In July, Boeing unveiled the 787 Dreamliner, the world’s first jetliner constructed almost entirely of composite materials, about 50 percent by weight.
Goddard’s Mechanical Systems Division would like to take a page from Boeing’s book and remove the obstacles hindering NASA’s use of composites in spacecraft design. The organization has formed a new group — the GoCOMET team — to advance the use of composite materials in major spaceflight structures.
“Goddard has already made a name for itself in the field,” said GoCOMET team leader Ken Segal, referring to the composite structures Goddard has designed and built for instruments on the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope, Swift, ICESat (Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite), and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. In addition, Goddard currently is designing structures for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the Global Precipitation Meaurement. “We are one of the few government organizations to offer end-to-end composite capabilities. It’s unique,” Segal says.
However, he and others believe composites should play an even larger role in spacecraft applications. Composite materials weigh less, offer more design flexibility, and reduce the number of parts needed to assemble a piece of hardware — all important criteria in carrying out operations on the lunar surface. Despite these advantages, however, NASA mission designers historically have been reluctant to use these materials.
“In space applications, composites are trickier to deal with,” says Ted Swanson, assistant chief for technology for the Mechanical Systems Division. Although we have decades of experience in aluminum and other materials, we don’t know nearly as much about composites and how to use them in a space environment. We lack adequate design references and established manufacturing guidelines. That’s why there is some reluctance to use them.”
To advance their use, GoCOMET is charged with exploring new approaches to decrease the cost of flying composite materials in space and infusing new technologies that will sharply increase their performance over conventional materials. As part of that effort, the group has partnered with the Langley Research Center to carry out a 6-month study to determine the state-of-the-art in industry and determine which technologies NASA could safely adapt to exploration missions, spaceflight instruments, and other hardware.
In addition, Goddard, the U.S. Air Force, and the Aerospace Corporation co-sponsored a Composite Materials Engineering Technology Workshop at the Applied Physics Laboratory Oct. 16-17 to pull together experts in the field and examine opportunities for partnering.
With fewer science opportunities and reduced R&D funding, advancing Goddard’s expertise in composites and expanding their use will require greater collaboration with others, Segal says. “This is important, not just to Goddard, but to NASA.”
Goddard technologists win new work, secure follow-on funding to mature new technologies, formulate concepts, and validate new instrument concepts in flight demonstrations — successes that benefit Goddard and the scientific community as a whole.