United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

The United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of the

Bryan C Yount

William R Doggett

Thomas C Jones

Alberto Makino

Judith J Watson

Timothy S Roach

Winfred S Kenner

Molly M Selig

Clarence E Stanfield

Jasen L Raboin

John T Dorsey

Russell W Smith

William M Langford

Lynn M Bowman

Ben Edward Nikaido

Douglas A Litteken

Gerard D Valle

Earl T Hall

Richard Keith Bird

Sarah Nicole D'Souza

Jerry E Warren

Breanna Jermille Johnson

Vincenzo M Le Boffe

Lana P Hicks-Olson

Samuel James

Khadijah I Shariff

David F Moore

Wendy Awele Okolo

Mary Jane E O'Rourke

Danny J Lovaglio

Laura A Leybold

James E Phelps

Arlon B Sullivan

Fred M Whitehead

Benjamin William Look Margolis

A system for controlling an aerospace vehicle by exploiting the dihedral effect to control bank angle of the vehicle by modulating sideslip. The control system includes a closed feedback loop comprising an outer loop for producing a sideslip angle command to induce a roll moment through the dihedral effect to satisfy a bank angle command, and an inner loop for taking the sideslip angle command, and possibly an angle of attack command to produce control input for flightpath hardware controls. Flightpath control hardware include pairs of flaps arranged longitudinally along the leading and trailing edges of an aeroshell of an aerospace entry vehicle to control pitch for changing the angle of attack, and another pair of flaps arranged laterally to control yaw for changing the bank angle via the sideslip angle, and also moving mass along ribs to control pitch and yaw. Thrusters can be fired to induce roll.

Aerospace vehicle entry flightpath control

A deformable closure mechanism for an aperture that may include an aperture seal that has a seal seat between an internal support structure and an external support structure. A barrier structure may be configured to resealably close the aperture, and have a central membrane and a barrier sealed that is inflatable in order to engage the barrier structure with the aperture seal.

Deformable closure mechanism

An inflatable pressure structure includes an airtight flexible membrane having collapsed and inflated configurations. The inflatable pressure structure includes an elongated pressure-assisted seal that is configured to selectively seal an opening in the airtight flexible membrane. The pressure-assisted seal includes first and second seal components that sealingly engage one another and prevent escape of gas from inside the airtight flexible membrane. The airtight flexible membrane, when inflated, generates a force transverse to the pressure-assisted seal tending to pull the first and second seal components apart. Pressurized gas inside the airtight flexible membrane causes the first and second seal components to more securely engage one another whereby a force transverse to the pressure-assisted seal does not disengage the first and second seal components.

Pressure-assisted linear seal

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Bryan C Yount