application; a very formal step. From this moment on, an interesting period starts where one has to work with your counterpart at EASA. This joint team is called the certification team, spearheaded by the primary certification manager. This team discusses which certification basis should be used. There is some flexibility in the choice of the certification basis. In class, students will encounter expressions like CS-23 and CS-25. These are certification specifications. However, the certification basis entails a bit more. It is a summary of everything that you agree upon with the authority that you should apply in the certification. Although all these sets are predefined, they are not a law. The only law that we have is PART 21. The PART 21 code defines the regulations that specify the certification procedures. PART 21 stipulates that you have to come up and agree with EASA upon a certification basis. Theoretically, from a legal point of view, you could certify a small aeroplane against CS-25. Though it wouldn’t make sense, theoretically you could take a large transport aeroplane and certify it against the CS-VLA (Very Light Aeroplane) code. Fortunately, nobody will ac-

cept that. Nonetheless, from a legal point of view it is possible and has been used. For example, the CS-VLA code dictates that Very Light Aeroplanes are limited to fly under VFR-day conditions, carry a maximum of two persons and have no more than one engine. These days, there are a lot of examples of Very Light Aeroplanes certified to fly under for VFR-night conditions, carry a maximum of three person, et cetera. So, it allows for flexibility. On top of that, the standard sets are always subjected to cases like certification review items or special conditions. In those cases, you or the authorities believe that the current code does not address a given problem. For instance, we have a customer that wants to couple two engines with a gearbox to act as one engine. From a certification point of view, each individual engine needs its own Type Certificate. However, the two engines act as one. The question then, is whether, from a certification point of view, the aeroplane is a single engine aircraft or a twin-engine aircraft. The aeroplane is unable to operate with only one engine, yet one can clearly distinguish two engine units. Another problem in the certification of this aircraft is the fact SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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AD&C LTD.

timeframe? ‘Yes, we do! They do have limits that dampen the reaction time but those tend to be mostly budgetary limits. Certain specialists like flight test people are not always available when you need them. Other than that, I have never seen the elapse time of the project driven up by the authority.’ Which of the projects you worked on were the most interesting to you personally?

AD&C LTD.

Figure 2. Exploded view of wing components

Figure 3. Seat testing as done by AD&C employees

that one has to realize that the type certificate of the engine was drafted while it was assumed that the engine would have a propeller at its flange. In this case, the engine is connected to a gearbox. This will induce different vibrations on the engines. Therefore, the engines are acting in an environment they were not certified for. For me, this is the interesting aspect of the certification process: In those cases we have to work closely with the authorities since the standard set of requirements do not foresee the characteristics of the aircraft.’ In those cases, you have to work around the problem? ‘Instead of working around this problem, you have to make a definition of the certification basis with the EASA specialists or whoever else is in your team.’ Once something is pioneered, does that result into a new certification basis?

AD&C.indd 20

‘Up to now, we have written two certification bases. In one of those cases, we weren’t working on an EASA project. Instead we were working for the Solar Impulse project. The Solar Impulse is a Swiss-built electric aircraft powered by photovoltaic cells. Once again we faced a problem where the certification bases were not suited for this given aircraft. We encountered something totally different. The Solar Impulse is an aeroplane with a wing loading that is so low, that according to Swiss law it is not even an aeroplane. Looking at the wing loading, one could argue this aircraft can be certified as a hang glider. However, a hang glider should not have an engine, not to mention four. Luckily, there is a good working relation with the authorities. The certification of those peculiar aircraft is something you have to do together.’ How do you experience the cooperation with EASA? Do you get a lot of feedback from EASA within a reasonably small

‘Within our current company we worked all the way from so-called minor changes to Supplemental Type Certificates, which go a bit deeper in the design of an aeroplane. The projects that have full Type Certificates are the more interesting ones. Those projects include all facets of an aeroplane, including the things that are—from a certification point of view – relatively repetitive. I have two examples of interesting projects. There was a crash of a glider in Austria in 2010. The glider, a classical instruction glider aeroplane with a very good record, lost a wing and crashed. A fatigue problem was detected and the consequence of that crash was that the aeroplane, designed in the sixties of the last century, has been grounded worldwide. EASA decided to ground the aeroplane until the problem has been resolved. We had to dig into design data that was sixty years old and into documentation that was fifty years old. It was done in what we call the Eastern Bloc. We made an arrangement with the company that was the manufacturer at the time. We made a so-called ‘TCHolder arrangement’ in which they gave us design data of the aeroplane that was interesting from both structural and certification and a procedural point of view. We started modifying the structure that already had a fifty-year life behind it and that’s quite interesting to do. The other interesting project was confined and is running right now. We’re doing a certification for a company in Leipzig, Germany, that is basically a hard-core chemistry company. One of the things they have designed is a new type of covering material for everything that is fabric-covered, may it be it for a glider or an aeroplane. We were asked whether we could certify it so that they can sell it to any fabric covered aeroplane type. That’s interesting. That’s very broad. How do you tackle that? These types of projects are really interesting since you truly dig into them. That would never happen if it weren’t for EASA allowing third-party companies to offer certification services. That’s the interesting part.’

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Figure 4. AD&C founders Marcus Basien and Boris Kölmel

AD&C LTD.

‘There is competition, but not a lot. The competition is not of a level that other companies are offering the exact same services that we do. What we do is offer our design organisation to customers. Let’s say you have got a project and you want it certified, we can do that for you. You use us as the service supplier. And I see only two other companies offering a relatively similar product at this moment. We have one direct competitor offering certification and one company that offers the actual design activity in a way that it’s certifiable. I see the competition more in the way where we have to compete with our customers. As they decide whether they want to do their own design certification or use our services. Whoever wants to design something for aviation and wants it certified, will face this decision.

AD&C LTD.

Is there a lot of competition in this niche market?

The market in aviation is highly dynamic. Which changes do you expect to have a big influence on AD&C’s business model? ‘We were faced with EASA, being tasked by Brussels to simplify processes for smaller projects and companies. Hence, to relieve the need for a design organisation. A certification process where the applicant can certify an aeroplane without being a design organisation; without the need for a design organisation. Correctly setting up a certification program shows an organisation’s know-how. And in the end that’s exactly what you have to do to come up with a design organisation tool. The only thing that happens is that this process is never designed to give any privilege or responsibility to the one that executes it. Consequently, EASA has to do all the verification. Therefore, this project or program may be attractive for the applicant it may be even cheap for them. However, it would cause a lot of work on the authority’s side. There is a reason we spend – note we’re a small company – 6000 euros per year on EASA just to be a design organisation. Furthermore, we have our internal audit twice a year. During this period, our company is shut down for a week. Additionally, we have the surveillance audit once a year, when we’re blocked for another week. We have a certain amount of time dedicated to just being a design organisation. And that gives us privileges, which of course also cost us

Figure 5. The AD&C team in front of the Solar Impulse

money in the end. If you want to substitute this in the so-called ELA1 (European Light Aircraft) process, somebody has got to pay in the end. Therefore, I’m not convinced this is a good thing to do. Initially, we were very worried that our business concept would collapse, but that’s not the case. Not at all. Customers realise experience is important. As an organisation, what do I expect in the future? I think we will have quite some changes in technology. Especially looking at all-electric aeroplane concepts. There’s a lot of subsidy money from the European network directed to programs that develop an all-electric aeroplane. A lot of projects come up with electric propulsion systems that are still in its infancy and they don’t get very far. This is because of problems regarding the battery capacity for example. Still, it’s a new technology, so there will have to be new certification standards to be able to ad-

dress these changes.’ Although AD&C is a relatively small company, they’re offering internships to students who finished their Aerospace Engineering Bachelor’s degree. We also asked if it possible for students to do their graduation thesis at AD&C. Basien told us:

‘Yes. Actually, we have already doing that, both within our company and within companies of customers. I’m quite happy with how that works. It’s a matter of timing; full Type Certifications are ideal. As long as we have a topic and you got three to six months, you can consider these internships.’

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EADS

Interview

THE FUTURE OF COMMERCIAL AIR TRANSPORT Jan van Toor, VP within EADS Corporate Technical Office CTO, gives a look into the future of aviation

Jan van Toor spends his time at EADS Innovation Works looking into the future, designing advanced concepts and initiating research efforts to analyse the feasibility and affordability of such a project. He recently visited the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering to give a lecture, and agreed to an interview with the Leonardo Times about the future of commercial air transport as EADS sees it unfolding over the next few decades. TEXT Nout van Zon, BSc Student Aerospace Engineering, Editor Leonardo Times

INTRODUCTION The Leonardo Times had the privilege of interviewing Jan van Toor, Vice President at EADS, head of GIN Innovative Concepts & Long Term Scenarios, when he visited the faculty for a lecture on the future of aviation. Jan van Toor spoke about the various projects he has worked on and is currently working on, the future of the aerospace industry and what opportunities lay ahead for TU Delft aerospace engineering students. He spends his time at EADS looking into the future, designing advanced concepts and initiating research efforts to analyze the feasibility and affordability of advanced projects in the near and far future. By working to identify projects in which EADS divisions can work together, he is in his words ‘fishing for synergies’. By joining together various engineering efforts at Airbus, Eurocopter, Cassidian and Astrium, he hopes to initiate projects that will create

solutions to the various challenges facing the aerospace industry today and in the future. The VoltAir and ZEHST concept aircraft are two of the projects Jan van Toor has been working on recently, which he spoke about in some detail. VOLTAIR VoltAir is one of the advanced concepts within EADS, which consists of an ‘All Electric Aircraft’ and could be the solution to the world’s environmental challenges. Aviation has a significant environmental footprint, as a lot of energy is needed to fly from A to B and aircraft emit most of their pollutants in very sensitive layers of the atmosphere. Additionally, given that weight is such a big driver in the design, construction and operation of an aircraft, low-weight solutions such as the VoltAir could be very beneficial. This concept aircraft powers through the

sky using two counter-rotating and openrotor propellers that run on efficiently stored electrical batteries. However, for it to be feasible, Mr Van Toor would require batteries with high energy density, which have not been developed yet. Batteries are still heavy and weigh the aircraft down. As such, a solution must be found to efficiently store energy in a light-weight and cost-effective manner. Van Toor is waiting for a brilliant mind to invent an energy storage system which is much more light-weight and efficient than using current battery technology. This, he believes, would revolutionize the aerospace industry and modern day commercial transport. ZEHST Besides flying more efficiently, EADS Innovation Works has also been looking at flying faster, at hypersonic speeds even. The Zero Emission High Speed Trans-

