Tag: 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum

Gleaning Propulsion Lessons from History

Speakers: Eric Besnard, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, California State University, Long Beach; Stephen Heister, Raisbeck distinguished professor and director of the Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories, Purdue University; Allan McDonald, aerospace consultant and author of “Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster”; John Steinmeyer, business development director, Orbital ATK

By Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America Editor-in-Chief

History underscores the stakes of propulsion engineering no more so than in the case of the 1986 Challenger explosion, but history also offers subtler, nontragic lessons at the university and corporate levels.

This range of lessons was discusseAdvancements in Propulsion and Energy Are Changing the Name of the Gamed during the session “Liquid Rocket Propulsion: Lesson Learned” on July 26 at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

Eric Besnard, a professor at California State University, Long Beach, offered advice for those at other universities who might be looking to establish a hands-on, educational rocketry program.

He said his experience with CALVEIN, the California Launch Vehicle Education Initiative, shows that it is best to avoid letting students manage such an endeavor.

“They tend to have great goals,” but “their goals tend not be realistic,” Besnard said.

Being faculty-led, he said, gives access to “more structured resources,” such as government grants.

“You have a much more sustainable program,” he explained.

Will students still be as engaged? Yes, he said, adding, “If you have exciting stuff to do, they’ll be interested.”

Besnard showed a video of a small rocket powered by an odd-looking aerospike engine flying out of control and crashing a few meters from the launch pad. Another lesson, he said, is that students still learn a lot from failure.

Stephen Heister, a professor at Purdue University and director of the school’s Maurice J. Zucrow Laboratories campus, recalled the hard-charging attitude of the facility’s namesake.

He said Zucrow, who retired in 1966, once waged an “epoch battle” with a rival at Princeton University over the proper interpretation of some technical data.

The argument grew so heated that someone had to step in and calm it.

“It was a different era,” Heister said, one in which engineers and scientists were expected to say “what you really think.”

He added: “We don’t see that much of this these days. I’m not sure that’s good.”

John Steinmeyer, business development director at Orbital ATK, bemoaned that “international cooperation” among U.S. and foreign rocketry companies “has fallen out of favor” and that in some quarters it is “even viewed as politically incorrect.”

He recalled previous collaborative efforts in which he’s been involved, including the Sea Launch rocket venture with Ukraine and Russia and work by U.S. and Japanese engineers to create propellant tanks for the U.S. Delta 3 and Japanese H-2A rockets.

Why bother to undertake initiatives like this, given all the export and information-sharing restrictions? Steinmeyer said the collaboration proved to be a time saver. U.S. engineers were able to deliver hardware for the Delta 3 and later the Delta 4 Medium to meet “ambitious launch dates.” In the case of Sea Launch, those involved with the venture were ready to meet what in the early 2000s was expected to be “a significant increase in commercial launch demand.” The demand did not entirely bear out, and Sea Launch operations are now in hiatus for financial reasons, but the lesson is still true, Steinmeyer said.

The session closed with a presentation by Allan McDonald, who was a manager at Morton Thiokol, the company that made the shuttle’s solid rocket motors, at the time of the Challenger explosion. In his retirement, McDonald has made a mission out of urging engineers to speak their minds about safety concerns. During his presentation, he gave detailed recollections about how NASA’s Mission Management Team was not made aware of the seriousness of the concerns engineers had about launching on an unusually cold January morning in Florida.

He advised engineers to speak up the next time a case like this arises.

“You’ll have no regrets, and you’ll be able to sleep well at night,” he said.

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Study Questions Near-Term Value of Battery Tech for Large Planes

Panelists: Moderator Marty Bradley, technical fellow, Boeing; Alan Angleman, senior program officer and study director for the aviation carbon reduction committee, Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine; Mike Benzakein, director, Propulsion and Power Center, Ohio State University, and member of the aviation carbon reduction committee, National Academies; Steve Csonka, executive director, Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative, and member of the aviation carbon reduction committee, National Academies; Alan Epstein, vice president for technology and environment, Pratt and Whitney, and member of the aviation carbon reduction committee, National Academies; Karen Thole, head of nuclear and mechanical engineering department, Pennsylvania State University, and co-chair of the aviation carbon reduction committee, National Academies

By Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America Editor-in-Chief

Turboelectric propulsion, in which fuel-burning engines generate electricity for propulsion, has a better chance of significantly reducing the carbon footprint of large commercial planes within 30 years than do batteries or hybrid engines.

