Wake Shield Facility

Wake Shield Facility

Wake Shield Facility is an experimental science platform that was placed in low-earth orbit by the Space Shuttle. It is a 3.7 meter (12 ft) diameter, free-flying stainless steel disk.

The WSF is deployed in the wake of the Space Shuttle at an orbital altitude of over 300 kilometers (186 mi), within the thermosphere, where the atmosphere is exceedingly tenuous. The forward edge of the WSF disk redirects atmospheric and other particles around the sides, leaving an "ultra-vacuum" in its wake. The resulting vacuum is used to study epitaxial film growth.

The WSF has flown into space three times, on board shuttle flights STS-60, STS-69 and STS-80. During STS-60, some hardware issues were experienced and as a result the WSF was only deployed at the end of the shuttle's robotic arm. During the later missions the WSF was deployed as a free-flying platform in the wake of the shuttle.

These flights proved the vacuum wake concept, and realized the space epitaxy concept by growing the first-ever crystalline semiconductor thin films in the vacuum of space. These included gallium arsenide ("GaAs") and aluminum gallium arsenide ("AlGaAs") depositions. These experiments have been used to develop better photocells and thin films. Among the potential resulting applications are artificial retinas made from tiny ceramic detectors.

The Wake Shield is sponsored by the Space Processing Division in NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Sciences and Applications. Wake Shield was designed, built and is operated by the Space Vacuum Epitaxy Center at the University of Houston—a NASA Commercial Space Center—in conjunction with its industrial partner, Space Industries, Inc., also in Houston.

ee also

* Space manufacturing

External links

* [http://www.svec.uh.edu/wsfp.html Wake Shield Facility Program]


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Wake Shield Facility — Déploiement du WSF en utilisant le bras robotisé de la navette spatiale Wake Shield Facility (WSF) est une plate forme expérimentale qui a été placé à plusieurs reprises en orbite basse par la navette spatiale. Le WSF est formé d un disque en… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • WSF — Wake Shield Facility Contributor: CASI …   NASA Acronyms

  • Список полётов по программе «Спейс Шаттл» — Взлёт шаттла «Дискавери» 24 апреля 1990 года в ходе миссии STS 31 с телескопом «Хаббл» на борту Основная статья: Спейс шаттл Спейс Шаттл или просто Шаттл …   Википедия

  • STS-60 — Infobox Space mission mission name = STS 60 insignia = Sts 60 patch.png shuttle = Discovery launch pad = 39 A launch = February 3, 1994, 7:10:05 a.m. EST landing = February 11, 1994, 2:18:41 p.m. EST, KSC Runway 15 duration = 7 days, 6 hours, 8… …   Wikipedia

  • STS-80 — Infobox Space mission mission name = STS 80 insignia = Sts 80 patch.png shuttle = Columbia launch pad = 39 B launch = November 19, 1996, 2:55:47 p.m EST landing = December 7, 1996, 6:49:05 a.m. EST, KSC duration = 17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes,… …   Wikipedia

  • space exploration — Investigation of the universe beyond Earth s atmosphere by means of manned and unmanned spacecraft. Study of the use of rockets for spaceflight began early in the 20th century. Germany s research on rocket propulsion in the 1930s led to… …   Universalium

  • NASA Astronaut Group 13 — NASA s Astronaut Group 13 (the Hairballs) was announced by NASA on 17 January 1990. The group name came from its selection of a black cat as a mascot, to play against the traditional unlucky connotations of the number 13.[1] …   Wikipedia

  • Space manufacturing — is the production of manufactured goods in an environment outside a planetary atmosphere. Typically this includes conditions of microgravity and hard vacuum.Manufacturing in space has several potential advantages over Earth based industry.# The… …   Wikipedia

  • List of space shuttle missions — |1 |April 12 |1981 |STS 1 | Columbia |2d 6h |Edwards |First reusable spacecraft flight; first flight of Columbia |2 |November 12 |1981 |STS 2 | Columbia |2d 6h |Edwards |Truncated due to fuel cell problem. First test of Canadarm robot arm |3… …   Wikipedia

  • Ronald M. Sega — Infobox Astronaut name =Ronald Michael Sega type =NASA Astronaut status =Retired nationality =American date birth =December 4, 1952 place birth =Macedonia, Ohio occupation =Engineer rank =Major General, USAF selection =1990 NASA Group time =17d… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
… Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”