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At least 199 records · Page 11

Resource Prospector, the Decadal Survey and the Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon

The Inner Planets Panel of the Planetary Exploration Decadal Survey defined several science questions related to the origins, emplacement, and sequestration of lunar polar volatiles: 1. What is the lateral and vertical distribution of the volatile deposits? 2. What is the chemical composition and variability of polar volatiles? 3. What is the isotopic composition of the volatiles? 4. What is the physical form of the volatiles? 5. What is the rate of the current volatile deposition? A mission concept study, the Lunar Polar Volatiles Explorer (LPVE), defined a approximately $1B New Frontiers mission to address these questions. The NAS/NRC report, 'Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon' identified he lunar poles as special environments with important implications. It put forth the following goals: Science Goal 4a-Determine the compositional state (elemental, isotopic, mineralogic) and compositional distribution (lateral and depth) of the volatile component in lunar polar regions. Science Goal 4b-Determine the source(s) for lunar polar volatiles. Science Goal 4c-Understand the transport, retention, alteration, and loss processes that operate on volatile materials at permanently shaded lunar regions. Science Goal 4d-Understand the physical properties of the extremely cold (and possibly volatile rich) polar regolith. Science Goal 4e-Determine what the cold polar regolith reveals about the ancient solar environment.

Moon↗

Robust Exploration and Commercial Missions to the Moon Using LANTR Propulsion and Lunar Liquid Oxygen Derived from FeO-Rich Pyroclastic Deposits

Studies conducted by NASA and its contractors (early 1980s early 1990s) indicated a substantial benefit from using lunar-derived propellants specifically lunar-derived LO2 (LLO2) or LUNOX in a lunar space transportation system (LTS). With a LTS using LO2/LH2 chemical rockets, approx. 6 kilograms (kg) of mass in low Earth orbit (LEO) is required to place 1 kg of payload on the lunar surface (LS). Of this 6 kg, approx. 70% (4.2 kg) is propellant and 6/7th of this mass (3.6 kg) is oxygen assuming an O/H MR 6:1. Since the cost of placing a kilogram of mass on the LS is approx. 6X the cost of delivering it to LEO, the ability to produce and utilize LUNOX or lunar-derived LO2 and hydrogen (LLH2) from lunar polar ice (LPI) deposits can provide significant mission leverage. Providing LUNOX for use in fuel cells, life support systems and LO2/LH2 chemical rockets used on lunar landing vehicles (LLVs), can allow high value cargo (people, manufacturing and scientific equipment, etc.) to be transported to LEO, then to the Moon instead of bulk LO2 propellant. Oxygen is abundant in the lunar regolith (approx. 43% by mass) and can be extracted using a variety of techniques, such as hydrogen reduction of ilmenite (FeOTiO2) or FeO-rich volcanic glass (orange soil) discovered during the Apollo 17 mission to Taurus-Littrow. While considerable interest has been expressed about mining and processing LPI for rocket propellant, ground truth must first be established to quantify the physical state of the ice (e.g., its vertical thickness and areal extent, levels of soil contamination, etc.) and the deep, extremely cold (approx. 26-100 K) permanently shadowed craters where the ice resides.

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion↗

Transient Heater Analysis for Orion Thermal Vacuum Testing

The Space Environments Complex (SEC) at NASA's Plum Brook Station is currently being prepared to perform thermal vacuum testing of the Orion spacecraft. This thermal vacuum, or T-VAC test will be run for a period of 60 days, which will be the longest such test ever conducted at SEC. The Orion Crew Module (CM) and Service Module (SM) will undergo T-VAC testing in SEC's Space Simulation Vacuum Chamber to ensure the functionality of these systems in a high vacuum environment at extremely cold temperatures. The T-VAC test setup in SEC was modeled and simulated in Thermal Desktop. The initial results from thermal analysis showed areas on the chamber floor to reach very low temperatures, which were below the minimum operating range of certain hardware located on or near the chamber floor. These hardware including elastomeric seals on the GN2 piping, bearing pads and O-rings are essential to both test and the operation of the SEC facility, and must be kept well above -20°F throughout the duration of the T-VAC test. Thus, further analysis was conducted to include the placement of patch heaters on the chamber floor in an effort to increase the temperature near colder areas on the floor. The results and findings from this analysis showed that using these heaters will result in a favorable temperature distribution on the chamber floor. This paper will discuss the methods used in the analysis, and the results obtained to determine the optimal configuration of these heaters on the chamber floor.