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port (ZEHST) project involves such a high-speed aircraft that could transport around sixty passengers at truly dazzling speeds of up to Mach 5. EADS is currently investigating the feasibility of this project and also whether hypersonic transport would be able to meet the needs of the aviation market over the coming decades. The research and development costs that come with ZEHST will be substantial, but perhaps new enabling technologies will make a concept such as ZEHST affordable in thirty to forty years. The best start of a high risk project such as ZEHST is, according to Mr Van Toor, the military market, where the interest for hypersonic technologies may be a lot higher and the available budgets significantly larger. ZEHST has a lot of potential, but it does remain a mode of transport marked by a very high energy consumption and as such, it can turn out to be very costly indeed. Possibly suborbital space transport could provide the same time savings at lower operating costs and environmental impact, given that a large portion of the mission takes place outside of the atmosphere. ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES Mr Van Toor sees a couple of potential technological innovations that, if they were to come to pass, would enable many new products and could bring significant

EADS

Figure 1. ZEHST by EADS Innovation Works pictured aloft showing on-board propulsion systems

Figure 2. ZEHST by EADS Innovation Works pictured at Schiphol

improvements to existing products. In terms of advanced concept design, Van Toor expects a higher degree of integration of the propulsion system with the airframe and fuselage in the future. This, in turn, would have a positive effect on the flow around the aircraft and thus reduce drag, while increasing lift. The main design drivers for an energy efficient aircraft are excellent aerodynamics and an extremely lightweight construction. Efficient aerodynamics would in turn allow for even fewer batteries, further improving the aircraft performance by eliminating weight. A higher degree of integration of the engines and the fuselage, combined with laminar wings for large transport aircraft are some of the new enabling technologies Mr Van Toor expects to see in aircraft in the coming decades. WORKING AT EADS “We lack a few thousand of engineers” was his response when asked about potential opportunities for Delft students of aerospace engineering. Having completed his advanced concept design master himself here in Delft, he was happy to say that EADS sees the education at Delft as an excellent one. Because students follow aerospace-related courses from the first year onwards, the aerospace engineering students at TU Delft fit very well into the engineering profile companies like EADS look for. Jan van Toor personally believes

that his education in Delft was a perfect preparation for the exciting career he has at EADS, as he states Delft is “among the best educations you can get for a start in aerospace engineering.” However, in order to work at a globally acting company such as EADS, one does have to be a global actor themselves. One of the prerequisites for a job at EADS is to accept a certain degree of mobility and some ‘job hopping’ between the various business sectors of the EADS company. After a couple of years throughout Europe, doing anything from aerodynamics to structures to management, Van Toor advises potential hopefuls to choose what you like most and go for it. Finally, it was good to hear from him that EADS has now developed a career path, not only for managers, but for engineers as well. This allows an engineer at EADS to get to the same top levels as an executive, receive the same pay and bonus and be honored for their work in their respective technical disciplines.

References EADS website: http://www.eads.net

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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DESIGN

SYNTHESIS EXERCISE

2013 TEXT

The design synthesis exercise forms the closing piece of the third year of the Bachelor degree course at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering at TU Delft. In this exercise the students learn to apply their acquired knowledge from all aerospace disciplines in one complete design. The object of this exercise is to improve the students’ design skills while working in teams with their fellow students. In the exercise Systems Engineering plays an important role. In the design/synthesis exercise, students work in groups of ten, for a period of ten weeks full time on the design of a (part of an) aircraft, spacecraft, space mission or wind turbine. Despite the fact that the final designs result from a design process executed by small groups of students with limited experience, it can be concluded that the designs are of good quality. Not only the scientific staff of the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, but also

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Ir. Joris Melkert - Coordinator Design Synthesis Exercise

the external experts and industry, which have supported the design projects, have expressed their appreciation of the results. In the spring exercise of this year, 18 groups worked on a range of topics. They ranged from designs of UAVs to large passenger aircraft and from a mission to Mars to swarms of satellites. The students presented their results in the design symposium held on July 4th. During the symposium their presentations were judged by a jury consisting out of 21 experts from academia and industry form seven different countries in Europe.

will take part in the IMAV competition in Toulouse this fall. A hybrid MAV is a Micro Aerial Vehicle that can take-off and land vertically, but can also perform horizontal flight. The exercise is coached by multidisciplinary teams of experienced staff members. Each team has one principal tutor and two additional coaches. These guide the student through the exercise and grade them at the end. Next to that a team of six staff members coordinates the whole of the exercise. This in all makes it the largest educational activity of the faculty.

At the end of the symposium the jury awarded the “Fedde Holwerda Design Challenge Trophy” to the team that worked on the design called “Swarm of hybrid MAVs”. In addition to the trophy all team members received a certificate, eternal fame and a group dinner sponsored by the company ADSE. This design focused on a series of hybrid MAVs that

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

9/13/13 15:14

KITE POWER SYSTEM

In a world where technologies evolve at a surprisingly fast pace and competition is at an all-time high, it has become of utmost importance to push innovation to an even greater extent and break through into the unthinkable. This way, as technologies for wind energy extraction are developed, revolutionizing methods are created that improve the way in which power is generated. Even though wind turbines have been the core idea of wind power generation, a trend of using power kites is gaining interest among many research groups and companies all around the world. The Kite Power Group of the TU Delft has jumped in the bandwagon to use this pumping kite system to harvest high altitude wind energy. TEXT DSE group 1

he reason this switch between technologies is being made can be attributed to several reasons: The tips of the blades from a wind turbine are the most effective in generating energy. By avoiding the need for all the material in between â&#x20AC;&#x201C;namely the hub and the rest of the bladesâ&#x20AC;&#x201C; the same efficiency in energy extraction can be obtained, which will in turn reduce costs and structural needs. A kite provides the opportunity to achieve the high turning speed of the blade tips whilst reducing the material required by simply using tether lines and a bridle system. Additionally, higher altitudes with higher wind speed are easily accessible. However, a big challenge this technology has run into is the need for proper and efficient automation. As part of the Design Synthesis Exercise, an automated launch, landing and storage system has been developed to accommodate a 70m2 inflatable kite. This system should operate fully autonomously for a period of three months, at which point the kite and main line are scheduled to be replaced. It must be capable of performing optimally in a wind speed range of 4 to 25m/s to maximize

the uptime in which the kite can extract energy from the high altitude winds. The final design of such a system is based on a vertical boom of 35m height, upon which a horizontal aluminum beam is mounted with the capability to slide up and down. This horizontal beam serves as a landing platform for the kite when it is positioned at the top of the vertical boom and can then be lowered into a storage equipped with alternating sliding poles. These poles have the task to keep the entire bridle system and kite folded and in tension while stored, to avoid entanglement and damage of the system. As the operation of the kite should be maximized, a decision-making tool was implemented to ensure the kite is stored only when there is the risk of a thunderstorm or if the wind speed range is not met. The various results that were produced during the design phase lead the way for several conclusions: an optimal automated launch, landing and storage system has been developed for the pumping kite. This current system generates 30kW of power in average, but can easily be scaled up to generate 150kW. Thanks to

the decision-making tool, a kite uptime of 84% was achieved, which not only ensures that energy generation is maximized but also that the consumption of the system for landing, launch and storage is decreased to less than 1% of the produced energy. This, coupled with the fact that the entire structure is built of highly accessible and sustainable materials ensures that the environmental bottom line is met. Finally it would be important to point out that despite the system having an initial investment cost of â&#x201A;Ź53,000, this only accounts for 4% of the total lifetime costs. By optimizing the kite and line replacement procedure and scaling up the generated power to have a rated power of 150kW, this system has the potential to be implemented on a much larger scale and become a common sight in the future world.

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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CONTROLLABLE INFLATABLE AEROSHELL

From the moment when man first looked up at the stars he has dreamed about the unknown that lies beyond. According to legend, the articulated ambition to explore the universe first appeared somewhere around 1500 in China – a Ming Dynasty official Wan Hu attached 47 small rockets to a chair and sat down holding the strings of two kites to guide his vehicle in flight. The explosion that followed led to the loss of a promising spacecraft and an ambitious man, but the mission that this project builds towards is more ambitious yet – to put man on Mars.

KEES VEENENBOS

TEXT DSE group 3

he objective was to design a controllable system architecture for the guided atmosphere-assisted deceleration of a vehicle employing an inflatable aeroshell – NASA’s response to the challenge of decelerating an exploration-class (unprecedentedly massive) vehicle in the thin Martian atmosphere – to arrive at a particular location in Martian atmosphere with a particular energy level before landing. Unlike a conventional rigid aeroshell whose thermal protection system is too heavy to make the launch economically viable, an inflatable aeroshell can be deployed to diameters far exceeding the limiting dimension – the diameter of the launcher fairing. The increase in the surface area that interacts with the atmosphere also makes the aeroshell much more effective at decelerating the craft – allowing conventional supersonic deceleration methods to be used at higher altitudes. To dissipate enough energy, the vehicle needs to interact with the atmosphere more than once. Designing a human-rated system, however, means that reliability and safety are top priorities and the number of interactions should be minimized, reducing the possibility of error and subsequent mission failure. This leads to a maximum of two interactions: aerocapture followed by Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL). Aerocapture reduces the energy from interplan-

