Oct 27 1980
From The Space Library
DFRC announced plans for a ceremony at which ARC officials representing NASA and the Army's Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft project would accept the first of two aircraft built under a joint program. One of the two planes built by Bell Helicopter Textron arrived at ARC in March 1978 for tests in its full-scale wind tunnel; the other arrived at DFRC August 13 for followup of tests by Bell. So far, two contractor pilots, two NASA pilots, one Army pilot, and one Marine pilot had tested and evaluated the aircraft. (DFRC Release 80-28)
MSFC noted the arrival of the age of automation in its Materials and Processes Laboratory, where industrial robots were improving manufacturing techniques in Space Shuttle hardware production. Robotics, integrated into totally computer-controlled systems, would help meet high launch-rate fabrication and between-flight refurbishment requirements of reusable Shuttle items.
One of the two MSFC robots was helping spray foam insulation for thermal protection on booster structures such as forward and aft skirts or nosecones. The second, currently used for advanced welding, would serve in a thermal protection process for the external tank. A third robot to arrive in December would run a high-pressure water blaster to strip insulation from reusable Shuttle hardware. (MSFC Release 80-138)
Aviation Week & Space Technology said that General Dynamics Convair had developed a prototype. deployable space truss as a. building block in large space structures. A 26-foot beam stowed in a flat pack 3 feet long, 5 feet wide, and 9.5 inches high would unfold in five segments to 5 feet in width and 7.5 feet in height. The hinged and folded struts of graphite-epoxy bonded to aluminum would deploy in three automatic steps, forming first a triangular, then a diamond-shaped, section. A Shuttle could carry 24 500-foot beams into space on a ,single mission. (Av Wk, Oct 27/80, 49)
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