Launch Operations Research Articles

한국형발사체 발사대 고압가스 공급시스템 소개

한국형발사체 발사대시스템은 지상기계설비, 추진제공급설비, 발사관제설비 그리고 기반시설로 구성된다. 추진제공급설비의 구성품인 고압가스 공급시스템은 우주발사체 발사 운용에 필요한 고압가스를 저장하고 각 사용처에 공급하는 역할을 수행한다. 고압가스 공급시스템은 고압가스 저장부, 조정패널, 제어서브시스템 등으로 구성되며, 조정패널 중 자동패널은 제어기와 연동되어 원격으로 구동이 가능하도록 구축된다. 본 논문에서는 한국형발사체와 발사대시스템 지상설비의 특성을 고려하여 설계된 고압 가스 공급시스템에 대해 소개하고자 한다. The KSLV-II launch complex system consists of mechanical ground support equipment(MGSE), fuel ground support equipment(FGSE), electrical ground support equipment(EGSE) and infrastructures. Compressed gas supply system, as a part of FGSE, is responsible for launch operations such as gas intake, storage, supply to launch vehicle and ground support equipments. This system consists of three primary elements such as gas storage part, control panel and controller. Automatic panels, as a part of control panel, are manufactured to operate remotely by controller. This study presents compressed gas supply system which is designed for KSLV-II and ground support equipment characteristics.

Power System for the Eu:CROPIS Satellite - Results from Design Trade-Offs, Analysis, Simulation and Testing

The Eu:CROPIS satellite is the first satellite to be launched as part of the DLR Compact Satellite Program. The mission is currently in Phase D and is scheduled to be launched in 2017. The Eu:CROPIS satellite is a small satellite of about 1m^3, and a mass of 250kg. The nominal power consumption in science mode is approximately 200W from which ~50% is provided to the payloads. The design of the Eu:CROPIS power system design is driven by the primary payload which is a biological payload that has a very narrow temperature range, and the attitude control system which utilizes only magnetic torquers as actuators. The power system has been optimized in order to provide as much power as possible during the Launch and Early Operations Phase (LEOP) of the mission resulting in a design which for the nominal part of the mission is over-dimensioned. This paper captures the trade-offs affecting the power system carried out on system level, which were made in the design phase of the mission, and will explain in more detail the analysis, simulation and testing related to the LEOP of the mission. Based on the simulations and resulting design iterations performed for the LEOP the probability of power balance in this phase has been increased significantly compared to the power system which was optimized for the nominal mission.

Application of the ATP assay to rapidly assess cleanliness of spacecraft surfaces: a path to set a standard for future missions.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) measures and validates the biological cleanliness of spacecraft surfaces by counting endospores using the NASA standard assay (NSA). NASA has also approved an adenosine-5′-triphosphate (ATP)-based detection methodology as a means to prescreen surfaces for the presence of microbial contamination, prior to the spore assay. During Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft assembly, test, and launch operations, 4853 surface samples were collected to verify compliance with the bioburden requirement at launch. A subset of these samples was measured for microbial cleanliness using both the NSA (n = 272) and ATP assay (n = 249). NSA results revealed that ~8% (22/272) of the samples showed the presence of at least one spore, whereas ATP assay measurements indicated that ~15% (35/249) of samples exceeded the “threshold cleanliness limit” of 2.3 × 10−11 mmol ATP per 25 cm2 used by MSL. Of the 22 NSA samples with a spore, 18% (4/22) were considered above the level of acceptance by both techniques. Based on post launch data analysis presented here, it was determined that this threshold cleanliness limit of 2.3 × 10−11 mmol ATP per 25 cm2 could be adopted as a benchmark for assessing spacecraft surface cleanliness. This study clearly demonstrates the value of using alternative methods to rapidly assess spacecraft cleanliness, and provides useful information regarding the process.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13568-016-0286-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Filling the Regulatory Void for Launch and Reentry Safety Resulting from the Commercialization of Space Operations

ABSTRACT The commercial use of space is not a new concept. Satellites have provided commercial services since the 1960s. However, the launch and recovery of space vehicles was dominated by State operators or under State Contract until the end of the last century. While commercial launches continue to increase, the international regulatory frameworks related to launch and reentry are fundamentally unchanged and are not structured to support a competitive commercial launch industry. This paper examines the regulatory gaps in the existing frameworks, particularly in the international domain. While there remain unresolved questions with regard to ICAO as it applies to suborbital flight, the ability of ICAO to develop standards and recommended practices for the portion of the operation that takes place in civil airspace is clear. These standards are necessary to ensure the safety of civil airspace for both traditional airspace users and launch operators, and the interaction of spaceports with civil airspace.

