Astronautik

This book provides a systematic and standardized approach based on the authors' over 30 years of research experience with weight function methods, as well as the relevant literature. Fracture mechanics has become an indispensable tool for the design and safe operation of damage-tolerant structures in many important technical areas. The stress intensity factor-the characterizing parameter of the crack tip field-is the foundation of fracture mechanics analysis. The weight function method is a powerful technique for determining stress intensity factors and crack opening displacements for complex load conditions, with remarkable computational efficiency and high accuracy.The book presents the theoretical background of the weight function methods, together with a wealth of analytical weight functions and stress intensity factors for two- and three-dimensional crack geometries; many of these have been incorporated into national, international standards and industrial codes of practice. The accuracy of the results is rigorously verified, and various sample applications are provided. Accordingly, the book offers an ideal reference source for graduate students, researchers, and engineers whose work involves fracture and fatigue of materials and structures, who need not only stress intensity factors themselves but also efficient and reliable tools for obtaining them.

This is a book that covers different aspects of UAV technology, including design and development, applications, security and communication, and legal and regulatory challenges.The book is divided into 13 chapters, grouped into four parts. The first part discusses the design and development of UAVs, including ROS customization, structured designs, and intelligent trajectory tracking. The second part explores diverse applications such as search and rescue, monitoring distributed parameter systems, and leveraging drone technology in accounting. The third part focuses on security and communication challenges, including security concerns, multi-UAV systems, and communications security. The final part delves into the legal and regulatory challenges of integrating UAVs into non-segregated airspace.The book serves as a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, and students in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles, providing a comprehensive understanding of UAV technology and its applications.

Unmanned systems are one of the fastest-growing and widely developing technologies in the world, offering many possibilities for a variety of research fields. This book comprises the proceedings of the 2021 International Symposium on Unmanned Systems and the Defense Industry (ISUDEF), a multi-disciplinary conference on a broad range of current research and issues in areas such as autonomous technology, unmanned aircraft technologies, avionics, radar systems, air defense, aerospace robotics and mechatronics, and aircraft technology design. ISUDEF allows researchers, scientists, engineers, practitioners, policymakers, and students to exchange information, present new technologies and developments, and discuss future direction, strategies, and priorities in the field of autonomous vehicles and unmanned aircraft technologies.Covers a range of emerging topics;Addresses current issues on autonomous vehicles and unmanned aircraft;Full proceedings of ISUDEF 2021held at Howard University.

This book presents an overview of polymer nanocomposites for use in various high-temperature applications. Specifically, it focuses on the structure and physical properties of nanocomposites based on heterocyclic matrices derived from nitrile monomers such as cyanate esters or phthalonitriles. Due to increasing interest in new heat-resistant, lightweight materials for use in extreme conditions, such as in aeronautics, microelectronics, and various industrial machinery, the high thermal stability of heterocyclic polymer networks, in particular, has attracted much attention from materials researchers and engineers. Featuring a comprehensive review of the most recent advances in research on the structure and physical properties of these promising high-temperature polymer nanocomposites, this book will be of particular interest to materials scientists and engineers working throughout the fields of aeronautical and microelectronic engineering. In general, this book is intended for use by researchers of composite materials and specialists engaged in material selection for work in extreme conditions; for students specializing in materials science; for polymer physicists, and for university libraries.

As outer space becomes more congested, contested, and competitive, the risks to space safety, security, and sustainability heighten. Against this backdrop, the authors used a review of relevant literature and official documents, as well as interviews and workshops with subject-matter experts, to identify possible lessons for future space traffic management (STM) from past approaches to international traffic management and common resource management and offer recommendations to make progress in STM. Lessons from the history of the maritime and air domains and the development and implementation of international organizations within those domains help provide a pathway for the development of an international space traffic management organization (ISTMO). An ISTMO will need to achieve sufficient legitimacy and operational power to effectively manage the space domain.

