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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 217 records · Page 12

Building Reliable Printed Circuit Boards - the Lessons Learned

"Printed circuit boards (PCBs) are the baseline for electronics manufacturing upon which electronic components are mounted and formed into electronic systems. PCBs are used in a variety of electronic circuits from simple one-transistor amplifiers to large super computers. A PCB serves three main functions: 1) it provides the necessary mechanical support for the components in the circuit 2) it provides the necessary electrical interconnections, and 3) it bears some form of legend which identifies the components it carries. The failure modes on the PCBs can be categorized in a hierarchical structure, in which the mechanisms and causes are site or location dependant. This one day workshop will discuss a variety of failure mechanisms that effect the functionality of PCBs. These mechanisms can be related to how PCB materials are selected, PCBs are designed, manufactured, tested and used in the field conditions. The workshop will begin with an overview of PCB manufacturing, materials and processes. With the help of examples and case studies, a wide range of failure mechanisms will be discussed, case studies are focused on digital circuits, however some failures in analog, double sided boards are also presented. The workshop then provides the guideline for selection of methodologies for identifying potential failure mechanisms based on the failure history and how a systematic root cause failure analysis of the PCB can result in prevention of future issues."

Sood, Bhanu↗

Semi-Autonomous Spacecraft On-Board Ephemeris Propagation

Two strategies are presented for semi-autonomous on-board trajectory propagation. One implements a semi-analytic method and rectifies, when needed, a simple on-board (on-line) ephemeris. The method is called rectification in which only several parameters are uplinked to the spacecraft infrequently. The other strategy uses TOPEX/POSEIDON experience to build a data compression device for a wide range of orbits. A trade-off study is conducted to relate accuracy requirements with semi-major axis and eccentricity to minimize the frequency of uplinking.

spacecraft↗

An embedded planar-foil capacitor material, FPGA based interposer, aimed at improving system performance and reduced board size for space based electronics

This paper presents work to date in developing, and testing an embedded planar-foil capacitor based interposer intended to be integrated together with high-density components such as Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), and Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC). FPGA devices typically have a large number of I/O and power pins. The high speed enabled by these devices requires a large number of discrete bypass capacitors as close as possible to the power pins. These capacitors take up a considerable amount of the board area on the application circuit board. The developed interposer replaces these components freeing up space of traditional bypass capacitors for other circuitry.

Cheng, Ben↗

Preparation for and Performance of a Pseudomonas aeruginosa Biofilm Experiment On Board the International Space Station

Biofilms are a problem on Earth given their ability to degrade the materials upon which they grow and due to their relevance to infections. Remarkably, 65% and 80% of infections and chronic diseases on Earth are associated with biofilms, respectively. In space, these problems' impact is higher because the crew's lives and mission success depend on nominal operation of mechanical systems. Furthermore, the isolated confined environment nature of spaceflight may increase the rates of disease transmission. In the case of the International Space Station (ISS), biofilms are an identified problem on the Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS), namely on the water processor assembly (WPA). In late 2019, the Space Biofilms experiment launched towards ISS to (i) characterize the mass, thickness, morphology, and gene expression of biofilms formed in space with respect to matched Earth controls, (ii) interrogate the expression of antimicrobial resistance genes, and (iii) test novel materials as potential biofilm control strategies for future ECLSS components. For this, 288 bacterial samples were prepared prior to the launch of the Northrop Grumman CRS-12 mission from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. The samples were integrated into the spaceflight hardware, BioServe's Fluid Processing Apparatus (FPA) packed in sets of eight in Group Activation Packs (GAP). Half of these samples were activated and terminated on orbit by NASA astronauts Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, while the remaining half were processed equivalently on Earth. The spaceflight bacterial samples of Space Biofilms returned on board SpaceX' CRS-19 Dragon spacecraft, in early 2020. We here describe the test campaign implemented to verify the experiment design and confirm it would enable us to achieve the project's scientific goals. This campaign ended with the Experiment Verification Test (EVT), from which we here present example morphology and transcriptomic results. We describe in detail the sample preparation prior to flight, including cleaning and sterilization of the coupons of six materials (SS316, passivated-SS316, lubricant impregnated surface, catheter-grade silicone with and without a nanotopography, and cellulose membrane), loading and integration of growth media, bacterial inoculum, fixative and preservative to enable experiment termination on orbit. Additionally, we describe the performance of the experiment on board the ISS, including crew activities, use of assets, temperature profile, and experiment timeline; all leading to a successful spaceflight experiment.