Wilhite, Jarred↗

Transient Heater Analysis for Orion Thermal Vacuum Testing

The Space Environments Complex (SEC) at NASA’s Plum Brook Station is currently being prepared to perform thermal vacuum testing of the Orion spacecraft. This thermal vacuum, or T-VAC test will be run for a period of 60 days, which will be the longest such test ever conducted at SEC. The Orion Crew Module (CM) and Service Module (SM) will undergo T-VAC testing in SEC’s Space Simulation Vacuum Chamber to ensure the functionality of these systems in a high vacuum environment at extremely cold temperatures. The T-VAC test setup in SEC was modeled and simulated in Thermal Desktop. The initial results from thermal analysis showed areas on the chamber floor to reach very low temperatures, which were below the minimum operating range of certain hardware located on or near the chamber floor. These hardware including elastomeric seals on the GN2 piping, bearing pads and O-rings are essential to both test and the operation of the SEC facility, and must be kept well above -20°F throughout the duration of the T-VAC test. Thus, further analysis was conducted to include the placement of patch heaters on the chamber floor in an effort to increase the temperature near colder areas on the floor. The results and findings from this analysis showed that using these heaters will result in a favorable temperature distribution on the chamber floor. This paper will discuss the methods used in the analysis, and the results obtained to determine the optimal configuration of these heaters on the chamber floor.

Wilhite, Jarred↗

Analysis of the 2019 Midwest US Flooding Using NASA Data

In the wake of Winter Storm Ulmer, an intense "bomb cyclone" that set preliminary low-pressure records, historic flooding occurred in 41 locations across the Midwest United States, causing many streams and rivers - including the Platte, Missouri, and Elkhorn Rivers - to rise to all-time record flood levels in Nebraska. Warm and dry conditions, along with 4-8 inches of snowfall, and over 1" of rain caused over 3-5" of storm water runoff from rapid melting.A rare confluence of circumstances produced the flooding, including extreme cold earlier in the winter that preserved a significant amount of snowfall, a thick layer of ice on waterways, and the large downpour of rain from Winter Storm Ulmer. Unusually warm air caused the snow and ice to rapidly melt, producing record amounts of runoff within a short period of time. This poster presents several data sets from NASA and the USGS (our partner agency) that can be used in analyzing floods and flood areas, including soil moisture, snowfall, floodwater areas, vicinity of urban areas and impervious surfaces, and proximity of strategic or critical infrastructure.

DAAC↗

Micro-grid for Future Planetary Surface Needs

Under the current Artemis Program, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will send its next set of astronauts (first woman and next man) to the Moon by 2024 and establish a sustainable presence on the lunar surface by 2028. The challenge of creating a sustained lunar surface presence is significantly different than previous efforts. Lunar surface operations will require access to continuous and highly reliable power to support mission needs, such as to support ISRU operations. Adding to this challenge, the lunar surface operations are not going to be established over a single effort, rather the system and operations will evolve and grow over time (years). The first initial loads that arrive on the lunar surface will be integrated to their own dedicated power sources. As the lunar surface operations grow, so will the demand for power and at some point these individual loads will require more power than can be generated with any single power device. This power demand drives the need for inter-connecting the loads and power devices to share power between them, resulting in a micro-grid. One of the advantages of developing a lunar surface micro-grid is that allows lunar surface operations to resemble electrical utility operations on Earth; it allows power to be generated where it is convenient and allows power to be consumed where it is convenient, rather than negotiating between generation and consumption. The micro-grid concept also provides another benefit of affording the ability to increase overall system reliability by integrating dissimilar power generation and energy storage devices together, for example modifying the power generation strategy to include both solar arrays and nuclear. Creating a lunar surface micro-grid has its advantages, however there are significant challenges associated with an evolvable micro-grid concept. The challenges include how to efficiently transmit large amounts of power (10kW+) long distances (1kW+), how to effectively integrate dissimilar power generation and energy storage devices to maximize power consumption and minimize downtime, and how to physically connect these devices together with a connector that can survive the lunar environment (dust, extreme cold temperatures) and is capable of both astronaut and robotic operation. The basic components of the micro-grid have to be designed to ensure the system is sustainable, modular, and reconfigurable. An interface to the micro-grid has to be designed that allows for additional technologies, some of which may not yet be fully designed, to easily integrate into the micro-grid concept. This presentation discusses these lunar challenges in some more depth and offers a path forward in designing an evolvable micro-grid to meet the needs of the lunar surface operations and proposes a Universal Micro-grid Interface Converter to connect these dissimilar power sources and mission loads to the micro-grid.