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etary flight to orbital levels while EDL (sans “Landing”) decelerates the vehicle to supersonic speeds. Having determined the entrance and exit conditions for the aerocapture maneuver leading to the target orbit from which the vehicle proceeds to EDL, the challenge is to fly through a 300m x 75m ellipse 13km above Martian sea level at Mach 1.8. Given a maximum lift to drag ratio of 0.3 (as produced by a model that uses the Modified Newtonian method) the aerocapture and EDL trajectories were optimized (with respect to heat load in aerocapture and peak g-loads in EDL) by allowing the vehicle’s attitude to the flow to vary within the allowable angles of attack (dictated by the location of the stagnation point), varying the magnitude of the lift and drag vectors. The resulting aerocapture maneuver dissipates 55% of the vehicle’s total energy, leaving the atmosphere at 4,715m/s to proceed into a 1-sol orbit before descending to the target ellipse in 400 seconds. An extensive trade-off process led to a concept that creates a double-axis center of gravity offset by displacing the aft center body to change the vehicle’s attitude to the flow through moment equilibrium. The mechanism that displaces the aft body is a double-rail system that provides a total longitudinal displacement of 0.9m and a total

lateral displacement of 0.2m with a mass of 370kg (including driving motors and gear boxes but excluding energy sources). Progressive mass estimates suggest that the control and deceleration system mass fraction (includes thermal protection system and aeroshell structural mass) can be reduced from 20% to circa 15%. The controller showed that following the reference trajectory for aerocapture (atmospheric anomalies and normal variability excluded) was possible with an error margin of 0.17° allowing the spacecraft to proceed accurately to the target orbit. Despite 5Hz oscillations encountered in some controllers for EDL (that are thought to stem from the fact that those controllers are underdeveloped and the reference signal has kinks), the simulation results back the feasibility of this system – hitting the target ellipse at Mach 1.8 is possible with the chosen architecture. Given more time, the project would have led to a more complete design, especially in terms of the vehicle’s structural properties and the reliability of the EDL controllers. Still, the groundwork has been laid for future endeavors in the hope that mankind can break free from its earthly bounds. For further info, contact the author at alex.minich@gmail.com

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

9/13/13 15:14

DSE - ADVANCED WINGSUIT

Similar to other amazing stories about aviation, this story starts with the famous tale of Icarus. The Greek son of the master craftsman Daedalus dreamt of human flight and used feathers and wax to build his own set of wings; his own personal wingsuit. Ever since, men have tried to imitate birdflight with various constructions. The first recorded attempt of a construction similar to present wingsuits dates back to 1930. A sailcloth was used between the legs to increase horizontal movement and maneuverability during skydiving. In the meantime, the classic wingsuit has evolved into a ram-air inflated extreme sports monster. TEXT DSE group 4

oday, wingsuits are more popular than ever. Especially since the development of portable cameras, online wingsuiting videos have inspired many to try the sport. And, where many try, there are also many who fail. The number of fatalities has increased dramatically, and since 2008 has even doubled. In 2012, thirteen people lost their lives pursuing Icarus’ dream. Given the small size of the wingsuiting community at about 4000 strong, these numbers are considerable. “Almost everyone in the close-knit community has lost someone they cared about to the sport, and many even saw it happen with their own eyes”, says Matthijs Beekman, responsible for the survey sent to almost seventy parachuting enthusiasts. “We’ve learnt a lot from this survey, especially about which aspects of wingsuiting can be improved”, he continues. The major issues were stuck zippers when freeing your hands to steer the parachute, lack of stall awareness, and shoulder fatigue after prolonged flight. All these issues were due to the unconventional way a wingsuit ‘flies’. Like a wise Space Ranger once said: “It’s not flying, it’s falling with style.” (Lightyear, 1995) Wingsuits are designed on a trial-and-error basis, and no-one had a clue of the associ-

ated flow behavior. This project is the first scientific approach to this design process and the specifics of wingsuits had to be discovered. The team contacted Phoenix-Fly, a major wingsuit manufacturer, for advice. Fortunately, Dutch top-dog wingsuit flyer Jarno Cordia was able to provide a solid basis of knowledge for the group to build on. To get an understanding of the flow around a wingsuit, the group set up a qualitative windtunnel test. Using smoke and tufts, the flow separation became clearly visible on a portion of the leg wing, as well as behind the parachute. The discovery of a second leading edge on the wingsuiter’s arm, which arises due to leading edge morphing, was also surprising. An approximation of the shape was made by fitting two airfoils on end. Several variations of these shapes were made, and then run in JavaFoil and XFLR5, two potential flow programs, at typical wingsuiting Reynolds numbers between 1.63*106 and 5.44*106. These methods were validated with experimental data from a NACA0021 airfoil. For a more quantitative analysis, a CFD program was used for the final selection of the right two-airfoil model to represent a wingsuit. In addition to developing a new model, the aforementioned safety issues were

addressed with revolutionary new inventions. A passive flap, as employed by birds, splits reversed flow at high angles of attack, increasing lift. Fully deployed, it can trigger an audible stall warning to increase the pilot’s situational awareness. Another improvement is a droop leading edge, which can be directed downwards to momentarily increase lift, enabling the pilot to maneuver out of dangerous situations. Furthermore, reenergizing tunnels, starting at the wingsuiter’s sternum and ending behind the parachute, counter the boundary layer moment deficit caused by the sudden end of the parachute container. (Tilmann, 1999) Vortex generators pull the flow inside the boundary layer, thus energizing it. In the new design, the inflatable wing parts are connected so they inflate evenly, solving this problem during the exit. The bottom of container is also altered to lie on the wingtip. This prevents the pilot chute getting stuck in the low pressure region behind the wingsuit. The problem of malfunctioning zippers was solved by a smart cable release system, coupled to the parachute, the new standard. These inventions allow one to fall in style, safely. We predict that with the necessary improvements, wingsuiting will become an extreme sport accessible to anyone. Blue skies! SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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AIRCRAFT DESIGN USING CRADLE TO CRADLE

MODEL: KOEN VAN DEN KIEBOOM, BACKGROUND: KEYSHOT

As resources are depleting and worldwide consumption is increasing, human kind needs to rethink the way things are made in order to maintain the current quality of life. Cradle to Cradle® provides the basis for designing a selfsustaining product which positively influences its environment. The aim of Cradle to Cradle® is to eliminate the concept of waste while making use of renewable energy and preserving ecological diversity. Since Cradle to Cradle has never been applied in aerospace engineering, the goal of this DSE project was to design a Cradle to Cradle aircraft that could enter service by 2025. TEXT DSE group 5

Today’s general aviation manufacturers take no effort into implementing proper end-of-life plans in their business plan. Instead, they focus on creating long lasting, reliable aircraft without considering their ecological impact. The reason for this is the lack of profitability of end-of-life operations on today’s aircraft, as they are often made from a large amount of different materials, which can not be recycled properly due to impractical design. The InfiniCraft is a competitive, reliable, two-seater general aviation aircraft, comparable to a Cessna Skycatcher. The InfiniCraft looks like most high wing aircraft, has a range of 1,000 km, a cruise speed of 200 km/h and a maximum power of 103 hp. However, the InfiniCraft is 93% economically recyclable. 89% can even be recycled according to the Cradle to Cradle principles with today’s techniques. This means that materials regain their original qualities and properties after recycling. PROPULSION For the propulsion system, bio-ethanol E100 was chosen because of its high availability prospects in 2025. Ethanol is made from various biological sources such as switchgrass, sugarcane, corn or waste. It is much cheaper than conventional avgas. A downside is the lower energy density,

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which leads to a heavier fuel load. This is partially compensated by higher engine efficiency. Depending on the biological source for the fuel, the effective CO2 emission can be reduced to 0 kg/h. A three blade propeller was chosen, which gives the aircraft a far field noise of 60.4dB. With this noise level, the InfiniCraft will always obtain the lowest possible landing fees. STRUCTURES & MATERIALS The primary structure of the InfiniCraft is built from the automotive aluminium alloy, Al-6022. In this way, the market for recycled aluminium is much larger. Further advantages of this choice are the alloy’s low cost, good corrosion resistance and formability. After an analysis, it appeared very feasible to design an aircraft with this alloy. The design life of the InfiniCraft is 15 years, in order to account for the lower fatigue resistance. The secondary structures of the InfiniCraft are made from thermoplastic composites and polycarbonate. The front window and doors are made from polycarbonate, a material that is often used for the canopy of fighter aircraft. The use of this material allows for a transparent design, which is a distinctive feature of the InfiniCraft. Finally, the interior design is customer based, using Cradle to Cradle materials.

AVIONICS The InfiniCraft will be installed with the basic six: altimeter, airspeed indicator, turn and bank indicator, vertical speed indicator, artificial horizon and heading indicator. For the other instruments and flight documents the pilot uses a portable device, such as an iPad. This reduces the weight of the aircraft and allows for easy updates and changes to the layout. LEASE STRUCTURE Instead of selling the aircraft, a lease construction is set up. The aircraft can be leased for 2, 8, 10 or 15 years. This gives pilots more freedom at lower financial risk, while it gives the manufacturer more control over the end-of-life phase of the aircraft. An operator culture is established where pilots do not own the aircraft, but operate it for a specified amount of time, after which the manufacturer is responsible for its further operations. Where a comparable aircraft would have an hourly cost of $137, the InfiniCraft costs $130 per flying hour (total cost of ownership) based on a 15-year lease contract. The InfiniCraft is therefore competitive with current general aviation aircraft, and serves as an inspiration for the aerospace industry. With InfiniCraft, Cradle to Cradle in aircraft design has become reality!

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

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FLOW CONTROL X-PLANE

Since the aerospace industry continuously focuses on efficiency improvement, new technologies are constantly under development. Innovative Active Flow Control (AFC) systems have the potential to increase the performance of aircraft in terms of lift enhancement, drag reduction, and noise reduction, contributing to a more sustainable aviation industry. Currently there is no platform available on which these can be tested cost-efficiently in real flying conditions. To this end, this project was initiated to â&#x20AC;&#x153;develop an experimental cost-efficient platform, aimed at testing current and future flow control technologies in real life conditions, by ten students in eleven weeksâ&#x20AC;?.