This book is an ideal and practical resource on the potential impact Artificial Intelligence (AI) can have in space sciences and applications. AI for Space Application presents a hands-on approach to browse in the subject and to learning how to do.AI is not yet fully accepted as a pervasive technology in space applications because they are often mission-critical and the cost of space equipment and modules raises skepticism on any practical use and reliability. However, it is evident that its potential impact on many aspects is dramatic. Starting from either actual or experimental realizations, the book accompanies the reader through such fascinating subjects like space exploration, autonomous navigation and landing, rover control and guidance on rough surfaces, image analysis automation for planet or star classification, and for space debris avoidance without human intervention.This kind of approach may facilitate further investigations on the same or similar subjects, as the future of space explorations is going toward adopting AI. The intended audience of the book are researchers from academia and space industries and practitioners in related start-ups.

This book describes the basic concepts of spacecraft operations for both manned and unmanned missions. The first part of the book provides a brief overview of the space segment. The next four parts deal with the classic areas of space flight operations: mission operations, communications and infrastructure, the flight dynamics system, and the mission planning system. This is followed by a part describing the operational tasks of the various subsystems of a classical satellite in Earth orbit. The last part describes the special requirements of other mission types due to the presence of astronauts, the approach of a satellite to another target satellite, or leaving Earth orbit in interplanetary missions and landing on other planets and moons.The 2nd edition is published seven years after the first edition. It contains four new chapters on flight procedures, the human factors, ground station operation, and software and systems. In addition, several chapters have been extensively expanded. The entire book has been brought up to date and the language has been revised.This book is based on the "e;Spacecraft Operations Course"e; held at the German Space Operations Center. However, the target audience of this book is not only the participants of the course, but also students of technical and scientific courses, as well as technically interested people who want to gain a deeper understanding of spacecraft operations.

This engaging and accessible book is designed as a quick and easy way to get up to speed on all things in space technology. It also offers extensive references and links that allow readers to delve deeper into the subject.Whether you were a newcomer to space technology or a seasoned professional, this book is the best way to brush up on the basics of everything from satellite design and construction to the physics behind objects orbiting celestial bodies.Written in an accessible tone that is easy to understand, this book is perfect for reading during a short flight or any other spare moment you might have. You can learn about the main laws of Physics behind objects in orbit, the environments that satellites face while in space, and the processes involved in designing and building these incredible machines. Along the way, you can also get a glimpse into the history of space technology, including the foundational technologies that have made it all possible. So why not join the community of space enthusiasts and get up to speed on everything you need to know about space technology?

The main focus of this book is a pair of cooperative control problems: consensus and cooperative output regulation. Its emphasis is on complex multi-agent systems characterized by strong nonlinearity, large uncertainty, heterogeneity, external disturbances and jointly connected switching communication topologies. The cooperative output regulation problem is a generalization of the classical output regulation problem to multi-agent systems and it offers a general framework for handling a variety of cooperative control problems such as consensus, formation, tracking and disturbance rejection. The book strikes a balance between rigorous mathematical proof and engineering practicality. Every design method is systematically presented together with illustrative examples and all the designs are validated by computer simulation. The methods presented are applied to several practical problems, among them the leader-following consensus problem of multiple Euler-Lagrange systems, attitude synchronization of multiple rigid-body systems, and power regulation of microgrids. The book gives a detailed exposition of two approaches to the design of distributed control laws for complex multi-agent systems-the distributed-observer and distributed-internal-model approaches. Mastering both will enhance a reader's ability to deal with a variety of complex real-world problems. Cooperative Control of Multi-agent Systems can be used as a textbook for graduate students in engineering, sciences, and mathematics, and can also serve as a reference book for practitioners and theorists in both industry and academia. Some knowledge of the fundamentals of linear algebra, calculus, and linear systems are needed to gain maximum benefit from this book. Advances in Industrial Control reports and encourages the transfer of technology in control engineering. The rapid development of control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an extended exposition of new work in all aspects of industrial control.