Jeffrey Csank↗

The Search for Chiral Asymmetry as a Potential Biosignature in Samples from Mars

The search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our solar system is currently guided by our understanding of terrestrial biology and its associated biosignatures. The observed homochirality in all life on Earth, that is, the predominance of “left-handed” or L-amino acids and “right-handed” or D-sugars, is a unique property of life that is crucial for molecular recognition, enzymatic function, information storage and structure and is thought to be a prerequisite for the origin or early evolution of life. Therefore, the detection of L- or D-enantiomeric excesses of chiral amino acids and sugars could be a powerful indicator of extant or extinct life on Mars or other habitable environments in our solar system. The exploration of habitable environments on Mars, including an assessment of the preservation potential for complex organics of either abiotic or biological origin, remains a key goal of both current and future Mars missions. Now with the unambiguous detection of indigenous organic matter in sedimentary rocks on Mars [1-3], NASA’s Curiosity rover has significantly advanced our understanding of the preservation of potential chemical biosignatures in the martian near surface. Although amino acids have not yet been identified by in situ measurements on Mars, if they were present, it is expected that amino acid hydrolysis and racemization would be very slow and any chiral or isotopic signatures from an extinct martian biota could be preserved for billions of years, given the extremely cold and dry surface conditions [4]. One of ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover payload instruments called the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA) includes a wet chemistry package capable of measuring the enantiomeric ratios of any chiral amino acids present at part-per-million concentrations or higher [5]. The complexity and limited duration of spaceflight operations and the known analytical challenges associated with in situ extraction and characterization of trace reduced organic compounds in ancient rocks make it challenging to determine the origins of martian organic matter found to date. Coordinated state-of-the-art laboratory measurements of returned samples from Mars that include spatially resolved chemical, mineralogical, and isotopic studies and molecule-specific isotopic and enantiomeric measurements will be required to firmly establish whether the complex organic matter detected on Mars comes from biotic or abiotic sources. Ultimately, sample return may be our best chance of identifying chemical biosignatures from a past or present martian biota, if one ever existed on Mars. NASA’s Perseverance rover will collect dozens of surface sample cores for possible future return to Earth by NASA and ESA. Here we review our current knowledge of the distributions and enantiomeric and isotopic compositions of non-biological amino acids found in meteorites compared to terrestrial biochemistry and propose a set of measurement criteria that should be used to help establish the origin of any chiral asymmetry detected in samples from Mars [6].

Daniel P Glavin↗

Radiometric Stability in 16 years of AIRS Hyperspectral Infrared Data (SPIE OP-431-20)

With global warming at the rate of 10 mK/yr, it is important to at least characterize any trend in the AIRS data, which may impact the use of AIRS data for climate change research. We evaluated the stability of the AIRS v5 calibration for seven atmospheric window channels between 2002 and 2018 under tropical ocean clear conditions. Trends for the channels between 961, 1128 and 1231 cm-1 channels are typically +3 mK/yr; for 790 and 901 cm-1 the trend is 6 mK/yr, i.e. the observations are increasingly getting warmer than expected. The trends are day/night consistent. The trend for the 2508 and 2616 cm-1 channels is close to 10 mK/yr at night, but closer to 6 mK/yr during the day. On an absolute scale these trends are small, but not when viewed in the context of global warming at a 10 mK/yr rate. While the warming trends are consistent with increased scattering from the scan mirrors, which create an error in reading the Onboard Blackbody Calibration, the resulting changes in the gain are a factor of about five larger than observed changes in the gain. The effects of scattering due to scan mirror contamination are evident at extremely cold temperatures, but scattering does not produce the observed warming at warm temperatures. It is possible that much of the observed warming in the AIRS window channels is a geophysical effect related to the warming of the oceans, resulting in a shift in the diurnal cycle and skin effect correction. This requires more careful evaluation.