Launch System Hazard Study: Methodology and Lessons Learnt after 5 years of Application

ABSTRACT Risk management for new launch vehicles issuing from different origins and original industrial organizations, was a great challenge. In order to assess risk for launch operations, a specific type of risk analysis from take-off along the flight is performed. This analysis is called Launch System Hazard Study. The method is a classical one for high-risk industry, for which all the risks shall be assessed and mastered. These classical studies identify the hazard on ground and establish the risk mitigation to reduce the risk occurrence (prevention measures) and/or to minimize the effect (correction measures), like in particular the evacuation of the hazard zone. One of the main differences between the risk industry and the launch vehicle is that the latter is a moving source of hazard, which can be very large and reach many places on Earth or in orbit. More precisely the hazard study is an analysis that includes a description of all the hazards related to the operation in nominal and accidental operating situations, whether their cause is internal or external. The study specifies the nature and scope of the possible consequences of all these operating situations. When dealing with elements of the launch vehicle which are returned or which fall back and are liable to reach the ground, the study presents the components of these elements, stating their dimensions, masses and materials used. Moreover the study must present an exhaustive analysis of the causes and consequences, as well as the probabilities of the critical events. The mitigations are also defined, if necessary. Since 2010, each new development of a European launch vehicle required a hazard analysis. The lessons learnt consisted in the adaptation of the methodology not only to the scale of the launch system evolution, but also to the different phases or type of development, from a complete launch system to an adaptation for a specific mission. To allow this flexibility, the challenge was to simplify the analysis, without losing from the accuracy and the completeness point of view. The benefit of this approach is to have a more efficient methodology, more widely usable and fruitful all along the development, to anticipate and optimize the mitigation measures.

Efficiency Management in Spaceflight Systems

AbstractEfficiency in spaceflight is often approached as “faster, better, cheaper – pick two”. The high levels of performance and reliability required for each mission suggest that planners can only control for two of the three. True efficiency comes by optimizing a system across all three parameters. The functional processes of spaceflight become technical requirements on three operational groups during mission planning: payload, vehicle, and launch operations. Given the interrelationships among the functions performed by the operational groups, optimizing function resources from one operational group to the others affects the efficiency of those groups and therefore the mission overall. This paper helps outline this framework and creates a context in which to understand the effects of resource trades on the overall system, improving the efficiency of the operational groups and the mission as a whole. This allows insight into and optimization of the controlling factors earlier in the mission planning stage.

Performance analysis of IMU-augmented GNSS tracking systems for space launch vehicles

European space launch operators consider the potential of GNSS (global navigation satellite system) as a promising novel means of localization for the purpose of range safety of launch vehicles like Ariane and Vega, since it is expected that recurring costs are lower and accuracy is higher than currently existing systems like radar tracking. Range safety requires continuous information about the position and velocity of the launch vehicle to quickly detect the occurrence of catastrophic events. However, GNSS outages due, for example, to high jerks at fairing and stage jettisons or other external interferences like (un-)intentional jamming cannot be precluded. The OCAM-G experiment on Ariane 5 flight VA219 has provided evidence that GNSS is capable of providing a highly accurate position and velocity solution during most of the flight, but that outages of several seconds do occur. To increase the continuity of a GNSS-based localization system, it is proposed that the GNSS receiver is augmented by an inertial measurement unit (IMU), which is able to output a position and velocity solution even during GNSS outages. Since these outages are expected to be short, a tactical- or even consumer-grade IMU is expected to be sufficient. In this paper, the minimum IMU performance that is required to bridge outages of up to 10 s, and thereby meeting the accuracy requirements of range safety, is determined by means of a thorough simulation study. The focus of the analysis is on current generation microelectromechanical system (MEMS)-based IMU, which is lightweight, low-cost, available commercially and has reached acceptable maturity in the last decade.

비행 데이터를 이용한 EOS-D Ver.1.0의 열제어계 성능 평가

Satrec Initiative successfully developed a high-resolution electro-optical camera system, EOS-D Ver.1.0. EOS-D Ver.1.0 is the main payload of DubaiSat-2 and Deimos-2, which are developed based on the SI-300 platform of Satrec Initiative. After the launch and early operation (LEOP) of DubaiSat-2 and Deimos-2, we performed refocusing for the telescope of EOS-D Ver.1.0 to compensate for the dimensional change of its metering structure by moisture out-gassing. Before and after refocusing, we conducted the performance evaluation of thermal control system(TCS) for EOS-D Ver.1.0 using the in-orbit telemetry data. The evaluation showed EOS-D Ver.1.0 was under well-controlled thermal environment, which demonstrates TCS was designed and developed to meet all requirements.

