NASA Armstrong Updates 1960s Concept to Study Giant Planets

NASA researchers are looking at the possibility of using a wingless, unpowered aircraft design from the 1960s to gather atmospheric data on other planets – doing the same work as small satellites but potentially better and more economically.

John Bodylski, a principal investigator at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, hypothesized a lifting body aircraft design NASA tested decades ago could meet the requirements for an atmospheric probe that can collect measurements of giant planets, like Uranus. The design relies on the aircraft’s shape for lift, rather than wings.

Bodylski submitted his idea and earned a NASA Armstrong Center Innovation Fund award to write a technical paper explaining the concept and design. The award also supports construction of models to help people conceptualize his atmospheric probe. Enter the NASA Armstrong Dale Reed Subscale Flight Research Laboratory.

Robert “Red” Jensen and Justin Hall, two of the lab’s designers, technicians, and pilots, brought Bodylski’s designs to life. Jensen and Hall created a mold, then layered in carbon-fiber and foam that cured for eight hours under vacuum. The parts were removed from the molds, refined, and later joined together.

The first of the two lifting body aircraft, both of which are 27 1/2 inches long, and 24 inches wide, is complete and offers a first look at the concept. The second aircraft is almost ready and includes hinged flight control surfaces. Flight controls systems connected to those surfaces will be mounted inside the structure before the model’s final assembly.

Together, the two models can test Bodylski’s ideas and provide flight data for creating better computer models. In the future, those computer models could help researchers built atmospheric probes based on those designs. Bodylski’s concept called for sending the aircraft on missions attached to satellites. Once in the orbit of a planet, the probe aircraft – about the same size as the models – would separate from the satellite through pyrotechnic bolts, deploying in the atmosphere to collect data for study.

Current atmospheric probes, small satellites known as CubeSats, gather and transmit data for about 40 minutes and can take in approximately 10 data points before their parent satellite is out of range. Bodylski’s design could descend more rapidly and at a steeper angle, collecting the same information in 10 minutes, plus additional data for another 30 minutes from much deeper in a thick atmosphere.

Following a series of technical briefings and flight readiness reviews, the aircraft is expected to fly in March 2024. It will fly as a glider air-launched from a cradle attached to rotorcraft often used by the lab. Future tests could include powered flight depending on what data researchers determine they need.

“We are looking to take an idea to flight and show that a lifting body aircraft can fly as a probe at this scale – that it can be stable, that components can be integrated into the probe, and that the aircraft can achieve some amount of lift,” Bodylski said.

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Dede Dinius

Evolved Adapter for Future NASA SLS Flights Readied for Testing

A test version of the universal stage adapter for NASA’s more powerful version of its SLS (Space Launch System) rocket arrived to Building 4619 at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Feb. 22 from Leidos in Decatur, Alabama. The universal stage adapter will connect the rocket’s upgraded in-space propulsion stage, called the exploration upper stage, to NASA’s Orion spacecraft as part of the evolved Block 1B configuration of the SLS rocket. It will also serve as a compartment capable of accommodating large payloads, such as modules or other exploration spacecraft. The SLS Block 1B variant will debut on Artemis IV and will increase SLS’s payload capability to send more than 84,000 pounds to the Moon in a single launch.

In Building 4619’s Load Test Annex High Bay at Marshall, the development test article will first undergo modal testing that will shake the hardware to validate dynamic models. Later, during ultimate load testing, force will be applied vertically and to the sides of the hardware. Unlike the flight hardware, the development test article has flaws intentionally included in its design, which will help engineers verify that the adapter can withstand the extreme forces it will face during launch and flight. The test article joins an already-rich history of rocket hardware that has undergone high-and-low pressure, acoustic, and extreme temperature testing in the multipurpose, high-bay test facility; it will be tested in the same location that once bent, compressed, and torqued the core stage intertank test article for SLS rocket’s Block 1 configuration. Leidos, the prime contractor for the universal stage adapter, manufactured the full-scale prototype at its Aerospace Structures Complex in Decatur.

NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft and Gateway in orbit around the Moon and commercial human landing systems, next-generational spacesuits, and rovers on the lunar surface. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.

News Media Contact

Corinne Beckinger
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256.544.0034
corinne.m.beckinger@nasa.gov

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Lee Mohon

8 Must-Have NASA Resources for Science Teachers in 2024

No one can bring the excitement of Earth and space science to the classroom like NASA! 

Launch your lessons to the next level with these eight essential resources for K-12 teachers:

Experience the Total Solar Eclipse 

Whether you’re on or off the path of totality (find out here!), we’ve put together this guide to help you explore live and virtual opportunities from NASA’s Science Activation Program for safely enjoying the eclipse and even contributing as a volunteer to do NASA Eclipse science.

An Out-of-this-world Biology Project

Growing Beyond Earth® (GBE) is a classroom-based citizen science project for middle and high school students about growing plants in space. Curricular materials and resources help you introduce your students to space plant biology and prepare them to participate in the program, through which students have the opportunity to present their findings to NASA Researchers. Materials in English and Spanish.