Manning, Evan M.↗

Radiometric Stability in 16 years of AIRS Hyperspectral Infrared Data (SPIE OP-431-20)

With global warming at the rate of 10 mK/yr, it is important to at least characterize any trend in the AIRS data, which may impact the use of AIRS data for climate change research. We evaluated the stability of the AIRS v5 calibration for seven atmospheric window channels between 2002 and 2018 under tropical ocean clear conditions. Trends for the channels between 961, 1128 and 1231 cm-1 channels are typically +3 mK/yr; for 790 and 901 cm-1 the trend is 6 mK/yr, i.e. the observations are increasingly getting warmer than expected. The trends are day/night consistent. The trend for the 2508 and 2616 cm-1 channels is close to 10 mK/yr at night, but closer to 6 mK/yr during the day. On an absolute scale these trends are small, but not when viewed in the context of global warming at a 10 mK/yr rate. While the warming trends are consistent with increased scattering from the scan mirrors, which create an error in reading the Onboard Blackbody Calibration, the resulting changes in the gain are a factor of about five larger than observed changes in the gain. The effects of scattering due to scan mirror contamination are evident at extremely cold temperatures, but scattering does not produce the observed warming at warm temperatures. It is possible that much of the observed warming in the AIRS window channels is a geophysical effect related to the warming of the oceans, resulting in a shift in the diurnal cycle and skin effect correction. This requires more careful evaluation.

Manning, Evan M.↗

The Search for Chiral Asymmetry as a Potential Biosignature in Samples from Mars

The search for evidence of extraterrestrial life in our solar system has been guided by our under-standing of terrestrial biology and its associated biosignatures. The observed homochirality in all life on Earth, that is, the predominance of “left-handed” or L-amino acids and “right-handed” or D-sugars, is a unique property of life that is crucial for molecular recognition, enzymatic function, information storage and structure, and is thought to be a prerequisite for the origin or early evolution of life. Therefore, the detection of L- or D-excesses of chiral amino acids or sugars could be a powerful indicator of extant or extinct life on Mars or other habitable environments in our solar system. However, studies of primitive meteorites have revealed that they contain extraterrestrial amino acids and sugar acids with large enantiomeric excesses (60% and higher) that resulted from non-biological processes [1], complicating the use of chiral asymmetry by itself as a definitive biosignature. The exploration of habitable environments on Mars, including an assessment of the preservation potential for complex organics of either abiotic or biological origin, is an objective of both current and future Mars missions. Now with the unambiguous detection of indigenous organic matter in sedimentary rocks by the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite on Mars [2-5], NASA’s Curiosity rover has found evidence of the preservation of potential chemical biosignatures in the martian near surface. Although amino acids have not yet been identified by in situ measurements on Mars [5], indigenous achiral amino acids have been identified in one martian meteorite [6]. It is expected that amino acid racemization would be very slow and any chiral or isotopic signatures from an extinct martian biota could be preserved for billions of years, given the extremely cold and dry surface conditions [7]. The ESA/Roscosmos ExoMars mission scheduled for launch next year includes the Rosalind Franklin rover designed to acquire samples from a depth of ~2 m and deliver them to a suite of instruments, including the Mars Organic Molecule Analyzer (MOMA). The MOMA instrument contains a wet chemistry experiment designed specifically for the detection of amino acids and measurement of their enantiomeric compositions [8]. The complexity and limited duration of spaceflight operations, and the known analytical challenges associated with in situ extraction and characterization of trace reduced organic com-pounds in ancient rocks, make it challenging to determine the origins of martian organic matter found to date. Coordinated state-of-the-art laboratory measurements of returned samples from Mars that include spatially resolved chemical, mineralogical, bulk and molecule-specific isotopic, and enantiomeric measurements will be required to firmly establish whether the complex organic matter detected on Mars derives from bio-tic or abiotic processes. Ultimately, Mars Sample Return of rock cores collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover may be our best chance of identifying chemical biosignatures, including any chiral amino acid asymmetry resulting from a past or present martian biota, if one ever existed on Mars. Here we review our current knowledge of the distributions, and enantiomeric and isotopic com-positions of amino acids found in meteorites compared to terrestrial biochemistry. We also propose a set of measurement criteria that should be used to help establish the sources of any amino acids detected in samples returned from Mars using state-of-the-art gas and liquid chromatography mass spectrometry techniques [1].