BOB ROOS

TEXT DSE group 6

ne of the challenges was to accommodate both present and future AFC systems. To this end an elaborate literature study has been performed, focusing on state of the art AFC actuators and current experimental developments. AFC systems manipulate the airflow around an aerodynamic body under the constant supply of energy, as opposed to for example wing flaps, which are considered passive flow control. Cutting edge measurement systems have been investigated as well. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) is a technique to visualise the boundary layer over an aerodynamic shape. Our design features such a system in flight, which is ground-breaking. To make the testing aircraft as cost-efficient as possible, the system should be able to test all kinds of active flow control systems on one aircraft. Simultaneously, to maximise testing versatility, the aircraft should be able to test on various wing shapes, such as varying sweep and taper. The resulting design consists of a modified Boeing 737-500. The 737-500 has a structurally overdesigned wing and tail for its fuselage size, allowing cost-efficient modifications. The wings have been redesigned to accommodate modular testing panels. These test panels contain mea-

surement equipment and active flow control systems. They can easily be taken out and replaced by panels that contain different systems. The test panels themselves are designed to be non-load carrying, so the structural load is carried by a new top skin of the wing box, located 5cm below the upper surface. Each panel location on the wing provides for plugs for high voltage power, low voltage power, pressure, PIV laser, and data handling cables. To test different wing shapes or more demanding active flow systems, a second wing is mounted on a pylon structure on top of the fuselage. The wing is replaceable, allowing for testing of any wing shape with a surface area below 8mÂ˛ and a wing span of up to 8m. Unconventional wing configurations and even morphing wings can be mounted. Structurally dependent actuators, like rotating wing surfaces, can efficiently be tested on top of the pylon. The supporting structure allows rotation of the testing wing so that the test wing angle of attack can be changed independently of the angle of attack of the entire aircraft. The pylon structure is mounted directly to the reinforced fuselage frames to prevent excessive stress in the fuselage skin. It is detachable, so tests on the main wing can be performed

without interference. One disadvantage of using this wing is that the maximum cruise Mach number is restricted to 0.5, so any transonic testing has to be done on the main wing. Also, due to its smaller size, the Reynolds numbers achieved are significantly lower than on the main wing. The interior of the aircraft is stripped of passenger seats and contains an engineering booth for engineers to analyse data in-flight. The fuselage also holds extra fuel removed from the main wings in the cargo hold, and it contains systems to provide power, data storage, differential pressure, and data processing for supporting active flow control systems and measurements. Concluding, we believe that the Flow Control X-plane can be very valuable in testing active flow control systems. The main wing allows for testing on large Reynolds numbers and transonic testing, while the pylon test wing provides an enormous versatility in wing shapes. The removability and modularity of both the test panels on the main wing and the entire test wing on the pylon ensures a very versatile design, which together can test virtually any flow control system currently under research. It even ensures for extra margins to test systems developed in the future. SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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LUMINO

With fossil fuels depleting, the world needs new energy sources. One alternative is fusion energy using helium-3. Helium-3 is difficult to obtain on Earth, but abundant on the Moon. DSE group 9 designed an end-to-end system for lunar helium-3 mining and assessed its feasibility. The mission has to provide for ten percent of the global energy demand in 2040. All mission elements were designed conceptually, with two transport vehicles being designed in full engineering detail. TEXT DSE group 9

THE PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION Helium-3 fusion is frequently quoted as a major reason to go back to the Moon. Individual aspects of lunar helium-3 mining have already been designed. However, so far no one has looked at the feasibility of the overall mission. On behalf of ESA, an end-to-end mission was designed and its feasibility was assessed. Predictions show that in 2040 the total global energy demand will be between 2.05 to 2.26 ∙1011MWh. To supply ten percent of this energy, two hundred tons of helium-3 is required per year. In the lunar regolith, this isotope is found in concentrations of at least twenty weight parts per billion (wppb). The reserves on the Moon could last for thousands of years. CONCEPTUAL END-TO-END MISSION Multiple trade-offs between various mission concepts have been performed. The final concept can be split into six elements: The ground segment, LEO access, LEO space dock, Continuous-Thrust Transfer Vehicle (CTTV), Lunar Surface Access Module (LSAM), and lunar operations. Each element handles payload canisters of 10.8 tons (2.3 tons of liquefied helium-3). Payload is exchanged between Earth and a space dock in LEO via a Skylon space plane. The space dock performs maintenance and refuelling of the CTTV and stores up to

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eight canisters. The CTTV uses electromagnetic propulsion for spiral transfers between Earth and Moon. Due to the high power demand (1.2MW), a small on-board nuclear fission plant is required. The CTTV carries four canisters. Once the CTTV is in lunar orbit, the LSAM ascends from the lunar base and docks. Helium-3 canisters are exchanged and the LSAM returns to the base. The LSAM carries two canisters per flight and is powered by in-situ methane and oxygen. To supply two hundred tons of helium-3 per year, 640 tons of regolith has to be processed per second. A total of 2000 mining vehicles are needed, such as the Mark III volatile miners designed by the University of Wisconsin. A lunar base processes the volatiles. The mining operation requires a total of 39GW, supplied by 390 autonomous nuclear fission plants. COST ANALYSIS AND FEASIBILITY It was found that the lunar operations and the fusion plants have the greatest impact on mission cost. Total annual mission cost is 427 to 1347B€. Resulting energy prices for fusion energy are higher than prices for energy from solar, wind, and natural gas. The expected annual profit ranges from -720 to +260B€, for the worst and best case, respectively. To address scalability, the mis-

sion was additionally evaluated for 0.1% and 1% of the global energy demand. The expected profit decreases if the mission size decreases and can even be negative for both best and worst case. Technically, the mission is extremely challenging, due to the unavoidable complexity. Most required technologies exist, with the exception of commercial fusion energy itself. The mission may produce a positive net profit, depending primarily on how the energy price develops, and thus may be economically feasible. However, the initial investments are extensive and would have a substantial impact on the world economy. Under current international law, exploitation of the Moon may only occur in international partnerships, which have to make the mined resources available to all countries. A large-scale mining operation would have severe impact on the lunar surface and atmosphere. The mining operation and the necessary use of nuclear fission plants render the mission unsustainable. CONCLUSION Many challenges have still to be addressed to make lunar helium-3 mining possible. This end-to-end feasibility study showed that lunar helium-3 mining is unsuitable for contributing a significant amount of energy in 2040.

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

9/13/13 15:14

T-FLEX

The current economic climate requires ever-increasing aircraft performance and efficiency. A way of achieving this is by a smarter aerodynamic and structural design of the airframe, using novel materials and production processes. Examples of this trend are the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350, which feature composite wings, where the structural deformations and the aerodynamic behaviour influence each other. The dynamic interaction between the flow and the structure can be simulated in Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) solvers. Since only little validation data is available for FSI solvers, the T-FLEX experiment is designed to provide this. TEXT DSE group 13

SI solvers have become crucial in the design of modern aircraft. Therefore, it is important that these are able to solve the simulations rapidly, which could come at the price of accuracy. To validate FSI solvers for commercial airliners flying at transonic velocities, more data is required. This will be provided by the T-FLEX. Failing to validate an FSI solver can create an incorrect analysis, which can prove disastrous due to aeroelastic effects. Aeroelasticity is defined as the dynamic interaction between a structure and a flow field. Several phenomena result from aeroelasticity, such as flutter and the transonic dip. Flutter is an unstable dynamic response, where the structure and the aerodynamic loads excite each other. As a result, the amplitude of the response rapidly increases until the structure fails. The speed at which the structure flutters is defined as the flutter speed. The curve connecting all the flutter speeds for a given Mach number range is called the flutter boundary. This flutter boundary displays the transonic dip as a sudden decrease in the flutter speed. EXPERIMENT The experiment is performed in the TST27 wind tunnel located at the TU Delft. In order to efficiently provide data for the FSI solvers, it is important that the interaction

between the aerodynamic loads and the structure of the model is measured, and is provided to the solver. Besides the measurement data from the experiment, it is also important that the boundary conditions and the model properties are provided. Furthermore, the model is tested non-destructively throughout the experiment. DESIGN The design of the model is driven by the size of the test section of the wind tunnel, due to its limited size. The behaviour of the model changes due to downscaling. Downscaling the model leads to frequency increase which makes it more difficult to measure. The optimization process strives to decrease the first natural frequency of the torsion and bending mode, while preventing flutter occurrence. The final structure of the model was obtained via an iterative process, where the flutter boundary and the thickness of the model proved to be driving. The final design is a hollow shell model with a skin thickness of 3mm, no sweep and a taper ratio of one. It has a length of 230mm, a chord of 150mm, a NACA 64A-010 airfoil and is manufactured from chopped roving reinforced polyester. Additionally, a flap is used to actuate the model.

MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES Due to the limited space within the wind tunnel, mainly visual measurement techniques are used to obtain the validation data. Furthermore, the high natural frequencies of the bending and torsion modes require high speed cameras to sample the response, such that it can be reconstructed. Particle image velocimetry is used to obtain the flow field around the model, this is a technique that visually measures particle displacement. Model deformation data is gathered using videogrammetric model deformation, which measures the displacement of targets that are placed on the model. Finally, a combination of pressure sensitive paint and pressure transducers allows the pressure distribution on the surface of the model to be obtained. CONCLUSION By providing validation data for FSI solvers, future numerical solvers will be able to simulate the aeroelastic effects with more accuracy and certainty. This will decrease the cost and effort for research and development and increase the performance and reliability of commercial airliners. For more information about the T-FLEX experiment, please contact tflexdse@ googlegroups.com.

SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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ECO-RUNNER 4

Environmental issues have been the subject of discussions for decades. Companies all across the world have developed strategies of meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. One of these strategies is to invest heavily in the organization of annual events that raise awareness of sustainability. In this sense, the Shell Eco-marathon is an event that challenges young engineers to push the boundaries of fuel efficiency through designing, building and testing ultra-light Fuel Efficient Vehicles (FEV’s). TEXT DSE group 14

THE GOAL The project focuses on designing a FEV to participate in the Shell Eco-marathon of 2014 and win it. Winning implies that the vehicle consumes the least amount of energy after driving ten laps on a given track around Ahoy, Rotterdam. The Eco-Runner 4 is designed to compete in the battery-electric class of the competition. As one might know, there already exists a TU Delft team competing in the Shell Eco-marathon. Another goal of the project is to improve their design (the Eco-Runner 3) and this team greatly supported the project with advice. In return, the DSE provided new insights. BODY The body of the Eco-Runner 4 was designed by means of a carefully carried out aerodynamic and structural analysis. As far as the aerodynamics is concerned, the body consists of several airfoils that reduce the drag of the vehicle significantly. Moreover, fairings are installed around the wheels, which decrease the drag even further. The structural performance of the body was verified using finite element analysis, leading to a minimum body weight. It was chosen to construct the body from carbon fibre (Toray T300) and sandwich panels (Nomex). The body should be produced by vacuum bagging.

