Just three months after Charles J. Camarda flew on NASA’s pivotal STS-114 Space Shuttle mission in 2005, the astronaut paid a visit to Southern Research — and he brought souvenirs.

STS-114 was one of the most important Shuttle missions for a simple reason: It represented the “Return to Flight” for the space agency after the tragic loss of Columbia two years earlier.

Camarda served as a mission specialist on Discovery, which covered 5,796,419 miles and circled the Earth 219 times at speeds reaching nearly 17,700 miles per hour. During the mission, the Shuttle docked with the International Space Station, and the crew tested new flight-safety procedures and damage inspection and repair techniques.

Camarda visited Birmingham on Nov. 10, 2005, to talk with Southern Research engineering teams that had helped NASA understand how the Columbia accident unfolded and worked to devise new safeguards to prevent a repeat.

To show the Discovery crew’s gratitude, Camarda presented the engineers with a Southern Research banner that had been aboard the Shuttle during the 14-day mission. He also gave them a composite containing a U.S. flag that also had flown on STS-114.

The visit of Camarda, an aerospace engineer who had supervised NASA test facilities, represented a special moment for the Southern Research team.

“We’ve had the opportunity to work closely with Charlie on a series of efforts prior to his selection to fly on STS-114,” John Koenig, director of materials research, said at the time. “We share a heritage in materials engineering with Charlie, making this flight even more special in that ‘one of us’ was on board.”

ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION

Soon after the Columbia accident on Feb. 1, 2003, Koenig and the Southern Research team became heavily involved in a wide-ranging quest for answers to what had happened to the Shuttle.

NASA engaged Southern Research in multiple roles in the inquiry. The team looked into aspects of the obiter wing failure, triggered when super-heated gases entered through damaged tiles on the leading edge.

Engineers modeled the impact of the foam debris that struck the left wing’s leading edge 82 seconds after Columbia’s lift-off, causing the damage.

Impact tests were conducted on materials that could come off the launch system during lift-off: ice, insulating foam, composite materials, graphite from the booster separation system.

Southern Research engineers prepared specimens, conducted pre- and post-nondestructive evaluation, and studied damage modes. They also developed new testing techniques that avoided the release of debris from the booster separation motors.

In addition, the team evaluated whether the age of the carbon-carbon composites on the leading edge enhanced the probability of failure after repeated exposures to temperatures reaching 3,000 degrees.

The engineers also worked with teams that studied potential in-flight repairs to the Shuttle’s leading edge, such as patches, plugs, overwrap, and fillers. Astronaut Scott Parazynski acted as an adviser to the Southern Research team on this program.

‘SILVER SNOOPY’

After Discovery returned to Edwards Air Force Base in California to end STS-114 on Aug. 9, 2005, NASA didn’t mount another mission for almost another year. STS-121, launched on July 4, 2006, was considered the second “Return to Flight” mission for the Shuttle program.

On both of these missions, NASA had what it called “eyes in the sky” to record the lift-off and its climb toward orbit. High-flying WB-57 aircraft carried an innovative nose-mounted video system that allowed NASA to monitor the flight for debris impacts.

Southern Research’s Airborne Imaging and Recording System is still in use.

On STS-121, Discovery again returned to the International Space Station, and the crew continued to test new equipment for the in-flight inspection and repair of the Shuttle’s thermal protection system.

After the mission, NASA decided that the Shuttle was prepared to resume its scheduled flights.

That year, Koenig received a Silver Snoopy Award, an honor given by NASA astronauts for contributions that improve the success and safety of space flight.

This is Part Seven of a series looking at the history of Southern Research.

• Part One: A visionary creates a lab to lift industry and a region
• Part Two: Improving peanut butter and other early projects
• Part Three: Ben May’s gift launches a cancer program
• Part Four: ‘Boss Kettering’ provides key early support
• Part Five: Helping Apollo spacecraft beat fiery re-entry
• Part Six: Labs spin out new fabrics and capabilities

When the Apollo 11 flight crew returned from the historic Moon expedition on July 24, 1969, their command module pierced the Earth’s atmosphere traveling at 36,237 feet per second and became engulfed in a fireball burning at 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

The capsule’s heat shield – developed with input from Southern Research – protected the astronauts, with a special epoxy resin in the shield’s honeycomb backing structure dissipating the intense heat while vaporizing in the hellish environment.