NASA's flight control teams work diligently during every flight to safeguard spacecraft and their crews, but few people appreciate the significance of their contributions to the American Space Program. Shuttle Mission Control: Flight Controller Stories and Photos, 1981-1992, showcases twenty first-person accounts of Space Shuttle controllers solving problems from dangerous pressure readings to slippery satellites. The decisions made and actions taken by these unsung heroes, many recognized with the honor of hanging the mission patch, epitomize the motto of Mission Control, "Achievement through Excellence." Flight controller rosters and honorees plus an acronym list and index are included.

Interest in rockets that use fission reactors as the heat source has centered on manned flights to Mars. The demands of such missions require rockets that are several times more powerful than the chemical rockets in use today.Rocket engines operate according to the basic principles expressed in Newton's third law of motion: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In a chemical rocket, hot gases are created by chemical combustion; in a nuclear rocket heating of the propellant in a nuclear reactor creates hot gas. In either case, the hot gases flow through the throat of the rocket nozzle where they expand and develop thrust.Extensive development effort has been expended on nuclear rockets. The nuclear Rover/ NERVA rocket programs provide a very high confidence level that the technology for a flight nuclear rocket exists. These programs demonstrated power levels between 507 MWt and 4,100 MWt and thrust levels of up to 930 kN (200,000 Ibf). Specific impulse, a measure of rocket performance, was more than twice that of chemical rockets. Ground testing and technology development has been done on several concepts described in this book. However, though there appear to be no technical barriers to the development of a successful nuclear rocket, no nuclear rockets have been flown in space.This book describes the fundamentals of nuclear rockets, the safety and other mission requirements, developmental history of various concepts both in the U.S. and Russia, and it summarizes key developmental issues.

The advantages of space nuclear fission power systems can be summarized as: compact size; low to moderate mass; long operating lifetimes; the ability to operate in extremely hostile environments; operation independent of the distance from the Sun or of the orientation to the Sun; and high system reliability and autonomy. In fact, as power requirements approach the tens of kilowatts and megawatts, fission nuclear energy appears to be the only realistic power option. The building blocks for space nuclear fission electric power systems include the reactor as the heat source, power generation equipment to convert the thermal energy to electrical power, waste heat rejection radiators and shielding to protect the spacecraft payload. The power generation equipment can take the form of either static electrical conversion elements that have no moving parts (e.g., thermoelectric or thermionic) or dynamic conversion components (e.g., the Rankine, Brayton or Stirling cycle).The U.S. has only demonstrated in space, or even in full systems in a simulated ground environment, uranium-zirconium-hydride reactor power plants. These power plants were designed for a limited lifetime of one year and the mass of scaled up power plants would probably be unacceptable to meet future mission needs. Extensive development was performed on the liquid-metal cooled SP-100 power systems and components were well on their way to being tested in a relevant environment. A generic flight system design was completed for a seven year operating lifetime power plant, but not built or tested.The former USSR made extensive use of space reactors as a power source for radar ocean reconnaissance satellites. They launched some 31 missions using reactors with thermoelectric power conversion systems and two with thermionic converters.Current activities are centered on Fission Surface Power for lunar applications. Activities are concentrating on demonstrating component readiness.This book will discuss the components that make up a nuclear fission power system, the principal requirements and safety issues, various development programs, status of developments, and development issues.

For operating in severe environments, long life and reliability, radioisotope power systems have proven to be the most successful of all space power sources. Two Voyager missions launched in 1977 to study Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their satellites, rings and magnetic fields and continuing to the heliosphere region are still functioning over thirty years later. Radioisotope power systems have been used on the Moon, exploring the planets, and exiting our solar system. There success is a tribute to the outstanding engineering, quality control and attention to details that went into the design and production of radioisotope power generation units.Space nuclear radioisotope systems take the form of using the thermal energy from the decay of radioisotopes and converting this energy to electric power. Reliability and safety are of prime importance. Mission success depends on the ability of being able to safely launch the systems and on having sufficient electrical power over the life of the mission. Graceful power degradation over the life of a mission is acceptable as long as it is within predictable limits. Electrical power conversion systems with inherent redundancy, such as thermoelectric conversion systems, have been favored to date. Also, radioactive decay heat has been used to maintain temperatures in spacecraft at acceptable conditions for other components.This book describes how radioisotope systems work, the requirements and safety design considerations, the various systems that have been developed, and their operational history.

