Reinventing The Wheel

Reinventing the Wheel

Planning a trip to the Moon? Mars? You’re going to need good tires…

Exploration requires mobility. And whether you’re on Earth or as far away as the Moon or Mars, you need good tires to get your vehicle from one place to another. Our decades-long work developing tires for space exploration has led to new game-changing designs and materials. Yes, we’re reinventing the wheel—here’s why.

Wheels on the Moon

Early tire designs were focused on moving hardware and astronauts across the lunar surface. The last NASA vehicle to visit the Moon was the Lunar Roving Vehicle during our Apollo missions. The vehicle used four large flexible wire mesh wheels with stiff inner frames. We used these Apollo era tires as the inspiration for new designs using newer materials and technology to better function on a lunar surface.

Up springs a new idea

During the mid-2000s, we worked with industry partner Goodyear to develop the Spring Tire, an airless compliant tire that consists of several hundred coiled steel wires woven into a flexible mesh, giving the tires the ability to support high loads while also conforming to the terrain. The Spring Tire has been proven to generate very good traction and durability in soft sand and on rocks.

Spring Tires for Mars

A little over a year after the Mars Curiosity Rover landed on Mars, engineers began to notice significant wheel damage in 2013 due to the unexpectedly harsh terrain. That’s when engineers began developing new Spring Tire prototypes to determine if they would be a new and better solution for exploration rovers on Mars.

In order for Spring Tires to go the distance on Martian terrain, new materials were required. Enter nickel titanium, a shape memory alloy with amazing capabilities that allow the tire to deform down to the axle and return to its original shape.

These tires can take a lickin’

After building the shape memory alloy tire, Glenn engineers sent it to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Life Test Facility. It performed impressively on the punishing track.

Why reinvent the wheel? It’s worth it.

New, high performing tires would allow lunar and Mars rovers to explore greater regions of the surface than currently possible. They conform to the terrain and do not sink as much as rigid wheels, allowing them to carry heavier payloads for the same given mass and volume. Also, because they absorb energy from impacts at moderate to high speeds, there is potential for use on crewed exploration vehicles which are expected to move at speeds significantly higher than the current Mars rovers.

Airless tires on Earth

Maybe. Recently, engineers and materials scientists have been testing a spinoff tire version that would work on cars and trucks on Earth. Stay tuned as we continue to push the boundaries on traditional concepts for exploring our world and beyond.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

The Kepler space telescope has shown us our galaxy is teeming with planets — and other surprises

The Kepler space telescope has taught us there are so many planets out there, they outnumber even the stars. Here is a sample of these wondrous, weird and unexpected worlds (and other spectacular objects in space) that Kepler has spotted with its “eye” opened to the heavens.

Kepler has found that double sunsets really do exist.

Yes, Star Wars fans, the double sunset on Tatooine could really exist. Kepler discovered the first known planet around a double-star system, though Kepler-16b is probably a gas giant without a solid surface.

Kepler has gotten us closer to finding planets like Earth.

Nope. Kepler hasn’t found Earth 2.0, and that wasn’t the job it set out to do. But in its survey of hundreds of thousands of stars, Kepler found planets near in size to Earth orbiting at a distance where liquid water could pool on the surface. One of them, Kepler-62f, is about 40 percent bigger than Earth and is likely rocky. Is there life on any of them? We still have a lot more to learn.

This sizzling world is so hot iron would melt!

One of Kepler’s early discoveries was the small, scorched world of Kepler-10b. With a year that lasts less than an Earth day and density high enough to imply it’s probably made of iron and rock, this “lava world” gave us the first solid evidence of a rocky planet outside our solar system.

If it’s not an alien megastructure, what is this oddly fluctuating star?

When Kepler detected the oddly fluctuating light from “Tabby’s Star,” the internet lit up with speculation of an alien megastructure. Astronomers have concluded it’s probably an orbiting dust cloud.

Kepler caught this dead star cannibalizing its planet.

What happens when a solar system dies? Kepler discovered a white dwarf, the compact corpse of a star in the process of vaporizing a planet.

These Kepler planets are more than twice the age of our Sun!

The five small planets in Kepler-444 were born 11 billion years ago when our galaxy was in its youth. Imagine what these ancient planets look like after all that time?

Kepler found a supernova exploding at breakneck speed.

This premier planet hunter has also been watching stars explode. Kepler recorded a sped-up version of a supernova called a “fast-evolving luminescent transit” that reached its peak brightness at breakneck speed. It was caused by a star spewing out a dense shell of gas that lit up when hit with the shockwave from the blast.

* All images are artist illustrations.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

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akshayk

4 years ago

Enjin

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akshayk

8 years ago

Happy Independence Day, US FlickrFam!

examiner’s report by JD Urban

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akshayk

8 years ago

DAY 3138

Jalsa, Mumbai Oct 31-Nov 1, 2016 Mon/Tue 1:22 am

The day of rest and recollecting the night before the day that we met in the morning of the day before we came to intrude this land this beautiful land .. a land of mercy and forgiveness .. of extending .. and before we can stay, stay ..

Sounds a bit unfamiliar … but that is the train of thought .. why ever would you want to dismiss that .. dismissal .. is a strong case of which one must immediately, take action ..

I did .. and am thankful to the Almighty, for listening to me during the hours of stress, and then guiding me for what is good or bad for me .. nothing else !!

Its been a beast of a night before, but one that gives me great satisfaction, and joy of togetherness and love ..

Casualties were limited to a few, a gentle flew, which is what gave impetus to fight for the Nation .. a Nation that is subjected to tests .. tests ??

Never mind … just live life each day …

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akshayk

9 years ago

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akshayk

6 years ago

‘Oh you look so beautiful…’ #Paris #U2 #U2eiTour #cityoflights #U2SongsofExperience

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akshayk

9 years ago

Get up close and personal with real monsters in Battle Camp! Play for free now!

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akshayk

9 years ago

Android users: Go forth and GIF

Your Tumblr app makes GIFs now, just like the iOS app does.

Any video on your phone can be giffed. You’ve probably already shot tons of them, and they probably contain tons of giffable moments. Just:

Open a new photo post.

Pick a video.

Thwack!—it’s a GIF.

Speed it up. Slow it down. Make it eternally loop, or fool it into rebounding back and forth across time. Have fun figuring out the things you can do with your GIF.

Some additional tips for your GIF-making pleasure:

The shorter your GIF is, the better it’ll look.

Speeding up a slow-mo GIF to 3x or 4x makes for a crazy-smooth normal-speed GIF.

Tap the rebound once to make your GIF go back and forth, twice to make it run in reverse.

Sometimes life is too complicated for just one GIF. Make a photoset.

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