Long before the Apollo 11 crew splashed down in the Pacific, Southern Research’s expertise in high-temperature testing provided NASA with important information about the materials being considered for the spacecraft’s thermal protection system.

Under contracts with NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia during the 1960s, Southern Research engineers working in test facilities exposed specimens of various classes of materials to the harsh conditions of re-entry, including temperatures nearly three times the melting point of steel.

In rigorous evaluations under extreme conditions, Southern Research engineers recorded more than a dozen different thermal and mechanical properties of the heat shield materials. Afterwards, mathematical models were developed to predict actual performance during re-entry.

AN UNUSUAL ‘BALL OF STRING’

Before the Apollo program even got off the ground, Birmingham-based Southern Research had performed high-temperature work for government sponsors and aerospace companies, beginning in the 1950s. Under the guidance of Coultas “Colt” Pears, its high-temp testing lab gained an international reputation for work on advanced materials like carbon-carbon composites.

Pears recalled that he first saw the exotic composite material early on, when “a fellow walked in with a ball of string and asked me to dip it in sugar water and heat it to 5000°F.”

“It was 15 years before the material became a heat shield or nose tip,” he said.

In addition to work on the space program, Southern Research engineers conducted important materials evaluation work on key U.S. missile systems. In 1967, the U.S. Navy recognized the organization’s role in the development of the Polaris missile system with a special award.

Pears’ ambition at Southern Research was to create a world-class high-temperature materials characterization laboratory. His lab developed a facility that could make accurate measurements of loads on brittle high-temperature metals. Another innovation involved new optical strain measurement techniques.

The first known measurements of tensile properties at 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit took place at Southern Research, and extreme-temperature testing and analysis became a core competency of the organization.

ASSISTING APOLLO SPACECRAFT

Southern Research’s contributions to the Apollo program weren’t limited to materials evaluation.

Engineers were involved in several instrument development programs. One of those focused on the design of a radiometer that was paired with a telescope to take temperature readings on the Moon’s surface. The instrument was part of a critical NASA program to select landing sites for Apollo missions to the lunar surface.

In another Apollo project, Southern Research engineers used graphite sensing elements to build several calorimeters to measure heating rates on various portions of the Saturn booster exit.

Other groups at Southern Research also got involved in work on the Apollo spacecraft program.

Around the time of the Apollo 1 fire in 1967, the organization established onsite laboratory operations at Kennedy Space Center to support contractors involved in launches of the giant Saturn rockets. The 25 staffers evaluated spacecraft materials and attempted to pinpoint the causes of malfunctions in connections.

At that time, chemist Ruby James was Southern Research’s specialist in gas chromatography, a means to separate the different components of a mixture by forcing gas through a column.

The program at Kennedy Space Center ran for two years.

After the last Apollo mission, Southern Research remained active in the nation’s space program, making important contributions to the Space Shuttle and working on projects including the Voyager probe and the James Webb Space Telescope.

Today, Southern Research engineers are involved in the Space Launch System, a NASA project that aims to put man on Mars.

This is Part Five of a series looking at the history of Southern Research.

• Part One: A visionary creates a lab to lift industry and a region
• Part Two: Improving peanut butter and other early projects
• Part Three: Ben May’s gift launches a cancer program
• Part Four: ‘Boss Kettering’ provides key early support

Following an intensive period of research and product development, the Alliance for Innovative Medical Technology (AIMTech) has quickly developed its first product. ResistX will be unveiled at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual Meeting in Boston May 31 through June 4.

AIMTech is a collaboration between Southern Research and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

ResistX is a unique force-induced treadmill designed with safety in mind and engineered for use in physical therapy and rehabilitation centers. It is the first treadmill to allow individuals recovering from neurological or physical disorders — such as injury, stroke, or surgery — to exercise in a challenging treadmill environment to improve cardiovascular fitness and lower limb strength. Thanks to a custom algorithm, the device employs resistive forces to increase the amount of work required by an individual to move under his or her own effort, and at a comfortable pace.

