Approach To In Situ Component Level Electronics Assembly Repair Clear For Constellation

Author : National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781466495845
Total Pages : 38 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (958 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Download or read book Approach to in Situ written by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and published by . This book was released on 2010-10-01 with total page 38 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NASA's Constellation Program for exploration of the Moon and Mars places human crews in extreme isolation and resource scarce environments. Maintenance resupply is a significant issue for such long duration missions. Currently, the International Space Station (ISS) approaches maintenance primarily around replaceable modules called Orbital Replacement Units (ORU). The process of swapping out ORUs has served the ISS well and kept crew time for maintenance to a minimum. However, this approach assumes a substantial logistics capacity to provide replacement ORUs and return ORUs to Earth for repair and return to service. The elimination of the Space Shuttle substantially reduces the supply of replacement units and virtually eliminates the return for repairs. The modular ORUs used for ISS require relatively large blocks of replacement hardware even though the actual failed component may really be several orders of magnitude smaller. Electronic ORUs are typically modular assemblies that may include several internal circuit cards. While being able to access and replace smaller sub assemblies such as circuit cards is critical, a capability to repair failed electronic hardware at the component level offers the most potential for reduced resupply mass. Furthermore, such repair capabilities help to enable the crew to better respond to unforeseen faults and achieve more resource independence which becomes significantly more important as humans venture further away from Earth. A capability to repair at the component-level within the confines of a spacecraft requires significant planning and investment by NASA beginning early in the design phases of a mission. The Component Level Electronics Assembly Repair (CLEAR) task was created to explore electronics repair for future manned space missions. From 2006 to 2009, CLEAR was managed under the Supportability project of the Exploration Technology Development Program. This paper describes the activities and accomplishments of CLEAR. These include making a case for component-level electronics repair, examination of current terrestrial repair hardware and potential repair needs. Based on those needs, the CLEAR team proposes an architecture for an in-site repair capability aboard a spacecraft or habitat. The repair architecture, which includes a combination of manual and semi-automated tools, would allow the crew to diagnose, repair, and test electronics down to the component level while minimizing spares payload with minimal crew time and training. Additionally, this paper discusses recent progress toward developing in-space repair capabilities-including two spaceflight experiments-and presents technology