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WHEELS Spoke wheels were chosen for the new design. Although disk wheels are aerodynamically better, the fairings around the wheels allow the weight reduction from spokes without creating extra drag. Furthermore, the wheels are fully made from carbon fibre and the rear wheel has a turbine blade spoke pattern. Since an in-wheel motor is used to propel the vehicle, manufacturing could become cumbersome. To overcome these difficulties, a specifically designed manufacturing process is followed, involving lay-up, adhesives and curing. Each front wheel weighs only 800g, whereas the rear wheel weighs a mere 1,100g due to the larger wheel hub that is required for positioning of the in-wheel motor. SUSPENSION The front suspension of the Eco-Runner 4 is really revolutionary in the field of FEV’s. The front suspension is integrated in the wheel fairings, leading to an extremely low weight of only 330g. Since the Eco-Runner 4 is rear-wheel steered, the rear suspension should allow turning of the wheel. This complicates the suspension and results in a four carbon fibre rod system weighing 1,300g. ELECTRONICS As stated above, the vehicle is equipped with a customized brushless in-wheel mo-

tor from Mitsuba. The efficiency is at least 93% and requires only 50W. Furthermore, space rated solar cells with an efficiency of 29% are installed on the top of the body. The rules of the competition state that only 0.17m2 of the body surface may be covered with solar panels. These cells generate an extra power of approximately 37.5W. OVERALL VEHICLE Assembly and integration of all subsystems yield the complete Eco-Runner 4. The total vehicle weight is estimated to be 23.6kg, which is a weight reduction of 45% when compared to the Eco-Runner 3. A race simulation tool was developed to estimate the fuel efficiency of the vehicle. The simulation resulted in an ideal energy efficiency of 2,110 km/kWh which is comparable with a fuel efficiency of almost 19,000 km/L of ordinary gasoline. Although this energy efficiency is an estimation under ideal circumstances, it can be concluded that the Eco-Runner 4 is capable of performing very well in the upcoming edition of the Shell Eco-marathon. More importantly, it can be concluded that ordinary cars can become a lot more fuel efficient when certain concepts from FEV’s such as wheel fairings and weight optimization are employed. In this way, the ecological footprint per car can be reduced significantly and the needs of future generations can be satisfied.

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

9/13/13 15:17

PHI CUBESAT FOR FORMATION FLYING

The miniaturization of satellites has made space accessible for universities by making use of piggy-back launch opportunities. The limits in budget and manpower call for the design of small spacecraft, which on their own cannot compete with large space projects. CubeSats offer a unique opportunity for students to obtain hands-on experience by working on nano-satellite projects such as DelFFi, which consists of two 3U CubeSats in formation flight. TEXT DSE group 16

ollowing the success of the Delfi-C3 and the completion of the Delfi-n3Xt assembly, the Delft University of Technology started the development of its third nano-satellite project, DelFFi. Delta and Phi are scheduled for launch in 2015, and will form part of the QB50 network which is an initiative of the Von Karman Institute in Belgium. This network consists of fifty CubeSats in Low Earth Orbit (320km initial altitude) performing in-situ atmospheric measurements. The mission lifetime is expected to be three months. Using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) products, the Phi satellite aims to become a feasible yet novel CubeSat in terms of its unique mission objectives. FORMATION FLYING The primary objective of DelFFi is to demonstrate formation flying between the two CubeSats. This has never been achieved for nano-satellites. The objective would be deemed successful if the satellites can maintain an along-track distance of 1000km. Two types of formation flight will be carried out. The first is through the use of propulsion. A ΔV budget of 15m/s has been decided upon together with the Delta group to perform a variety of maneuvers for acquisition, formation keeping, as well as reconfiguration.

The second kind of formation flight is by using differential drag. The satellite design incorporates flaps to increase the drag coefficient by up to a factor of three to adjust the relative decay rates. This technology is ideal to carry out moderately precise maneuvers of high negative ΔV and could be envisaged for the first part of the approach during debris removal missions. The demonstration of formation flight in general constitutes a stepping stone towards high-coverage missions with the potential for reconfiguration, such as telecommunication for remote areas. PRIMARY PAYLOAD To take part in the QB50 project, all participating satellites must carry and operate one of two sets of selected sensory payloads for atmospheric research. The Phi satellite was assigned the FIPEX payload developed by TU Dresden. This system measures the atomic and molecular oxygen concentrations. Next to this, the CubeSat must carry twelve thermocouples which will provide data to model the flow field around the satellite.

sion objective. For the Phi satellite, there will be two mission objectives. The corresponding secondary payload thus consists of two nano-cameras for monitoring the deployment of solar panels and antennas, and acoustic sensors for analyzing the satellite’s vibrations. SUSTAINABILITY For the sustainability aspect, the low initial altitude of the Phi mission has a milder radiation environment, which allows for the use of low-cost COTS products. Care is taken in ensuring that the chosen COTS products are environmentally friendly, such that waste is reduced in the production process and no toxic materials are used. Furthermore, the low initial altitude translates into a short mission life, at the end of which the satellite will de-orbit itself and be disposed of during re-entry, leaving no contribution to the space debris. All in all, the Phi satellite holds various potentials for scientific investigations and incorporates original elements that will contribute to educational purposes.

SECONDARY PAYLOAD Apart from the primary payload, TU Delft was free to define its own secondary mis-

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PARASHUTTLE 2

Private flying is a hobby practised by thousands of people, a hobby which enables them to experience the ultimate freedom of flight. However, private flight is not accessible to everyone, due to the high purchase and operating costs of aircraft and the strict licences required to fly them. These drawbacks are taken away by powered parachutes, also called paraplanes. Current paraplanes are highly uncomfortable to fly however and are limited in their use, due to the restriction of having to land on level ground. An improved design of the powered parachute is thus required: enter the Parashuttle 2. TEXT DSE group 18

MISSION Parashuttle 2 has been designed to be ‘the world’s first two-person, closed-cockpit, amphibious paraplane, able to compete with other microlight aircraft on the market’. This means Parashuttle 2 should offer superior comfort compared to current paraplanes, be cheaper than current light sports aircraft and operate on both land and water. Parashuttle 2 has been designed keeping in mind that one person should be able to carry out its typical mission, consisting of transport, preparation for flight, taxi and take-off, the actual flight, landing and post-flight activities. Design and performance aspects will be gone through in this order. PRE-FLIGHT Parashuttle’s two floats allow for transport on an internationally road-legal trailer and provide support and stability on both land and water. Wheels with differential brakes and back-mounted rudders allow for steering during taxi. Parashuttle’s spacious fuselage enables parafoil storage when not in use, before flight this parafoil is to be unfolded, connected, inflated and placed on its back behind the vehicle. In flight the fuselage seats two passengers in-line. In total 180kg of payload can be carried. FLIGHT During take-off, the 48kW petrol engine linked to a four-bladed carbon fibre pro-

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peller accelerates the vehicle, causing the parafoil to generate lift in the process. Take-off distances are 37m and 60m on land and water respectively. During flight the pilot has longitudinal control by increasing or decreasing engine thrust as desired. At maximum power a climb rate of 4.7m/s is obtained. Two control levers, which the pilot controls using his hands, provide lateral control. If needed feet pedals can be used for steeper turns and flaring. These allow for a minimum turn radius of 41m. During such manoeuvres and during landing Parashuttle 2 will experience loads up to 3g. Its fuselage has been designed to handle these loads, additionally a safety factor of 1.5 was added. Using finite element methods an efficient structure was designed that allows for five failures before a failure within the flight envelope. Parashuttle’s 66L fuel tank gives it a range of 200km. At a cruise speed of 55km/h this gives an endurance of 3.7 hours. Parashuttle’s fuel consumption results in operating costs of around €30/h. Finally landing distance is 37m and 70m on land and water respectively. All these performance figures have been found to be fully comparable to current paraplanes. POST-FLIGHT After flight the vehicle should be taxied to its storage and the parafoil should be

dried, folded and stored. Maintenance on Parashuttle 2 most often consists of visual inspection. Regular maintenance, such as an engine overhaul, is required at specified time intervals. POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS Three distinct customers are foreseen for Parashuttle 2. First there are recreational flyers, who would like to fly more comfortably than in current paraplanes but don’t want to pay in excess of €50,000 for a light sports aircraft. Governmental agencies might make use of Parashuttle’s slow flying capabilities and low operating costs by using it for aerial observations. Finally commercial agencies can utilise Parashuttle’s amphibious characteristics by using it for sightseeing activities, even at remote tropical islands. FINANCIAL PROSPECTS Starting the production of Parashuttle 2 requires an investment of €830,000, this investment gives the prospect of producing a thousand Parashuttles over the following ten years. Selling Parashuttle 2 at €32,660 (which is 10% above the production cost) results in breaking even at the 281st unit and a final profit of €2.15 million, which equals a return on investment of 2.6. As such, Parashuttle 2 is an attractive project for investors and an attractive prospect for customers, who see their experience of flight move one step closer.

Leonardo Times SEPTEMBER 2013

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RVD

SKYLON Potentially the new big thing in LEO transport

Space planes could very well be the ultimate aerospace engineering machine. These space planes are vehicles that function both as an aircraft when flying or gliding through the atmosphere, and as a spacecraft when orbiting around the Earth. Well known examples of space planes are NASAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s space shuttle, which launches as a rocket, but re-enters as a glider, and XCORs Lynx, which takes off horizontally with four rocket engines, reaching suborbital flight. However, there is a new competitor on the market: Reaction Engines Limited (REL), with their space plane called Skylon. TEXT Ivo van der Peijl and Marijn Veraart, Students Aerospace Engineering, President and Treasurer of the 27th Space Department.

