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As the missions of the Space Station expand in the servicing and maintenance areas, the potential for long duration and repetitive EVA increases. This increased EVA potential motivates consideration of advanced EVA enclosure concepts. This paper discusses a concept for an EVA enclosure which combines features of the Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) and the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) and incorporates aspects of robotic technology. The pros and cons of using such a unit as well as design and development considerations are discussed.

A program has been initiated to develop a single set of man/system integration standards, requirements, and guidelines to design hardware and systems with which the space missions crew will interact. This paper describes the background, key issues, and methodology to be used in developing these standards. Included in the methodology is data collection and requirements analysis as well as technical monitoring and review, which includes a government/industry technical advisory group. This paper also briefly describes work performed on the Space Station Human Productivity study.

A family of standardized avionics enclosures has designed, fabricated and tested. These enclosures accommodate Standard Avionics Module circuit cards which utilize aluminum base plates and are cooled by conduction to their mounting guiderails in the enclosure. The guiderails incorporate high performance module clamps and state-of-the-art brazed-fin heat exchangers for air cooling. The enclosures are designed to be cooled by air delivered from an aircraft environmental control system. Cooling effectiveness and enclosure thermal performance have been determined by laboratory tests. Typically, the enclosures provide 85°C (185°F) module edge temperatures while operating with 27°C (80°F) cooling air in a 71°C (160°F) ambient environment. With an operating pressure loss of 374 Pa (1.5 inches of water), their outlet cooling air temperature approaches 71°C (160°F). This results in cooling effectiveness of about 22.7 g/s (3 lb/min) of cooling air per kW.

This paper details the development of standardized avionic enclosures for Naval aircraft, with particular emphasis on the package’s thermal design. The packaging system is unique in that it can accommodate modules of two different standardized sizes (ISEM-2A and 1/2 ATR), and modules having three different cooling modes -conduction cooled, flow-through cooled, and heat pipe cooled. The three module cooling modes, together with required package dissipation rates of 125 watts/MCU and pressure drops below 2.8 mm mercury create a great deal of complexity in the optimization of the thermal system. A computerized optimization program was therefore utilized to achieve specific designs, with results reported for various module mixes and heat exchanger designs.

The Boeing AMST prototype is a unique design aimed at meeting the goals set by the Air Force for the modernization of tactical airlift. The rationale for the major configuration decisions is reviewed in this paper. Meeting the production cost constraint, one of the most challenging goals, demanded a new design approach aimed at part commonality, in addition to a simplified structural arrangement. The possibility of a commercial derivative of the AMST is reviewed and a proposal made for the use of a small AMST fleet to demonstrate the market potential and the feasibility of short field commercial operation.