Ad Astra Rocket Company. Ad Astra Rocket Company. R&D Support Services

Transcription

1 R&D Support Services

2 Ad Astra R&D Support Services Located in Webster, Texas and Liberia, Costa Rica. Ad Astra employs a team of PhD scientists, engineers and technicians skilled in the design, fabrication and testing of prototype hardware. Ad Astra can support experimentation and testing with: Instrumentation, data acquisition and FPGA systems Mechanical design, 3D CAD, CAM, FEA Analysis Specialty machining to aerospace standards Large scale vacuum facilities Cryogenics Magnetic field environments Circuit-board and electrical fabrication Radio-frequency electrical engineering High power plasma sources Ad Astra can perform computer modeling of: Space trajectories (orbital mechanics) Heat and fluid flow RF-powered plasmas and plasma jets Magnetic systems and shielding

3 Two Facilities A Delaware Corporation, capitalizing on more than 25 years of NASA R&D on plasma propulsion. Research and Engineering Facilities in USA and Costa Rica. Corporate Headquarters in Webster, TX 24,000 sqft, near NASA s Johnson Space Center EARTH University, La Flor Campus, Liberia, Costa Rica

4 Laboratory Testing Instrumentation includes: Infrared camera Laser alignment Optical spectrometers Microwave interferometers Residual gas analyzer EMI sensors 3-axis magnetometer Retarding potential energy analyzers Ion flux, single and double Langmuir probes Plasma momentum flux and force targets Data acquisition speeds up to MHz range Vibrational Analysis Custom searchable database software

5 Industrial Measurement & Automation National Instruments software and hardware National Instruments Certified LabVIEW Developer (CLD) on staff Experience with CompactRIO, CompactDAQ, PXI, SCXI, Motion, & more MATLAB Multiple experienced developers of, automated, GUI d analysis routines PLCs Experienced developer of Allen-Bradley/Rockwell PLCs on staff Built and programmed PLC system to fully automate large vacuum test facility MATLAB plasma probe analysis GUI LabVIEW block diagram LabVIEW rocket monitor GUI

6 FPGA coding, layout and downloading using Xilinx ISE Design Suite and IMPACT Finite State Machines (FSM), Mealy/Moore Multi-microcontroller embedded systems Mixed-signal processing Hardware controllers with interface to external hardware FPGA Capabilities

7 ProEngineer Wildfire 4.0 Close communication with machinist to assure manufacturability Mechanical Design and Drafting

8 Machining State-of-the-art machine shops, flight certified Complex, high precision parts (e.g. liquid rocket engine injector plates) Will work closely with engineers to produce quality parts or assemblies Prototype and mockup shop Exotic metals and ceramics Full traceability Titanium Aluminum Stainless Steel Machine shop USA Machine shop Costa Rica Machinist and techs with over 20 years experience, primarily building spaceflight hardware

9 150 m 3, < 10-8 torr base pressure Large Space Simulation Chamber, USA Vacuum Testing 150, 10 and 5 m 3 vacuum chambers Pumping speeds over 300,000 l/s End cap (14 ) and personnel (3 ) access Fast pump-down and vent Rail tracks for easy installation/removal Several large viewports (> 20 ), HD internal video 2.5 m x 5 m precision translation stage (other vacuum motion capability) Coaxial, HV/LV/multi-pin power/signal, optical, thermocouple, and fluid feedthru de-ionized & regular chilled water 100 kw cooling capacity Multi-channel data acquisition, NI-PXI 2 ton crane 1.5 MVA 480 VAC service 5 m 3 high vacuum test chamber, USA 10 m 3 vacuum test chamber, Costa Rica 2-axis precision translation stage

10 Cryogenic Testing In-house cryogenic testing facilities 8 high lift cryocoolers 6000 gal. liquid nitrogen bulk tank Cryogenic thermal load testing and characterization Three vacuum chambers are used for thermal vacuum insulation Experience with modifying and testing a high temperature superconducting magnet fixture for NASA Operation of a large scale 2 tesla cryogen-free superconducting magnet

11 Electrical and RF Power Engineering Over 30 years of experience with high power RF systems, including analysis, design, and fabrication Altium schematic capture / PCB design, multi-layer (up to 12) circuit boards 1000 sqft electronics fabrication, assembly and test lab Modern high-quality test equipment, e.g. network analyzer, vector impedance meter, oscilloscopes... Alliance with MEI Technologies for development of advanced spacecraft power systems State of the art solid-state RF power generation with Nautel Ltd 200 kw solid-state RF power installation with supporting electronics Solar Dynamics Observatory Courtesy: MEI Technologies/NASA In-vacuum RF power (200 kw) networks, control and sensor electronics Both tube and solid state RF amplifiers

12 High Performance Plasma Sources Decades of experience in developing, building and testing high power (more than 100 kw) plasma sources with ion heating VX-50, 50 kw Helicon plasma sources that efficiently produce over 300 Amperes of directed ion current Variety of gases, hydrogen to xenon argon VX-200, 200 kw deuterium VX-100, 100 kw VX-CR, 12 kw

13 Space Trajectory Analysis Low-thrust lunar trajectory in rotating reference frame Ad Astra has performed mission analysis studies with JSC using the NASA Copernicus code Mars Sample Return Jupiter Catapult

14 Plasma Modeling Ionosphere Magnetic Field Line Connections 3 gauss boundary Field Strength Interference Capacitive RF drive One or more magnet coils RF Sources Plasma Jets Plasma Reactors

15 Large Scale Mockups and Specialty Testing Experience with building high fidelity mockups for large scale spaceflight projects Over 50 hours flight time with testing hardware in the NASA Zero-g aircraft Zero-g testing Notional ISS Aurora Platform Mockup Joint venture with CORAAL and Costa Rica government

16 Mission Analysis Space Environment Testing Engineering Design Ad Astra Technology Areas Physics-based Computer Modeling Electrical and RF Power Cryogenics Aerospace Manufacturing Plasma Material Testing Thermal Engineering Intense Plasma Sources Plasma Measurements

17 Contact Information USA Jared P. Squire, Ph.D. Sr. VP of Research 141 W. Bay Area Blvd Webster, TX or Costa Rica Jorge Oguilve-Araya Operations Director Located on Earth University Campus 10 km west of Liberia Guanacaste, Costa Rica (281) main line (281) office main line