Thanks to a deal with the U.S. Air Force, NASA Ames Research
Center's biggest wind tunnel should be reopened in time to test parachutes for
the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory.
The National Full-Scale
Aerodynamics Complex (NFAC), one of the largest wind tunnels in the world, was shut
down in October 2003 as a result of budget pressure. It last saw action
earlier that year, testing the parachutes that helped the Mars Exploration Rovers
Spirit and Discovery reach the surface of the red planet in January 2004.
Under a 25-year lease
agreement concluded with NASA in late February, the Air Force plans to reopen
the NFAC by the end of 2006 and invest roughly $20 million in
the facility to get it ready by mid-2007 to test helicopters. Built in 1944,
the NFAC has two test sections large enough to accommodate full-scale aircraft models
and prototypes. One section is 12.2 meters by 24.3 meters and is capable of obtaining
velocities up to 250 knots the other section is 24.3 meters by 36.6 meters and is capable of velocities up to
80 knots. A 2004 RAND Corp. report commissioned
by NASA and the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense recommended preserving
the NFAC, calling it "strategically important, especially for the rotorcraft industry."
NASA still owns the
NFAC, but it will be operated by the Air Force Materiel Command's Arnold
Engineering Development Center in Tullahoma, Tenn. U.S. Air Force Col. Vincent
Albert, former vice commander of Arnold Engineering Development Center, will
serve as the NFAC's director.
Arnold said in an
interview that NFAC should be ready by late fall to support projects like testing
the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory's parachute deployment, but getting the
sophisticated instrumentation needed for testing military rotorcraft up and
running would take longer, probably until spring or summer of 2007. He said that
Congress already has approved roughly $20 million to reopen NFAC.
Albert said the Air
Force has agreed to pay NASA Ames between $2 million and $4 million a year to
lease the facility, depending on what support services it decides to buy from the
NASA center. For example, if the Air Force uses Ames personnel experienced in
operating the NFAC's test facilities, it will have to
pay Ames for their time.
Michael George, deputy
director of aeronautics at Ames, said the rent and other fees NASA is charging
Air Force are only meant to recover what it costs the agency to keep the wind
tunnel in service.
While NASA will now
have to pay the Air Force to use the wind tunnel, George said that is a much
better deal for NASA than having to bear the entire cost of keeping the
facility in service for only occasional use.
The Air Force lease
also frees Ames from having to pay for such mundane facility overhead as the
ground-keeping and security, expenses Ames has continued to pay since the NFAC
was shutdown. Those costs now can be passed on to the Air
Force.
Sweetening the deal for
NASA, the Air Force also is committed to making improvements
that NASA would have a hard time justifying in its current budget environment.
"That improved facility
will be available to NASA for aeronautics and space exploration at an
affordable price," George said.
George said NASA
expects to use approximately 10 to 15 percent of the facility's available time
for aeronautics research and space exploration-oriented projects, the first up being
testing the deployment of the 2009 Mars Science Laboratory's parachutes.
George said the deal reached
with the Air Force not only helps preserve a "national treasure," it also marks an important development in NASA
and Pentagon cooperation.
"From national
perspective, this represents the first real inroad into how we look at these critical
assets from a national view, rather than just from a NASA or [Defense Department]
view," George said.
While the massive NFAC
remains dormant for now, Ames other major wind tunnel facility -- the Unitary
Wind Tunnel Complex -- has been busy so far this year helping NASA evaluate a
design change to the space shuttle's external tank and evaluate the aerodynamic
properties of the shuttle's would-be successors. The Unitary Wind Tunnel
Complex is NASA's workhorse, according to George. While its test chambers are
not as commodious as NFAC, the powerful wind tunnel is capable of subjecting scale
models to high supersonic velocities.
Since February, NASA
has used the Unitary Wind Tunnel to test small scale models of the Crew Launch
Vehicle and Crew Exploration Vehicle. NASA is currently using the wind tunnel
to help validate a decision to remove the Protuberance Air Load ramp from the
shuttle's external tank in order to avoid a repeat of last July's foam-shedding
event. George said the Unitary Wind Tunnel also has been used this year by the U.S. Air
Force to test F-18 and Joint Strike Fighter models.
Comments:
bberger@space.com
