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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 199 records · Page 11

Aerocapture Technology Project Overview

Aerocapture technology development is one of the highest priority investments for the NASA In-Space Propulsion Program (ISP). The ISP is managed by the NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science, and implemented by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The objective of the ISP Aerocapture Technology Project (ATP) is to develop technologies that can enable and/or benefit NASA science missions by significantly reducing cost, mass, and trip times. To accomplish this objective, the ATP identifies and prioritizes the most promising technologies using systems analysis, technology advancement and peer review, coupled with NASA Headquarters Office of Space Science target requirements. Efforts are focused on developing mid-Technology Readiness Level (TRL) technologies to systems-level spaceflight validation.

James, Bonnie↗

NASA Microgravity Combustion Science Research Plans for the ISS

A peer-reviewed research program in Microgravity Combustion Science has been chartered by the Physical Sciences Research Division of the NASA Office of Biological and Physical Research. The scope of these investigations address both fundamental combustion phenomena and applied combustion research topics of interest to NASA. From this pool of research, flight investigations are selected which benefit from access to a microgravity environment. Fundamental research provides insights to develop accurate simulations of complex combustion processes and allows developers to improve the efficiency of combustion devices, to reduce the production of harmful emissions, and to reduce the incidence of accidental uncontrolled combustion (fires, explosions). Through its spacecraft fire safety program, applied research is conducted to decrease risks to humans living and working in space. The Microgravity Combustion Science program implements a structured flight research process utilizing the International Space Station (ISS) and two of its premier facilities- the Combustion Integrated Rack of the Fluids and Combustion Facility and the Microgravity Science Glovebox - to conduct space-based research investigations. This paper reviews the current plans for Microgravity Combustion Science research on the International Space Station from 2003 through 2012.

Sutliff, Thomas J.↗

Synthetic Jets

Current investigation of synthetic jets and synthetic jets in cross-flow examined the effects of orifice geometry and dimensions, momentum-flux ratio, cluster of orifices, pitch and yaw angles as well as streamwise development of the flow field. This comprehensive study provided much needed experimental information related to the various control strategies. The results of the current investigation on isolated and clustered synthetic jets with and without cross-flow will be further analyzed and documented in detail. Presentations at national conferences and publication of peer- reviewed journal articles are also expected. Projected publications will present both the mean and turbulent properties of the flow field, comparisons made with the data available in an open literature, as well as recommendations for the future work.

Milanovic, Ivana M.↗

A Study of Uncertainties for MODIS Cloud Retrievals of Optical Thickness and Effective Radius

The investigation spanned four linked components as summarized in section III, each relating to some aspect of uncertainty assessment in the retrieval of cloud optical and microphysical properties using solar reflectance algorithms such as the MODIS operational cloud product (product IDS MOD06, MDY06 for Terra and Aqua, respectively). As discussed, three of these components have been fully completed (items (l), (2), and (3) while item (4) has been partially completed. These efforts have resulted in peer-reviewed publications and/or information delivered to the MODIS P.I. (M. D. King) for inclusion in the cloud product Quality Assessment (QA) output, a portion of the product output used, in part, for retrieval error assignments. This final report begins with a synopsis of the proposed investigation (section III) followed by a summary of work performed up through the last report including updates (section IV). Section V describes new activities. Publications from the efforts are listed in section VI. Figures (available in powerpoint format) are found in section VII.

Platnick, Steven↗

SOFIA First Generation Science Instruments

SOFIA will provide 0.3- 1600 pm wavelength coverage, excellent FIR/submm angular resolution, a variety of focal plane instruments, and access to them throughout a 20-year lifetime. These attributes assure SOFIA a vital role in future observations of the interstellar medium, and in numerous other studies. SOFIA is a joint program of NASA in the U.S. and DLR in Germany. Observing time will be arranged by annual peer review of proposals, with roughly 80 percent of the time granted by the U.S. and 20 percent of the time granted by Germany. International proposals may be submitted to either time allocation committee. SOFIA is expected to begin science flights in 2005.