D P Glavin↗

Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices and Systems for Communications in Extreme Environment

The feasibility of gallium nitride based wide bandgap semiconductor devices for signal amplification in extreme planetary environment is investigated. The measured performance of these devices at S-band, X-band, and Ka-band are presented. The data indicates excellent performance at the above frequencies. Potential application of these devices includes communication systems required to operate in the extreme hot environment of Venus and in the extreme cold and high radiation environment of Jupiter’s icy moons.

Gallium Nitride↗

Entry, Descent, and Landing Analysis of Low Mass Martian Probe for Surface Climate Network

Aeolus is a mission to provide the first direct measurements of Martian atmospheric wind speeds and correlate them with thermal and compositional data to bring together a complete systematic description for the global energy balance and climate cycles of Mars. Objective A of the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) Goal II cites a Science Investigation Area to develop a network of surface landers to provide global, diurnal and synoptic coverage of the near-surface environment to characterize present Mars climate [1]. Aeolus will characterize the present Martian global climate system via an orbiter element and a novel surface network element. A series of low mass, low power probes will be distributed across the Martian surface and measure pressure, sky opacity, temperature, wind speed, water vapor and other trace gases. Low mass and power electrical systems designed to operate in extreme cold and daily thermal cycling for one Martian year could facilitate lower cost, Class-D science probes. Aeolus is targeting a total per-probe mass of <5 kg. Recent advances in nanofabrication of chip-scale sensors that are highly robust to temperature and shock, combined with a novel packaging concept (the deployable sensor probe [2]) originally developed by the Aerospace Corp., for the first time enables a Mars surface climate sensor network. These probes are folded flat during transit to Mars and automatically deploy into the final reentry configuration once released from the orbiter. The capability to fold for stowage significantly increases the probe quantity carried by the orbiter.

EDL↗

Acoustic Communication in Deep Ice at Ocean Worlds

One of NASA priorities is the in-situ exploration of ocean worlds in the solar system where potentially there might be life under the ice shell. This requires reaching the ocean below extremely cold through significant deep ice. Jupiter’s moon, Europa, is such a challenging body, where it is estimated to have a 40 km thick ice shell. An approach for reaching the ocean has been conceived using a melting probe Cryobot concept that has been studied for a potential future mission. A lander is assumed to be the platform from which the Cryobot would be deployed. The ice penetrating vehicle concept consists of a cylindrical, narrow-body probe that encases a radioisotope heat/power source that would be used to do the penetration by melting through the icy crust. The baseline design of the probe includes a suite of science instruments to analyze the ice during descent and the liquid ocean underneath. For communication, a set of fiber optic wire as well as wireless RF in the very cold porous top layer is assumed, and then acoustic modules would be used for the communication in warmer denser ice over distance of 25 km between the modules. In addition to the acoustic communication modules, a sonar is part of the concept, for obstacle avoidance. The focus of this paper is on the use of elastic waves in the 1kHz range.

Lih, Shyh-Shiuh↗

Wide Bandgap Semiconductor Devices & Systems for Communications in Extreme Environment

The feasibility of Ka-band gallium nitride (GaN) based high power amplifier (HPA) for signal amplification in extreme planetary environment is investigated and its measured performance is presented. The data includes Pout, PAE, EVM for several waveforms and data rates, output spectrum, IMD, Noise Figure, and Gain. The data indicates excellent overall performance. Potential application of this HPA includes communication systems required to operate in the extreme hot environment of Mercury and Venus, extreme cold and high radiation environment of Jupiter’s icy moons, and Artemis missions that involve human/robotic exploration and long-term presence on the Moon.