Interact with Real Cosmic Data and Imagery

Data Stories are interactives for high school students that showcase new science imagery and data for a variety of out of this world topics. Ideas for exploration and scientific highlights are included with every story through accompanying video and text.

Adaptive Learning and Creative Tools from Infiniscope

Empowering educators to develop next-generation, digital, adaptive learning experiences, Infiniscope provides free content and creative tools to educators who want to personalize learning for their middle and high school students. Join their network and get started here.  

STEM Literacy through the Lens of NASA 

NASA eClips provides educators with standards-based videos, educator guides, engineering design packets, and student opportunities for students in grades 3 to 12. Offerings cover a wide variety of topics that include energy, the Moon, clouds, sound, and more!

All Learners can be Scientists and Engineers

NASA missions are a perfect way to bring together science and engineering. In PLANETS units, learners in grades 3-8 engineer technologies like optical filters and use them to answer scientific questions like “Where was water on Mars?” Activities emphasize NASA planetary science and engineering and are designed to empower all learners and show that they can be scientists and engineers. 

Standards-Aligned Digital Resources for Grades K-12

Engage K–12 students with phenomena and science practices with this collection of supplementary digital media resources from GBH aligned with key NGSS Earth, space, and physical science disciplinary core ideas. To ensure that science content is accessible for all students, supports are included for students with disabilities or who are English learners.

Kids Explore Earth and Space with NASA!

NASA’s Space Place helps upper-elementary-aged kids learn space and Earth science through fun games, hands-on activities, art challenges, informative articles, and engaging short videos. With material in both English and Spanish and resources for teachers and parents, NASA Space Place has something for everyone. 

Didn’t find what you were looking for? Want to explore even more resources? NASA’s Science Activation (SciAct) program offers Learning and Educational Activities and Resources from NASA Science that invite learners of all ages to participate!

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NASA-Supported Team Discovers Aurora-Like Radio Bursts Above Sunspot

A NASA-funded team of scientists has discovered long-lasting radio signals emanating from the Sun that are similar to those associated with auroras – northern and southern lights – on Earth.

Detected about 25,000 miles (40,000 km) above a sunspot – a relatively cool, dark, and magnetically active region on the Sun – such radio bursts had previously been observed only on planets and other stars.

“This sunspot radio emission represents the first detection of its kind,” said Sijie Yu of the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, who is the lead author of a paper reporting the discovery in the January 2024 issue of Nature Astronomy. The research was first published online in November 2023.

The discovery could help us better understand our own star as well as the behavior of distant stars that produce similar radio emissions.

The Sun often emits short radio bursts that last for minutes or hours. But the radio bursts Yu’s team detected, using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in New Mexico, persisted for over a week.

These sunspot radio bursts also have other characteristics – such as their spectra (or intensity at different wavelengths) and their polarization (the angle or direction of the radio waves) – that are much more like radio emissions produced in the polar regions of Earth and other planets with auroras.

On Earth (and other planets such as Jupiter and Saturn), auroras shimmer in the night sky when solar particles are caught up in the planet’s magnetic field and get pulled toward the poles, where magnetic field lines converge. As they accelerate poleward, the particles generate intense radio emissions at frequencies around a few hundred kilohertz and then smash into atoms in the atmosphere, causing them to emit light as auroras.

The analysis by Yu’s team suggests the radio bursts above the sunspot are likely produced in a comparable way – when energetic electrons get trapped and accelerated by converging magnetic fields above a sunspot. Unlike Earth’s auroras, though, the radio bursts from sunspots occur at much higher frequencies – hundreds of thousands of kilohertz to roughly 1 million kilohertz. “That’s a direct result of the sunspot’s magnetic field being thousands of times stronger than Earth’s,” Yu said.

Similar radio emissions have previously been observed from some types of low-mass stars as well. This discovery introduces the possibility that aurora-like radio emissions may originate from large spots on those stars (called “starspots”) in addition to the previously proposed auroras in their polar regions.

“The discovery excites us as it challenges existing notions of solar radio phenomena and opens new avenues for exploring magnetic activities both in our Sun and in distant stellar systems,” Yu said.

“NASA’s growing heliophysics fleet is well suited to continue to investigate the source regions of these radio bursts,” said Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy, a heliophysicist and solar radio researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “For example, the Solar Dynamics Observatory continually monitors the Sun’s active regions, which likely give rise to this phenomenon.”

In the meantime, Yu’s team plans to reexamine other solar radio bursts to see whether any appear to be similar to the aurora-like radio bursts they found. “We aim to determine if some of the previously recorded solar bursts could be instances of this newly identified emission,” Yu said.

The research by Yu’s team has been supported in part by a NASA Early Career Investigator Program (ECIP) grant awarded to the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

By Vanessa Thomas
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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