From Supercomputers to Wind Tunnels: NASA’s Highway to Artemis II

Of the numerous roads resulting in profitable Artemis missions, one is paved with high-tech computing chips referred to as superchips. Along the best way, a partnership between NASA wind tunnel engineers, knowledge visualization scientists, and software program builders verified a fast, cost-effective answer to enhance NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket for the upcoming Artemis II mission. This would be the first crewed flight of the SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft, on an roughly 10-day journey across the Moon.  

A high-speed community connection between high-end computing assets on the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility and the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, each situated at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley, is enabling a collaboration to enhance the rocket for the Artemis II mission. During the Artemis I check flight, the SLS rocket skilled higher-than-expected vibrations close to the strong rocket booster connect factors, brought on by unsteady airflow between the hole.

One answer proposed for Artemis II was including 4 strakes. A strake is a skinny, fin-like construction generally used on plane to enhance unsteady airflow and stability. Adding them to the core stage minimizes the vibration of parts.

The strake answer comes from earlier checks within the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel, the place NASA engineers utilized an Unsteady Pressure Sensitive Paint (uPSP) method to SLS fashions. The paint measures modifications over time in aerodynamic pressures on air and spacecraft.

It is sprayed onto check fashions, and high-speed cameras seize video of the fluctuating brightness of the paint, which corresponds to the native strain fluctuations on the mannequin. Capturing speedy modifications in strain throughout massive areas of the SLS mannequin helps engineers perceive the fast-changing setting. The knowledge is streamed to the NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility by way of a high-speed community connection.

“This technique lets us see wind tunnel data in much finer detail than ever before. With that extra clarity, engineers can create more accurate models of how rockets and spacecraft respond to stress, helping design stronger, safer, and more efficient structures,” mentioned Thomas Steva, lead engineer, SLS sub-division within the Aerodynamics Branch at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

For the SLS configuration with the strakes, the wind tunnel group utilized the paint to a scale mannequin of the rocket. Once the digicam knowledge streamed to the supercomputing facility, a group of visualization and knowledge evaluation specialists displayed the outcomes on the hyperwall visualization system, giving the SLS group an unprecedented have a look at the impact of the strakes on the car’s efficiency. Teams have been capable of work together with and analyze the paint knowledge.

“NASA’s high-end computing capability and facilities, paired with unique facilities at Ames, give us the ability to increase productivity by shortening timelines, reducing costs, and strengthening designs in ways that directly support safe human spaceflight,” mentioned Kevin Murphy, NASA’s chief science data officer and lead for the company’s High-End Computing Capability portfolio at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’re actively using this capability to help ensure Artemis II is ready for launch.”

Leveraging the high-speed connection between the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel and NASA Advanced Supercomputing facility reduces the everyday knowledge processing time from weeks to only hours.

For years, the NASA Advancing Supercomputing Division’s in-house Launch, Ascent, and Vehicle Aerodynamics software program has helped play a job in designing and certifying the assorted SLS car configurations.

“Being able to work with the hyperwall and the visualization team allows for in-person, rapid engagement with data, and we can make near-real-time tweaks to the processing,” mentioned Lara Lash, an aerospace engineering researcher within the Experimental Aero-Physics Branch at NASA Ames who leads the uPSP work.

This time, NASA Advanced Supercomputing researchers used the Cabeus supercomputer, which is the company’s largest GPU-based computing cluster containing 350 NVIDIA superchip nodes. The supercomputer produced a sequence of complicated computational fluid dynamic simulations that helped clarify the underlying physics of the strake addition and stuffed in gaps between areas the place the wind tunnel cameras and sensors couldn’t attain.

This actually was a joint effort throughout a number of groups.

“The beauty of the strake solution is that we were able to add strakes to improve unsteady aerodynamics, and associated vibration levels of components in the intertank,” mentioned Kristin Morgan, who manages the strake implementation effort for the SLS at Marshall.

A group from Boeing is presently putting in the strakes on the rocket at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and are concentrating on October 2025 to finish set up.

Through Artemis, NASA will ship astronauts to discover the Moon for scientific discovery, financial advantages, and construct the muse for the primary crewed missions to Mars.

To study extra about Artemis, go to:

Jonathan Deal
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala. 
256.544.0034
jonathan.e.deal@nasa.gov