|
You may have heard of formation flying. You may have even seen the U.S. Navy's Blue Angels performing their formation flying show with their fighter jets. NASA wants to be able to do formation flying too. They want to fly three or more spacecraft at great distances apart in space, but have them be absolutely locked together in their positions as if they were welded onto a rigid frame. If they could do this, NASA scientists could use the fleet of spacecraft working together to look for Earth-sized planets around other stars and to study black holes, supernovas, and other violent events in the Universe.
Space Technology 7 will test an advanced technology that will allow NASA to fly several spacecraft in a very precise formation. Another name for ST7 is the Disturbance Reduction System.
Even in space, small forces can push spacecraft around and disturb their tight formation. ST7's Disturbance Reduction System will be able to detect these tiny movements of the spacecraft "off course" and figure out how to correct for them by firing tiny thrusters in the opposite direction. In other words, ST7 will calculate the vector (in this case, a force, with amount and direction) required to make the correction. Then it will calculate which of several thrusters to fire together that will combine to produce the desired result. In our game, we only have to worry about the X and Y directions. In space, we have to add another direction, Z. That makes it a lot harder!
It is technologies such as the Disturbance Reduction System that will help us learn more about the Universe, how it began, and whether there might be other Earth-like places out there. NASA's New Millennium Program is helping to choose, develop, and test these important technologies.
|