Prediction and warning system of SEP events and solar flares for risk estimation in space launch operations

A web-based prototype system for predicting solar energetic particle (SEP) events and solar flares for use by space launch operators is presented. The system has been developed as a result of the European Space Agency (ESA) project SEPsFLAREs (Solar Events Prediction system For space LAunch Risk Estimation). The system consists of several modules covering the prediction of solar flares and early SEP Warnings (labeled Warning tool), the prediction of SEP event occurrence and onset, and the prediction of SEP event peak and duration. In addition, the system acquires data for solar flare nowcasting from Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS)-based techniques (GNSS Solar Flare Detector, GSFLAD and the Sunlit Ionosphere Sudden Total Electron Content Enhancement Detector, SISTED) as additional independent products that may also prove useful for space launch operators.

Trajectory Optimization of a Launch Vehicle with Explicit Instantaneous Impact Point Constraints for Various Range Safety Requirements

AbstractThis paper proposes a new trajectory optimization approach that can directly handle the range safety for launch operations. An analytic solution for an instantaneous impact point (IIP) of a vehicle is introduced and used to describe the constraints of the optimization problem in an explicit way. A quadratic formula that can address various types of range safety requirements is proposed. Based on the aforementioned elements, the launch trajectory optimization problem with explicit IIP constraints is mathematically defined. The validity of the proposed trajectory optimization is demonstrated through two case studies using realistic launch vehicle data and range safety issues.

President Clinton's Decision to Launch Operation Bushwacker Against Iraq in 1993: National Security Considerations or Diversionary Tactics?

An examination of President Clinton's decision to launch military actions against Iraq in June 1993 is largely absent in professional defense literature. This article represents an attempt to test the descriptive accuracy and further develop the diversionary theory of war. The analysis employs a qualitative framework for diversionary use of force developed by another researcher, Ryan C. Hendrickson. This article finds that empirical support for the diversionary argument in this case is mixed. Two proposals to further develop qualitative tests for diversionary use of force are advanced.

The Express Tribune: touching the tricky price point

Subject area Economics, entrepreneurship, pricing and marketing strategy, print industry in Pakistan. Study level/applicability Undergraduate and first-year graduate level. Case overview The main theme of the case revolves around decision-making by the publisher, Bilal Lakhani, as he operates in conditions of an oligopolistic market. The case focuses on the set-up of a major English-language newspaper, The Express Tribune, in conjunction with the internationally branded and well-regarded International Herald Tribune by a well-known business group of Pakistan. The group already has a major Urdu newspaper, which has been operational for 15 years, and three television channels, as well as a host of other non-media-related businesses. The case tries to go behind the reasons for setting up an English-language newspaper in a market which already has at least five major existing ones and where literacy is not that widespread. Also, experience in much of the rest of the world would suggest that newspapers – i.e. the print media – are in decline, especially because of the rise of the Internet and social media as means for providing news, information and entertainment. The case is set in Karachi, Pakistan's media capital and, in particular, in an organization that has been involved in the business of media for several years. It currently runs the country's second most-circulated Urdu newspaper, Daily Express. Specifically, the time period is three weeks after the paper, The Express Tribune, was launched into a market with a few competitors and high brand loyalty for existing competitors. The publisher of the paper, Bilal Lakhani, is questioning his pricing decision right after the launch of the paper and there are a series of reasons he is looking into on how he set the original price and why should he reduce the price of the paper now. Expected learning outcomes Students should be able to see, understand and analyze: challenges faced by entrepreneurs of starting an initiative which has a largely unreliable and untested audience; the extent of interdependence in an oligopolistic industry and how it influences the current and future decision-makings of an entrepreneur or any other firm for that matter, especially in a developing economy; the personnel, financial production and regulation issues involved in setting up assembly/ delivery systems that deliver a product for mass use, i.e. a newspaper; and the pricing and marketing strategies involved in the launch and subsequent successful operation of a product, in this case, a newspaper. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Proposal for Organizing The Industrial Cooperation on Commercial Space Safety and Technical Standards

