The NASTAR Center

The NASTARSM Center Hosts Members from AIAA

Several members from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Philadelphia Section attended a special presentation and tour of the NASTARSM Center on April 22, 2009.

Organizing the tour group of bright engineers and aerospace enthusiasts was Chairperson of AIAA, Brett Hoffstadt.  All participants remarked how exceptional the facility was and how excited they were to see it first hand.  As a token of gratitude for the event, Mr. Hoffstadt awarded Brienna Henwood, Director of Commercial Business and the rest of The NASTARSM Center staff a certificate of appreciation for their efforts

Scott Glaser, Director of Flight Dynamic Research, provided the informative presentation and tour of the facility. Assisting him, Bernhard Richter, AIAA Senior Member and VP of ETC’s The NASTARSM Center Engineering team, elaborated on the engineering behind each piece of equipment. Mr. Richter explained in detail to the group how NASTAR’s unique centrifuges apply aerospace materials and structural design to avoid the use of counterweights seen in most centrifuge simulators. He continued to explain that by not having a counterweight, NASTAR’s centrifuges allow for genuine acceleration rates with onsets at 10 G/sec. and sustained accelerations of payloads up to 15 G. There were also discussions pertaining to the Military, Civilian, and Space training programs offered at The NASTARSM Center. The NASTARSM Center is most commonly known to have trained Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo future space travelers including Sir Richard Branson himself.

The NASTARSM Center is the training and research facility for parent company ETC whose impressive engineering, design, and fabrication of innovative simulation systems has transpired in selling and maintaining aeromedical flight training equipment for clients in over 87 countries worldwide. The tour included The NASTAR Center’s centrifuge flight simulators, general aviation trainers, ejection seat trainers, altitude/pressure chambers, disaster / first responder simulators, night vision trainer, and entertainment systems.

For more information on the AIAA Philadelphia Chapter go to www.aiaa.org/portal/philadelphia or email aiaa.philly@gmail.com

Workshop Attendees at the Human-Tended Sub-Orbital Science Workshop on May 3rd, 2009.

Richard Garriott and Brienna Henwood stop for a photo during the workshop.

NASA Astronaut Yavonne Cagle leads one of the breakout brainstorming sessions during the workshop.