TEAM was awarded a proposal by NASA White Sands Test Facility to design and implement a Real-Time Propulsion Control System. The main goal of the project was to build a measurement and control system based on flexible, powerful, scalable, easy to expend, and well supported instrumentation and software with a real time interface to support existing White Sands Test Facility supplied application programs.

Custom control and monitoring software was also developed and implemented for such applications as safely establishing closed loop startup and shutdown profiles for a liquid propellant rocket engine with turbopump feed system. Extensive use of both high-speed memory networks and standard network communications allows for safely automated test operations and the distribution of test results in real-time.

Graphical user interface technology provides optimum test article telemetry monitoring and control system interaction. This provides customer data processing and analysis service both in real-time for test control and monitoring at White Sands Test Facility, and posttest at the customer’s place of business. All improvements have resulted in reductions of both maintenance costs and energy usage.