ABSTRACT For commercial human spaceflight to flourish and expand, industry has to develop a notion of safety as the collective responsibility and common strategic business goal of all members. In 2004, the U.S. private spaceflight industry welcomed a law (i.e. the Commercial Space Launch Amendment Act (CSLAA)) postponing the ability of FAA to issue safety regulations, except for aspects of public safety until 2012. The deadline was later moved to 2015. The law, currently undergoing a second postponement until 2020, offers a historic opportunity for space industry to engage in the development of a comprehensive set of industrial consensus standards, based on the experience gained in more than 50years of government programs. This paper proposes framework and rules of an industrial cooperation for consensus standards, in the form of textual content for a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). Those standards, when established, could become the basis of a mixed regulatory regime, where industry takes care of self-certifying the vehicles safety, while government regulators would continue to cover launch and reentry operations for all aspect of public safety. This paper also suggest to carry out standardization activities within the broader scope of a Space Safety Institute.

IDENTIFICATION AND ANALYSIS TAKE-OFF AIRCRAFT OPERATIONS

Air transport plays a major role in the development of world economic activity and remains one of the fastest growing sectors of the international economy. One of the key elements that contribute to the maintenance of civil aviation development is to secure safe, efficient and environmentally sustainable means of transport, at the global, local and regional level. At airports communication air operations take place at intervals of tens of seconds to several minutes. A very important operation that the aircraft has to perform before coming to a safe standstill is take off. One of the most important operation is take off the aircraft. Security is an integral factor in determining the movement of the aircraft. The paper contains identification and analysis take off aircraft operations. The paper presents an analysis of the take-off operations including the rejected take-off. It is used in the analysis of the operation-taking place at the aerodrome of computer tools and methods. The result is the mathematical models form the basis for computer simulation. The aim of the article is modelling of the various stages of launch operations and identify basic models of these steps based on the parameters recorded by the flight data recorder aircraft. Constructed models imitating actual aircraft operations in the vicinity of the airport, will could be used in the practice of aviation.

Planning operations before market launch for balancing time-to-market and risks in pharmaceutical supply chains

Shorter product life cycles and the resulting increase in new product introductions boost the importance of product launch operations. In the pharmaceutical sector, product launch operations are of particular importance, as companies seek to reduce time-to-market to better exploit patent protection. Large volumes of product need to be ready to fill the downstream supply chain immediately at market launch. Building up the required inventory is, however, connected to several risks. In addition to the risk associated with the lack of demand information for a new product, there are several risks unique to the pharmaceutical sector. After approval by central authorities such as the FDA or EMA, a new drug still needs to receive market authorization, which is in most cases granted by some local authorities – in Europe, for example, by more than 30 national and regional bodies. The duration of these different market authorization processes as well as their outcomes (e.g. price and reimbursement levels, requirements of label or leaflet changes) are highly uncertain. We develop a two-stage stochastic model to support market launch preparation decisions. It trades off the costs of accepting these risks, for example by risk packaging before authorization, against the lost revenue caused by risk-averse operations. The model is applied to a case based on an empirical study. Our approach results in significant savings compared to current practices. We hereby provide an example of how quantitative methodology can provide valuable decision support for product launch operations, even when complex regulatory affairs need to be considered.

Small Solid Propellant Launch Vehicle Mixed Design Optimization Approach

For a small country with limited research budget and lack of advanced space technology, it is imperative to find new approaches for the development of low-cost launch vehicles (LV), which is, among all possibilities, an interesting option for rapid access to space, focused on integration of acquired components complemented with indigenously developed subsystems. This approach requires the cooperation of developed countries with huge experience and knowledge in LV development and operations. The main objective is to develop a small three stage solid propellant LV capable of delivering a payload of 100 kg to a circular low earth orbit of 600 km altitude, with the first and second stage solid rocket motors (SRM) hypothetically acquired from different countries and the third one designed and produced domestically in accordance with the production and technological capability. This approach provides main advantages such as: reduction in total time to access the space and to master the basic knowledge of launch operations. For this purpose, an integer continuous genetic algorithm global optimization method was selected and implemented, the SRM characteristics of the first and second stage were considered as integer variables, whereas the design variables of the third stage SRM and the trajectory variable were considered as continuous. A multi discipline feasible (MDF) framework was implemented along with the propulsion, aerodynamic, mass and trajectory models. Despite their particular characteristics and constraints, the results show highly acceptable values, and the approach proved to be reliable for conceptual design level.