Pamela Flores↗

On-Board Model Based Fault Diagnosis for CubeSat Attitude Control Subsystem: Flight Data Results

Self-sufficient, robotic spacecraft require estimates of their hardware health state in order to project future system state and plan actions toward achieving mission goals. In this paper, we report on integration of a Model-Based Fault Diagnosis (MBFD) model and reasoning engine into flight software leveraging the Arcsecond Space Telescope Enabling Research in Astrophysics (ASTERIA) mission, including test results against captured flight data using the ASTERIA system testbed. Our effort integrated the Model-based Off-Nominal State Identification and Detection (MONSID) model-based reasoning system, developed by Okean Solutions, into ASTERIA flight software using the F Prime software framework. The MONSID engine was supplied with a model of the Blue Canyon Technologies XACT attitude control system (ACS) and tested against flight data and seeded fault tests. While we were unable to conduct an on-board experiment due to the premature loss of ASTERIA, our effort proved the feasibility of on-board model-based fault management, demonstrating reliable and accurate diagnosis using captured data, and further supporting a closed-loop spacecraft autonomy demonstration including autonomous navigation in off-nominal conditions.

Prather, Maurice↗

Maximizing Dust Devil Follow-up Observations on Mars Using Cubesats and On-board Scheduling

Several million dust devil events occur on Mars every day. These events last, on average, about 30 minutes and range in size from meters to hundreds of meters in diameter. Designing low-cost missions that will improve our knowledge of dust devil formation and evolution, and their connection to atmospheric dynamics and the dust cycle, is fundamental to informing future crewed Mars lander missions about surface conditions. In this paper we present a mission for a constellation of low orbiting Mars cubesats, each carrying imagers with agile pointing capabilities. The goal is to maximize the number of dust devil follow-up observations through real-time, on-board scheduling. We study scenarios where cubesats are equipped with a 2.5 degree boresight angle camera that accommodates five slew positions (including nadir). We assume a concept of operations where the cubesats autonomously survey the surface of Mars and can autonomously detect dust devils from their surface imagery. When a dust devil is detected, the constellation is autonomously re-tasked through an on-board distributed scheduler to capture as many follow-on images of the event as possible, so as to study its evolution. The cubesat orbits are propagated assuming two-body dynamics and the ground tracks and camera field of view are computed assuming a spherical Mars. Realistic inter-agent communication link opportunities are computed and included in our optimization, which allow for real-time event detection information to be shared within the constellation. We compare against a powerful ``omniscient'' mission which has a priori knowledge of all dust devil activity to show the gap between predicted performance and the best possible outcome. In particular, we show that the communications are especially important for acquiring follow-up observations, and that a realistic distributed scheduling mechanism is sufficient to capture nearly all dust devil observations that are possible for a given orbit configuration.

Hook, Joshua Vander↗

Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Particle Energization in Space Plasmas Using on-Board Wave-Particle Correlator Instrumentation

A leap forward in our understanding of particle energization in plasmas throughout the heliosphere is essential to answer longstanding questions in heliophysics, including the heating of the solar corona, acceleration of the solar wind, and energization of particles that lead to observable phenomena, such as the Earth’s aurora. The low densities and high temperatures of typical heliospheric environments lead to weakly collisional plasma conditions. Under these conditions, the energization of particles occurs primarily through collisionless interactions between the electromagnetic fields and the individual plasma particles with energies characteristic of a particular interaction. To understand how the plasma heating and particle acceleration impacts the macroscopic evolution of the heliosphere, impacting phenomena such as extreme space weather, it is critical to understand these collisionless wave-particle interactions on the characteristic ion and electron kinetic timescales. Such understanding requires high-cadence measurements of both the electromagnetic fields and the three-dimensional particle velocity distributions. Although existing instrument technology enables these measurements, a major challenge to maximize the scientific return from these measurements is the limited amount of data that can be transmitted to the ground due to telemetry constraints. A valuable, but underutilized, approach to overcome this limitation is to compute on-board correlations of the maximum-cadence field and particle measurements to improve the sampling time by several orders of magnitude. Here we review the fundamentals of the innovative field-particle correlation technique, present a formulation of the technique that can be implemented as an on-board wave-particle correlator, and estimate results that can be achieved with existing instrumental capabilities for particle velocity distribution measurements.

plasma heating↗

Should’ve Could’ve: Progress in the Systems Engineering of the Mars2020 On-Board Planner

Mars rover operations has traditionally controlled behavior using meticulously compiled, so-called “Master” sequences that enforce deterministic timing and ordering of activities. While the approach is effective at managing risk and complexity, it can also be inefficient. Extended operations of the Mars2020 rover envisions a fundamentally different scheduling and execution approach. Atomic activities are constrained by mission operators in time, resource usage, and a structure of dependencies. The rover flight software will create and re-create schedules, responding to available energy, data volume, actual activity durations and execution status, observed temperatures, and other on-board state. Schedules are expected to change substantially in the course of execution. The solution space is prohibitively large and probabilistic in nature. A range of emergent behavior is accessible depending on the interaction between actual on-board state and a given formulation of constraints. For years, the specification and implementation of this capability have been considered and refined, as testing and analysis have mapped the contours of the system. Many concepts that could have been adopted were rejected, and in some cases, emergent properties have been exposed and beaten back with approaches to steer the behavior. This paper discusses some of the design history and underlying reasoning in the systems engineering of the first autonomous activity planner on Mars.