Erickson, Edwin F.↗

CESDIS

CESDIS, the Center of Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences was developed jointly by NASA, Universities Space Research Association (USRA), and the University of Maryland in 1988 to focus on the design of advanced computing techniques and data systems to support NASA Earth and space science research programs. CESDIS is operated by USRA under contract to NASA. The Director, Associate Director, Staff Scientists, and administrative staff are located on-site at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The primary CESDIS mission is to increase the connection between computer science and engineering research programs at colleges and universities and NASA groups working with computer applications in Earth and space science. Research areas of primary interest at CESDIS include: 1) High performance computing, especially software design and performance evaluation for massively parallel machines; 2) Parallel input/output and data storage systems for high performance parallel computers; 3) Data base and intelligent data management systems for parallel computers; 4) Image processing; 5) Digital libraries; and 6) Data compression. CESDIS funds multiyear projects at U. S. universities and colleges. Proposals are accepted in response to calls for proposals and are selected on the basis of peer reviews. Funds are provided to support faculty and graduate students working at their home institutions. Project personnel visit Goddard during academic recess periods to attend workshops, present seminars, and collaborate with NASA scientists on research projects. Additionally, CESDIS takes on specific research tasks of shorter duration for computer science research requested by NASA Goddard scientists.

Source record↗

CmapTools: A Software Environment for Knowledge Modeling and Sharing

In an ongoing collaborative effort between a group of NASA Ames scientists and researchers at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) of the University of West Florida, a new version of CmapTools has been developed that enable scientists to construct knowledge models of their domain of expertise, share them with other scientists, make them available to anybody on the Internet with access to a Web browser, and peer-review other scientists models. These software tools have been successfully used at NASA to build a large-scale multimedia on Mars and in knowledge model on Habitability Assessment. The new version of the software places emphasis on greater usability for experts constructing their own knowledge models, and support for the creation of large knowledge models with large number of supporting resources in the forms of images, videos, web pages, and other media. Additionally, the software currently allows scientists to cooperate with each other in the construction, sharing and criticizing of knowledge models. Scientists collaborating from remote distances, for example researchers at the Astrobiology Institute, can concurrently manipulate the knowledge models they are viewing without having to do this at a special videoconferencing facility.

Canas, Alberto J.↗

Monitoring Change in Temperate Coniferous Forest Ecosystems

The primary goal of this research was to improve monitoring of temperate forest change using remote sensing. In this context, change includes both clearing of forest due to effects such as fire, logging, or land conversion and forest growth and succession. The Landsat 7 ETM+ proved an extremely valuable research tool in this domain. The Landsat 7 program has generated an extremely valuable transformation in the land remote sensing community by making high quality images available for relatively low cost. In addition, the tremendous improvements in the acquisition strategy greatly improved the overall availability of remote sensing images. I believe that from an historical prespective, the Landsat 7 mission will be considered extremely important as the improved image availability will stimulate the use of multitemporal imagery at resolutions useful for local to regional mapping. Also, Landsat 7 has opened the way to global applications of remote sensing at spatial scales where important surface processes and change can be directly monitored. It has been a wonderful experience to have participated on the Landsat 7 Science Team. The research conducted under this project led to contributions in four general domains: I. Improved understanding of the information content of images as a function of spatial resolution; II. Monitoring Forest Change and Succession; III. Development and Integration of Advanced Analysis Methods; and IV. General support of the remote sensing of forests and environmental change. This report is organized according to these topics. This report does not attempt to provide the complete details of the research conducted with support from this grant. That level of detail is provided in the 16 peer reviewed journal articles, 7 book chapters and 5 conference proceedings papers published as part of this grant. This report attempts to explain how the various publications fit together to improve our understanding of how forests are changing and how to monitor forest change with remote sensing. There were no new inventions that resulted from this grant.

Williams, Darrel↗

Monitoring the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor: A NASA/CCAD Cooperative Research Project