That was a key conclusion of the Committee on Propulsion and Energy Systems to Reduce Commercial Aviation Carbon Emissions. The group was formed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine to suggest research priorities for NASA as it seeks to reduce carbon emissions from aircraft.

Members of the committee have been briefing their findings to congressional staffs and agencies since releasing their report. On July 25, they discussed their recommendations with an audience at 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

“Turboelectric propulsion, coupled with distributed propulsion and boundary layer ingestion, have the potential to reduce fuel burn and emissions by 20 percent or more compared to the current state of the art for large commercial aircraft,” said Mike Benzakein, a member of the committee and an aerospace engineering professor at Ohio State University.

Karen Thole, a committee co-chair and professor of nuclear and mechanical engineering at Penn State, cautioned that the committee didn’t say “stop working on batteries.” She said the study’s “boundary condition” of identifying technologies that could be ready no later than 30 years from now prompted the recommendation to focus on turboelectric propulsion, related technologies and alternative fuels.

Pratt and Whitney’s Alan Epstein, a member of the committee and the company’s vice president for technology and environment, said “no battery chemistries” exist right now with the potential to power large commercial aircraft.

Shifting to the state of the U.S. research infrastructure, Thole said “megawatt class” research facilities are critical but that there are no “facilities available for this megawatt class research.”

The committee looked at technologies for single- and double-aisle passenger jets capable of carrying 100 passengers or more. Those aircraft comprise 90 percent of the carbon emissions from the aviation segment, Thole said. She added that the segment burns 7 billion gallons of fuel.

“A systemic change needed to be considered at that kind of scaling,” she said.

The committee looked at engine technology, including nacelle designs and internal coatings that might let engine cores burn hotter. Epstein said ultimately, propulsion and aircraft designs will need to be considered together as a system, even if that was not the committee’s focus.

The committee also lauded the potential of sustainable alternative fuels to reduce aviation’s carbon footprint.

The “really good news” is that if society decides to take action, “these reductions can be immediate,” said Steven Csonka, a member of the committee and executive director of the Commercial Aviation Alternative Fuels Initiative.

Advances in alternative fuels are critical, he said, because “we expect to be using fuel in aircraft at least for the next five decades.”

Csonka cautioned that not all alternative fuels are created equal. He said some, such as those derived from coal, can have a “higher carbon footprint” because they do not involve sustainably cycling carbon through biomass.

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U.S. Air Force, NASA Pledge Bold Research Efforts

Panelists: Moderator Dan Dumbacher, professor of engineering practice, Purdue University; Doug Blake, director, Aerospace Systems Directorate, Air Force Research Laboratory; Dennis Andrucyk, deputy associate administrator, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA

By Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America Editor-in-Chief

Representatives from NASA and the U.S. Air Force discussed initiatives and issues, such as how much technical risk can be accepted when spending taxpayer dollars, July 25 during a freewheeling session titled “System Needs in Propulsion and Energy” at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

For the military, decisions about precisely where to apply research dollars are made largely through a formal requirements-definition process, said Doug Blake, director of the Aerospace Systems Directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory. But Blake referred back to the morning’s keynote speech by renowned technologist Bran Ferren, who noted that a BlackBerry user would not have identified a requirement for an iPhone, meaning a smartphone with a touch screen and apps.

Blake, the military representative on the panel, said he understands the desire for a “big ideas” approach to research and development. Just as in Ferren’s BlackBerry example, he said, Air Force commanders can’t always anticipate their requirements. “So there’s tech push-like activities that go on as well” within the Air Force, he said.

Turning to the Air Force’s jet engine research, Blake said the service is working toward establishing a new program called ATTAM, short for Advanced Turbine Technologies for Affordable Mission Capability, the C being silent.

