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Wind-tunnel, Static Burn and Flight Tests Conducted to Establish the Aeroacoustics Environment of Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV)

AMS Seminar Series

Speaker: Jayanta Panda, Experimental Flow-Physics Branch, NASA Ames Research Center

Presentation

Seminar Slide Deck (PDF-7MB)

Abstract

The surface pressure fluctuations created during launch, ascent through the lower part of the atmosphere, and most importantly, in the event of an abort initiated to safe keep the astronauts, produce intense vibro-acoustics environment on the MPCV vehicle. The pressure fluctuations were defined primarily through a series of tests since the initiation of the program in 2006. The information was used to modify the initial shape of MPCV, followed by the design and certification of a vast number of systems and subsystems for vibro-acoustics and buffet responses. The presentation will summarize such tests and discuss the progression of the knowledge and data bases. Among the three sources of pressure fluctuations it was the abort scenarios - both at the launch pad and during flight through the lower Mach number ranges – that were found to create the most intense levels. The MPCV performs abort by lighting up the abort motor (AM) at the top. The hot plumes from the motor pass over the vehicle outer mold line. While the abort acoustics dominated all other sources for the entire Launch Abort Vehicle portion of MPCV, little information could be collected from prior space vehicle programs. The building up of the knowledge base started with the measurement of pressure fluctuations in single rocket burns, and then progressed to the full-scale static burn of the abort motors, to wind tunnel simulations of ascent abort using mildly heated air, followed by simulations using highly heated Helium, and finally via a pad-abort and an ascent abort flight test. CFD simulations were performed to bridge the gaps in the database. For the European Service Module (ESM) and the nearby parts of MPCV, not involved in abort, pressure fluctuations created during nominal ascent through the transonic Mach number range were found to produce the limiting environment. This environment was also established through a couple of wind tunnel tests. In the earlier days of the program three different wind tunnel tests were conducted to arrive at the present ALAS shape, which replaced the earlier party-hat shape. In the end MPCV is designed to sustain the most intense acoustics environment in the history of the spaceflight.

Funded by the NASA’s Orion MPCV Program.

Biography

Photo of Jayanta Panda
Jayanta Panda is an Aerospace Engineer in the Experimental Flow-Physics branch of NASA's Ames Research Center. Currently he is working on the aeroacoustics and unsteady aerodynamics issues of NASA’s MPCV and SLS vehicles. His other interest is in the advancement of measurement techniques, such as molecular Rayleigh scattering and fast response PSP for applications in transonic and supersonic flows. He has made contributions on a variety of subjects spanning fundamental physics of turbulence and noise generation, identification of aero-acoustic sources, optical measurement techniques, and reducing/defining aeroacoustics environments of manned space vehicles. He has a Ph.D. in Aerospace Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, which he earned in 1990.