Additionally, in order to guard against injury, ResistX features a protective catching mechanism and padded backstop. These features ensure that if a user loses balance, he or she will not fall or be thrown from the device.

“ResistX is different from anything on the market, and represents a significant milestone for AIMTech and the physical therapy and rehab communities,” said Robert Hergenrother, Ph.D., director of AIMTech and Medical Technology Developments at Southern Research.

The project was accelerated by a $164,800 grant from the Alabama Innovation Fund — a program administered by the Alabama Department of Commerce that provides funding for promising research being conducted at Alabama universities and organizations.

“The Alabama Innovation Fund is a key component in our efforts to fuel the creation of ‘Made in Alabama’ products while also advancing our strategy of stimulating breakthrough research at universities and institutions across the state,” said Greg Canfield, secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce. “The treadmill developed by the AIMTech joint venture is precisely the kind of product that aligns with the mission of our Innovation Fund.”

BORN TO FILL A UNIQUE MARKET NEED
The idea behind ResistX originated several years ago following a presentation by Marcas Bamman, Ph.D., and director of UAB’s Center for Exercise Medicine, involving a study of individuals with Parkinson’s Disease. Christopher Hurt, Ph.D., and Dave Brown, Ph.D. attended the talk as members of the UAB Department of Physical Therapy and immediately realized the need to develop a more effective way to conduct exercise tests for patients with disabilities.

Currently, clinical exercise tests can be difficult for individuals with gait or balance disabilities to perform. For anyone unable to tolerate treadmill tests, alternative methods of measuring estimated peak performance often include bike or recumbent ergometer tests, arm ergometer tests, or submaximal exercise tests. However, these tests have limited ability to provide an accurate estimation of a person’s actual peak performance.

“Individuals will self-limit their behaviors if they feel threatened or endangered in some way,” said Hurt, co-inventor and a UAB investigator on the project. “So, if you’re going to exercise without the safety of a support system, then you may limit the benefit of that exercise. If, however, people exercise in a safe environment, they may push themselves a little harder, may exercise a little longer, and may ultimately realize a better outcome.”

Additionally, while physical therapists are often able to assess or improve a patient’s fitness level through current methods, there is often limited benefit when it comes to improving one’s ability to walk.

“If you want to get good at throwing a ball, you don’t go out and practice kicking a soccer ball,” Hurt added. “In physical therapy, you need to focus on doing the thing you actually want to get better at. So, if a patient’s goal is to walk again, why can’t we provide a safe, yet challenging, system for the patient to practice walking?”

WOODWAY COMMITMENT
This question led the UAB team to an AIMTech partnership with Southern Research and opened the door for Woodway to provide a treadmill for use in the development of a prototype. Woodway, the preeminent manufacturer of high performance treadmills used by elite athletes and in physical therapy settings around the world, also offered booth space at the American College of Sports Medicine to unveil the invention.

“The AIMTech partnership has been incredible because Southern Research has the expertise and unique ability to develop and bring a product to the market quickly,” said Brown, co-inventor. “But, a lot of credit also goes to Woodway for graciously donating a treadmill and the Alabama Innovation Fund for providing funding to make this possible.”

After ResistX is unveiled, it will return to Birmingham for use in a clinical setting, and become available for licensing.

“ResistX is a transformational rehabilitation tool that will help people develop the strength they need in order to be able to exercise by themselves again,” Brown said. “That’s our goal, and that’s the wish for every physical therapist dealing with a person who has a disability.”

ABOUT AIMTech
AIMTech is a collaboration between Southern Research and the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to develop new medical devices to improve healthcare in the U.S. and around the globe. By combining the research and discovery expertise of Southern Research’s scientists and engineers, and UAB biomedical engineers and clinicians, AIMTech is designed to take a patient-centric approach to medical technology development in five key areas: Cardiology, Orthopedics, Ophthalmology, Rehabilitation Engineering, and Trauma. Additionally, with the close collaboration and in-house expertise of the two institutions, AIMTech is well positioned to bring new products to the market much quicker than under a traditional R&D environment.

