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The Personnel Launch SystemNASA has begun to study candidate vehicles for manned access to space in support of the Space Station or other future missions requiring on-demand transportation of people to and from earth orbit. One such system, which would be used to complement the present Shuttle or an upgraded version, is the Personnel Launch System (PLS), which is envisioned as a reusable priority vehicle to place people and small payloads into orbit using an experimental launch vehicle. The design of the PLS is based on a Space Station crew changeout requirement whereby eight passengers and two crew members are flown to the station and a like number are returned within a 72 hour mission duration. Experimental and computational aerothermodynamic heating studies have been conducted using a new two-color thermographic technique that involved coating the model with a phosphor that radiates at varying color intensities as a function of temperature when illuminated with UV light. A full-scale model, the HL-20, has been produced and will be used for man-machine research. Three launch vehicle concepts are being considered, a Titan IV, the Advanced Launch System, and a Shuttle equipped with liquid rocket boosters.
Document ID
19910031425
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Piland, William M.
(NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Talay, Theodore A.
(NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Stone, Howard W.
(NASA Langley Research Center Hampton, VA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 15, 2013
Publication Date
November 1, 1990
Publication Information
Publication: Aerospace America
Volume: 28
ISSN: 0740-722X
Subject Category
Space Transportation
Accession Number
91A16048
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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