“That’s being pitched at this time,” he said.

ATTAM will be the “next step” beyond the current program, VAATE, short for Versatile Affordable Advanced Turbine Engines, which he said will conclude as planned in 2019.

When asked about game-changing technologies, Blake said, “Hypersonics jazzes me,” especially after the success of the X-51 hypersonic flights. He said the X-51 was significant, in part, because it burned carbon-based fuel.

Dennis Andrucyk, the NASA deputy associate administrator in charge of the Space Technology Mission Directorate, said green rocket and spacecraft propellants are a major initiative, but interestingly, he said, NASA does not have a formal definition for the term.

The goal is clear, though, Andrucyk said. NASA wants nontoxic propellants that can be transported “even on commercial aircraft,” which would be a “huge, huge benefit.”

Turning to technologies for exploring Mars, Andrucyk said a liquid oxygen-methane engine would be a “great option” for a Mars ascent vehicle, because explorers could utilize resources on Mars and because methane has higher power density than hydrogen.

Andrucyk said cubesats, once viewed as “a nice novelty,” are now attracting research and development effort to add propulsion to them. He said leaders of NASA’s Pathfinder technology program plan to build a “6U cubesat,” meaning six cubesat units joined together, that would demonstrate propulsion technologies.

The topic of how much technical risk NASA and the Air Force should accept in research also came up during the session. Blake said the Defense Department is more risk averse than it was 20 or 30 years ago.

“We’ve got to be able to accept risk, but we’ve got to do the work to integrate that risk into the program the right way,” he said.

Andrucyk said NASA must at times say no but that it should also find ways to support ideas that engage the public, such as a privately-led effort to send a small chipsat to the Alpha Centauri star system.

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Aerospace Businesses Must Be Flexible, Adaptable, Innovative

Panelists: Co-Moderator Bonnie Prado Pino, doctoral student, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University; co-moderator Guillermo Jaramillo Pizarro, doctoral student, School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Purdue University; Dave Bowles, director, NASA’s Langley Research Center; Duane Cuttrell, director of operations engineering and technical operations, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of space programs, Aerojet Rocketdyne; Rickey Shyne, director of research and engineering, NASA’s Glenn Research Center; John Steinmeyer, business development director, Orbital ATK

By Lawrence Garrett, AIAA Web Editor

Surviving in today’s dynamic aerospace environment, as well as succeeding and experiencing some amount of longevity, requires flexibility and an adaptability to the invariably changing times, as well as constant innovation, according to a panel of industry experts July 26 during the “Formula for Success and Longevity in the Aerospace Business” session at 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

Julie Van Kleeck, vice president of space programs at Aerojet Rocketdyne, said there are four key factors that helped make Aerojet — a company that has existed for more than 70 years — so successful and longstanding: innovation, diversifying, listening to customers and being bold.

“You either innovate or stagnate,” she said, adding that the lesson is not only applicable to the aerospace industry. “Had we not continued to push the state-of-the-art, continued to bring new products to the marketplace, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Duane Cuttrell, director of operations engineering and technical operations at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said Lockheed is currently focused on segregating part of its business to focus more on the sustainment of its products.

Kleeck said businesses must diversify their portfolios, citing Aerojet’s broad base of customers in the defense, civil and commercial sectors. She also noted that diversifying helps maintain the stability of companies.

“When one business is up, another one might be down,” she said. “And so, we found that diversification of your business portfolio has been one of our keys to actually staying in the business.”

Cuttrell agreed.

“As we have one business that’s slow, we need to supplement that with workers or with skills from another one of our business areas,” Cuttrell said. “To date, we haven’t done that well.”

Rickey Shyne, director of research and engineering at NASA’s Glenn Research Center, said that in 1941, the center began looking only at propulsion systems for aircraft, but through the years, it evolved to end up working on space propulsion systems, chemical propulsion systems, electric propulsion systems and power systems for space and aeronautics.

“The key in all of that is looking at the core of what we do — make sure we do it well — and being flexible and agile, and applying those technologies and those core discipline areas for success to meet new mission requirements,” he said.

