Art meets science in unique Tunnel 9 test of a 'bird...in flight'

From left, Erin Hedlund, Montgomery Blair High School rising senior, Dan Marren, AEDC Tunnel 9 director and Erin’s father Dr. Eric Hedlund (AEGIS Ballistic Missile Defense Test Director), pose for an informal portrait with the Bird in Space sculpture mounted in the students’ Mach 3 Tunnel in Tunnel 9’s Calibration Laboratory. (Photo by Arnold Collier)

Art meets science in unique Tunnel 9 test of a 'bird...in flight'

Bird in Space sculpture mounted in the student’s Mach 3 Tunnel prior to a test run in Tunnel 9’s Calibration Laboratory. (Photo by Arnold Collier)

AEDC played critical role in supporting NASA Explorer’s mission to MAP the skies

Ricky Bush, an ATA lead machinist for Arnold’s space chambers test cells, watches the removal of the NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center’s Microwave Anisotropy Probe from AEDC’s Mark I Space Environmental Chamber following a successful solar panel deployment test.

AEDC played critical role in supporting NASA Explorer’s mission to MAP the skies

This artist' rendering – a timeline of the universe – shows a representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.7 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 380,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a backlight for later developments of the universe. (Photo courtesy of NASA/WMAP Science Team)

AEDC's Tunnel 9 director celebrates the landing of NASA's Mars Science Lab

In AEDC’s National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex, two engineers are dwarfed by NASA's Mars Science Laboratory's parachute. The parachute holds more air than a 3,000-square-foot house and is designed to survive loads in excess of 36,000 kilograms (80,000 pounds). The parachute is attached to a launch arm mounted on a swivel-base that allows the test item to pitch and yaw under simulated conditions of subsonic entry into the Martian atmosphere. (Photo courtesy of NASA/JPL and Pioneer Aerospace Corp.)

AEDC's Tunnel 9 director celebrates the landing of NASA's Mars Science Lab

A 1/30-scale model of the aeroshell configuration for the Mars Science Laboratory underwent aerodynamic atmospheric descent testing at AEDC’s Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9 Facility. (AEDC photo)

AEDC engineers test cutiing-edge scene projection system in 7V space chamber

In preparation for a test on a new optical collimator and a digital multi-mirror device in AEDC’s 7V Space Chamber, Ken Bynum, ATA electrical engineer, checks the components’ connectivity while running input data files to check the performance of the projection system. (Photo provided)

AEDC and UTSI cryo-contamination research heralded a success

This photo depicts cryo-deposits formed on both the mirror and the quartz crystal microbalance inside the UHV chamber. (Photo provided)

Final Minuteman rocket motors undergoing testing at AEDC

A photo of the Minuteman Stage 2 motor after firing in J-6. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)

Final Minuteman rocket motors undergoing testing at AEDC

This photo shows the Minuteman III Stage 2 rocket motor loaded in the J-6 Test Cell prior to recent testing. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)

AEDC continues important role in America's space program

A European Space agency probe that landed on Titan, Saturn’s largest moon on Jan. 14, 2005, was tested in the 16-foot transonic wind tunnel at the Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center in 1993. The mission of the Huygens probe, named after Dutch astronomer Christian Huygens who discovered Titan in 1655, was to collect atmospheric data from Titan. The probe landed by parachute. The wind tunnel model of the probe was fitted with scaled main and pilot parachutes. The chutes were opened at speeds ranging from 350 to 1,000 mph in the wind tunnel while information was gathered on their inflation characteristics. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory Cassini Spacecraft carried the probe to the vicinity of Titan. The Huygens test model was designed and fabricated by Micro Craft Inc. in Tullahoma, Tenn., for the GE Aerospace Corp., which was under contract to the European Space Agency. (AEDC file photos)

Team at Tunnel 9 tackles NASA heat shield test

From left, Tunnel 9 ATA Project Engineer Dan Lewis and NASA's principal investigator for the project and NASA’s Orion acting aerothermal lead and system manager Adam Amar review the Orion capsule test article before the Tunnel 9 facility is secured for a test. (Photo provided)

AEDC team tests Minuteman rocket motor in J-6

From left to right, Brad Wichtoski and Scott Gibbons with Northrop Grumman, conduct an inspection of a Minuteman III Stage 3 motor before it undergoes simulated altitude testing in AEDC’s J-6 Large Rocket Test Facility. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)

ATA employee attends his 61st space shuttle launch

Peter Montgomery took this photo of the space shuttle Discovery's last flight in February 2011.

AEDC played vital role in space shuttle development

At the time, one matter of interest both to the present and the future space shuttle designers was determining the pressures and temperatures the orbiter and booster would be subjected to through the interaction of their shock waves. A series of tests were conducted to measure temperatures and pressures for comparison with analytical results, After a series of tests using very simple forms to represent a booster paired with an orbiter, data were taken with the hypothetical orbiter-booster combination shown here. The effort was sponsored by the Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory and was conducted for Grumman Aircraft by Arnold Research Organization (ARO), Inc., AEDC' s operating contractor at the time. Checking adjustment of the models is test facility craftsman R. G. Rainey. (AEDC file photo)

AEDC played vital role in space shuttle development

NASA representative John Warmbrod, left; ARO project engineer R.K. Matthews, center, and Air Force representative to VKF, Maj. R.W. Working, examine the vast amount of data produced in the heat transfer phase of the test programs. Similar amounts were produced in the other phases. (AEDC file photo)

Cupola window tested at AEDC

Solar testing on a model of the International Space Station’s new cupola is shown here during a model change in Arnold Engineering Development Center’s 12-foot diamter vacuum (12V) Space Chamber in 1993. (AEDC file photo)

Long burn

ATK’s CASTOR® 30 was ground tested at the U.S. Air Force’s Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) on December 9, 2009 in a specialized vacuum chamber that simulates the altitude at which the upperstage motor will operate. This was the longest rcoket motor test ever in the J-6 Large Rocket Motor Test Facility, which became operational in 1994. (Air Force photo by Rick Goodfriend)

Hot run

A Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) rocket motor is installed in J-6 Large Rocket Motor Test Facility before test firing. Paint stripes on the top of the MLRS rocket motor, is temperature-indicating paint that monitors temperature range between 200 to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)

Satellite killer

A Navy Standard Missile model undergoes aerodynamic testing in AEDC's von Karman Gas Dynamics Facility Wind Tunnel A in 1994. (AEDC file photo)

Over the Pacific

The USS Lake Erie launches a Navy Standard Missile-3 at a nonfunctioning National Reconnaissance Office satellite as it traveled in space at more than 17,000 mph over the Pacific Ocean Feb. 20. (Defense Dept. photo by U.S. Navy)

Space Chamber

Pictured is AEDC’s 10V Space Chamber Hardware-in-the-Loop (HWIL) facility. (Photo by David Housch)

verification

Augie Huber, a systems engineer with the Kinetic Kill Vehicle Hardware-in-the-loop Simulator team from Eglin, AFB, works inside the center’s 10V Space Chamber on the Infrared Array Optical Assembly. He is verifying the connections to the resistive emitter arrays installed in that subsystem. In front of Huber is the Steering Mirror System with two of the Collimating Optical System mirrors behind him. (Photo by David Housch)

NASA Orion testing heating up at AEDC

Troy Davis, Aerospace Testing Alliance outside machinist, checks the alignment of the Orion heat shield material sample prior to testing in H2. (Photo by Rick Goodfriend)