Megha-Tropiques: mission planning, analysis, and operations

Climate in the tropics is primarily influenced by variations in energy and water budget exchanges in the land/ocean/atmosphere systems. The interaction of these systems with the general atmospheric circulation is still not fully understood – one of the reasons why weather forecasts and predictions of climatic events are less accurate. The Megha-Tropiques mission, an ISRO-CNES (Indian Space Research Organisation–Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) collaborative programme, aims to study water cycle and energy exchanges in the tropics, and use the data in climate and meteorology models. Megha-Tropiques is part of the Global Precipitation Measurement Mission, which is an international network of satellites. Of the four payloads on board, MADRAS is jointly developed by ISRO and the French space agency, CNES; SAPHIR and SCARAB completely by CNES; and GPS-ROSA is obtained from TAS-I (Thales Alenia Space Italia, Milan, Italy). GPS-ROSA supplements the geophysical parameters of the other payloads for atmosphere modelling. Mission planning involved integrating and interrelating the efforts of space and ground systems in realizing the operational system that provides the satellite-based science data meeting the turnaround time (TAT). Pre-launch simulations involved usage of a software simulator as a tool for network tests, training of spacecraft operation personnel, and validating the spacecraft health-monitoring software. The required operations were performed to characterize the payloads as well as to calibrate the various attitude sensors of the spacecraft. This paper summarizes mission planning and analysis aiding spacecraft configuration, pre-launch mission simulations, launch and early-orbit operations, and the on-orbit operational guidelines for Megha-Tropiques.

Examination of metals from aerospace-related activity in surface water samples from sites surrounding the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida.

Metal contamination from Space Shuttle launch activity was examined using inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy in a two-tier study sampling surface water collected from several sites at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and associated Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge in east central Florida. The primary study examined both temporal changes in baseline metal concentrations (19 metals) in surface water (1996 to 2009, 11 sites) samples collected at specific long-term monitoring sites and metal deposition directly associated with Space Shuttle launch activity at two Launch Complexes (LC39A and LC39B). A secondary study examined metal concentrations at additional sites and increased the amount of elements measured to 48 elements. Our examination places a heavy focus on those metals commonly associated with launch operations (e.g., Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn), but a brief discussion of other metals (As, Cu, Mo, Ni, and Pb) is also included. While no observable accumulation of metals occurred during the time period of the study, the data obtained postlaunch demonstrated a dramatic increase for Al, Fe, Mn, and Zn. Comparing overall trends between the primary and secondary baseline surface water concentrations, elevated concentrations were generally observed at sampling stations located near the launch complexes and from sites isolated from major water systems. While there could be several natural and anthropogenic sources for metal deposition at KSC, the data in this report indicate that shuttle launch events are a significant source.

An Experimental Approach for the Offshore Launching of Jack-Ups

Recently, as part of the building contract for the new Brazilian jack-up drilling platforms, an operational challenge was raised: to launch these units from the building site, where neither dry dock nor launching ground ways exist. Economically, the best alternative was to launch these jack-ups using the available barges used commonly for jacket launch. Due to the marked differences between a jacket and a jack-up, the implementation of this novel launch operation required a careful feasibility study. Model tests were required to measure the motions of the barge and the jack-up and to evaluate the loads on the barge rocker arms. The present paper discusses the experimental approach, test setup, calibration procedures, and some results from the hydrodynamics perspective.

Design for Testability Support for Launch and Capture Power Reduction in Launch-Off-Shift and Launch-Off-Capture Testing

At-speed or even faster-than-at-speed testing of VLSI circuits aims for high-quality screening of the circuits by targeting performance-related faults. On one hand, a compact test set with highly effective patterns, each detecting multiple delay faults, is desirable for lower test costs. On the other hand, such patterns increase switching activity during launch and capture operations. Patterns optimized for quality and cost may thus end up violating peak-power constraints, resulting in yield loss, while pattern generation under low switching activity constraints may lead to loss in test quality and/or pattern count inflation. In this paper, we propose design for testability (DfT) support for enabling the use of a set of patterns optimized for cost and quality as is, yet in a low power manner; we develop three different DfT mechanisms, one for launch-off shift, one for launch-off capture, and one for mixed at-speed testing. The proposed DfT support enables a design partitioning approach, where any given set of patterns, generated in a power-unaware manner, can be utilized to test the design regions one at a time, reducing both launch and capture power in a design-flow-compatible manner. This way, the test pattern count and quality of the optimized test set can be preserved, while lowering the launch/capture power.