November 19, 2022

Developing Design Tools for Outer Space Structures (Source: Space Daily)
Achieving affordable space exploration will require lightweight structures for vehicles, solar arrays and antennas. Lightweight materials also will be used for components of structures like pressurized habitats, cryogenic tanks, landing gears and truss cages. The problem is that NASA envisions that many of those structures will be made from tailorable composite materials, but no design tool has been able to fully exploit the materials' full potential. AnalySwift LLC, a Purdue University-affiliated commercial software provider, and Wenbin Yu, a professor in Purdue's School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, are conducting research to create one.

Existing design tools were developed for traditional composites, which have straight fibers. If an open area is needed inside a traditional composite structure, this is often accomplished by creating a cut-out after it is manufactured, which can compromise the integrity of the structure. "Tailorable composites, also known as tow-steered or variable thickness composites, however, can be highly customized thanks to improvements in manufacturing," he said. "New robotic techniques can weave fibers around areas intended for openings, expanding design options while improving the structures' overall properties."

AnalySwift has received a one-year, $125,000 Phase I STTR contract from NASA for a project titled "An Efficient, High-Fidelity Design Tool for Advanced Tailorable Composites."  Yu said the project will benefit NASA and related agencies and industries by exploiting the potential of tailorable composites for designing better lightweight structures. "The resulting efficient, high-fidelity design tool developed in this project will shorten the design and analysis period of structures made of tailorable composites," Yu said. (3/17)

Poland Signs with Virgin Orbit for Domestic Launch Services (Source: Space Daily)
In an official letter of intent with the leading responsive space company Virgin Orbit (Nasdaq: VORB), the Polish Space Agency (POLSA), the agency overseeing Poland's space development, conveyed its strong interest in bringing a domestic launch capability to Poland, a development uniquely made possible through Virgin Orbit's air-launched LauncherOne system. The signed letter codifies the Polish government's intent to collaborate with Virgin Orbit to conduct a detailed analysis of LauncherOne's practical applications in support of Poland's science and economy industries. (3/18)

Space Force Preparing to Decommission Legacy Command and Control System (Source: C4ISRnet)
By the end of this year, the Space Force hopes to have fully transitioned from its legacy space catalog system to a modernized command and control capability — a milestone years in the making.

The service is in the process of decommissioning the Space Defense Operations Center (SPADOC), which was fielded in 1979, and replacing it with the new Space Command-and-Control (Space C2) system that will bring together operational-level C2 capabilities into one integrated system. Along with developing an enterprise infrastructure, the program will deliver applications to decision-making hubs — like the National Space Defense Center, Combined Space Operations Center and the 18th Space Control Squadron – that will help process data from ground- and space-based sensors. (3/16)

Moon's Orbit Proposed as a Gravitational Wave Detector (Source: Space Daily)
Researchers propose using the variations in distance between the Earth and the Moon, which can be measured with a precision of less than a centimeter, as a new gravitational wave detector within a frequency range that current devices cannot detect. The research, which could pave the way for the detection of signals from the early universe, was published recently in Physical Review Letters.

Gravitational waves, predicted by Albert Einstein at the start of the 20th century and detected for the first time in 2015, are the new messengers of the most violent processes taking place in the universe. The gravitational wave detectors scan different frequency ranges, similar to moving a dial when tuning into a radio station. (3/18)

Lunar Scientists and Engineers Design Moon Cave Explorer (Source: Space Daily)
Lunar caves are not only a geologically pristine record of the Moon's history, but they could also provide a safe home for future human explorers. Building upon ESA Discovery's OSIP call and SysNova challenge, ESA gathered a spectrum of over 60 experts in many different areas of science and engineering to design a mission to enter a pit on the Moon's surface and explore the entrance to a lunar cave.

The Moon is dotted with pits that scientists think could lead to huge underground tunnels. But a space mission has never been sent to explore what could lie within. ESA kick-started such a mission in 2019, when the Discovery element of ESA's Basic Activities launched a public Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) call for ideas to detect, map and explore lunar caves. Five ideas were chosen to be studied in more detail through an ESA Discovery SysNova challenge, each addressing a different phase of a potential mission. (3/17)