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F-15B

NASA's F-15B carrying thermal insulation foam on its flight test fixture is shadowed by a NASA F-18B chase aircraft during a LIFT experiment research flight.

 
Photo Number: EC05-0030-10
Photo Date: February 16, 2005
 
Formats: 640x579 JPEG Image (141 KBytes)
1280x1158 JPEG Image (622 KBytes)
3000x2715 JPEG Image (4564 KBytes)
 
Photo
Description:
NASA's F-15B carrying thermal insulation foam on its flight test fixture is shadowed by a NASA F-18B chase aircraft during a LIFT experiment research flight.
 
Project
Description:

Before the Space Shuttle could safely return to flight, engineers needed data on how insulating foam debris or "divots" behaved when these small pieces were shed from the Shuttle's external fuel tank during launch. NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center conducted a series of flight tests of the divots as part of the Return to Flight team effort. The Lifting Insulating Foam Trajectory (LIFT) flight test series at Dryden used the center's F-15B Research Testbed aircraft to test these "divots" in a real flight environment at speeds up to about Mach 2, or twice the speed of sound.

Small-scale divoting occurs when the adhesive on the external tank thermal protection system (TPS) foam fails. This occurs as a result of decreasing atmospheric pressure combined with increased heating during Shuttle ascent causing air trapped beneath the TPS to expand.

Objectives of the LIFT flight tests on the F-15B include determining divot structural survivability and stability in flight and quantifying divot trajectories using videography. The flight data of divot trajectories may also be used for Computational Fluid Dynamic code validation.

NASA's Space Shuttle Systems Engineering and Integration office at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas, funded the LIFT flight tests at NASA Dryden as part of the Space Shuttle Return-to-Flight effort.

The LIFT flight test required two new capabilities: an in-flight foam divot ejection system, and a high-speed video system to track and record the trajectories of the divots in flight. Both capabilities were developed by Dryden engineers in just over two months.

Dryden's LIFT team designed, fabricated, and ground-tested four different divot ejection systems, completing 70 ground tests to determine and refine the best approach. NASA Dryden engineers also designed and procured the very high-speed digital video equipment, including development of a system to synchronize the cameras with the divot ejection system. In addition, they developed videography analysis techniques in order to quantify divot trajectories.

 
NASA Photo by: Jim Ross
 
Keywords: F-15, F-15B, 836, LIFT, Lifting Insulating Foam Trajectory flight test series, Space Shuttle, Return-to-Flight, STS, STS-114, thermal protection system, TPS, foam, divots, external tank
 


Last Modified: February 18, 2005
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