Summary Remarks This investigation confirms that bearings made with low modulus, hard and superelastic 60NiTi material  exhibits extraordinarily high static load capacity. Indentation experiments using the inner race of a 50mm-bore ball bearing contacting a ceramic ball can withstand about 3 GPa mean stress before dents deeper than accepted limits are reached. This limiting stress value is consistent with the results obtained previously using flat plate 60NiTi specimens with indentation balls of varying diameters. The good agreement of the load capacity data collected under differing contact geometry configurations indicate that the Hertz stress relations can be used with confidence when designing bearings with respect to static  load capacity. Using a conservative stress limit of 3.1 GPa, the launch load tolerance of a small notional Reaction Wheel Assembly (RWA) supported on R4 sized bearings utilizing different materials was evaluated. The results show that the baseline RWA supported by 440C steel bearings can withstand launch vibration levels of  about 25 g’s. The use of the super-hard tool steel REX20 increases the launch load tolerance by a factor  of three or more albeit while introducing bearing corrosion concerns. The use of 60NiTi provides an order of magnitude more load tolerance than the baseline 440C steel bearing case while imparting improved corrosion protection. The enhanced load capacity enabled by the use of superelastic bearing materials like 60NiTi offer the  opportunity to utilize smaller and fewer support bearings with commensurately lower operating friction. In future systems that may require larger wheels, the ability to withstand higher static loads may be an even stronger design driver for the continued development of superelastic bearings. Acknowledgements The authors wish to acknowledge NASA’s ISS Project Office and the NASA Engineering and Safety  Center for their support of this work. The authors also acknowledge the technical contributions made to  this work by NASA Glenn Research Center’s Nathan Wilmoth, Walter Wozniak, and Fransua Thomas andalso the valuable race dent measurements made by Justin Rowe of the Oregon State University during  his internship at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Without their assistance in specimen preparation and testing have enabled this work.  References 1.General Environmental Verification Standard-Goddard Space Flight Center Standard-STD-7000,  NASA GSFC, Greenbelt, MD, April 2005. 2.A.R. Leveille and J.J. Murphy, “Determination of the Influence of Static Loads on the Output Torque  of Instrument Ball Bearings,” in Proceedings of the Charles Stark Draper Lab. International Ball Bearings Symposium, (1973). 3.D.W. Smith, A.R. Leveille, M.R. Hilton, and P.C. Ward: “REX 20/Si 3N4Control Moment Gyroscope  Bearing Development,” Proceedings of the 32ndAerospace Mechanisms Symposium, May 13-15,  1998, Cocoa Beach, FL, NASA CP-1998-207191, pp. 223-235, 1998.   4.C. DellaCorte, S.V. Pepper, R. Noebe, D.R. Hull, and G. Glennon, 2009, “Intermetallic NickelTitanium Alloys for Oil-Lubricated Bearing Applications,” NASA/TM—2009-215646. 5.C. DellaCorte, R. Noebe, M.K. Stanford, and S.A. Padula, “Resilient and Corrosion-Proof Rolling  Element Bearings Made From Superelastic Ni-Ti Alloys for Aerospace Mechanism Applications,”  Proceedings of the 2011 ASTM Rolling Element Bearings Conference, Anaheim, California, April 13-15th, 2011 and NASA/TM—2011-217105.  6.C. DellaCorte, L.E. Moore, III, and J.C. Clifton: “Static Indentation Load Capacity of the Superelastic  NiTi for Rolling Element Bearings,” NASA/TM—2012-216016, May 2012. 7.C. DellaCorte, L.E. Moore, III, and J.C. Clifton: “The Effects of Pre-Stress on the Static Indentation  Load Capacity of the Superelastic NiTi,” NASA/TM—2012-216479, January 2013. 84