This book deals with the analysis of plates and shells and is divided into four sections. After briefly introducing the basics of elasticity theory and the energy methods of elastostatics in the first section, the second section is devoted to the statics of disk structures. In addition to isotropic disks in Cartesian and polar coordinates, approximation methods and anisotropic disks are also discussed. The following third section deals with plate structures, covering plates in Cartesian and polar coordinates, and also discussing approximation methods and higher-order plate theories. Other chapters in this section discuss plate buckling as well as geometric nonlinear analysis and laminated plates. The fourth and final section of this book is devoted to shells, i.e., curved thin structures, following the common division into membrane theory on the one hand and bending theory on the other hand. This book is intended for students at universities, but also for engineers in practice andresearchers in engineering science.

This report describes the resilience assessment framework that RAND Project AIR FORCE developed to assess the potential impact of integrating select commercial space services on U.S. Space Force mission performance.

Ein kompaktes Lehrbuch für Studieneinsteiger*innen an Fachhochschulen mit Physik als Nebenfach. Die Stoffauswahl orientiert sich an den Lehrplänen der technischen Fächer, wie z. B. Maschinenbau und Luft- und Raumfahrtechnik. Die wesentlichen physikalischen Gesetze der klassischen Physik werden prägnant erklärt, ohne die Vermittlung der grundlegenden Zusammenhänge zu vernachlässigen. Daher wird dem Verständnis der Vorzug gegeben an Stelle einer mathematisch eleganten, formalen Herleitung. Neben den Kernthemen der klassischen Physik bildet die inkompressible Fluiddynamik einen weiteren Schwerpunkt. Damit wird der Grundstein gelegt, um die Physik hinter den technischen Fragestellungen im Ingenieurwesen zu verstehen. Verständnisfragen und Aufgaben ermöglichen eine Selbstüberprüfung des Wissens im ersten Studienjahr. Das Lehrbuch ist geeignet für Studieneinsteiger*innen, die Physik als Grundkurs hatten oder bei denen das Abitur mehr als ein Jahr zurückliegt.

Meet NASA inventor Penny Boston! She's here to introduce readers to Martian cave colonies. Alongside Penny, readers will learn about astrobiology and the possibilities of living in caves on Mars. They'll explore caves throughout the solar system, microbes, inflatable cave liners, bioreactors, and oxygen. The Inventor Challenge at the back of the book encourages readers to create their own inventions. For more information about interesting space inventions, check out other titles in the Out of This World series!

This contributed volume presents recent developments in nonlinear dynamics applied to engineering. Specifically, the authors address stability and bifurcation in large-scale, complex rotor dynamic systems; periodic motions and their bifurcations in nonlinear circuit systems, fault diagnosis of complex engineering systems with nonlinear approaches, singularities in fluid-machinery and bifurcation analysis, nonlinear behaviors in rotor dynamic system with multi-mistuned blades, mode localization induced by mistuning in impellers with periodical and cyclic symmetry, and nonlinear behaviors in fluid-structure interaction and their control. These new results will maximize reader understand on the recent progress in nonlinear dynamics applied to large-scale, engineering systems in general and nonlinear rotors and impellers in particular.

Earth has limited material and energy resources, while these resources are virtually unlimited in space. It is only a matter of time, before planetary resources are mined and used in-situ to sustain human and robotic exploration or returned to Earth for commercial gain. This book covers a number of aspects related to space resources. In particular, subjects related to mission concepts, exploration approaches, mining and extraction technologies, commercial potential, and regulatory aspects of space resources are covered in detail. This book is therefore a good resource for readers who seek background and deeper understanding of space resources related activities.

