Mechanical Engineering Department Seminar

Abstract

The Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles are currently being developed at the Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. These vehicles will deliver the future Orion capsule, earth departure stages, and lunar lander into low earth orbit. The launch vehicles are composed of solid rocket and liquid engine stages, similar to those used on the Space Shuttle and Saturn rockets. The System Integration Laboratory (SIL) is being developed to validate the integrated vehicle performance through a combination of software models interfaced with flight hardware components. In particular, the SIL will be used to analyze and test flight software and its interfaces to avionics subsystems such as the thrust vector control system, reaction control system, main propellant system, and ground umbilicals. The heart of the SIL is a high fidelity, real time distributed simulation of the vehicle including flexible body effects, distributed aerodynamics, gravity, fuel slosh, and staging. The SIL simulation may be interfaced with motion systems such as hydraulic tables and robotic manipulators to test and evaluate vehicle staging, thrust vector control system actuators, and navigation sensors. This presentation will describe the Ares I simulation and its function in the analysis and test of the launch vehicle and associated subsystems.

Biography

Dr. Patrick Tobbe is a co-founder and vice president of Dynamic Concepts. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in 1995 with emphasis in classical and structural dynamics and control system design and analysis. Dr. Tobbe graduated from the University of Louisville with a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1983. He has over twenty-five years of experience in the analysis and testing of aerospace vehicles, robotic systems, and rendezvous and capture systems through digital and hardware-in-the-loop simulations. He has developed new techniques for the formulation of the equations of motion of multibody systems with flexible structural components and efficient algorithms for the solution of these systems in real time through parallel programming and distributed simulation. Dr. Tobbe constructed integrated real time simulations of the International Space Station, Space Shuttle, and Remote Manipulator Systems to evaluate and validate the design and performance of the Common Berthing Mechanism and resulting interface loads. The simulation was also used to formulate assembly procedures and crew training. He is currently the simulation and modeling lead at the Marshall Space Flight Center for the Ares 1 launch vehicle in the System Integration Lab (SIL). The SIL will utilize a real time, distributed hardware-in-the-loop simulation to verify and validate vehicle performance utilizing flight software and avionics components.