The Launch Systems Testbed’s overall mission is to reduce costs and increase safety, availability, and maintainability of launch structures and mechanisms exposed to rocket launch environments.

The LST consists of the following four major components:

• Test Analysis Personnel – with specialized skills in structural dynamics, launch environments, fluid dynamics, and thermodynamics.
• Launch Environments Database – a knowledge reservoir of launch data from over 100 rocket launches.
• Scaled Test Facility – liftoff trajectory simulation capability with single or multiple supersonic flow nozzles.
• Basic Research Access – cooperative network of researchers around the world interested in future spaceport technologies development.

Significant effort has been directed toward planning and design/building activities leading to the development of LST infrastructure: a Trajectory Simulation Mechanism (TSM) and an LST Control Room. These are located inside the NASA Kennedy Space Center Industrial Area at the Launch Equipment Test Facility (LETF). Whereas the TSM is used to simulate a nonstationary scaled launch-induced environment, the LST Control Room is the nerve center for the control of TSM parameters and acquisition of acoustics, vibration, and related environmental data.

Current plan calls for the development of innovative schemes for launch exhaust management. The initial work will characterize the covered and uncovered duct with a J-deflector as a baseline for comparison and define the acoustic and rocket plume flow fields. Candidate schemes will be developed, and a subset will be selected for further study. These exhaust management schemes will be modeled, studied, and ranked using field testing and analytical techniques.

LST activities have a common goal of enhancing the research and development of vibroacoustic and structural analysis in the launch environment. They encompass the following key areas:

• Benchmark Traditional Mitigation – assess conventional method used to mitigate launch environments such as water deluge and covered ducts.
• Newer Mitigation Tools – develop traditional techniques to mitigate rocket-induced environments such as nontraditional duct geometrics, resonators, and diffusers.
• Customer-Specific Analysis – apply techniques to solve launch-induced environment issues for launch system developers and rocket engine test manufacturers and facilities.
• Technique Refinement and Verification – develop advanced analysis and design techniques verified with test or launch data, with subsequent prediction of the launch environment and its effect on launch structures/mechanisms.
• Advanced Launch Structures – develop with partners the next-generation launch structures to lower overall space transportation costs.