Canoga Park Firm Bids to Build Solar Energy System for Space Station : Rocketdyne’s Power Play

Rocketdyne, trying to maintain its status as a leading space contractor, is spearheading a seven-company team that is the sole bidder to develop a solar energy power system for NASA’s proposed manned space station.

The company’s biggest current jobs--building main engines for the space shuttle and segments for the MX missile--are well past the preliminary design stage. Thus, Canoga Park-based Rocketdyne, a division of Rockwell International, regards working on the space station as a way to stay at the forefront of its field into the next decade.

Nearly all U.S. aerospace firms have had their eyes on the space station, scheduled to be put into orbit in the mid-1990s, even though the project would require large investments on their part.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration has divided $8 billion in space-station contracts into four jobs, or work packages. The project is the biggest NASA venture since the shuttle was developed in the 1970s, and the largest space contract on the horizon in a program that has dwindled since the heyday of Apollo development in the 1960s.

The $1-billion power-system job may well go to the Rocketdyne team. Although other firms may enter the running before bids are due in January, the Rocketdyne group has been unopposed since a TRW-led consortium dropped out in April.

“We’re encouraging other companies to come forward and get in on the process,” said Ronald Thomas, director of the space station project at NASA’s Lewis Research Center in Cleveland. “But we’d be perfectly happy handing it to Rocketdyne. They have a good plan.”

The Rocketdyne team--which includes Ford Aerospace & Communications, Sundstrand Corp., Harris Corp., Garrett Corp., General Dynamics Corp. and Lockheed Corp.--has designed a combination of photovoltaic and solar dynamic systems for the space station.

Photovoltaic systems, commonly used in space, have broad panels covered with vast arrays of solar cells that convert sunlight directly into electricity. The solar dynamic process, which has been used experimentally on earth, is more complex. It uses sunlight to heat materials that in turn release vapors that ultimately drive electric generators.

TRW, which is involved in two of the four space-station jobs as a subcontractor, specializes in photovoltaic panels and did not want to work on a hybrid power system, said Montye Male, a company spokeswoman.

But Rocketdyne’s program director, George J. Hallinan, says employing the photovoltaic and solar-dynamic processes together is the most practical way to meet NASA’s relatively high power requirement of 87.5 kilowatts. Satellites typically operate on 1 or 2 kilowatts.

Traditionally, photovoltaic systems have been used alone in space, but transporting panels big enough for the space station’s requirements would be prohibitively expensive and would make the craft less aerodynamic.

So Rocketdyne is proposing using a quarter-acre of photovoltaic panels for the space station, to provide 37.5 kilowatts of power, as well as two solar dynamic systems for the remaining 50 kilowatts.

The solar dynamic system uses large dishes covered with mirror panels to concentrate sunlight on a receiver at a focal point. The concentrated light heats materials to produce the vapors that go into a turbine, drive a generator and produce electricity. It is a closed-loop system, so the heated materials eventually revert to their solid or liquid state and are not depleted.

The Rocketdyne team is developing two variations of the method, one of which is based on heating toluene, an organic material. The other uses a gas, such as helium xenon. Rocketdyne will present data for both systems to NASA and recommend one, Thomas said.

In addition, backup systems are being developed for the solar dynamic and photovoltaic modes to run during the 30 minutes of each 90-minute orbit when the sun is eclipsed by the Earth.

Separate Turbines

The solar dynamic system will have a separate turbine powered by the energy given off when a material such as lithium hydroxide turns from liquid to solid in the absence of heat from the sun. The photovoltaic panels will store energy in batteries for use when the space station isn’t receiving sunlight.

Although solar dynamic technology was developed about 25 years ago, it has been overshadowed by photovoltaics and is not widely used. Aided by recent technological developments, solar dynamic systems have a crucial advantage: they convert into electricity about 23% of the energy they absorb, compared to about 6% for photovoltaic panels.

NASA opted for a hybrid power system, however, because solar dynamic technology is relatively untested and its reliability is unknown.

As team leader, Rocketdyne would provide the system that distributes power throughout the spacecraft, as well as related computer software. Lockheed would make the photovoltaic panels, and Ford Aerospace would supply batteries for the photovoltaic system.

Sundstrand is working on the solar dynamic system using the organic material, and Garrett would make the gas unit. Harris is supposed to contribute the concentrator dish, and General Dynamics would provide various converters.

Advantage of Team Bidding

Contractors have been turning more to team bidding to spread the burden of research costs, which the government is increasingly reluctant to cover. The trend also has reduced competition, sometimes narrowing the field of bidders to a single group, as is the case with Rocketdyne.

Wolfgang Demisch, an aerospace analyst with First Boston Corp. in New York, said he doubts that any other group will seriously challenge Rocketdyne’s bid or that any single company would take the risk. He said the space station is not viewed as a crucial project in Washington.

“Most companies are worried about taking on any project that is little more than a government hobby,” Demisch said. “The history of such hobbies is that the government changes its mind easily. Why stick your neck out when Uncle Sam might step on it?”

Nevertheless, others say the space station is a top national priority, citing possible connections with the Strategic Defense Initiative, the space-based nuclear defense plan known as “Star Wars.”

“The government may not like to play up the military potential for a NASA project, but an awful lot of SDI experiments rely on the space station,” said Paul H. Nisbet, an analyst for Prudential Bache Securities in New York.

Earlier Space Station

President Reagan called for the space station in his State of the Union address in 1984. Although the United States launched a manned space station in 1973, called Skylab, it was relatively small and was used for only three missions. Skylab was destroyed when it fell out of orbit and plunged toward earth in 1979.

By having a permanent station in space, NASA hopes to provide a research laboratory for scientists and a manufacturing lab where pharmaceutical and chemical companies can use the weightlessness of space to produce substances in purer states than possible on Earth.

NASA also hopes to use the station to make new materials, such as perfectly formed silicon crystals, which could be used to make improved computer chips. Such shapes are difficult to perfect on Earth because of gravity’s pull.