Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

H. Todd Smith, Ryan Dibley

August 4, 2021

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Session will start at 10 a.m. PT – Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

Community of Practice Webinar Series – August 4, 2021

Ryan Dibley, Flight Opportunities Campaign Manager

H. Todd Smith, Ph.D., Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Welcome to the Community of Practice Webinar Series!

First, a bit of housekeeping...

• Please mute your microphone and turn off your camera

• Today’s session will be recorded

• Recordings for this and all future session will be posted on the Flight Opportunities 

website

• Please engage!

• Use the chat throughout the session to ask questions

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Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

H. Todd Smith, Ryan Dibley

August 4, 2021

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

2

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Flight Opportunities Mission

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The Flight Opportunities program facilitates rapid 

demonstration of promising technologies for 

space exploration, discovery, and the expansion 

of space commerce through suborbital testing 

with industry flight providers.

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Upcoming Opportunity - NASA TechRise Student Challenge

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• For teams of sixth to 12th-grade students to design, build, and launch 

experiments on suborbital rockets and balloon flights during the upcoming 

2021/2022 school year

• Entries open August 18

• Join the educator workshop on August 11 from 12-4 pm EDT

• More info: https://www.futureengineers.org/nasatechrise

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Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

H. Todd Smith, Ryan Dibley

August 4, 2021

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

3

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Join us for future Community of Practice webinars!

Advancing Small Spacecraft Technologies 

With Suborbital Flight Tests

v Anh Nguyen, PACE Project Manager, NASA 

Ames

v Paul De León, Flight Opportunities Campaign 

Manager

v Mary Palmer, Raven Aerostar

Sept. 1 at 10 a.m. PDT

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Future webinars

• Webinars are held 1st Wednesday of each 

month at 10 a.m. PT

• Topics will be announced in the Flight 

Opportunities newsletter and website

• Session recordings will be posted on the 

Flight Opportunities website

• Let us know session topics you would like 

to see covered

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

Today’s Speakers

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Ryan Dibley

Campaign Manager

Flight Opportunities

H. Todd Smith, Ph.D.

Senior Space Physicist

Johns Hopkins University Applied 

Physics Laboratory

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Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

H. Todd Smith, Ryan Dibley

August 4, 2021

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

4

NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

www.nasa.gov

NASA Flight Opportunities

Community of Practice

Todd Smith | August 2021

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Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JANUS Program)

• Key commercial suborbital novel capabilities for APL

- 1-2 orders of magnitude cheaper than traditional costs

- Crewed(*) & un-crewed, relatively large payload capacity

- Fully reusable with rapid turn around

- Access to ~>100 km

- Guaranteed safe return of payload

• Key potential applications (essentially raising laboratory environment to ~80-100 km)

- Aeronomy, atmospheric, ionospheric in situ research

- Flight test prototypes, engineering models and even actual flight models

- Instrument development/technology demonstration 

- Early career development: opportunity for end to end (lower risk) project exposure in relatively 

short period of time

• Initial focus - integration platform to facilitate low cost, rapid applications (JANUS)

- Provides spacecraft interface, control & processing, data storage, power, environment monitoring

- Removes the requirement to build an entirely new payload for every flight

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Planning Successful Tests on Suborbital Rocket-Powered Vehicles

H. Todd Smith, Ryan Dibley

August 4, 2021

Community of Practice Webinar Series

NASA Flight Opportunities

https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/spacetech/flightopportunities/community-of-practice

5

JHU APL Program Status

• Getting involved early -> gain experience & help establish emerging field

• 8 successful missions (interface establishment, environment 

monitoring/characterization) 

- Masten Space Systems (Xombie): 2 Nov. 2016 

- Blue Origin (New Shepard): 5 Oct. 2016; 12 Dec. 2017; 18 Jul; 23 Jan. 2019; 13 Oct. 2020 

- Virgin Galactic (Spaceship 2): 22 Feb. 2019; 22 May 2021 

• Additional missions funded by the NASA Flight Opportunities Program

- Establishing external payload accommodation on the Blue Origin New Shepard

- Charged particle/remote sensing observations, and chipsat deployment

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NASA FLIGHT OPPORTUNITIES

10 www.nasa.gov

Thank you! 

Flight Opportunities website: 

http://nasa.gov/flightopportunities

Contact us:

NASA-FlightOpportunities@mail.nasa.gov

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