NASA’s Space Shuttle blasted off for the first time 35 years ago, and engineers and scientists from Southern Research made critical contributions to the program during a journey that spanned three decades and a half-billion miles.

In fact, by the time Columbia rose from Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981, Southern Research’s engineers had been working on the project for nine years, testing materials that would allow the new spacecraft to withstand the extreme conditions of lift-off and re-entry.

The Birmingham-based organization’s involvement in the Shuttle program didn’t end with the launch that day. In coming years, its engineers remedied a potentially catastrophic rocket nozzle problem and helped NASA prevent a replay of the events that doomed Columbia in 2003, among other things.

“Southern Research’s work on NASA’s Space Shuttle really started with the inception of the program,” said Michael D. Johns, the organization’s vice president of Engineering. “Over many years, we remained on the critical path for material development and understanding of the complex systems required to get people and payloads to space.”

Johns was on the engineering team that evaluated ablative materials used to protect the Shuttle from the high thermal loads and 5,500-degree temperatures generated by its massive solid rocket motors.

The Space Transportation System (STS), as the Shuttle was officially known, flew 130 missions over 30 years, covering 542 million miles and making 21,000 earth orbits, according to a NASA history. Its missions included a critical repair to the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror and the launch of the Magellan probe to Venus.

EVALUATING MATERIALS

The Shuttle program was not the first time Southern Research had focused on manned space flight.

Its engineers helped NASA select heat-shield materials used in the Apollo program after exposing material specimens to conditions similar to a fiery re-entry. The tensile properties of these materials were tested at temperatures up to 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

While working on Apollo, Southern Research developed devices to take temperature readings needed to select landing sites on the moon’s surface, and to measure heating rates on the Saturn booster exit. It also operated an engineering materials lab at Kennedy Space Center to provide technical support to NASA contractors.

As the Shuttle program got under way, the ability of Southern Research engineers to evaluate materials in extreme environments once again played a vital role. One example was the carbon-carbon composite leading edges of the orbiter, which experienced temperatures ranging from –150 degrees to more than 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit on every flight.

Other divisions at Southern Research also worked on the Shuttle program leading up to the first launch.

Analytical chemists, for example, conducted tests that identified compounds in charred insulation, while chemists and toxicologists determined the harmful properties of burned insulation.

In one case, Southern Research’s analytical chemists were able to steer NASA away from using a polyurethane insulating foam with a flame-retardant additive because tests showed it produced toxic fumes when burned.

RECOVERY REMEDIES

Southern Research’s engineering team also made important contributions in post-flight incident investigations.

After the STS-8 mission in 1983, an inspection of the boosters revealed that a three-inch lining protecting the rocket nozzle had almost burned away, leaving just a few seconds of firing time before a catastrophic rupture would have occurred.

A group of Southern Research engineers led by John Koenig studied the unexpected event. They identified why the rocket nozzle erosion occurred and provided guidance for material design and process changes to prevent the defect. They even developed a unique laser screening test to ensure there was no repeat.

NASA again called in Koenig and the Southern Research team after Columbia broke up on re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003.

Koenig and the team helped determine how the disaster occurred and modeled the impact event that damaged the Shuttle’s wing, allowing in super-heated gasses that destroyed the support structure. Koenig’s group also developed approaches to repair a wing in space if damage occurred on a future mission.

“The unique talents of Southern Research’s engineers were integral, and, in some cases, enabling for the design, operation and recovery from the flight anomalies and accidents that occurred during the Shuttle program,” Johns said.

In addition, Southern Research developed technology to help the Shuttle program return to space two years after the Columbia accident.

Its Airborne Imaging and Recording System (AIRS) turrets, mounted on WB-57 high-altitude research aircraft circling above Cape Kennedy on July 26, 2005, captured full-motion video of Space Shuttle Discovery’s launch to well beyond booster separation at 146,000 feet. The video provided new insights into conditions at lift-off.

Today, Southern Research is making contributions to NASA’s Space Launch System, the most powerful rocket ever developed.

Johns, who serves on NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Technology, Innovation and Engineering Committee, said Southern Research is well positioned to participate in the nation’s space program for decades to come.