“One of the keys to innovation and longevity is being forward-looking enough to be able to see things before you actually need them — and I believe that’s what NASA has always been about,” Shyne said. “We do things that others dare to dream. We actually go do them.”

It’s also key to have diversity in personnel, Aerojet’s Kleeck said, adding that Aerojet cross-trains many of its employees so that they work across different types of propulsion.

Dave E. Bowels, director of NASA’s Langley Research Center, said that engineers at Langley touch upon everything the agency does, from aeronautics to science to technology to human space exploration.

“That, actually, I think, is one of our keys that I tell people when I’m out recruiting,” he said, explaining that he tells people they have an opportunity to diversify. “I think that’s been one of the keys to our success.”

Bowels also added that he believes it’s important to create an environment for people to be successful.

“I find if you just generate an environment for people to be successful, don’t micromanage them and then get out of their way, you’ll get some amazing things,” he said.

Lockheed’s Cuttrell said that the key to the success of any business starts with the individuals involved.

“Your competition has got to start with knowing yourself,” he said. “What do you bring to the table? What are your skills? How can you enhance those skills? How can you communicate those skills? And then further, what is the network that you can build moving forward such that others understand those skills?”

Listening to customers is also key, Kleeck said.

“We may not agree with our customers [all the time], but it really needs to be a two-way street,” she said.

Companies must also be “judiciously bold” to be successful in the long run, Kleeck said, adding, “If we make a big investment, it better pay off.”

John Steinmeyer, business development director at Orbital ATK, said Orbital was initially founded in 1982 by three friends attending Harvard Business School who dared to be bold. By 1990, Orbital successfully carried out eight space missions, highlighted by the initial launch of the Pegasus Launch Vehicle, what Steinmeyer called “the world’s first privately developed space launch vehicle.”

Echoing the other panelists, he agreed that innovation and technology development are important to attracting and motivating talent as well as to corporate longevity.

“However, I would say first and foremost is execution — continued execution on programs and commitments,” Steinmeyer said. “You really have to execute successfully before you can innovate successfully.”

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Advancements in Propulsion and Energy Are Changing the Name of the Game

Panelists: Moderator Janet Kavandi, director, NASA’s Glenn Research Center; Jay Littles, director of advanced launch vehicle propulsion, Aerojet Rocketdyne; Tom Markusic, co-founder and CEO, Firefly Space Systems; James Maughan, technical director of aero-thermal and mechanical systems, GE Global Research

By Lawrence Garrett, AIAA Web Editor

Ongoing technological advancements in the propulsion and energy sector are spurring and enabling game-changing impacts on the aerospace industry as a whole and are sure to keep the future of propulsion and energy bright, a panel of experts said during the “Game Changing Developments in Propulsion and Energy” session July 26 at AIAA Propulsion and Energy 2016 in Salt Lake City.

“Today, I don’t think we’re really short of good ideas to have game-changing effects,” said Tom Markusic, co-founder and chief executive officer of Firefly Space Systems, noting that what the industry is short on is “game-changing execution.”

Markusic said that there already exists many good ideas in propulsion and aerospace technology that have never been implemented. He suggested that the industry could do a lot if it implemented some of those ideas.

He said Firefly used “old ideas” in the design of its first flagship vehicle, Alpha — specifically the aerospike engine.

“Aerospike engines have been studied for half a century since they were identified as an effective means of nozzle and altitude compensation,” he said.

The goal, Markusic said, was to design a simple, low-cost launch vehicle, which required older technology that he thinks in some ways will be “game-changing” moving forward.

Jay Littles, director of advanced launch vehicle propulsion at Aerojet Rocketdyne, said the idea of leaving Earth, going beyond and attempting to become an interplanetary species is game-changing in its own right.

Littles noted that there are already a tremendous number of technology developments that are changing the way business is being done now and those will define what our near-future will be. He mentioned cross-propulsion, electric propulsion and nuclear-thermal propulsion.

Noting a specific benefit of this advancing technology, Littles said that with a “happy marriage” between advanced electric propulsion and nuclear-thermal propulsion, hardware could be pre-positioned in space for future missions using electric propulsion, while nuclear-thermal propulsion could then be used for the manned portion of the mission into deep space.

