Engineering topics

Purves, Lloyd

Publications and source records attributed to Purves, Lloyd.

11 records

NASA NTRS2020

Cryogenic Hydrogen Oxygen Propulsion System for Planetary Science Missions

A Cryogenic Hydrogen Oxygen Propulsion System (CHOPS) that uses liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LO2) propellants can dramatically enhance NASA's ability to explore the solar system due to their superior specific impulse (Isp) capability. Although these cryogenic propellants can be challenging to manage and store, they allow significant mass advantages over traditional hypergolic propulsion systems and are therefore enabling for many planetary science missions. New cryogenic storage techniques such as subcooling, advanced insulation, low thermal conductivity structures allow for the long term storage and use of cryogenic propellants for solar system exploration and hence allow NASA to deliver more payloads to targets of interest, launch on smaller and less expensive launch vehicles, or both.

Mustafi, Shouvanik↗

NASA NTRS2018

UV Capabilities of the CETUS Multi-Object Spectrometer (MOS) and NUV/FUV Camera

The Cosmic Evolution Through UV Spectroscopy (CETUS) concept enables parallel observations by the UV multiobject spectrometer (MOS) and near-UV/far-UV camera which operate simultaneously but independently with their separate field of views. The near-UV MOS can target up to 100 objects at a time without confusion with nearby sources or background zodiacal light. This multiplexing will allow over 100,000 galaxies to be observed over a typical mission lifetime. The MOS includes a next-generation micro-shutter array (NGMSA), an efficient aspheric Offner-like spectrometer design with a convex grating, and nanotube light traps for suppressing unwanted wavelengths. The NUV/FUV Camera has the capability to image in a range of sub-bands from 115-400 nm at the same time the MOS is operating at 180-350 nm. The UV camera has a similar Offner-like relay, selectable filters, and two separate detectors to optimize observing in either the far-UV (115-175 nm) or the near-UV (180-400 nm) utilizing a CsI Micro-Channel Plate detector (MCP) and a CCD respectively.

The Cosmic Evolution Through UV Spectroscopy (CETU↗

NASA NTRS2017

Development and Testing of Harpoon-Based Approaches for Collecting Comet Samples

Comets, having bright tails visible to the unassisted human eye, are considered to have been known about since pre-historic times. In fact 3,000-year old written records of comet sightings have been identified. In comparison, asteroids, being so dim that telescopes are required for observation, were not discovered until 1801. Yet, despite their later discovery, a space mission returned the first samples of an asteroid in 2010 and two more asteroid sample return missions have already been launched. By contrast no comet sample return mission has ever been funded, despite the fact that comets in certain ways are far more scientifically interesting than asteroids. Why is this? The basic answer is the greater difficulty, and consequently higher cost, of a comet sample return mission. Comets typically are in highly elliptical heliocentric orbits which require much more time and propulsion for Space Craft (SC) to reach from Earth and then return to Earth as compared to many asteroids which are in Earth-like orbits. It is also harder for a SC to maneuver safely near a comet given the generally longer communications distances and the challenge of navigating in the comet's, when the comet is close to perihelion, which turns out to be one of the most interesting times for a SC to get close to the comet surface. Due to the science value of better understanding the sublimation of volatiles near the comet surface, other contributions to higher cost as desire to get sample material from both the comet surface and a little below, to preserve the stratigraphy of the sample, and to return the sample in a storage state where it does not undergo undesirable alterations, such as aqueous. In response to these challenges of comet sample return missions, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GFSC) has worked for about a decade (2006 to this time) to develop and test approaches for comet sample return that would enable such a mission to be scientifically valuable, while having acceptably low risk and an affordable cost. A harpoon-based approach for gathering comet samples appears to offer the most effective way of accomplishing this goal. As described below, with a decade of development, analysis, testing and refinement, the harpoon approach has evolved from a promising concept to a practical element of a realistic comet sample return mission. Note that the following material includes references to videos, all of which are contained in different sections of the video supplement identified in the references. Each video will be identified as "SS##", where "SS" means the supplement section and "##" will be the number of the section.