Gallium Nitride↗

GC/MS Method Development for Separating Lunar Volatile Ice Simulant Headspace Gases

Various investigators propose the lunar surface contains widely distributed volatiles, especially water- like species, i.e. OH and H2O. Surface volatiles are theorized to exist as a hydrated regolith layer, concentrated in extremely cold polar permanently shadowed regions (PSR), and/or solar wind implantation reservoirs in lunar glasses. The proposed sources of lunar surface volatiles range from cometary impacts, solar wind, or a supply present during moon formation. Future Artemis missions aim to collect and return the samples containing volatiles collected near lunar polar craters or PSRs. We, as advanced curation scientists, are responsible for developing techniques and methodologies for preserving returned sample integrity as much as possible. Pristine volatile-bearing samples are invaluable to the scientific community seeking to unravel the history of the solar system. Realistically, a sample will experience alteration during collection, transportation back to earth, and storage. The Planetary Exploration and Astromaterials Research Lab (PEARL) seeks to understand temperature and pressure effects on high-fidelity volatile-containing regolith simulants, the foundation for the future of cold curation. This abstract outlines the separation, identification, and quantification of headspace gases over volatile ice feed stock material using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Preliminary objectives concentrated on sample handling, reproducibility, and understanding the elution characteristics for each analyte. Initial GC/MS method development experiments utilized diluted static headspace sample preparation. Diluted samples were used because sampling headspace gases directly from a vial containing liquid analyte resulted in overloading of the column and detector. Overloading is evident based on chromatogram peak shapes and instrument contamination, or carry over, between experiments. A mixture of three alcohols were used for a majority of the sample handling and reproducibility studies. Reproducibility was tested via multiple users, calibration curves, and check standards. Stock solutions of condensed lunar volatile analytes included methanol, ammonia in methanol, hydrogen sulfide in water, and an equal volume mixture of methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol. Current samples use room air as the headspace sample matrix, however future experiments will incorporate an inert purge gas, such as argon or nitrogen. Three mL of each analyte solution were capped in separate 20 mL crimp top GC vials. Dilutions were carried out by removing an aliquot of headspace gases with a calibrated 1 mL gastight syringe and immediately transferring to a 20 mL capped crimp top vial. The GC/MS is a Thermo Fisher Trace 1310/ISQ 7000 with a TriPlus RSH autosampler and split/splitless injector module. The experiments outlined in this abstract use the following hardware: a 2.5 mL gastight headspace syringe tool, 1 mm ID x 78.5 mm length ultra-inert straight injection liner, and a TG-BondQ 30 m × 0.32 mm × 10 μm column. Various parameters, such as hardware selection and the temperature, pressure, and split ratio set points, continue to evolve as the overall experiment is refined. Diluted headspace chromatograms were collected for the individual stock solutions. Retention times, peak shapes, and mass spectra were evaluated and added to the data processing method for each molecule of interest. Figure 1 shows the total ion chromatograms for the three major lunar volatile simulant stock solutions: methanol, 7 N ammonia in methanol, and 0.4% hydrogen sulfide in water. Tailing peak shapes for ammonia (2.98 min rt) and water (4.06 min rt) indicate the molecules are not properly eluting from the selected column with the current separation method. Additionally, hydrogen sulfide and ammonia have overlapping peak windows, which could impact quantification. Ongoing experiments aim to address the peak shape and overlapping via the separation method and hardware selection. Sample preparation reproducibility experiments used stock solution containing equal volumes of a non- interactive mixture of methanol, ethanol, and isopropanol. Mass spectrum ion traces were used to identify and quantify all three alcohols. Peaks were automatically detected, identified, and integrated through the mass spectra detection and processing parameters. Calibration response curves and check standards were used to evaluate the validity of the sample preparation procedure. Figure 2 shows the methanol chromatogram peak area versus total headspace dilution volume transferred from the alcohol mixture vial. The calibration response curves and check standards validate sample preparation procedure. Continuing data analysis efforts are working towards correlating the peak area and instrument response factor to the headspace analyte concentration and condensed phase composition. Static headspace gas chromatography theory relies on Dalton’s law, Raoult’s law, Henry’s Law, and the Kolb and Ettre equation to associate peak area to the analyte composition in a non-ideal solution. Equation 1 is a simplified expression derived from the aforementioned theories. Future experiments involve liquid injections of the individual stock solutions, liquid and headspace analysis of various stock solution combinations, and the addition of regolith simulants to the mixtures. Temperature is another variable expected to affect reaction rates and will be explored.

