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hi welcome to the mission control center

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in the international space station

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flight control room in particular and we

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as i mentioned earlier are going to have

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a special guest joining us joining us

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from kennedy space center today dr paul

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shalhorn who is working on the next

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generation of the spheres experiment

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that's the synchronized position hold

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engage reorient experimental satellites

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that we talk about really a pretty good

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bit they do a lot of work with that on

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the space station have been for a number

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of expeditions they found a lot of

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different ways to

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to use that technology and and perform

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different experiments with it and one of

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them is going to be going up next week

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on board cygnus to the space station

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that's the one that dr shellhorn is

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working on i believe he's connected dr

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shalhorn

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yes

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we we have an experiment that's going up

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the station that's going to be using

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spheres

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to

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capture

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fluid motion inside of a small acrylic

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tank excuse me lexon lexan tank the

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thought for us is

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i work in launch services program

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our primary purpose is launching of most

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of the science missions

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and many of the launch vehicles we use

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have liquid upper stages

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and during the our launches the liquid

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upper stage

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will end up usually having a coast

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period and during that coast period of

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microgravity we're concerned with what

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is happening

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in the fuel and oxidizer tanks of those

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upper stages

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okay so in order to understand that

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excuse me i'm sorry go ahead

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no that's okay go ahead

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i was just going to say so during that

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coast phase

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liquids moving around we're wanting to

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know what's going on and we predict it

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using

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numerical tools called computational

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fluid dynamics but we don't have any

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real test data in which to to anchor

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these models so this experiment is

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giving us all the test data that we're

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hoping to use to simulate what happens

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to um the propellant tanks

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on

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our our vehicles we're using this to

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anchor our modeling methodology if you

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will

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so how is this different than how you're

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able to test it on the ground what do

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you gain from testing it in space well

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where our concerns are is we actually

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have gone and done a whole series of

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tests we've sponsored it

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um

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the launch services program with me as

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pi

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has sponsored the florida institute of

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technology

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specifically dr dan kirk and dr hector

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gutierrez

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to perform a whole series of liquid

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slosh maneuvers sloshing basically

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meaning liquid moves

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around

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in a random fashion

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and so

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we've sponsored it on the ground we've

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sponsored some zero-g flights but our

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biggest concern has always been what

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happens when you're in a microgravity

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situation

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upper stage fires

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it it shuts down as it coasts getting

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ready to do another

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firing to to send satellite into

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whatever orbit or trajectory that it

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needs to go into and so our concern is

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what's happening during that that time

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frame uh from from a vehicle controls

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perspective is sloshing around and

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overtaking the the vehicle control

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area that i i have interest in what is

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it doing to to the conditioning of the

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propellant will it be able to to

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fire

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great so where did the idea of using the

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spheres satellites on the space station

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that's a good question

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a number of years ago when when we were

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in the midst of doing a lot of our

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ground testing of slash

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the folks from mit came down

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specifically uh

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dr david miller and he was the person at

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mit that heads up the lab that developed

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spheres

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and he was coming around to show us what

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spheres

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was when he came around and showed our

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group the first thing that came to my

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mind is this is the next logical step

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that we can end up using

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to to advancing our understanding of

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liquid behavior

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during coast phase so i got dr miller

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and

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dr kirk together to start postulating

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how could we end up

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doing an integrated slash modeling

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capability using

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spheres and using some of the expertise

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that was developed by florida tech

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what were you able to figure out how

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does how's the experiment going to work

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well the the experiment that you see

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that'll be going up and hopefully have a

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picture of this

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has two of the spheres that are at the

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end of two long arms

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and in the middle is a

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uh tank that is clear that's filled with

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uh liquid water

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uh that has a food coloring instead the

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two there

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i think that's a little bit better the

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two satellites i guess on either end the

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red and blue and the tank is in the

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middle

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yes

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and then the tank has two cameras

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pointing at it and so we can know what

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where the the the motion is at any given

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time because we have

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uh

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accelerometers on board

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and so we we know what let's say the

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impulse is we're using spheres in this

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case just as as our propulsion system

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and then we'll end up having it go

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through a set of maneuvers typical of

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those of an upper stage and we'll watch

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through the two cameras that are that

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are mounted 90 degrees apart they're

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kind of sitting up on a on an arm

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to look down into the into the tank and

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see how the motion goes then we'll

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compare that directly to our our

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modeling simulations

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and so the main idea is to is to verify

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the simulations that you've already

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modeled

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right our concern is is there some

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physics that we that we are not

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currently capturing

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on the ground everything seems to be

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dominated by

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gravity but when you get into a

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microgravity situation our concern is is

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the things such as surface tension

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dominating is there something else in

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the physics that that we don't know

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so we just want to make sure we have a

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good proper understanding before we we

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end up using this modeling tool any

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further

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in in launches that involved

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multi-million dollar to billion dollar

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satellites and so we want

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it's it's our way of trying to get a

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good investment

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for for what we're doing in the future

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sounds like it's worth getting that

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exactly right so when will we yes we're

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gonna we expect it to launch next week

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on board cygnus um and then when will we

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actually be seeing the experiment start

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onboard the space station

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uh i believe that the the first round of

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experiments is going to be starting

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sometime in the mid january time frame

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and then we have two more

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experiment sets coming up in february

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and march and then based on on the

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result of those

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we'll end up evaluating and see if we

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can end up asking for additional test

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sessions

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all right well we'll look forward to

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seeing those thanks so much for talking