SKYLON INTRO The ultimate goal for the Skylon is to replace all inadequate launcher systems that are used today with a more practical transport system. As current launchers are very expensive ($150M/launch) and unreliable (5% loss rate), a future launch vehicle as Skylon will require a low specific launch cost and should be genuinely easy to operate. This means that Skylon has to meet the following criteria: single stage in order to reduce development and operational costs; as reusable as possible; computer controlled, as qualifying a vehicle for piloted flights increases development costs; simple launch and recov-

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ery procedures to minimize turnaround time; capable of aborted landing during ascent; an engine that uses existing aerothermodynamic techniques and materials; minimum maintenance between flights; providing an interface with other elements as it has to become part of an efficient transport system and the vehicle use environmentally friendly propellants to avoid atmospheric pollution. All these criteria can be met with the engine and structure concept for Skylon, described below. The REL company already received $350 million in funding for the project as the first static tests of the newly designed engineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s precooler were successful.

SKYLON PERFORMANCE Skylon is designed to bring a payload of fifteen tonnes to Low Earth Orbit, without any pilots. It has a gross take-off weight of 275 tonnes, of which 220 tonnes propellant. The payload bay is 12.3m long, and 4.5m in diameter. Designed to be reusable for 200 flights, REL aims to provide a cheap solution for bringing payload into orbit. This payload may include either a standardized payload container, and passenger compartment. Control during atmospheric flight is provided by the moving tailfin, delta canard wings and ailerons along the wing trailing edge. Reaction control thrusters are present for the

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space flight phase. A retractable landing gear is attached to the fuselage, packed closely to save space and weight. Water tanks are used to dissipate of the heat caused by emergency braking during take-off. After successful take-off, the water is thrown out. SABRE ENGINES The SABRE (Synergistic Air-Breathing Rocket Engine) is a hybrid engine, containing two operational modes. In both modes, liquid hydrogen is used as propellant. The air breathing mode takes oxygen out of the atmosphere, where the rocket mode uses its stored liquid oxygen. This is advantageous, because this eliminates the need for bringing oxygen as a first stage oxidizer, and with it the need for a heavy oxidizer container. SABRE is able to reach a thrust over weight ratio of 3 at burnout. Specific impulses of 3500 seconds atmospheric, or 450 seconds exoatmospheric are standard. A precooler, consisting of thousands of small thin-walled tubes is present between the intake and turbocompressor. In air breathing mode, this precooler is

used to cool the air down from 1000°C down to -150°C in 1/100th of a second [4], by cooling it with a closed helium loop, that is cooled again by the liquid hydrogen fuel. This is done to allow compression to the required 140 atmospheres of pressure without the need for extreme temperatures. The air-breathing mode can be used up to Mach 5, after which it is inefficient, so the intake will close and the rocket mode will take over. A major problem for pre-cooled engines is water vapour in the atmosphere. Lowering the temperature of the intake air will freeze the water, blocking the engine. A major testing programme has shown that this can be prevented, with provision made to stop the build up of ice. FUSELAGE & STRUCTURE Skylon consists of a slender fuselage containing the propellant and payload bay, with a delta wing located midway along the fuselage with the engines mounted in the wingtips. The design evolved from the HOTOL airframe, which was derived from conventional rockets. The propulsion system is installed in the nacelles on the wing tips. This makes it possible to

place the empty center of gravity on the hypersonic re-entry center of pressure. The payload bay is also coincided with the center of pressure, over the wing. This is to avoid disrupting trim with varying payload masses. RE-ENTRY Re-entry occurs at relatively high altitude (approximately 10km higher than the Space Shuttle) due to the lower ballistic coefficient (mass per unit plan area). Temperature during this re-entry is kept down to 1400°C by controlling the trajectory via active feedback of measured skin temperatures. As Skylon has an aerodynamic configuration that comprises a definite wing plus body, the wing does not fit within the body bow shock wave during re-entry, giving a rise to a localized heating problem addressed by actively cooling the wing. Though will Skylon be the final breakthrough in Spaceplanes? Or, as can be concluded about all past Spaceplane projects from the 20th century, will it be postponed to our next generation. For now we will just have to wait and see.

REFERENCES http://www.aau.ac.uk/reactionenginesltd.htm http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/ sabre_howworks.html http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/ tech_docs/SKYLON_User_Manual_ rev1-1.pdf http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/scienceenvironment-20510112 Alan Bond, Richard Varvill, John Scott-Scott and Tony Martin: SKYLON – a realistic single stage spaceplane, Spaceflight vol 45 , april 2003 Skylon Unmanned Reusable Cargo Spacecraft, United Kingdom Richard Varvill, Alan Bond, The SKYLON Spaceplane, Reaction Engines Ltd,JBIS, VOl 57, pp.22-32, 2004

SPACE DEPARTMENT The Space Department promotes astronautics among the students and employees of the faculty of Aerospace Engineering at Delft University of Technology by organizing lectures and excursions.

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ESA

ASTROBIOLOGY RESEARCH WITH CUBESATS Cubesats: powerful science platforms for space exploration The improvements in the miniaturization of spacecraft and spacecraft subsystems have resulted in a wide variety of small satellites and nanosatellites. This has opened the door to inexpensive, lightweight, small and flexible satellites and missions with various scientific applications. One such application could be the use of CubeSats for astrobiological research. TEXT Dr. P. Ehrenfreund, Leiden Institute of Chemistry; A. Elsaesser, Leiden Institute of Chemistry; A.J. Ricco, NASA Ames Research Center

mall satellites including cubesats, which are constructed from one to six conjoined 10-cm cubes, and nanosatellites, which are often in multi-cube format and are defined as having total mass between 1 and 10 kg, offer increasingly sophisticated in-situ space experiment implementation and analytical measurement capabilities. Recent advances in miniature, micro, and integrated technologies support the development of small payload systems that can be accommodated on these small satellites (Woellert et al. 2010); accordingly, miniaturized instruments and microanalytical systems are driving the capability of small-satellite science missions forward by harnessing recent advances in microfluidics, microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) including sensors and actuators, polymer microfabrication technologies, low-power microelectronics, high-efficiency solar cells and miniature motors, advanced materials, and integrated/fiber optics including micro/miniature light sources, cameras, and spectrometers. As a result, small, lightweight, low-power, inexpensive instrumentation adaptable to many science and technology applications is being integrated into cubesat and nanosatellite payloads that can return science data from outer space at a fraction of the cost of traditional large-spacecraft missions. Astrobiology comprises the study of the

origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe and is amenable to a variety of space science experimentation implemented with small satellites. In order to demonstrate such implementation and supporting technologies, NASA Ames Research Center launched the 3U (one “U” being a 10-cm cube) cubesat called O/ OREOS (Organism/Organic Exposure to Orbital Stresses) in 2010 to a 72°-inclination, 650-km Earth orbit as a secondary payload aboard a Minotaur IV rocket from Kodiak, Alaska, USA. O/OREOS consists of three conjoined cubesat modules (each being 1U): the control bus, a payload to test the multi-month viability of microbes, and a payload to study in-situ the time-dependent degradation of organic molecules over the course of at least six months. O/OREOS is still in orbit but will not return to Earth; it will disintegrate upon atmospheric re-entry in approximately 2032. The O/OREOS spacecraft is equipped with a passive attitude control system that utilizes multiple permanent magnets to orient its main “patch” antenna toward ground stations when above the northern hemisphere, along with magnetic hysteresis rods that damp rotational and nutational energy. The spacecraft utilizes two radios, one a UHF transmit-only “beacon” (437 MHz), the other a two-way S-band radio. Amateur operators from 22 countries contributed to the mission by collecting

over 100 000 data packets from O/OREOS and submitting them to the website operated by the mission operations team (Kitts et al. 2011). Science data downlink and command and control uplink utilize the Sband radio, which transmits and receives using conventional 2.4-GHz WiFi technology via the main 5 x 5 cm patch antenna. Science data were retrieved frequently (on a daily basis) early in the mission by the Mission Operations Center at the Robotic Systems Laboratory of Santa Clara University, using a pair of 3-m dishes on campus to communicate directly with the satellite. O/OREOS is the first nanosatellite to carry a biological payload to such a high altitude. To meet NASA and UN orbital debris management requirements (decay < 25 years after end of mission), O/OREOS includes a self-deploying “NanoKite” that increases its surface area by over 50% but adds only a few percent to its mass, resulting in the estimated year of de-orbit of 2032. Full O/OREOS mission success, as defined by NASA technology readiness level (TRL) 8, including launch, successful operation of both payloads, and download of collected mission data, was achieved in May 2011 (Kitts et al. 2011, Ehrenfreund et al. 2013). SCIENCE ABOARD THE O/OREOS NANOSATELLITE The Space Environment Survivability of Living Organisms (SESLO) experiment col-

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CANADIAN SPACE AGENCY

NASA

ESA

Figure 1. Assembly of O/OREOS Satellite

lected data on the survival and metabolic activity of microbes at 3 times during the 6-month mission (Nicholson et al. 2011). The payload consists of three “bioblock” modules, each with twelve 75-µL sample wells connected by microfluidic channels and valves that allow the introduction of germination-and-growth media. Using 3-color LED illumination (470, 525, and 615nm), the growth and metabolism details of Bacillus subtilis microbial spores, exposed to the microgravity, ionizing radiation, and heavy-ion bombardment of the high-inclination orbit, were determined. The SESLO spaceflight experiment has met or exceeded all its originally specified mission requirements. Spore germination and growth were achieved after 14 and 97 days in space with little difference in behavior between these two times. The first results also indicated that the cells in microgravity generally grow and metabolize more slowly than those subjected to Earth gravity, a difference tentatively ascribed to the gravitation dependence of certain aspects of the solution transport of nutrients and/or waste products. The Space Environment Viability of Organics (SEVO) experiment achieved real-time analysis of the photostability of organic molecules. The samples were deposited as thin films by vacuum sublimation onto MgF2 windows. The SEVO payload consists of a miniaturized UV-visible-NIR spectrometer and a 24-sample carousel that houses hermetically sealed sample cells (Bramall et al. 2012). Integrated optics enables the use of the Sun as the light source for both sample radiation exposure and sample spectroscopic measurement. The SEVO payload was designed to acquire UV-visible spectra automatically when onboard sensing determined that its sample wheel and collection optics

