Testing Composite Cryotank Technology For Future Deep
Space Missions
NASA has completed a complex series of tests on one of the largest composite
cryogenic fuel tanks ever manufactured, bringing the aerospace industry much
closer to designing, building, and flying lightweight, composite tanks on
rockets. At NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, the tank
was lowered into a structural test stand where it was tested with cryogenic
hydrogen and structural loads to simulate stresses the tank would experience
during launch. The project is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission
Directorate, which is innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for
use in NASA's future missions.
Cryogenic propellants are gasses chilled to subfreezing temperatures and
condensed to form highly combustible liquids, providing high-energy propulsion
solutions critical to future, long-term human exploration missions beyond
low-Earth orbit. In the past, propellant tanks have been fabricated out of
metals. Switching from metallic to composite construction holds the potential to
dramatically increase the performance capabilities of future space systems
through a dramatic reduction in weight.
Image Credit: NASA/David
Olive
NASA Completes Successful Battery of Tests on Composite
Cryotank
NASA
has completed a complex series of tests on one of the largest composite
cryogenic fuel tanks ever manufactured, bringing the aerospace industry much
closer to designing, building, and flying lightweight, composite tanks on
rockets.
“This is one of NASA’s major technology accomplishments for 2014,” said
Michael Gazarik, NASA’s associate administrator for Space Technology. “This is
the type of technology that can improve competitiveness for the entire U.S.
launch industry, not to mention other industries that want to replace heavy
metal components with lightweight composites. These tests, and others we have
conducted this year on landing technologies for Mars vehicles, show how
technology development is the key to driving exploration.”
One of the largest composite cryotanks ever built
recently completed a battery of tests at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama. The tank was lowered into a structural test stand where it
was tested with cryogenic hydrogen and structural loads were applied to simulate
stresses the tank would experience during launch.
Image Credit:
NASA/David Olive
The demanding series of tests on the 18-foot (5.5-meter) diameter tank were
conducted inside a test stand at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in
Huntsville, Alabama. Engineers added structural loads to the tank to replicate
the physical stresses launch vehicles experience during flight.
In other tests, the tank successfully maintained fuels at extremely low
temperatures and operated at various pressures. Engineers filled the tank with
almost 30,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen chilled to -423 degrees Fahrenheit, and
repeatedly cycled the pressure between 20 to 53 pounds per square inch -- the
pressure limit set for the tests.
“This is the culmination of a three-year effort to design and build a large
high-performance tank with new materials and new processes and to test it under
extreme conditions,” said John Vickers, the project manager for the Composite
Cryogenic Technology Demonstration Project, which is one of the key technologies
funded by NASA’s Game Changing Development Program. “We are a step closer to
demonstrating in flight a technology that could reduce the weight of rocket
tanks by 30 percent and cut costs by at least 25 percent.”
The composite rocket fuel tank, which arrived at Marshall on March 26 aboard
NASA's Super Guppy airplane, was built by the Boeing Company near Seattle.
“Never before has a tank of this size been proven to sustain the thermal
environment of liquid hydrogen at these pressures,” said Dan Rivera, Boeing
program manager for the cryotank project. “Our design is also more structurally
efficient then predecessors. This is a significant technology achievement for
NASA, Boeing and industry. “We are looking at composite fuel tanks for many
aerospace applications.”
The project is part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, which is
innovating, developing, testing and flying hardware for use in NASA's future
missions. Over the next year, the directorate will make significant new
investments to address several high-priority challenges in achieving safe and
affordable deep space exploration. Next-generation technologies including
composite systems have the potential to make rockets, including NASA’s Space
Launch System -- a deep space rocket being developed at Marshall -- more capable
and affordable.
B-roll video of the cryotank is available at:
For more information about NASA's investment in space technology, visit:
NASA
Guillermo Gonzalo Sánchez Achutegui
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