SPARTAN Date: Business Unit Space Infrastructures & Transportation February the 17 2011 All rights reserved 2011, Thales Alenia Space
Project Overview 2 From 3 rd Fp7 Space Call Grant Agreement n. 262837 Start date: 1 st March 2011 Planned duration 3 years Project Coordinator: Thales Alenia Space Italia (Business Segment Space Infrastructures & Transportation Torino) Project Partners: UNIVERSITA degli STUDI PADOVA Italy NAMMO RAUFOSS AS Norway BRADFORD Engineering BV The Netherland POLITECNICO di MILANO Italy Vysoke uceni technicke v Brne Czech Republic GMV Aerospace and Defence SA Spain STUDIEL France
Scope 3 Aimed at the development of a new throttling propulsion technology enabling a Lander to perform a soft and precision landing on a planetary surface, and a new low-cost highly realistic test bed to qualify precision landing capability on ground. The Hybrid propulsion technology has been selected, because of its peculiarities (safety, minimum environmental impact, low life cycle costs, responsiveness, competitive performances, increased reliability, soft ignition and shutdown). The landing test requirements are derived from the soft and precision landing requirements on the mars planet surface (i.e. Exomars and Mars Sample Return missions), adapted to the earth environment and to the proposed test specific objectives.
Objectives 4 Focuses on three major objectives, that are the key to achieve the soft and precision landing capabilities: Engine design, specific for throttling functionality, Oxidizer throttable device development, Design of the landing case: test bench and testing procedures.
Expected Results 5 SPARTAN Project expected results are aimed at enabling soft and precision landing capabilities on Mars by: Development of an innovative engine design, specific for throttling functionality, Development of an oxidizer throttable device, Design of the landing case including test bench and testing procedures. Perform the demonstration of these high level technologies making the first, but horizontally extended, step up to the throttable propulsion capability. Demonstrate the first European soft landing drop test, by means of a throttable engine and of a Lander module, autonomously guided. It is expected that these results will trigger an upstream research aimed at improving, in the long-term, the capability for access to planet surfaces in the frame of Space Exploration activities.
Work Plan - WBS 6
Product 7 Lander Structure (Design STUDIEL; Production TAS-I & VUT) Propulsion (see next) GNC (see next) Telemetry & data acquisition (GMV; VUT)
Product Propulsion NAMMO Motor case Internal thermal insulation Casted solid fuel grain Injector (UNIPD Design) Ignition system Weather seal (burst disc) Rocket motor attachment surface Nozzle BRADFORD Pressure Regulation Valve VUT Piping and Harness (TAS-I Design) 8 TAS-I Tankage & Auxiliary components
Product GNC TAS-I Algorithm GMV Onboard computer (one board) Mass Memory Units (MMU) Data Acquisition Units (DAU)-for the laser altimeter, on board sensors and engine throttling devices Battery Power, Control and Distribution unit engine ignition device actuation board with safe and arm device Serial interfaces for the IMU, GPS, and Attitude and Heading Reference System (AHRS) VUT Independent telemetry system and recovery system for safety redundancy during test 9
Product Assembly Integration & Test VUT 10 Components Assembly Interconnection Systems functional tests Structural test (Small scale drop test to verify landing gear functionality) Integration of independent data acquisition system and test
Mission Profile 11
Main Results Achieved 12 A specific regression rate measurement device has been designed and tested; the measurement device foreseen in the proposal was supposed to be acquired from the US but this is no longer available for the external market. This is an important added value brought by the project since no such device existed in Europe. Advanced Coding: a CFX code has been developed and extensively used to support the engine design, allowing the engine and engine injection design optimisation (leading to L/D optimization). A detailed design of the Flow Control valve has been carried out and the breadboard model is now being manufactured for verification testing.
Main Results Achieved The preliminary Flight Dynamics System design has been performed, allowing for detailed requirements definition and mission profile characterization. GNC components have been selected and preliminarily tested. After a preliminary test aimed at consolidating the test plan for the Throttable Engine validation campaign, an additional representative test in preparation for the validation campaign has been planned and specified. This will be performed with a dummy structure to verify and validate the recovery system, the aerodatabase and the helicopter wake effect. 13
First Year Results 14 Overall the project is proceeding as expected, the following are the results achieved in the first year: Definition of System requirements Fuel and Oxidiser selection the oxidiser has been changed with respect to the proposal: HTPB and H2O2 Throttling Concept Selection and preliminary Throttling Device Design Cold test set-up CFX code development and validation Subscale experimental activities Fuel Regression Rate Characterisation Fuel Diagnostics development Preliminary Flight Dynamics Algorithm Preliminary GNC Architecture Structure Design and related Analysis
First Year Results 15 Results achieved in the first year (continued): Preliminary oxidiser tank definition Engine Preliminary Design Recovery System Design and component selection Flight Dynamics Architecture Flight Software Architecture GNC Architecture and component selection Mission profile trade-off and selection Helicopter wake test together with Dummy Test with helicopter Aero database definition. The first annual review with REA went well, some improvements are required in the annual report but the overall performance of the project has been judged positively and accepted by the reviewer.