The team prepares the hellium-filled weather balloon for release. The balloon dropped the REBR package from 86,000 feet.

Reentry Breakup Recorder
Passes Drop Test

BOZEMAN, Mont. (6/16/06) --In June, a team comprising members of The Aerospace Corporation, the NASA Ames Research Center, and Montana State University put to the test the power, sensor, electronics, communications, and ground systems for the Aerospace-designed Reentry Breakup Recorder (REBR), an innovative technology to record re-entry data of hardware from space and to transmit that data prior to impact.

The systems were verified in a high-altitude balloon drop at a site outside of Bozeman, Mont. It was the first test flight of the complete REBR package.

A helium-filled weather balloon carried the REBR, several other instrument packages, and a parachute system to approximately 86,000 feet, where the balloon ruptured and the string of devices began its decent. As the altitude decreased, the parachute became more effective, resulting in a relatively soft landing in a farm field where the system was recovered.

During its decent, REBR “phoned home” data to a modem in Colorado Springs, Colo., where senior project engineer and REBR’s ground system developer Eric George, Space Operations, Space Operations Requirements and Technology, watched. George provided a running commentary during the decent to Dr. Bill Ailor, principal director of the Center for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies; Preston Partridge, Antenna Systems Department, Engineering and Technology Group (ETG), who designed the REBR’s antenna system; and the rest of the test team. During descent, communications from the REBR package was excellent, and the Global Positioning System (GPS) provided precise information on the impact location.

Projected to weigh about three pounds and be about a foot in diameter in its final configuration, the REBR will activate during reentry of space hardware, recording data during the breakup of the host hardware, and will broadcast recorded data prior to impact. A heat shield developed by NASA Ames Research Center will protect the device’s electronics and sensors during reentry.

The REBR contains accelerometers, rate gyros, temperature sensors, GPS, and special thermal sensors developed by the NASA Ames Research Center, which also developed the REBR’s aeroshell and internal structure. Data flow and communications are managed by an electronics package designed by Dr. Dan Rumsey, engineering specialist, Digital and Integrated Circuit Electronics Department, ETG.

The REBR sends data via the Iridium Satellite Network, which provides global communications coverage and eliminates the need to “deorbit” space hardware to a specific location on Earth. As a result, data can be recovered from reentry events occurring anywhere on the planet. The device is not designed to survive ground impact and does not need to be recovered.

“Emerging requirements specify that space hardware must be deorbited if the hazard to people on the ground for a random reentry exceeds a certain threshold,” Ailor explained. “Data returned by the REBR may ultimately help spacecraft designers reduce the hazard, extending mission life for satellites in low-altitude orbits.”

REBR could also be used as a “black box” for space systems designed to survive reentry, or it could be the basis for a new family of small reentry vehicles that would collect atmospheric data about Earth or other planets. In addition, it could be used to flight test new thermal protection systems for crewed vehicles and planetary probes.

Under development for several years, the REBR is a corporate independent research and development project partially funded by the Space and Missile Systems Center. An offshoot of the REBR project, the launch hardware tracker system, a similar system to track launch hardware from liftoff through reentry and impact, was tested in April.

The Aerospace Corporation, based in El Segundo, Calif., is an independent, nonprofit company that provides objective technical analyses and assessments for national security space programs and selected civil and commercial space programs in the national interest.

Media Inquiries: Contact Dave Jonta, 310-336-5041, david.l.jonta@aero.org