ROBOTIC TANK-INSPECTION DEVICE TO BE TESTED AT JSC



September 29, 1998



John Ira Petty
Johnson Space Center, TX
(281/483-5111)

<h4>Release: J98-45</h4> <h3>Robotic Tank-Inspection Device to be 
Tested at JSC</h3> 

A robotic device that could save money, decrease pollution and reduce 
hazards to people inspecting above-ground storage tanks will be 
tested at the Johnson Space Center&rsquo;s Neutral Buoyancy 
Laboratory on Oct. 2 by Solex Environmental Systems Inc., a small 
Houston company which developed it. The day-long series of tests is 
designed to develop and evaluate methods of freeing the device if it 
should become stuck or tangled inside a tank it is inspecting. If a 
stuck device could not be freed, the tank would have to be drained at 
considerable expense.



The tests will be conducted under a reimbursable Space Act Agreement, 
which will allow Solex to use the facility on the condition it 
reimburse NASA for direct costs. Such agreements not only allow 
private companies to use one of JSC&rsquo;s unique facilities for 
testing that could not be done commercially, but also allows them 
access to NASA expertise. The Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory, part of 
the center&rsquo;s Sonny Carter Training Facility, is a 
6.5-million-gallon, 40-foot-deep pool where astronauts train for 
space walks.



Don R. Hartsell, president of Solex, said the system, called Maverick, 
is submergible and can inspect welded floor plates in very large 
tanks containing liquids, including gasoline and jet fuel. Hartsell 
said Solex developed Maverick in connection with a research 
partnership with the Energy Department&rsquo;s Idaho National 
Engineering Environmental Laboratory.



Solex officials said the Maverick inspection is about 80 percent less 
expensive than conventional systems and reduces carbon dioxide 
emissions, because the tank doesn&rsquo;t have to be drained. 
Maverick also could reduce the time spent in hazardous spaces by 
thousands of man hours, Hartsell said. Three people operate the Solex 
device from outside the tank.



Solex was formed in 1989. The company specializes in commercialized 
technology for environmental control and cleaning services for 
disaster restoration, large-scale dehumidification for sandblasting 
and coating applications inside petrochemical and water storage tanks 
as well as cryogenic pelletized carbon dioxide (dry ice) cleaning.

	
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