To foster scientific cooperation under a Memorandum of Understanding between NASA and the Central American countries, the research project developed regional databases to monitor forest condition and environmental change throughout the region. Of particular interest is the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor (MBC), a chain of protected areas and proposed conservation areas that will link segments of natural habitats in Central America from the borders of northern Columbia to southern Mexico. The first and second year of the project focused on the development of regional satellite databases (JERS-IC, MODIS, and Landsat-TM), training of Central American cooperators and forest cover and change analysis. The three regional satellite mosaics were developed and distributed on CD-ROM to cooperators and regional outlets. Four regional remote sensing training courses were conducted in 3 countries including participants from all 7 Central American countries and Mexico. In year 3, regional forest change assessment in reference to Mesoamerican Biological Corridor was completed and land cover maps (from Landsat TM) were developed for 7 Landsat scenes and accuracy assessed. These maps are being used to support validation of MODIS forest/non forest maps and to examine forest fragmentation and forest cover change in selected study sites. A no-cost time extension (2003-2004) allowed the completion of an M.S. thesis by a Costa Rican student and preparation of manuscripts for future submission to peer-reviewed outlets. Proposals initiated at the end of the project have generated external funding from the U.S. Forest Service (to U. Maine), NASA-ESSF (Oregon State U.) and from USAID and EPA (to NASA-MSFC-GHCC) to test MODIS capabilities to detect forest change; conduct literature review on biomass estimation and carbon stocks and develop a regional remote sensing monitoring center in Central America. The success of the project has led to continued cooperation between NASA, other federal agencies, and scientists from all seven Central American Countries (see SERVIR web site for this ongoing work - servir.nsstc.nasa.gov).

Sever, Thomas↗

An Overview of the Performance of the Chandra X-ray Observatory

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is the X-ray component of NASA's Great Observatory Program which includes the recently launched Spitzer Infrared Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) for observations in the visible, and the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory (CGRO) which, after providing years of useful data has reentered the atmosphere. All these facilities provide, or provided, scientific data to the international astronomical community in response to peer-reviewed proposals for their use. The Chandra X-ray Observatory was the result of the efforts of many academic, commercial, and government organizations primarily in the United States but also in Europe. NASA s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) manages the Project and provides Project Science; Northrop Grumman Space Technology (NGST - formerly TRW) served as prime contractor responsible for providing the spacecraft, the telescope, and assembling and testing the Observatory; and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) provides technical support and is responsible for ground operations including the Chandra X-ray Center (CXC). Telescope and instrument teams at SAO, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Pennsylvania State University (PSU), the Space Research Institute of the Netherlands (SRON), the Max-Planck Institut fur extraterrestrische Physik (MPE), and the University of Kiel support also provide technical support to the Chandra Project. We present here a detailed description of the hardware, its on-orbit performance, and a brief overview of some of the remarkable discoveries that illustrate that performance.

Weisskopf, M. C.↗

Preserving the Pyramid of STI Using Buckets

The product of research projects is information. Through the life cycle of a project, information comes from many sources and takes many forms. Traditionally, this body of information is summarized in a formal publication, typically a journal article. While formal publications enjoy the benefits of peer review and technical editing, they are also often compromises in media format and length. As such, we consider a formal publication to represent an abstract to a larger body of work: a pyramid of scientific and technical information (STI). While this abstract may be sufficient for some applications, an in-depth use or analysis is likely to require the supporting layers from the pyramid. We have developed buckets to preserve this pyramid of STI. Buckets provide an archive- and protocol-independent container construct in which all related information objects can be logically grouped together, archived, and manipulated as a single object. Furthermore, buckets are active archival objects and can communicate with each other, people, or arbitrary network services. Buckets are an implementation of the Smart Object, Dumb Archive (SODA) DL model. In SODA, data objects are more important than the archives that hold them. Much of the functionality traditionally associated with archives is pushed down into the objects, such as enforcing terms and conditions, negotiating display, and content maintenance. In this paper, we discuss the motivation, design, and implication of bucket use in DLs with respect to grey literature.

Nelson, Michael L.↗

Physical sciences research plans for the International Space Station

The restructuring of the research capabilities of the International Space Station has forced a reassessment of the Physical Sciences research plans and a re-targeting of the major scientific thrusts. The combination of already selected peer-reviewed flight investigations with the initiation of new research and technology programs will allow the maximization of the ISS scientific and technological potential. Fundamental and applied research will use a combination of ISS-based facilities, ground-based activities, and other experimental platforms to address issues impacting fundamental knowledge, industrial and medical applications on Earth, and the technology required for human space exploration. The current flight investigation research plan shows a large number of principal investigators selected to use the remaining planned research facilities. c2003 American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

manned↗

How do we get from cell and animal data to risks for humans from space radiations?

