On Environmental Characterization of Suborbital Launch Vehicles for Space Scientific Experimentation

Abstract

Recently, there has been an unmistakable trend in the space industry toward public/private partnerships for access to space. This is particularly true for suborbital space, where an unprecedented number of companies are vying to provide routine access to near-earth space. Although much has been focused on commercialization for manned tourist suborbital flights, there is a burgeoning opportunity for scientific and engineering activities on-board these spacecraft. Such opportunities are exciting because of the potential for unprecedented lower costs and frequent access to space. The Johns Hopkins University / Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) is leading an effort to focus on instrumentation for suborbital re-usable launch vehicles. NASA has awarded three flight opportunities to JHU/APL aboard commercial suborbital vehicles, with flights scheduled to be completed in 2012. This paper presents the planned approach undertaken by JHU/APL from these groundbreaking experiments to understand and characterize the environment in and around commercial suborbital spacecrafts. The empirical measurements, to be gathered through these NASA-sponsored suborbital flights, will help to baseline the environment of the host vehicle, thereby allowing a quantified platform for the scientific community to conduct future space experimentation.