Over the last two decades, experts from The Aerospace Corporation have played an integral role on a collection of technical teams assembled to address NASA’s most challenging problems.

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has built a network of technical specialists and external partners, including Aerospace, to provide independent technical expertise, risk analysis and engineering support on a range of space-related challenges. Grouped by expertise into Technical Discipline Teams (TDTs), these experts ensure NASA’s missions not only succeed in terms of scientific discovery but do so safely and sustainably, protecting the lives of astronauts and preserving the integrity of future space endeavors.

Formed in 2003 at the recommendation of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, the NESC embodies NASA’s commitment to learn from the past and to build a continually improving safety culture in an industry where minor errors may lead to catastrophic failures. By maintaining rigorous engineering standards and an independent perspective, the NESC supports NASA’s effort to navigate the inherent risks of space exploration while striving for groundbreaking achievements.

“Aerospace’s support to the NESC began in 2004 with membership on the Systems Engineering TDT and the Loads and Dynamics TDT,” said Dr. Lael Woods, Systems Director in Aerospace’s Strategic Assessments, Studies, and Projects Division. “Since then, Aerospace has been asked to join more than 10 additional TDTs.” 

Experts Across the Technical Landscape

Aerospace employees currently have membership on 13 of the 19 NESC TDTs in technical areas such as Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE), Cryogenics, Flight Mechanics, Space Environments and Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C).

Through the NESC’s Structures TDT, NASA entrusted Aerospace to support developing and improving standards and guidance documents on many topics, including additive manufacturing, buckling of structures and damage tolerance for spaceflight systems.

Most recently, Aerospace Structures experts conducted a review of the failure and collapse of the Arecibo Observatory telescope in Puerto Rico. This investigation required significant collaboration across NASA centers and outside parties. Aerospace’s independent technical support to the Arecibo investigation included forensics and failure analysis, modeling and fishbone analysis to determine the most probable failure scenario and its contributing factors. Aerospace also documented lessons learned from Arecibo for future observatory designs and developed a new patented design to prevent future failures.

Separately, Aerospace has played a critical role in providing expertise in the areas of modeling, testing and inspections in support of the Orion spacecraft, a key component of NASA’s Artemis program. Aerospace has received at least 10 agency awards in the past five years due to these and other contributions.

“Aerospace’s world-class engineers have provided invaluable end-to-end, innovative enterprise solutions to some of the most complex challenges NASA has faced,” said Dr. Vinay Goyal, Aerospace Technical Fellow in Enterprise Systems Engineering and NASA Deputy Technical Fellow for Structures. “Our team’s strong commitment and unparalleled expertise resulted in very important contributions to science and engineering.”

To support the NESC’s Propulsion TDT, Aerospace partnered with the NESC and the U.S. Space Force to define the possible hazards of liquid oxygen/methane propellants during launch. For this effort, the Aerospace team conducted computational fluid dynamics analyses to provide insight on liquified natural gas (LNG) and liquid oxygen (LO2) mixing rates and explosive potential. The team provided testing recommendations to generate sufficient data to project yield risks for a range of launch vehicle sizes and developed an uncertainty analysis to validate high-mass testing. In addition, Aerospace developed tools to rapidly determine trinitrotoluene (TNT) equivalency from LNG/LO2 tests.

“The Aerospace team is playing a key role in testing and modeling the explosivity of LNG and LOX launch vehicles,” said Andrew Voegele, Senior Engineering Specialist in Aerospace’s Fluid Mechanics Department and member of the Propulsion TDT. “This work is critical to understanding potential launch site accidents, which is needed to design rules to adequately protect launch personnel, launch facilities and the general public."

In support of the Loads and Dynamics TDT, Aerospace evaluated activities related to the development of loads analysis models and methodologies, some of which Aerospace originally developed. As a result, Aerospace also participated in NASA’s Independent Readiness Review of the Artemis 1 Day-of-Launch I-Load Update (DOLILU) system. This included NASA’s day-of-launch load updates certification, activities associated with real-time evaluation of the launch environment, updates of the launch vehicle trajectory, and verification that launch constraints would not be violated.

Aerospace provided technical consultation during training, simulation and other related efforts, delivered written evaluation findings and recommendations, and assisted the Artemis 1 team by participating in the DOLILU certification review. This effort established foundational methodologies to ensure safe launch practices for current and future launches.

“As a member of NASA’s Technical Discipline Teams, we are able to contribute to the solution of critical problems and participate in the nation’s quest to return to the Moon and venture on to Mars,” said Dr. Alvar M. Kabe, Distinguished Engineer in Aerospace’s Vehicle Systems Division and charter member of the Loads and Dynamics TDT.

Mitigating Risk, Advancing Human Spaceflight

Through the breadth and depth of independent technical expertise it provides to the NESC, Aerospace plays a critical role in mitigating risks and advancing the frontiers of space exploration, and its commitment to engineering excellence and safety will continue to support NASA as it pushes the boundaries of human achievement, ensuring a safer and more sustainable future in space.

“The NESC will play an increasingly important role in the evolution of the space enterprise as we move toward more ambitious human spaceflight and exploration missions,” said Sandra Snow, Senior Project Engineer at Aerospace, who leads coordination of Aerospace’s support to NESC. “It is fulfilling to bring Aerospace’s expertise as we continue to support our customer in tackling some of the hardest problems in the space industry.”

To learn more about the work of the NESC, please follow this link to review their annual Technical Updates. Please note that this year's Technical Update is available now.