Gauging Systems Monitor Cryogenic Liquids

In 2006, SLI developed the Cryo-Tracker Mass Gauging System (Cryo-Tracker MGS) with funding from a Phase III Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contract from Kennedy Space Center, after receiving Phase I and Phase II funding from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Transcript

00:00:01 before making a trip you make sure your car has enough gas to get you to your destination by checking the gas gauge but it's not that simple when getting ready to launch a rocket into space project propellant systems on vehicles are very complicated you want to be able to understand the environment of the propellant and what what's happening inside these tanks especially for a

00:00:22 mission Assurance for long duration Coast where the propellants might be sosing or moving around in a low gravity environment developing just the right kind of gauge that can check those cryogenic levels has evolved into a partnership between NASA and a small firm in Ohio called Sierra Lobo Incorporated The Firm first began working on cryogenic Technologies at

00:00:43 Nasa Glenn research Center's Plum Brook station in Ohio since then they have developed and improved different aspects of what would become a gauge to measure cryogenic fuel called cry tracker each contract enabl us to do a little bit more and we would work with the different centers and develop different pieces of the technology so could have been a feed through or it could have

00:01:02 been the uh actual um product uh crowd tracker probe itself we may have done some vibration testing with one contract we may have done some life testing in another contract working with the Innovative Partnerships program or IP at stinis Space Center Sierra Lobo had a dual use technology transfer project The Firm worked with the stenis engineers to design and developed Hardware that

00:01:25 allowed wires and instrumentation to take measurements inside a cryogenic fuel test rig that feed through enables the crowd tracker to pass directly out of the propellant tank so that there's no bulkhead electrical connections at the tank wall that may get very cold and may ice up and cause problems so that program was uh very helpful in terms of you know solving a problem that industry

00:01:50 you know was having and also providing some uh capability to NASA the company successfully tested a cryo tracker probe with locked then through a lead fund award from Kennedy Space Center IP they dramatically improved the probe to get it ready for flight qualification technology Partnerships provide an excellent opportunity and a and a forum for us to work together with very

00:02:14 Innovative companies um like Sierra Lobo and typically the the sum of the the halves is greater than the whole where each party is making that contribution in the end product is often much better than if we were to do the development ourselves compact rugged and lightweight the probe is virtually a one- piece technology that collects a lot of data about the fuel in the tanks it can let

00:02:37 launch managers know how much mass is on board predict the margins for usage and can check the fuel during the mission today the launch Services program at Kennedy has several planned projects that will use the Cryer tracker probe and is also slated to be used for NASA's constellation mission