STENNIS SPACE CENTER, Miss. – NASA’s Stennis Space Center said the Stennis Autonomous Systems Lab team is gaining recognition for its expertise in making critical systems operate more autonomously and efficiently.
An international conference of aerospace experts recently acknowledged the significance of the team’s research in predictive maintenance and integrated systems health management.
A collaborative paper by the Stennis Autonomous Systems Lab on how to implement health management capabilities into an existing high-pressure pump-based system was awarded top honors in March in the Predictive Maintenance/ISHM track by the international Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Aerospace Conference. The paper focused on how to use system monitoring capabilities on the liquid nitrogen pump system at Stennis.
“This is a major recognition of the innovative work being done by a dedicated team of people at Stennis, working with research partners,” Armstrong said. “This team is focused on helping to improve the performance and reliability of Stennis systems and to lower their costs of operation.”
Systems management and maintenance is a critical need, particularly for a site such as Stennis that uses decades-old facilities to conduct large rocket stage and engine tests. For instance, the Stennis High-Pressure Gas Facility, which houses the liquid nitrogen pump system, has remained in constant operation since it was built in the 1960s. All maintenance and repair work on systems must be completed while the facility remains in operation.