Littles also mentioned the significance and impact of the development of the commercial space industry in recent years.

“It’s changing the way we’re doing propulsion development,” he said.

James Maughan, technical director of aero-thermal and mechanical systems at GE Global Research, said that some of the propulsion technologies that GE has been focused on in recent years may not be game-changing but certainly have progressed over the years. He pointed to GE’s LEAP engine, the only one certified for Boeing’s 737 MAX.

Maughan said that there have been enormous technology advances in this engine — “too many to list,” he said — but highlighted the engine’s 3-D-printed fuel nozzles and advances in materials technology.

“These advances in aviation directly poured over into our power business,” he said.

Speculating on the future, Maughan suggested that other propulsion technologies, such as open-rotor propulsion, could be “huge” and could be a leap to a new technology growth curve.

The panelists were all optimistic about the future of the propulsion and energy sector and how game-changing technologies continue to rapidly change and advance the industry.

“None of us can see the future,” Maughan said. “None of us knows for sure what’s going to happen, but from where I sit at GE … I think the future for us and for our industry on both the power side and on the propulsion side is very bright.”

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Reusable Space Systems Are Obtainable

Panelists: Moderator Dan Dumbacher, professor of engineering practice, Purdue University; Doug Bradley, chief engineer of advance space and launch, Aerojet Rocketdyne; Ben Goldberg, vice president of science and engineering, Propulsion Systems Division, Orbital ATK; Jim Paulsen, vice president of NASA programs, Aerojet Rocketdyne; Gary Payton, distinguished visiting professor, U.S. Air Force Academy; Tom Markusic, co-founder and CEO, Firefly Space Systems

By Duane Hyland, AIAA communications (2008-2017)

Reusable space systems are the holy grail of space technology, according to a panel of experts who spoke July 25 at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City, and thankfully, unlike the Holy Grail of myth, they said these systems are obtainable.

Gary Payton, distinguished visiting professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy, told the standing-room-only crowd at the “Launch Vehicle Reusability: Holy Grail, Chasing Our Tail, or Somewhere in Between?” session that the idea of reusable systems started with Wernher von Braun, who once proposed establishing reusable components to withstand 950 launches to place crews on Mars. Payton pointed out that the X-33, X-34 and X-37 all showed that reusable systems are possible.

The panelists agreed that reusable systems — especially from the perspective of liquid engine technology — wasn’t a question, but rather, as Doug Bradley, chief engineer of advanced space and launch at Aerojet Rocketdyne, put it “an inability.”

Bradley explained that the 113 years of aerospace were reason-driven.

“People needed reasons to build faster and more capable systems, a need to move mail or cargo or passengers faster and farther than before,” he said, adding that reusable systems are the same. “People will need to explore space more cheaply, so things will go reusable.”

Issues that factor into reusability, according to the panelists, include high reliability of components, lost cost of component manufacturing, high launch volume, and design of systems and components. The more you launch, the more reliable your components, they said, adding that the better your designs, the more likely true reusability will occur.

Ben Goldberg, vice president of science and engineering for the Propulsion Systems Division at Orbital ATK, cautioned, “Reusability is neither good nor bad, but you really need to look at each vehicle and each mission.”

He said in some missions, reusing systems may not make sense due to costs and mission needs.

Other factors impacting reusability include launch type (e.g., ground or air), mission type and environment that the systems would be returning to (e.g., ocean or land).

Reusability in space systems is at a crossroads, but the panelists predict a bold turn down the road toward greater and greater reliance on reusable systems, making the goal of cheap and dependable spaceflight a reality.

