NASA will continue to evaluate a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) landing system using retro-rockets, despite placing two $250,000 contracts for airbag development. The four-month contracts have been placed with Delaware-based inflatables firm ILC Dover and a second unnamed company, writes Rob Coppinger.
ILC’s award is part of a $2 million, five-year deal for the advanced development of airbag landing attenuation systems for Earth entry capsules managed by NASA’s Langley Research Center. Subscale demonstration tests could take place at Langley’s impact test facility in Hampton, Virginia at the end of the four months.
NASA’s wider landing system evaluation is related to CEV crew capsule weight issues and the mass impact of airbags, crushable zones or retro-rockets. The work is expected to continue until the CEV’s preliminary design review, due to take place in September 2007.
“The rockets could be a lighter system than airbags because we have to have structures to support the bags and the inflation systems,” says ILC’s space inflatables programme manager, Cliff Willey. During descent the capsule’s heatshield would be ejected and the airbags inflated before a touchdown on land.
ILC developed landing airbags for the Mars Pathfinder, Spirit and Opportunity rovers. The company’s CEV airbags use a similar material, but are a “hit and stick” design. They deflate on impact and do not allow for bouncing, which was a feature of the Mars rover landing system.
ILC is also working with the competing Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman CEV teams on airbag flotation systems designed for use if the capsule is forced to make an emergency landing on water.
Source: Flight International