were pointed within a few degrees of the direction of the Sun. The molecular species absorption lines in both the solar and SEVO spectra indicated excellent wavelength calibration of the spectrometer. The SEVO payload returned spectral data sets from 18 organic thin films over ten months of space exposure that show significant changes in the absorbance of the films due to photochemical degradation (Mattioda et al. 2012; Cook et al. 2013a). Thin-film reaction rate data and other spectral information measured in situ in combination with ground-based experiments and modeling have been used to characterize reaction mechanisms pertinent to the SEVO microenvironments and related space environments (Mattioda et al. 2012; Cook et al. 2013a,b). CUBESAT TECHNOLOGY APPLICATIONS FOR THE ISS Some of the technologies that have been recently demonstrated on small satellites are ideal payload candidates for accommodation on the International Space Station (ISS). A recent example of a rapid-turnaround payload is the OREOcube experiment, which is based on O/OREOS-SEVO technology described above. OREOcube will be installed as an external exposure facility on the ISS under the European Space Administration’s European Programme for Life and Physical Sciences in Space (ELIPS) to study the evolution of organic and prebiotic materials in space. OREOcube is prepared for flight in cooperation between Leiden University and NASA Ames Research Center and can record daily changes in ultraviolet and visible light absorption spectra of organic compounds, revealing the consequences of their exposure to solar UV, visible light and space ionizing radiation. The advantages over a free-flyer experiment are

that data can be downloaded from the ISS more effectively and frequently with on-board data averaging and storage capability using a standard power-and-command interface. Additionally, the samples can be retrieved and be further analyzed in terrestrial laboratories. CONCLUSION The number of research areas for cubesats is ever increasing and includes apart from astrobiology many experiments that investigate atmospheric science, astronomy, exoplanets, planetary science, biology, pharmaceutical applications, Earth observations, ecology, materials science, and space weather. In the field of astrobiology in particular, significant progress has been achieved with the success of the O/OREOS mission. Cubesat payload can serve as precursors for experiments on the ISS, future free-flying satellites, and planetary surface exposure facilities. As discussed by Rose et al. (2012), merging the cubesat university culture with proven space-qualified engineering techniques without losing the cost-effective innovative advantages, while challenging, will lead to more advanced science cubesats. The “Nanoracks” facility on the ISS already accommodates cubesat science payload instrumentation with power and data-transfer interfaces. Future applications for cubesat technology are under consideration for hitchhiking on planetary exploration missions in the framework of cubesat dispensers on Mars orbiters, cube accommodation slots on various landers, and possible outer-solar-system research activities. The science capabilities of cubesats are rapidly expanding along with the demands of various research fields with appropriate applications in low Earth orbit and beyond. SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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“We vlogen met een knal...”

AMBASSADORS OF HUMANKIND Making a mark in the vast expanse of space

It almost sounds like a riddle: man-made objects travelling at speeds in excess of ten kilometres per second at a distance of many billions of kilometres. These are the man-made objects that are farthest away and, in a way, they serve as ambassadors of humankind. Each object was launched in the seventies and carries with it a symbol to signify humanity’s achievements: they are Pioneer 10 and 11, and Voyager 1 and 2. TEXT Benjamin Broekhuizen, Student Aerospace Engineering, Editor-in-chief Leonardo Times

s one might expect, these spacecraft were not intended solely as ambassadors: each individual spacecraft first carried out its specific primary scientific mission – each mission providing a wealth of scientific information – before entering into its open-ended final leg of the mission. This open-ended final leg sees the spacecraft travelling on a trajectory that will take them outside of our solar system, to truly ‘boldly go where no man has gone before’. PIONEERING PIONEER The Pioneer programme stretches back into the fifties, even before NASA itself became operational. The Pioneer programme was envisioned by the US Air Force, which operated its own missions, just as the US Army did. The mission goal was to establish a lunar orbit to study the Moon and prove that such a mission

was feasible. The Air Force was to use its Thor-Able launcher from the Thor family, a precursor to the Delta family of launch vehicles.

and perform a lunar flyby. However, unlike Pioneer 4, most of the early Pioneer missions failed to achieve their respective mission goals.

The first launch of a Pioneer spacecraft, Pioneer 0 (also known as Thor-Able 1 or simply Pioneer), resulted in a complete failure shortly after leaving the launch pad on August 17, 1958. The second launch, only two months later, was the first spacecraft launch carried out by the newly established NASA. While the launch was something more of a success, a partial failure in the third stage meant the mission missed the Moon. The mission did return new information about the space environment, but the mission goal of an orbit around the Moon was not achieved. On March 3, 1959, Pioneer 4 was launched atop the Juno II launcher and subsequently managed to achieve Earth’s escape velocity

NEW PIONEERS A more successful era of Pioneers is formed by the spacecraft that were launched from the mid-sixties onwards, as the Pioneer name was once again used for exploratory missions. These spacecraft are Pioneer 6 through Pioneer 9 (alternative names Pioneer A through Pioneer D), which were successfully launched as part of monitoring the ‘weather’ of the solar system. Much like meteorological satellites gather vital information to predict weather on Earth, the Pioneers are meant to provide insight into the weather of the solar system and to warn humanity whenever a solar storm is heading Earth’s way. An additional Pioneer spacecraft, Pioneer

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NASA

DARKSKY.ORG

Figure 1. The Pioneer Plaque, as sent aboard Pioneer 10 and 11.

E, was launched in 1969, but was lost when its Delta-E launcher failed. Apart from the name, these spacecraft have little in common with the earlier Pioneer spacecraft, which in turn varied from one another. Pioneer 10 and 11, launched in 1972 and 1973 respectively, again differ much from Pioneer 6 through 9. Where Pioneer 6 through 9 stayed relatively close to home, the goal for Pioneer 10 and 11 was altogether different. They were both to visit Jupiter, to then go on into the ‘interstellar medium’, which meant an open-ended mission to the edge of the solar system and beyond. Pioneer 11 was to also visit Saturn along the way. It is this open-ended character of their mission that essentially makes them ideal ambassadors of humankind. THE PIONEER PLAQUE Eric Burgess, a journalist and lecturer who had written extensively on the Pioneer programme since its beginning, floated the idea of including some sort of message on the Pioneer spacecraft while visiting the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The well-known astronomer and science populariser Carl Sagan supported the idea and, when NASA approved the plan, was assigned the delicate task of pre-

paring a message from humankind. He designed the plaque with Frank Drake, a fellow astronomer, who is known for the Drake Equation on the probability of other intelligent and communicative life forms within the Milky Way. Thus, the idea for the Pioneer plaque was born. The aluminium plaque, as depicted in Figure 1, is a pictorial message from humankind to whichever extra-terrestrial life form finds the plaque – although the vast expanse of space means that the probability of the plaques ever being seen by another living creature is very small indeed. Whereas the image of the naked man and woman might be the most striking, perhaps the most interesting image is actually situated in the top left of the plaque: the diagram with the two circles. This symbolises the hyperfine transition of hydrogen, which is relevant for two reasons: first, hydrogen is by far the most abundant element in the universe; second, it serves to specify a unit of distance and a unit of time, to be used all over the plaque. What appears to be a Roman numeral I, is meant as the binary representation of the same number. As a unit of length, this symbolises a distance of 21cm, the wavelength associated with the transition between electron states. As a unit of time, it signifies the associated

frequency of 1420MHz. The counterpart to the symbol I, serving as the binary digit 1, is the symbol –, as the binary digit 0. To the right of this symbol, the silhouettes of a human male and female can clearly be seen. The man is waving, illustrating both Earth customs and the way the limbs can move. To the right of the woman, brackets can be seen, indicating her height in the previously established binary unit. There is a flaw in the plate, as the height is supposed to read I – – –, which translates to eight, which in turn means a height of 1.68m. The height of the man is not given. In the background of the two human figures, the basic silhouette of the Pioneer spacecraft is shown on the same scale, clearly showing its prominent 2.74m dish antenna. To the left of the human silhouettes, a relatively complex radial pattern can be seen. The centre of this symbol signifies the Sun and the horizontal line extending past the human figures indicates the relative position of the Sun to the centre of the galaxy. The fourteen other lines indicate relative distances of fourteen pulsars to the Sun. Here, the binary unit of time is used to express the period of each respective pulsar. This should provide the opportunity for any aliens reading the plaque, to determine where the Sun is located. SEPTEMBER 2013 Leonardo Times

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Below this pattern, at the bottom of the plaque, is a schematic representation of the solar system. The binary digits are used to denote the relative distance to the Sun of each respective planet – and Pluto, as it was still considered a planet at the time of launch. It also features a representation of the Pioneer spacecraft itself and its trajectory from Earth, past Jupiter and towards the open-ended leg: outside the solar system. As mentioned previously, Pioneer 10 and 11 are on different trajectories, as the Pioneer 11 mission also included Saturn. However, the plaques for Pioneer 10 and 11 are the same, meaning that Pioneer 11’s plaque is inaccurate at best and an interstellar lie at worst. VOYAGER The Voyager programme was an offshoot of the Mariner programme, as Voyager 1 and 2 were originally to be named Mariner 11 and 12. The Mariner programme featured several missions to targets like Mars, Venus and Mercury, and Mariner 11 and 12 were envisioned to undertake missions to Jupiter and Saturn. However, the spacecraft differed significantly from the other Mariners and their missions, so the spacecraft were rebranded to Voyager.