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Nuclear Power Could Fuel America’s Space Future

Panelists: Moderator Lee Mason, principal technologist for power and energy storage, Space Technology Mission Directorate, NASA; Rex Geveden, chief operating officer, BWX Technologies Inc.; John Casani, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (retired); Leonard Dudzinski, Science Mission Directorate, NASA; Susan Voss, president, Global Nuclear Network Analysis LCC; Patrick McClure, project lead for reactor development, Los Alamos National Laboratory

By Duane Hyland, AIAA Communications (2008-2017)

As America’s space program continues to send exploration missions farther into our solar system, it is becoming apparent that nuclear power — either in the form of radioisotope power systems, fusion reactors, or fission reactors — can play a significant role in powering those missions, according to a panel of experts July 26 at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

The majority of space missions are solar-powered; however, as Leonard Dudzinski, with NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, pointed out, “Once you get to Jupiter, you have one-twenty-fifth of the sun’s solar rays available to you, and when you get to Saturn, it’s one-one-hundreth of the rays,” making solar power impractical for deep solar system exploration.

Rex Geveden, chief operating officer for BWX Technologies Inc., said that besides being able to explore farther out and for longer durations, nuclear-fueled systems can cut down on the transit speed between Earth and Mars by “one to two months.”

However, high cost diminishes the promise of nuclear power in space. The U.S. space program uses plutonium-238, which is only available from Russia and, according to John Cassani, an independent consultant formerly employed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, costs “$3 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds),” making it very expensive to use.

Dudzinski said that the high fuel costs result in missions costing, on average, $400 million to mount, making them unattractive to most planners. Additional barriers to greater use include fuel weight to energy output, negative attitudes toward nuclear energy in general, and a lack of visionary leaders who are willing to use nuclear power more widely in missions.

As a way of reducing costs, the panelists recommended switching to uranium-based systems, since uranium is cheaper at $2,500 per kilogram, widely produced, and easily integrated.

Susan Voss, president of Global Nuclear Network Analysis LCC, said the new “kilopower” system currently under study promises to use highly enriched uranium to power spacecraft and promises to be cheaper, even more reliable, and more palatable to end users than existing systems.

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BWX Technologies COO Shares 7 Hacks for Career Success

Speaker: Rex Geveden, chief operating officer, BWX Technologies Inc

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

Rex Geveden, the chief operating officer of BWX Technologies Inc., shared some advice in the “Seven Career Hacks for Professional Success” session July 27 at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

Career Hack 1: Draft and track your career goals.

It’s old advice, but there’s a reason it’s repeated so often: It works, Geveden said.

Geveden shared that he began working at a firm after college and stayed for about two years but years later, he returned to run the company.

“In my opinion, there’s a thousand doors out there in the universe that you can walk through, and there’s some of them that lead to opportunity and some of them that do not,” he said.

Career Hack 2: Know what you are in the organization.

“When you’re trying to figure out what to do with your career, you have to figure out what you are,” Geveden said, adding that there’s a dichotomy between revenue-generating versus cost-sink job roles. “If you wish to be where the decision-making is and where the money flows, then you need to get in the line.”

Career Hack 3: Understand how you create value in the organization.

There are some things on an employee’s to-do list that create value for an organization and some that don’t, Geveden said, explaining that people have to do all of the things on their lists but know that not all of them create value.

“I created another list a few years ago that’s sort of a value-creation list and created a list of actions with those so that I can create value every day while I’m in the job,” he said.

Career Hack 4: Learn to say yes.

“I think you should learn to say yes to the point of discomfort,” Geveden said, adding that it can be a good learning experience and result in career opportunities that might not have otherwise occurred.

He also said it’s important to say yes to mobility despite the tendency to want to stay home. If you get a chance to go someplace else, Geveden said, take it.

“Your family will grow with it,” he said.

Career Hack 5: You must read, and you must read all the time.

Geveden said engineers need to read publications like Forbes, Bloomberg or The Economist to be able to understand how business and finance people think.

Career Hack 6: Work on your integrity.

“If you tell someone that you’re going to call them, call them,” Geveden said. “You’re building yourself a portfolio of trust with everyone with whom you interact. … Casual commitments are commitments.”

Career Hack 7: Invest in your wardrobe.

Geveden said people should buy nice clothes and nice shoes but that buying expensive labels isn’t the only important aspect.

“Fit is the first principle of style,” he said, emphasizing that style is particularly important for engineers or anyone with ambition.

“I know it sounds not-essential, but here’s the point: I’d say almost everybody in this room is a technical person … But there’s a bunch of smart people out there,” he said. “You have to find things that are differentiating. And I think it can be differentiating.