Cecilia L. Amick↗

Generating Cryogenic Lunar Simulants Within the Planetary Exploration & Astromaterials Research Laboratory

The Planetary Exploration & Astromaterials Research Laboratory (PEARL) aims to provides capabilities for the creation of—and research on—cryogenic lunar regolith simulants (CRS) containing surface volatile analytes. CRS represent regolith samples that might be collected from lunar Permanently Shadowed Regions (PSRs) during future missions. Handling CRS requires procedural and engineering development due to extremely cold (i.e. ≤ - 196°C) working temperatures. However, there is an imperative to understand the physical and chemical alteration of samples during collection, transport, and curation processes throughout the Artemis missions. The chemistries that will be encountered within the PSRs need to be understood based upon prior mission data analysis. The ability to utilize these techniques provides future tests that could be relevant to planetary protection applications regarding future robotic sample return.

Lunar↗

Progress in Magnetic Gearing for Aeronautics and Space Applications

Magnetic gears harness the magnetic force between non-contacting sets of permanent magnets. They achieve a gear ratio through the geometry and constrained motion of the magnets or the transformation of the magnetic fields by carefully shaped soft magnetic material. Their non-contact nature eliminates the need for gear lubrication and the wear mechanisms associated with mechanical contact. Magnetic gears have the potential to reduce the strong, tonal vibration and noise that is inherent to mechanical gears. Magnetic gears are also easily integrated into electric machines because they rely on the same physics and utilize the same materials and many of the same components. For these reasons and the invention of higher performing magnetic gear configurations over the past 20 years, magnetic gears have received growing attention for aerospace applications. This presentation summarizes the motivation for studying magnetic gears and the progress made in developing the technology to meet the demanding requirements of aerospace applications. The focus is on the development completed and ongoing at NASA, but SBIR projects in the field are summarized. The discussion focuses on the application of magnetic gears and magnetically-geared motors in electrified aircraft propulsion systems and actuation systems for space mechanisms. The NASA work includes the design, optimization, and testing of magnetic gears and magnetically-geared motors for electrified vertical takeoff and landing aircraft and the design and ambient environment testing of a magnetically-geared actuator for use in extremely cold and dusty space environments. The presentation concludes with thoughts on the technical barriers to adoption and potentially fruitful topics for future research.

Justin J. Scheidler↗

Some Applications of SiFSAP for Wildfires, Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics Studies

The Single Field of View (SFOV) Sounder Atmospheric Product (SiFSAP) derived from Cross-track Infrared Sounder (CrIS) on SNPP and JPSS have a spatial resolution ( ~14.5 km) better than most global weather and climate models. Most recent improvement in the quality of these products enables us to use these high-resolution observation-based sounding data for air quality, weather and atmospheric dynamics studies. A few cases studies through a synergistic use of SiFSAP from S-NPP and J-1 and the reanalysis data from ERA5 and MERRA-2 will be presented, which include a process-oriented analysis of (1) a stratospheric intrusion (SI) event occurred on June 11-13, 2017 in the southwestern US, (2) one extreme cold air break (CAO) episode occurred on 27-31 January 2019 across much of the US Midwest and its impact from stratospheric downward transport, and (3) dynamic transport of carbon monoxide (CO) associated with Australia’s unprecedented fire from the end of 2019 to early 2020. These examples will demonstrate the value of SiFSAP for weather, atmospheric dynamics, air quality, wildfires studies and for model evaluations.

Xiaozhen (Shawn) Xiong↗