THE VOYAGER GOLDEN RECORD Both Voyager spacecraft carry a Voyager Golden Record: a gramophone record which, much like the Pioneer plaque, is meant as a symbolic statement from humankind. The Golden record is shown in Figure 2. Again Carl Sagan played a role of significance in assembling this ‘message in a bottle’, as he chaired the committee that was to decide on the content of the record. The record contains greetings in a total of 56 languages, including the English ‘hello from the children of planet Earth’ – spoken by Carl Sagan’s son Nick – and the Dutch ‘hartelijke groeten aan iedereen’ (sincere greetings to everyone). This is followed by a section filled with recordings of ‘sounds of Earth’, which includes animal sounds, Morse code and natural phenomena like thunder and volcanoes. For everyone with an interest in aerospace, sound clips of an F-111 Aardvark flyby and the launch of the mighty Saturn V are included. The next section features a wide selection of music, ranging from classical music to folk music and more contemporary music. Originally, the Beatles song Here Comes

the Sun was to be included, but the label EMI opposed it. The gramophone record also features several images relating to the solar system and planet Earth. Much like the Pioneer Plaque, information as to a definition of units and scales is provided. Many images are also annotated to give further information as to the scale and other properties of the depicted object. The images include photographs and diagrams on the planets, the human anatomy, Earth’s geography, human life and space exploration. But perhaps the most remarkable inclusion on the Golden Record are brainwaves. An hour long recording of the brainwaves of Ann Druyan has been transferred onto the record. In a way, even human thought is captured on the Golden Record and has made its way into the vast expanse of space. Of course, a record needs a cover, which is itself a work of art and ingenuity. It borrows the unit definition based on the hydrogen atom from the Pioneer Plaque, in addition to the Sun-pulsar map. The cover uses this definition to explain how the record is to be used. The binary code is used to explain the proper rotational velocity of the record – 3.6 seconds per rotation – and the playing time of one side is explained, which is one hour as humans would understand it. The diagram also shows how

NASA

There had been plans for missions to the outer planets in the solar system, even going as far as a ‘Grand Tour’, in which a number of spacecraft would visit the outer planets on a number of different trajectories. This was made possible by the rather

rare alignment of the outer planets in the late seventies, allowing the spacecraft to use gravitational assists along their grand tour. However, budgetary constraints meant these grand plans never came to pass and a slightly more modest tour was to become the Voyager programme.

Figure 5. An impression of Pioneer 10 the outer solar system.

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NASA

Figure 2. The Voyager Golden Record, which is carried by Voyager 1 and 2.

Figure 4. An impression of Voyager 2.

the needle – included with the record – is to be placed in order for the record to be played. To the right of the basic playing instructions are slightly more complicated instructions as to how the images are to be viewed. The video signal is explained using the same binary code as on the Star map and the general playing instructions, and if all goes well, whoever is playing the record will see a certain calibration image – a simple circle, which is the first image on the record. NEW HORIZONS On January 19, 2006, New Horizons was launched atop its Atlas V launcher. This mission is to study Pluto and its moons, after which it will also make its way outside our solar system. It will join the Pioneer and spacecraft missions as an ambassador of humankind and it has memorabilia of its own on board. A collection of 434,738 names is stored on a compact disc, as NASA allowed members of the general public to submit their name for inclusion. A piece of SpaceShipOne, the Scaled Composites spaceplane, is also included. Its most striking cargo is small portion of the ashes of astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, who died in 1997. As Tombaugh was the discoverer of Pluto, his ashes travelling to Pluto seems like a poetically justified journey.

Figure 3. Trajectories of Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2.

MAKING CONTACT The sheer size and relative emptiness of the universe means that it is highly unlikely that one of these spacecraft will ever encounter another living creature, let alone an intelligent one. Even if it were to run into a highly intelligent extra-terrestrial life form, it is by no means certain they will be able to crack the code of the Plaque or Record. However, at the very least they will probably notice that these symbols were the work of some other civilisation, made up of other life forms far, far away. But even if they were never to be seen by any other life form, the act of despatching such time capsules is in itself rewarding and inspiring. Much like the message in a bottle, there is a high chance that it will never be read or seen again and the chance of a response is so small that one could almost be forgiven for thinking the whole undertaking utterly pointless. But leaving a mark, guaranteeing some form of longevity through the act of reaching out, is part of the human experience. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS On September 12, 2013, it was reported that Voyager 1 had left the solar system, which would make it the first man-made object to do so. But did it actually achieve this? There is more to this story than first meets the eye. It had previously been announced, on a number of occasions, that the spacecraft had left the solar system.

The problem here is that ‘leaving the solar system’ is a slightly more ambiguous term than one might think, as there are several definitions that could be used as to what constitutes the boundary of the solar system. Consequently, there are conflicting definitions over whether or not Voyager 1 has actually left the solar system. NASA stated the consensus among the Voyager science team is that it is still within the solar system, albeit in a new region called the ‘magnetic highway’, where energetic particles change dramatically. The cosmographical boundary of the solar system extends all the way to the Oort Cloud, meaning that Voyager will be ‘with us’ for many years to come, probably significantly past the point its power system will have given out. References NASA Solar System Exploration http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/ NASA JPL Voyager Website http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/ JHU/APL New Horizons Website http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/ NASA Voyager Status Update on Voyager 1 Location: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news. php?release=2013-107

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Column

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’

The global civil aviation industry is currently dominated by two major powers in the form of Boeing and Airbus. The market has been characterized as a duopoly. However, this status quo is by no means immutable. Over the coming decades, growing demand might lead to other companies making their mark on the global aviation market. High time to look at some of the past, current and future developments within the industry. TEXT Sushant Gupta, Student Aerospace Engineering, Editor Leonardo Times

n the light of this years’ Paris Air Show in June, I wanted to take a look at the commercial aviation industry. I read up on a few articles and and found that while there are many promising companies coming up in the aviation industry, by and large, the biggest competition is still amongst the American Boeing and the European Airbus. The duopoly of Airbus and Boeing has been eminent since the early 90s. Both companies have rather different origins. So, I decided I would attempt a closer look at this “duopoly” and find out similarities and differences in the strategies of these two aviation manufacturers. Airbus was born out of long collaboration of different European manufacturers and is an amalgam of European companies including Aérospatiale (France), Deutsche Airbus (Germany), Hawker Siddeley (UK), Fokker (Netherlands) and Construcciones Aeronáuticas SA (Spain), with initial efforts dating back to 1967. Essentially, the European manufacturers were innovative and successful but had small production

runs. They understood that American domination of the aviation industry was due to air transport being the favorable mode of transport due to the sheer size of the American landmass. For Europeans, the only way to compete effectively with the American manufacturers was collaboration. Airbus today produces almost half of the world’s jet airliners and is a formidable player in the industry. Boeing, on the other hand, has a very different history, being founded in 1916 by William Boeing. The erstwhile Boeing Airplane Company started out by obtaining orders from the US Navy in 1917, after the US joined the First World War. Thereafter, Boeing grew in leaps and bounds with the growth in American economy, branching out into commercial, defense and other areas. Boeing, of course boasts the largest building by volume in the world at Everett, Washington, which is an airplane assembly facility. Boeing has also acquired many companies over the years, such as its competitors McDonnell Douglas and North American Aviation. Boeing is one of

the largest aircraft manufacturers, as well as the second largest aerospace and defense contractor in the world. Since the 1990s, there has been fierce competition amongst the two rivals Airbus and Boeing. Their competition has been characterized as a duopoly in the aviation industry, arising from the formation of Airbus and the merger of Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. Both Airbus and Boeing have bagged upwards of 7000 orders in the last ten years. The commercial airline industry, which has been described as one of the most dog-eat-dog enterprises in the world has seen both of them play musical chairs at the top. Other competitors like Lockheed Martin, Convair, British Aerospace, Dornier and Fokker have not been able to keep their place and have dropped out of the race to lower levels in the aircraft food chain. Both Airbus and Boeing have been accused by each other and by others of being recipients of unfair government aid and support. The United States and the

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ASPIRE AVIATION

BOEING

Figure 1. The Boeing 787 has recently resumed flying after battery malfunctions kept it grounded

European Union have traded accusations of unfair tax breaks and subsidies that may help in the winning of contracts, like in the case of a 10 billion dollar order resulting from Easyjet’s decision of switching to the Airbus A320 neo from the Boeing 737. Both companies have a wide product range and have responded to the market needs by slightly different models like A320 and B737, A380 and 747-8, and the most recent duo A350 and B787 Dreamliner. The latter comparison also shows the technological competition, with both of them claiming reduced weight due to utilizing space-age composite materials. Both claim to be more fuel-efficient than the other with values ranging 2.6-2.9 liters of fuel per passenger per 100km. The aviation giants have also claimed to reduce engine and cabin noise as compared to previous generations of aircraft. Most of the world’s airlines are government owned and the manufacturers have made use of this fact, as political considerations need to be taken into account in orders, along the purely commercial ones. Boeing has been subcontracting to Mitsubishi and Kawasaki in Japan, thereby largely dominating the Japanese market. Airbus has been limited as it is a European consortium and is mainly limited to production in four European stakeholder countries. Despite this, an Airbus final assembly plant has been operating in China with an eye on the booming Chinese mar-

ket. Internationally, the changes in currency values influence the profitability of the companies as well. Boeing and Airbus have costs in dollars and euros respectively. With dollar appreciation against euro, cost of production is tilted in favor of Airbus, while the opposite applied for depreciation. Airbus also offers some of its customers the option to pay in other international currencies while Boeing largely prefers dollars. There have been developments going on in the manufacturers apart from the socalled duopoly. New demand for aircraft is expected to come in for narrow body aircraft and a major part of this demand is expected to come from Asia. China and Russia had a huge presence in the Paris Air Show. Chinese manufacturer Comac has tied up with Canadian Bombardier to produce its C919 aircraft. The C919 is a single aisle aircraft offering 150-170 seats. Comac will draw upon Bombardier’s C series and hopes to secure orders from Chinese domestic airlines, to then rely on this success to get orders internationally. Ryanair is also a party in development of C919, as it hopes to replace its current B737’s. Bombardier, in turn hopes to secure its place in the projected 2200 civil aircraft market by 2020 in China. Since Comac is state owned and China has great ambitions in manufacturing aircraft, this development maybe significant. Russia too had a significant presence at

Le Bourget, as more than fifty Russian companies under the banner of United Aircraft Corporation were present in Paris. Russia has a deep desire to be counted among the top and the government is pumping 40 billion dollars into the industry over the next 20 years. The Russians have developed the Irkut MS-21, which is a short-medium range jet airliner with capacity of 150-212 seats. It has about 240 orders, largely domestic. Apart from the Russians and the Chinese, the Brazilian company Embraer has been a longer active player in the small jet market as well with their Embraer Regional Jet series and Embraer E-Jet family with capacities into the 110-seat range. History shows that market incumbents can be toppled, but it does take a long time. With growth in the respective domestic and adjacent markets, we just might see an increased jostling for space in the jet airline market. This may turn into a formidable challenge to the established duopoly at the top. The Boeing chief executive remarked back in 2010 that the cozy world of just two huge aircraft manufacturers might be coming to an end. As Bob Dylan said: the times they are a-changin’.

References Newhouse, John; Boeing versus Airbus

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