Kuhn, Stephen R↗

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. Volume Three

The Columbia Accident Investigation Board's (CAIB) independent investigation into the February 1, 2003 destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia produced a six volume report. This is Volume III of the report. Volume III contains other technical documents produced by NASA and other organizations, which were provided to the CAIB in support of its inquiry into the tragedy. Technical documents included in the report are: Appendix E.1 CoFR Endorsements; Appendix E.2 STS-107 Image Analysis Team Final Report; Appendix E.3 An Assessment of Potential Material Candidates for the 'Flight Day 2', Radar Object Observed during the NASA Mission STS-107; Appendix E.4 Columbia Early Sighting Assessment Team Final Report.

STS-107↗

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. Volume Four

This is Volume Four of a set of six reports produced by NASA and other organizations which were provided to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board (CAIB) in support of its inquiry into the February 1, 2003 destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia. The Technical Documents included in this volume are: Appendix F.1 Water Absorption by Foam; Appendix F.2 Follow the TPS; Appendix F.3 MADS Sensor Data; Appendix F.4 ET Cryoinsulation; Appendix F.5 Space Shuttle STS-107 Columbia Accident Investigation, and External Tank Working Group Final Report - Volume 1.

CRYOINSULATION↗

Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. Volume Five

Volume V of the Report contains appendices that were not cited in VolumeI. These consist of documents produced by NASA and other organizations, which were provided to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board in support of its inquiry into the February 1, 2003 destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia The contents include:. Appendix G.1 Requirements and Procedures for Certification of Flight Readiness; Appendix G.2 Appendix R, Space Shuttle Program Contingency Action Plan; Appendix G.3 CAIB Charter, with Revisions; Appendix G.4 Group 1 Matrix Brief on Maintenance, Material, and Management; Appendix G.5 Vehicle Data Mapping(VDM) Team Final Report, Jun 13, 2003; Appendix G.6 SRB Working Group Presentation to CAIB; Appendix G. 7 Starfire Team Final Report, Jun 3, 2003; Appendix G.8 Using the Data and Observations from Flight STS-107, Executive Summary; Appendix G.9 Contracts, Incentives, and Safety/Technical Excellence; Appendix G.10 Detailed Summaries: Rogers Commission Report, ASAP Report, SIAT Report; Appendix G.11 Foam Application and Production Chart; Appendix G.12 Crew Survivability Report; and Appendix G.12 Aero/Aerothermal/ Thermal/Structures Team FinalReport, August 6, 2003.

CAIB (COLUMBIA ACCIDENT INVESTIGATION BOARD)↗

On-Board File Management and Its Application in Flight Operations

In this paper, the author presents the minimum functions required for an on-board file management system. We explore file manipulation processes and demonstrate how the file transfer along with the file management system will be utilized to support flight operations and data delivery.

on-board file management flight operations flight ↗

On-board processor for direct distribution of change detection data products

We are developing an on-board imagin radar data processor for repeat-pass change detection and hazards management. This is the enabling technology for NASA ESE to utilize imaging radars. This processor will enable the observation and use of surface deformation data over rapidly evolving natural hazards, both as an aid to scientific understanding ad to provide timely data to agencies responsible for the management and mitigation of natural disasters.

InSAR↗

Managing the On-Board Data Storage, Acknowledgement and Retransmission System for Spitzer

The Spitzer Space Telescope has a two-phase downlink system. Recorded data are transmitted during one telecom session. Then commands are sent during the next session to delete those data that were received on the ground and to retransmit those data that were missed. We must build science sequences that are as efficient as possible to make the best use of our supply of liquid helium. One way to improve efficiency is to use only the minimum time needed during telecom sessions to transmit the predicted volume of data. But, we must also not fill the on-board storage and must allow enough time margin to retransmit missed data. We describe tools and procedures that allow us to build science sequences that are single-fault tolerant in this regard and that allow us to recover quickly and safely from anomalies that affect the receipt or acknowledgment (i.e. deletion) of data.

on-board storage↗