This book offers a comprehensive look at materials science topics in aerospace, air vehicle structures and manufacturing methods for aerospace products, examining recent trends and new technological developments. Coverage includes additive manufacturing, advanced material removal operations, novel wing systems, design of landing gear, eco-friendly aero-engines, and light alloys, advanced polymers, composite materials and smart materials for structural components. Case studies and coverage of practical applications demonstrate how these technologies are being successfully deployed. Materials, Structures & Manufacturing for Aircraft will appeal to a broad readership in the aviation community, including students, engineers, scientists, and researchers, as a reference source for material science and modern production techniques.

This book presents the astonishing potential of deep sensorimotor policies for agile vision-based quadrotor flight. Quadrotors are among the most agile and dynamic machines ever created. However, developing fully autonomous quadrotors that can approach or even outperform the agility of birds or human drone pilots with only onboard sensing and computing is challenging and still unsolved.Deep sensorimotor policies, generally trained in simulation, enable autonomous quadrotors to fly faster and more agile than what was possible before. While humans and birds still have the advantage over drones, the author shows the current research gaps and discusses possible future solutions.

This book gathers the latest advances, innovations, and applications in the field of space robots as presented at the International Conference on Robots for Space Applications in Orbital Stations (TORVEASTRO), held in Rome, Italy on April 20-21, 2023. Topics addressed include history of space and robotics, bio-inspired space robotics, grasping, handling and intelligent manipulation, kinematics and dynamics, navigation & motion planning, robot vision and control, human-machine interfaces, new designs and prototypes, humanoid astronaut robots, and service space robots.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of aeronautics. It discusses both small and large aircraft and their control strategies, path planning, formation, guidance, and navigation. It also examines applications of drones and other modern aircraft for inspection, exploration, and optimal pathfinding in uncharted territory. The book includes six sections on agriculture surveillance and obstacle avoidance systems using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), motion planning of UAV swarms, assemblage and control of drones, aircraft flight control for military purposes, the modeling and simulation of aircraft, and the environmental application of UAVs and the prevention of accidents.

This book describes multi-site diversity modelling of induced rain attenuation statistics for satellite communication systems using copula functions. It gathers all relevant state-of-the-art knowledge, provides the missing pieces and rounds them up in a way that the reader is given a complete picture of important modelling factors and ways to address them. The books¿ main features include: Data post-processing methodology for statistical analysis based on our Earth-satellite propagation experiments. Two novel multi-site diversity prediction models based on Gaussian copula considering distance between stations or considering distance, baseline, and elevation angle. Two novel multi-site diversity prediction models based on hyperbolic cosecant copula considering distance between stations or considering distance, baseline, and elevation angle. Exhaustive comparative tests and error performance of the prediction models showing that improved error performance is achieved compared to the ITU R model and to the state-of-the-art models. The results presented in the book are expected to contribute to the improvement of the system design and to the further research of modelling the next generation satellite links at higher frequencies.

This photography book is for people who enjoy space themed activities and for the people who never heard of the U.S. Space & Rocket Center or Space Camp. Now is the time for the "Don't Know to Know". Take advantage of this popular attraction that is filled with an abundance of scientific information.The pages in this book delivers a visual message to showcase how kids and adults can trust each other to work as a team to confront space mission scenarios that require problem solving and teamwork. It's your birth-right to seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave.The challenge is real. The fun is incorporated into the challenge. More important, consider this as a great get-a-way to bond with family members and friends. How cool is that!Even though more than 987,000 space campers have graduated since 1982; Still, millions haven't had the opportunity to experience the space programs offered at the U S. Space & Rocket Center.Boys, girls, men and women are encouraged to come out and get engaged in astronaut training techniques using equipment that simulates outer space tumbles and spins. It's Amazing!The U.S. Space & Rocket Center offers aviation, robotics, and cyber technology programs. So come train like an astronaut on the Multi-Axis Trainer, Five Degrees of Freedom Chair and the 1/6th Gravity Chair. The experience is out of this world, and you can thank me later!Also, as your photographer, you are my top priority, and my focus is to photograph your special moments that you'll cherish forever! I will be your paparazzi. How cool is that!