Purves, Lloyd↗

NASA NTRS2017

Development and Testing of Harpoon-Based Approaches for Collecting Comet Samples (Video Supplement)

This video supplement contains a set of videos created during the approximately 10-year-long course of developing and testing the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) harpoon-based approach for collecting comet samples. The purpose of the videos is to illustrate various design concepts used in this method of acquiring samples of comet material, the testing used to verify the concepts, and the evolution of designs and testing. To play the videos this PDF needs to be opened in the freeware Adobe Reader. They do not seem to play while within a browser. While this supplement can be used as a stand-alone document, it is intended to augment its parent document of the same title, Development and Testing of Harpoon-Based Approaches for Collecting Comet Samples (NASA/CR-2017-219018; this document is accessible from the website: https://ssed.gsfc.nasa.gov/harpoon/SAS_Paper-V1.pdf). The parent document, which only contains text and figures, describes the overall development and testing effort and contains references to each of the videos in this supplement. Thus, the videos are primarily intended to augment the information provided by the text and figures in the parent document. This approach was followed to allow the file size of the parent document to remain small enough to facilitate downloading and storage. Some of the videos were created by other organizations, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU APL) and the German Aerospace Center called, the Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), who are partnering with GSFC on developing this technology. Each video is accompanied by text that provides a summary description of its nature and purpose, as well as the identity of the authors. All videos have been edited to only show key parts of the testing. Although not all videos have sound, the sound has been retained in those that have it. Also, each video has been given one or more title screens to clarify what is going in different phases of the video.

Purves, Lloyd↗

NASA NTRS2016

Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Explorer: Scientific Rationale

GESE is a mission concept consisting of a 1.5-m space telescope and UV multi-object slit spectrograph designed to help understand galaxy evolution in a critical era in the history of the universe, where the rate of star-formation stopped increasing and started to decline. To isolate and identify the various processes driving the evolution of these galaxies, GESE will obtain rest-frame far-UV spectra of 100,000 galaxies at redshifts, z approximately 1-2. To obtain such a large number of spectra, multiplexing over a wide field is an absolute necessity. A slit device such as a digital micro-mirror device (DMD) or a micro-shutter array (MSA) enables spectroscopy of a hundred or more sources in a single exposure while eliminating overlapping spectra of other sources and blocking unwanted background like zodiacal light. We find that a 1.5-m space telescope with a MSA slit device combined with a custom orbit enabling long, uninterrupted exposures (approximately 10 hr) are optimal for this spectroscopic survey. GESE will not be operating alone in this endeavor. Together with x-ray telescopes and optical/near-IR telescopes like Subaru/Prime Focus Spectrograph, GESE will detect "feedback" from young massive stars and massive black holes (AGN's), and other drivers of galaxy evolution.

digital micro-mirror device (DMD)↗

NASA NTRS2016

Cryogenic Propulsion for the Titan Orbiter Polar Surveyor

Liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LO2) cryogenic propellants can dramatically enhance NASA sability to explore the solar system due to their superior specific impulse (Isp) capability. Although these cryogenic propellants can be challenging to manage and store, they allow significant mass advantages over traditional hypergolic propulsion systems and are therefore enabling for many planetary science missions. New cryogenic storage techniques such as sub-cooling and the use of advanced insulation and low thermal conductivity support structures will allow for the long term storage and use of cryogenic propellants for solar system exploration and hence allow NASA to deliver more payloads to targets of interest, launch on smaller and less expensive launch vehicles, or both. These new cryogenic storage technologies were implemented in a design study for the Titan Orbiter Polar Surveyor (TOPS) mission, with LH2 and LO2 as propellants, and the resulting spacecraft design was able to achieve a 43 launch mass reduction over a TOPS mission, that utilized a traditional hypergolic propulsion system with monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) propellants. This paper describes the cryogenic propellant storage design for the TOPS mission and demonstrates how these cryogenic propellants are stored passively for a decade-long Titan mission that requires the cryogenics propellants to be stored for 8.5 years.