“The way you look creates an impression about how you think about yourself,” Geveden explained.

Even with evolving standards about what constitutes professional dress, Geveden believes that style will remain important.

“If it’s casual Friday, be snappy casual … instead of using that opportunity to wear flip-flops into work.”

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High-Power Systems’ Needs Drive Design Challenges

Panelists: Moderator Graham Warwick, technology managing editor, Aviation Week and Space Technology; Randy Furnas, chief of the power division, Research and Engineering Directorate, NASA’s Glenn Research Center; Rick Hooker, design engineer, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics; John Nairus, chief engineer, Propulsion and Control Division, Air Force Research Laboratory; John Scott, chief technologist, Propulsion and Power Division, NASA’s Johnson Space Center

by Hannah Godofsky, AIAA Communications

Today, the F-35 or 787 are both state-of-the-art — each has a few hundred kilowatts of secondary power installed on the aircraft. But future demands for electricity in air and space systems will be even greater, and design will need to adapt, a panel of experts said July 26 at 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

“When I now look at electric propulsion, I feel like being in on the ground floor of a technology that’s going to change aerospace. It’s going to enable space missions that we can’t do at the moment, and it’s going to change the way aircraft operate. Electric propulsion is actually here,” Graham Warwick, the technology managing editor for Aviation Week and Space Technology, said while introducing the “High Power Systems for Aerospace Applications” panel.

Warwick mentioned several small aircraft that have contributed to advancements in electric propulsion, such as Solar Impulse-2 or the E-Fan demonstrator plane, but he said, “Really, what interests all of us in this room is the high-power stuff. It’s the powering the airliners. That’s where the potential is. The potential for changing the environmental impact of aviation is on these high-power systems. What I’m really interested in is to be here as we’re beginning to explore these high-power systems.”

John Nairus, a chief engineer with the Propulsion and Control Division at the Air Force Research Lab, provided some clarity as to what makes something a high-power system.

“In the Air Force, when we talk about high-power systems, what we’re really talking about is a megawatt,” he said, adding that electric power has become flight-critical for most military aircraft.

“If you have a blip in your electrical power system, in the blink of an eye, you can lose your aircraft, because these aircraft are inherently unstable.”

Rick Hooker, a design engineer with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, said high-power systems are driving new aircraft design.

“They’re designing the aircraft we’re coming up with, and they’re driving how we are integrating propulsion-airframe integration,” he said. “Really, I see efficient propulsion-airframe integration as an enabler for high-power systems.”

Hooker said some new aircraft engines are now the same size as the aircraft fuselage, which has a huge impact on the design of new airplanes. He described some of the cutting-edge research that has been done in making the integration of high-power systems into aircraft more efficient.

“Over-wing nacelle installations can be actually 5 percent more efficient than underwing nacelles,” he said.

John Scott brought up a different definition of high-power systems that applies to use in space: “Anything beyond 150 kilowatts that is provided today by the international space station.”

He explored, “A value proposition for what might happen if we were to drive well beyond those power levels, thereby accelerating the exploration of Mars and possibly even spinning off to the traditional energy industry a disruptive solution.”

Scott said high-power systems in space involve a lot of complicated tradeoffs in expense and technology and can drastically change mission timelines or the amount of mass that needs to be sent into space.

Panelists overall agreed that high-power systems are necessary to take big, disruptive leaps in technology and capability.

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Pierre Chao Looks to the Future of the Propulsion and Energy Market

Speakers: Pierre Chao, founding partner, Renaissance Strategic Advisors

By Duane Hyland, AIAA Communications (2008-2017)

With world turmoil, sluggish markets and changing geopolitical landscapes, it pays to know where the U.S. aerospace community stands and in what directions it may go. Pierre Chao, founding partner of Renaissance Strategic Advisors, discussed the future of the market July 27 in the closing session of the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

Chao said that although current demand for propulsion and energy systems is sluggish, the industry will see a slight uptick — about 3 percent — in 2017. He said the uptick will not be driven by demand in the U.S. or Europe, but rather from demand in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and Russia.