After four decades of human exploration in space, many scientists consider the medical consequences from radiation exposures to be the major biological risk associated with long-term missions. This conclusion is based upon results from a research program that has evolved over the past thirty years. Despite the diversity in both opinions and approaches that necessarily arise in research endeavors such as this, a commonality has emerged from our community. We need epidemiological data for humans, animal data in areas where no human data exist, and data on mechanisms to get from animal to humans. We need a programmatic infrastructure that addresses specific goals as well as basic research. These concepts might be deemed overly simplistic and even tautologous were it not for the fact that they are frequently underutilized and even ignored. This article examines the goals, premises, and infrastructures proposed by expert panels and agencies to address radiation risks in space. It is proposed that the required level of effort and the resources available demand a unified, focused international effort that is, at the same time, subjected to rigorous peer review if it is to be successful. There is a plan; let us implement it.

Non-NASA Center↗

Intercultural crew issues in long-duration spaceflight

Before long-duration flights with international crews can be safely undertaken, potential interpersonal difficulties will need to be addressed. Crew performance breakdown has been recognized by the American Institute of Medicine, in scientific literature, and in popular culture. However, few studies of human interaction and performance in confined, isolated environments exist, and the data pertaining to those studies are mostly anecdotal. Many incidents involving crew interpersonal dynamics, those among flight crews, as well as between flight crews and ground controllers, are reported only in non-peer reviewed books and newspapers. Consequently, due to this lack of concrete knowledge, the selection of astronauts and cosmonauts has focused on individual rather than group selection. Additional selection criteria such as interpersonal and communication competence, along with intercultural training, will have a decisive impact on future mission success. Furthermore, industrial psychological research has demonstrated the ability to select a group based on compatibility. With all this in mind, it is essential to conduct further research on heterogeneous, multi-national crews including selection and training for long-duration space missions.

long duration↗

Radiation risk and human space exploration

Radiation protection is essential to enable humans to live and work safely in space. Predictions about the nature and magnitude of the risks posed by space radiation are subject to very large uncertainties. Prudent use of worst-case scenarios may impose unacceptable constraints on shielding mass for spacecraft or habitats, tours of duty of crews on Space Station, and on the radius and duration of sorties on planetary surfaces. The NASA Space Radiation Health Program has been devised to develop the knowledge required to accurately predict and to efficiently manage radiation risk. The knowledge will be acquired by means of a peer-reviewed, largely ground-based and investigator-initiated, basic science research program. The NASA Strategic Plan to accomplish these objectives in a manner consistent with the high priority assigned to the protection and health maintenance of crews will be presented. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of COSPAR.

NASA Discipline Radiation Health↗

Overview of the Neurolab Spacelab mission

Neurolab is a NASA Spacelab mission with multinational cooperative participation that is dedicated to research on the nervous system. The nervous systems of all animal species have evolved in a one-g environment and are functionally influenced by the presence of gravity. The absence of gravity presents a unique opportunity to gain new insights into basic neurologic functions as well as an enhanced understanding of physiological and behavioral responses mediated by the nervous system. The primary goal of Neurolab is to expand our understanding of how the nervous system develops, functions in, and adapts to microgravity space flight. Twenty-six peer reviewed investigations using human and nonhuman test subjects were assigned to one of eight science discipline teams. Individual and integrated experiments within these teams have been designed to collect a wide range of physiological and behavior data in flight as well as pre- and postflight. Information from these investigations will be applicable to enhancing the well being and performance of future long duration space travelers, will contribute to our understanding of normal and pathological functioning of the nervous system, and may be applied by the medical community to enhance the health of humans on Earth.

manned↗

The NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training (NSCORT) in Gravitational Biology

The Life Sciences Division of NASA has initiated a NASA Specialized Centers of Research and Training (NSCORT) program. Three Centers were designated in late 1990, as the culmination of an in-depth peer review analysis of proposals from universities across the nation and around the world. Kansas State University was selected as the NSCORT in Gravitational Biology. This Center is headquartered in the KSU Division of Biology and has a research, training, and outreach function that focuses on cellular and developmental biology.

NASA Discipline Cell Biology↗

Modeling of Cometary Atmospheres

The NASA supported project 'Modeling of Cometary Atmospheres' has been quite successful in broadening our understanding of the cometary environment. We list peer reviewed publications and conference presentation that have been made as a result of studies performed under this project. Following the list we present details of a selection of the results.

Gombosi, Tamas↗