Cryogenic Propellant Storage↗

NASA NTRS2015

Long-Term Cryogenic Propellant Storage for the Titan Orbiter Polar Surveyor (TOPS) Mission

Cryogenic propellants such as liquid hydrogen (LH2) and liquid oxygen (LOX) can dramatically enhance NASAs ability to explore the solar system because of their superior specific impulse (Isp) capability. Although these cryogenic propellants can be challenging to manage and store, they allow significant mass advantages over traditional hypergolic propulsion systems and are therefore technically enabling for many planetary science missions. New cryogenic storage techniques such as subcooling and the use of advanced insulation and low thermal conductivity support structures will allow for the long term storage and use of cryogenic propellants for solar system exploration and hence allow NASA to deliver more payloads to targets of interest, launch on smaller and less expensive launch vehicles, or both. Employing cryogenic propellants will allow NASA to perform missions to planetary destinations that would not be possible with the use of traditional hypergolic propellants. These new cryogenic storage technologies were implemented in a design study for the Titan Orbiter Polar Surveyor (TOPS) mission, with LH2 and LOX as propellants, and the resulting spacecraft design was able to achieve a 43 launch mass reduction over a TOPS mission, that utilized a conventional hypergolic propulsion system with mono-methyl hydrazine (MMH) and nitrogen tetroxide (NTO) propellants. This paper describes the cryogenic propellant storage design for the TOPS mission and demonstrates how these cryogenic propellants are stored passively for a decade-long Titan mission.

Cryogenic Propellant Storage↗

NASA NTRS2015

Long-Term Cryogenic Propellant Storage for the TOPS Mission

Cryogenic Propellant Storage↗

NASA NTRS2014

Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Explorer (GESE): Science Rationale, Optical Design, and Telescope Architecture

One of the key goals of NASA’s astrophysics program is to answer the question: How did galaxies evolve into the spiral, elliptical, and irregular galaxies that we see today? We describe a space mission concept called Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Explorer (GESE) to help address this question by making a large ultraviolet spectroscopic survey of galaxies at a redshift, z approximately 1 (look-back time of approximately 8 billion years). GESE is a 1.5-m space telescope with an near-ultraviolet (NUV) multi-object slit spectrograph covering the spectral range, 0.2-0.4 micrometers (0.1-0.2 micrometers as emitted by galaxies at a redshift, z approximately 1) at a spectral resolution of delta lambda=6 A.

elliptical↗

NASA NTRS2013

GESE: A Small UV Space Telescope to Conduct a Large Spectroscopic Survey of Z-1 Galaxies

One of the key goals of NASA's astrophysics program is to answer the question: How did galaxies evolve into the spirals and elliptical galaxies that we see today? We describe a space mission concept called Galaxy Evolution Spectroscopic Explorer (GESE) to address this question by making a large spectroscopic survey of galaxies at a redshift, z is approximately 1 (look-back time of approximately 8 billion years). GESE is a 1.5-meter space telescope with an ultraviolet (UV) multi-object slit spectrograph that can obtain spectra of hundreds of galaxies per exposure. The spectrograph covers the spectral range, 0.2-0.4 micrometers at a spectral resolving power, R approximately 500. This observed spectral range corresponds to 0.1-0.2 micrometers as emitted by a galaxy at a redshift, z=1. The mission concept takes advantage of two new technological advances: (1) light-weighted, wide-field telescope mirrors, and (2) the Next- Generation MicroShutter Array (NG-MSA) to be used as a slit generator in the multi-object slit spectrograph.

galaxy evolution↗

NASA NTRS2004

PhyLM: A Mission Design Concept for an Optical/Lidar Instrument to Measure Ocean Productivity and Aerosols from Space

The Physiology Lidar-Multispectral Mission (PhyLM) is intended to explore the complex ecosystems of our global oceans. New "inversion" methods and improved understanding of marine optics have opened the door to quantifying a range of critical ocean properties. This new information could revolutionize our understanding of global ocean processes, such as phytoplankton growth, harmful algal blooms, carbon fluxes between major pools and the productivity equation. The new science requires new measurements not addressed by currently planned space missions. PhyLM will combine active and advanced passive remote sensing technologies to quantify standing stocks and fluxes of climate-critical components of the Ocean carbon cycle to meet these science providing multispectral bands from the far UV through the near infrared (340 - 1250 nm) at a ground resolution of 250 m. Improved detectors, filters, mirrors, digitization and focal plane design will offer an overall higher-quality data product. The unprecedented accuracy and precision of the absolute water-leaving radiances will support inversion- based quantification of an expanded set of ocean carbon cycle components. The dual- wavelength (532 & 1064 nm) Nd:Yag Lidar will enhance the accuracy and precision of the passive data by providing aerosol profiles for atmospheric correction and coincident active measurements of backscattering. The Lidar will also examine dark-side fluorescence as an additional approach to quantifying phytoplankton biomass in highly productive regions.

Gervin, Janette C.↗