The U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) was requested by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center (LaRC) to perform a free-flight experiment with a telemetry (TM) instrumented sub-scaled Apollo shaped reentry vehicle in order to determine its aerodynamic coefficients. ARL has developed a unique flight diagnostic capability for reconstructing flight trajectory and determining aerodynamic coefficients of projectiles by using sensor data telemetered from free flight experiments. A custom launch package was designed for this experiment that included the Apollo shaped projectile, which housed a modular telemetry unit, and a rapid prototyped sabot. The experiment was able to produce estimates for aerodynamic coefficients that were considered accurate and this technique is appealing to NASA for the development of their spacecraft in the future.
展开▼
