Justin J. Bailey AAE 450
FINAL PRESENTATION DISCUSSION 12.15.03
I wanted to address some of the technical concerns expressed during the Final Presentation. So if there was going to be another design iteration of Orion, these are the issues I would address. As previously discussed…
1. THE FLAP IS TOO MASSIVE. For some reason, I have it at a thickness of 0.06 m. I’m not sure where this value came from. So, reducing the thickness to (0.02 m) reduces the mass by 1236 kg to 568 kg—31% of the original value.
2. THE PAYLOADBAY IS TOO MASSIVE. This is most likely because the thickness is too large (0.05 m). I mean, that’s 2.5 times the thickness of the actual exterior structure. Using the same Graphite-epoxy/Nomex composite that is used on the Shuttle and reducing the thickness to 0.02 m reduces the mass by 2817 kg to 1833 kg—39% of the original value. See Figure 1 to compare the component mass breakdown with these new masses included…
Figure 1
3. THE CG IS VERY LOW ON THE Y-AXIS. As seen in figure 2, some of the components could be raised to raise the total cg location. As far as which ones should be raised would need to be designed further. Currently, the CG is located at (-14.178, 0.535, 0) m.
Figure 2
4. MASS PROPERTIES FOR…
Heat Rejection. 2 X mass proposed on CERV. 0.37 X mass used on SHUTTLE.
Avionics. 1.5 X CERV. 0.23 X SHUTTLE.
Environmental Control. 1.69 X CERV. 0.71 X SHUTTLE.
Electronics. 2.45 X CERV. 0.41 X SHUTTLE.
Displays & Controls. 11.81 X CERV. 0.52 X SHUTTLE.
Personnel. 3.15 X CERV. 0.65 X SHUTTLE.
5. AIRLOCK HEIGHT TOO SHORT. An astronaut cannot stand up. This sucks. To change the height of this it needs to be moved farther back—which would require a change in layout as a reasonable CG location would have to be re-obtained.
6. EXHAUST PLUME WILL INTERFERE WITH THE FLAP. As seen in figure 3 on the next page, this needs to be looked at more.
Figure 3