Dr. Patrick Shea inspects a nearly 4 3/4-foot (1.3 percent scale) model of the second generation of NASA’s Space Launch System in a wind tunnel for ascent testing at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, California. The tests will help determine the larger, more powerful rocket’s behavior as it climbs and accelerates through the sound barrier after launch. To also test a new optical measurement method, Ames engineers coated the SLS model with Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint, which under the lighting glows dimmer or brighter according to the air pressure acting on different areas of the rocket. Shea, who is from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, was SLS aerodynamic test lead for the work at Ames.
Image Credit: NASA/Ames/Dominic Hart