However, the current valuation of propulsion company stocks is not going to last, he warned, explaining they have plateaued from their “five-year highs.”

The next great frontier in power systems will be the increasing demand for energy that is efficient and bountiful, Chao said, adding, “1.9 billion people around the world do not have access to electricity.”

Some advocate for clean energy systems while others argue for cheap and reliable energy systems, but Chao explained that if the industry could solve the electricity access and distribution logistics, it could help solve issues like global poverty and labor migration. He said there is no difference between finding reliable energy systems for Mars exploration and finding systems for a village in Mali trying to survive.

For space systems, Chao said he sees a renaissance in heavy launch systems driven by demand in the national security sector, especially as the industry looks for more agile and reliable satellites that are able to survive in the future militaristic space environment.

Focusing on the national security environment, Chao said he thinks predicting the next world threat is about as easy as looking for needles in haystacks.

“It’s more like looking for the tube of straw that will become needles,” he said, adding that nations like Venezuela, North Korea and Iran may be potential trouble spots.

In commercial aviation, there will be an end to the duopoly of Airbus and Boeing in commercial aircraft manufacturing, Chao said.

“It will be China that does it,” he explained.

Among Chao’s other observations were that reliance on the International Traffic in Arms regulations will “continue to isolate the U.S. from world defense markets”; oil shocks could potentially threaten the aviation industry if oil rises back to the prices of $100 a barrel; and the industry hasn’t seen the real advent of venture capital in commercial space.

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Stretch Goals Eyed in Additive Manufacturing of Rocket Engines

Speakers: Moderator Randy Furnas, chief of the power division, Research and Engineering Directorate, NASA’s Glenn Research Center; Elizabeth Robertson, team lead, Liquid Engine Systems Branch, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center; Jay Littles, director of advanced launch vehicle propulsion, Aerojet Rocketdyne

By Ben Iannotta, Aerospace America Editor-in-Chief

Makers of rocket engines have plenty of evidence that costs and production time can be significantly reduced by making some components almost entirely through additive manufacturing, in which metal powder is laid down and fused by laser or electrons.

Engine makers have now defined the next steps, which will include defining standards and inspection processes to win customer confidence in additively manufactured components.

Elizabeth Robertson, leader of the Liquid Engine Systems Branch of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, said additive manufacturing has great promise, but she cautioned that there may be limits on “human rating” of components until inspection issues are figured out.

Jay Littles, director of advanced launch vehicle propulsion at Aerojet Rocketdyne, said one of additive manufacturing’s great advantages — a reduction in the parts count — also creates a disadvantage. Conventionally manufactured parts can be inspected individually, but an additive component subsumes many parts into just a few pieces that are joined together.

These “complex geometries” complicate inspection, Littles said. “You can’t go in and look at these.” A big challenge is “basically how you do the quality assurance.”

Robertson and Littles led the July 27 session “The Impact of Additive Manufacturing on the Design Process” at the 2016 AIAA Propulsion and Energy Forum in Salt Lake City.

Littles said other goals include making larger components and understanding the performance of specific additive manufacturing machines.

“We’re in the Betamax-tape part of this additive thing,” he said, referring to the 1970s-era Sony videotape standard that was beat out by VHS. “It’s going to be interesting to see where we go over the next decade.”

As powerful as additive manufacturing is proving to be, Aerojet Rocketdyne also has learned some of its limits.

“Additive really does open up the design window, but there’s also a lot of stuff that you can’t do — geometries to avoid,” Littles said.

While inspection might be a challenge, Robertson said a smaller part count is also “fantastic when you think about reliability.”

She recounted that in 2012, NASA decided to make components for a prototype engine to demonstrate additive manufacturing. Managers saw a 30 percent reduction in cost and part reduction from 250 to six, she said.

NASA also sees some limits to additive processes.

“If you have a part rotating at 90,000 rpm, you’re probably going to have to do machining to clean that up,” Robertson said.

Overall, “There are a lot of challenges that remain,” Robertson said. “We sometimes found that quality would follow people, rather than a company. Right now, additive is still an art.”

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