News: Propulsion
News: Propulsion
Blog: Aerospace
Facility Focus: Propulsion
Founded on July 1, 1960, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL is one of NASA’s largest field centers. Marshall engineers designed, built, tested, and helped launch the Saturn V...
NASA Spinoff: Imaging
Rocket engine testing requires a lot of light since all tests are filmed with high-speed cameras to monitor performance; however, those cameras have to adjust to the bright plume from a firing...
Blog: Aerospace
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Mechanical systems such as engines and motors rely on two principal types of motions of stiff components: linear motion, which involves an object moving from one point to another in a straight...
Briefs: Propulsion
Making electric cars lighter also involves reducing the weight of the motor. One way to do that is by constructing it from fiber-reinforced polymer materials. A new cooling concept...
Briefs: Energy
Recent technical advances have enabled flywheel energy storage systems (FESS) to become more compact and able to support higher-power applications. Due to their proven...
NASA Spinoff: Propulsion
Spinoff is NASA’s annual publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. This commercialization has contributed to the development of products and services in...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Interoperable Intelligent Controllers for Process Management and Control Networks
NASA Johnson Space Center developed reprogrammable and interchangeable electronic controllers that can attach to a system or subsystem wirelessly or through plug-and-play capability. Originally designed to work with rocket engines, this technology can control...
Briefs: Transportation
An optical setup developed by researchers at Sandia's Combustion Research Facility and the Technical University of Denmark can now quantify the formation of soot — particulate matter consisting...
Briefs: Propulsion
Green Electric Monopropellant (GEM)-Fueled Pulsed Plasma Thruster
NASA required a rocket thruster able to produce a number of pulses at high specific impulse at a relatively low voltage (~300 to 400V). The key problem was that existing propellants for liquid-fueled pulsed plasma thrusters (LPPTs) required high voltages to ablate and accelerate...
Briefs: Software
Small-Body Dynamics Toolkit Version 5.0
The Small-Body Dynamics Toolkit (SBDT) v5.0 is a collection of primitive-body-specific trajectory design and analysis tools written in MATLAB®. The SBDT gives the user the capabilities to propagate, analyze, and visualize spacecraft trajectories and the dynamical environment near realistic asteroid,...
Articles: Electronics & Computers
WCX™ World Congress Experience 2019 — presented by SAE International — is for forward-thinking engineers, executives, OEMs, suppliers, decision-makers, disruptors, and the entire spectrum of...
Briefs: Propulsion
Real-Time, Fuel-Optimal, Powered Descent Guidance Using Interpolated Time-of-Flight and Propellant Mass
Soft landing using rockets requires a trajectory to be planned for the lander from rocket ignition — typically several kilometers in altitude and moving at up to 200 m/s — to the point near the surface with near-zero velocity. The exact...
Briefs: Software
Sublimable Propellant Source for Iodine-Fed Ion Propulsion System
NASA Marshall has developed a system for generating iodine vapor from solid iodine for use as a propellant in a Hall or ion thruster propulsion system. Xenon has generally been the preferred propellant for these spacecraft ion propulsion systems but more recently, iodine-based...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Fuel Cell/Fuel Cell Hybrid System
Fuel cells can deliver clean, reliable, and uninterrupted power nearly 100 percent of the time. Fuel cells offer the advantage of efficiency by converting chemical energy directly to electricity. They have no moving parts, thereby eliminating failures associated with pumps, blowers, heat exchangers, and other...
Briefs: Transportation
Effects of Reynolds and Mach Numbers in Large Eddy Simulation of Supersonic Round Jets
Rockets/landers arrive on the Moon with supersonic speed and impact lunar regolith. There is no reliable software to computationally simulate in an effective way the supersonic plumes escaping from these rockets/devices. A Large Eddy Simulation (LES) model and...
Special Reports: Transportation
Powertrain - February 2019
The latest powertrain innovations for cars and commercial vehicles are featured in this Special Report, a compendium of recent articles from the editors of Automotive Engineering and Truck & Off-Highway...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Government infrastructure facilities such as water treatment facilities, power plants, laboratories, and the like may be targets for terrorist attacks. Similarly, oil pipelines, power grids,...
Briefs: Aerospace
Lateral nozzle forces are known to cause severe structural damage during testing of any new rocket engine configuration under development. While three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics (CFD)...
Briefs: Propulsion
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed an unmanned aerial vehicle concept for long-range, distributed aerial presence and delivery applications. This aircraft concept is capable...
Application Briefs: Test & Measurement
There are few industries where the demands for material testing and quality assurance are more challenging than in the aerospace industry. Ensuring the safety of all...
Briefs: Energy
Typical direct-injection engines, such as diesel engines, can produce soot due to fuel-rich combustion conditions. Filters and catalytic converters are currently used to reduce soot and harmful...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Researchers have developed a new propulsion concept for swimming robots that exploits temperature fluctuations in the water for propulsion without the need for an engine, propellant, or power supply.
INSIDER: Aerospace
Since the first airplane took flight, virtually every aircraft has flown with the help of moving parts such as propellers, turbine blades, or fans that produce a persistent, whining buzz. MIT has built...
Articles: Semiconductors & ICs
Aluminum has an incredibly high energy density — double that of gasoline and an order of magnitude greater than...
Articles: RF & Microwave Electronics
NASA at 60: Celebrating Success
Over the past 60 years, NASA scientists and engineers have developed many advanced technologies and processes. But NASA has also partnered with industry, using commercially available products to complete its missions. Here, some of those companies join NASA in celebrating these collaborative successes.
Top Stories
Videos: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Stratolaunch Approaches Hypersonic Speeds in First Talon-A Flight
Blog: Automotive
A Hack to Trick Automotive Radar
Blog: Medical
3D Ice Printing Artificial Blood Vessels
Blog: Power
Tesla Valve-Inspired Design Could Improve the Performance of Rotating...
Podcasts: RF & Microwave Electronics
Countering Illegally Operated Drones at Airports, Stadiums, and Prisons
Blog: Energy
Fast-Charging Li Battery Could Make ‘Range Anxiety’ a Thing of the Past
Webcasts
On-Demand Webinars: Defense
From Data to Decision: How AI Enhances Warfighter Readiness
Upcoming Webinars: Aerospace
April Battery & Electrification Summit
Upcoming Webinars: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Tech Update: 3D Printing for Transportation in 2024
Upcoming Webinars: Materials
Unleashing Epoxy's Potential: Ensuring Hermetic Sealing in Modern...
Upcoming Webinars: Test & Measurement
Building an Automotive EMC Test Plan