MT Aerospace is a leading international aerospace company. More than 500 employees develop, manufacture and test components for institutional and commercial launch vehicle programs, for aircraft, satellites and for applications in the automotive and defense industries. Thanks to manufacturing technologies that are unique worldwide, MT Aerospace creates high- performance products that combine maximum performance and minimum weight. With many years of expertise in the fields of additive manufacturing, metalworking, CFRP and hydrogen technology, MT Aerospace is ideally placed to implement sustainable solutions for the future.
MT-Aerospace Heritage in CFRP
MT Aerospace can map the entire value chain of all necessary process steps, ranging from design layout, topology optimisation, process development, material selection, manufacturing, integration, non-destructive testing (NDI) functional testing and qualification/certification. Our customers get everything from a single source: from your initial idea to series production; we can implement everything together with you. MT Aerospace is more than a service provider; we provide, realise and deliver solutions tailored to your requirements.
Structures & Structural Tanks
- Sandwich technologies for satellite, aircrafts, helicopter
- Surface treatment with carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastics
- Demontrator of composite cryogenic tank
CFRP Booster
- Design, manufacture and test of CFRP solid rocket motor case demonstrator
- Technology maturation of dry fibre application and resin infusion
- Thermoplastic materials for highly loaded structures in the aerospace field
Pressure Vessels
- Hydraulic/pneumatic high pressure vessel
- Leading supply of satellite tanks (PMD tanks, Diaphragm tanks, Bladder tanks, High-
- pressure vessels)
- Development and manufacturing of water tanks for aircrafts
- Design, manufacturing and test of high pressure vessel for storage of hydrogen and other
- fluids in a wide range of temperatures from cryogenic conditions up to an elevated
- ambient temperature.
- Technology development for a CFRP upper stage LOX and LH2 Tank
Objectives of Landing leg development
Demonstrator description
The designed and manufactured Landing legs demonstrator has a leg length of 5,9m, a width of 2,3m and weight of approx. 500 kg. For efficient purpose, composite material was selected as lightweight solution.
General information
Within this context, MT-Aerospace is contracted within SALTO to develop a landing leg system. The Themis programme is an ongoing European Space Agency (ESA) programme that is developing a prototype reusable rocket.
Within this work package, previous gained MT-Aerospace knowledge from the project RETALT (Retro Propulsion Assisted Landing) is transferred to a full-scale demonstrator, which was designed/justified/manufactured and finally tested.
- Shock Absorber AssemblY (SAAY primary strut): A telescopic strut including a locking mechanism, a damper system, transferring load from deployment and landing to the core stage
- Landing Leg AssemblY (LLAY secondary strut): Aerodynamic cover protecting the Landing leg from thermal load and transferring load from deployment and landing to the core stage
Analysis of data from RETALT and T1H
To reach the first goal, a requirements screening based on RETALT experience was done. The RETALT project, funded by the European Horizon 2020 program, has the objective to study critical technologies for Vertical Take-off Vertical Landing (VTVL) Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLVs) applying retro propulsion, combined with aerodynamic control surfaces and landing gear components.
The following main requirements of RETALT were analysed:
- Functionality: Definition of locking and unlocking mechanism, deployment system
- Interface: Interface to launcher, aerodynamic optimized structure
- Environment: Definition of thermal and vibrating environment
- Loading/Physics: Derivation of QSL loading based on MT-Aerospace assumptions
Functionality
The functionality requirement of the landing legs is including:
- Deployment passively under gravity w.o. external systems
- Mechanical locking system
- Unlocking of the mechanical mechanism after latching w.o. dismounting the total landing leg
- Sustaining the deployment and landing loads w.o. impact of the function of the landing leg by a hydraulic damper and crushable elements to avoid over loading
- No refurbishment foreseen for the landing leg except the TPS system
Manufacturing
The manufacturing of the demonstrator is based on AFP process with lay-up and autoclave applications.
Composite parts are prepared with 3D printed tooling which provide the surface for lay-up application. The main advantages of this process are the very low delivery time and reduced cost compared to a state-of-the-art CFRP tooling.
Full scale assembly deployment test
The scope of the full-scale assembly deployment test is to perform a specified drop test of a landing gear as planned and extract important data out of the test to improve the general understanding of the structural behaviour of a landing gear during landing.
The general purpose of this activity is:
- to provide a proof of concept of the selected design solution for energy absorption representative of deployment conditions before landing
- validation of structural behaviour as expected (deformation strains etc.) under high dynamic shock loading
Conclusion
All the goals defined in grant agreement were successfully demonstrated by MT-Aerospace. During the development and manufacturing of the landing leg a lot of information about loads, kinematics and manufacturing processes was collected. The TR-level reached 3-4, depending on different aspects such as landing, deployment, environmental conditions.
For the future development, respectively flight hardware, the following steps are required:
- Detailed technical specification including all requirements on system level
- Elaboration of system overview including all electrical and mechanical elements
- Local adaption of MT-Aerospace’s design towards strength depending on TRS load definition
- Definition of test campaign to qualify hardware
More info about the project partner: www.mt-aerospace.de