Sydney Do

An Airbag-Based Crew Impact Attenuation System Concept for the Orion CEV - First Generation System Development

Airbag-based methods for crew impact attenuation have been highlighted as a potential means of easing the mass constraints currently affecting the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle. An analog airbag test article has been designed, fabricated, and subjected to a drop test campaign to investigate the potential performance of such a system. Through a fusion of accelerometer measurements and photogrammetric analysis of high-speed camera data; it was found that the system performed adequately up to impact velocities of 4.7m/s, where a low-injury risk was maintained throughout the impacting event. This paper presents the background and development behind this first generation system, as well as the results and lessons learnt from this preliminary drop test campaign.

A General Purpose Astronomy Small Satellite: an approach to low- cost space telescope design using space-qualified ground telescopes

The General Purpose Astronomy - Small Satellite (GPA-SS) project studied the feasibility of developing a useful space telescope with a cost to launch below

An independent assessment of the technical feasibility of the Mars One mission plan – Updated analysis ☆

100 million. An optical telescope assembly (OTA) designed for ground use is proposed for use in a space mission in order to take advantage of the economies of scale in existing mirror fabrication processes. This paper details the additional design, manufacture and test tasks required to flight-qualify the ground telescope. A near-infrared imaging space telescope was costed as a potential mission. Key subsystems were designed at a conceptual level. This design was used both to estimate subsystem costs and to inform the science achievable from a given telescope design. Subsystem costs were estimated from the design through a combination of previously published cost estimating relationships and vendor quotes. This paper concludes that the space-qualification of an existing ground telescope is a potential approach for making significant cost savings when designing a low cost space telescope. Additional work on design and cost estimation around the framework presented in this paper could be undertaken to add certainty to the cost estimate.