The Science Module Structure of LISA Pathfinder - the precursor for ESA's ambitious LISA mission to detect gravitational waves - is designed to fulfil extremely stringent thermo-elastic distortion requirements. The emphasis of this abstract is the accurate measurement of the thermo-elastic performance in a dedicated distortion test.
During the development of the X-38 some computer simulations are used to allow an optimization of the design. Therefore it is very important that the form of the actual vehicle matches the form of the CAD construction. For this reason the actual vehicle has to be digitized with high accuracy and high data density. In this application note, we show how the digitizing was done with ATOS and TRITOP and how the data was treated to match the needs of NASA.
As part of the research process, NASA Langley Research Center has employed Rapid Fabrication Techniques to determine the aerodynamic principles of the designed X-34 model in a wind tunnel environment. Using ATOS to digitize this model even smallest deviation to the construction data can be detected. Thus a warp in the model could be detected early on.