Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Enabling”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 217 records · Page 12

Solving The Space Weather Problem: A 15+ Year Roadmap to Revolutionize Space Weather Research, Protect NASA Space Assets, and Enable Robust Operations

The White Paper (WP) describes a roadmap to address the Space Weather (SpWx) problem. It presents a strategic vision of how a community-wide effort could be organized and implemented to enable transformative advancement in SpWx research and ultimately, in applications. We envision a ‘system-of-systems’—an integrated web of SpWx stations and state-ofthe-art modeling facilities to enable a transformative advance in SpWx nowcasting and forecasting (Figure 1). The Space Weather Aggregated Network of Systems (SWANS) will enable space situational awareness for end-users invested in spaceflight operations, infrastructure risk mitigation, and future human endeavors in space exploration while profoundly transforming Heliophysics research.

A Vourrlidas↗

Enabling Small-Batch Custom Alloy Feedstock Development for Additive Manufacturing

Propulsion, hypersonic, and space nuclear power applications require high strength/high temperature components produced by AM but rely on expensive, supply-chain limited, non-AM optimized metals that lead to high buy-to-fly ratios. In addition, custom alloy development for AM is extremely expensive given the high-cost associated with feedstock development.​ Here, we highlight current efforts to develop a cost-effective process to enable application driven high-throughput AM-optimized metal alloy development using small powder batch processing. A cost-effective process for custom AM-feedstock development will enable fast industry infusion to aid future NASA missions and will enable commercial space partners and supply chain.

Fernando L Reyes Tirado↗

The HERMES Payload for Gateway: Heliophysics Enabled by Lunar Exploration

At launch, the first two modules of the Gateway space station will carry external payloads from NASA and ESA designed to observe the space environment. The NASA payload is the Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES). The HERMES instrumentation includes an ion mass spectrometer, an electron electrostatic analyzer, a proton and electron telescope for energetic particles, and a set of magnetometers. After an approximately one year transit to the Moon, HERMES will begin a science campaign that addresses heliophysics and space-weather objectives. Analyses of the in-situ measurements from HERMES will leverage observations from other Heliophysics spacecraft missions to enable multipoint studies of structure in the solar wind and in the magnetotail. Gateway’s polar lunar orbit is advantageous for this purpose. HERMES also is a pathfinder for future payloads on human-exploration vessels, for which there will be pragmatic interest in the variable radiation environment. Thus, with observations enabled by the ARTEMIS Program, HERMES is expected to be enabling of future exploration missions. Additionally, although HERMES objectives have a space-weather focus, the measurements also can be useful for studies of the Moon. Data, algorithms, calibrations, and related software produced by the project will be fully open and accessible through a Science Operations Center. In this presentation we provide an overview of science plans, including expectations for collaboration with other HSO missions and with international partners. Plain-Language Summary: The HERMES scientific payload will be attached to the HALO module of the Artemis Program's Gateway lunar outpost. HERMES will observe space weather conditions from lunar orbit. The data will be freely available for studies of the Moon and its space environment.

William R Paterson↗

A Modular AC to DC Interface Converter to Enable Lunar Surface Power Transmission

NASA is developing technology to enable sustained operations on extraterrestrial planetary bodies such as the Moon and Mars. One fundamentally enabling technology is long-distance electrical power transmission. This paper describes the Universal Modular Interface Converter (UMIC), which connects 120 VDC space power equipment to a 3 kVAC grid, and is intended to enable kilometer-distance transmission of 1s to 10s of kW of electrical power to support Artemis and future lunar missions. Specifically, this paper describes the technology within the UMIC product, its electrical power interfaces, and the state of its development. It also describes initial hardware and simulation test results of the UMIC.

Planetary surface power↗

Enabling Model Organism and Commercial Astronaut Data Access Through the NASA Open Science Data Repository

NASA’s Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) brings together omics data from NASA’s GeneLab project and non-omics data, including physiological, phenotypic, imaging, and behavioral data from NASA’s Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) collected from decades of space biology research, providing open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) access of these precious data to scientists world-wide. This rich source of meticulously curated metadata and data from spaceflight and analog studies has been mined by the scientific community resulting in dozens of high impact scientific publications that reveals a complex network of molecular and physiological effects of spaceflight across living systems, from microbes to plants, to mammals. Understanding how these effects translate to the human condition is critical as we move deeper into the era of commercial space travel. However, the integration of data, specifically omics data, from astronauts is particularly challenging due to their sensitive nature. OSDR has risen to this challenge by developing a mechanism to control access to identifiable levels of omics data, such as raw sequence data, while enabling public access to processed, unidentifiable, data and associated metadata that will allow the scientific community to interrogate human astronaut data alongside data from model organisms to begin answering these critical questions. The 2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 (I4) mission collected a comprehensive atlas of biological measurements from four civilian astronauts, providing a wealth of data to characterize the effects of spaceflight on the human body. These data include both non-omics and omics assays such as direct RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), single nuclei ATAC-seq and RNA-seq, metagenomics, proteomics, and comprehensive metabolic and cytokine panels, all of which have been integrated into the OSDR system across no less than 9 studies. Each study has been carefully curated using community-backed OSDR standards for sample and assay level metadata ensuring these data are findable and accessible. In addition to hosting both raw and processed data from the principal investigator team for each assay type, the GeneLab team plans to re-process the I4 omics data using GeneLab’s standard processing pipelines. The GeneLab processed data outputs will allow for comparisons across studies on OSDR and enable visualization of these data through the OSDR data visualization platform thereby enabling data reusability and interoperability. Here we describe the robust privacy and security protocols implemented by OSDR to safeguard sensitive health data from astronauts while facilitating metadata and processed data sharing for research purposes. We further provide a road map for navigating the vast amount of data provided for each I4 study on the OSDR, including experimental design, associated experiments, payloads, and missions, data generation and analysis protocols, and associated scientific articles. Additionally, we illustrate how to interrogate the standardized metadata provided in the sample and assay tables as well as various means to download and access the data including programmatically through the GeneLab Open API (GLOpenAPI). The open access of datasets in NASA’s OSDR provides a unique opportunity for the scientific community, as well as citizen scientists and students, to continue using OSDR resources to further unlock profound insights into the consequences of space travel on the human body. Through implementation of security measures to protect sensitive human data, the OSDR seeks to strengthen the science exchange between the Biological and Physical Sciences Program and the Human Research Program, per recommendation 4-1 of the 2023-2032 Decadal Survey, and encourage further sharing and dissemination of astronaut data to provide the scientific community with the resources needed to lay the groundwork for developing targeted mitigation strategies to help withstand the rigors of long-duration spaceflight.

Amanda Marie Saravia-butler↗

Datascope to Enable Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO)

BACKGROUND: NASA has amassed sixty years of knowledge and experience relevant to maintenance of crew health and performance in low earth orbit. The Apollo Program introduced the importance of ensuring progressively autonomous operational capability. Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) will require a gradual shift in the balance of medical responsibility, management, and authority from terrestrial to space-based assets. Terrestrial assets will continue to be essential for pre-mission screening and planning in addition to maintenance of crew health and performance. However, new capabilities are needed to enable EIMO and the amount of data required to support these systems, and mitigate the impacts of data transmission delays and reduced bandwidth coupled with lack of cloud-like resources and on-board computing capacity that is currently unclear or operationally insufficient. OVERVIEW: The overall goal of EIMO is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to analyze crew health and performance data utilizing a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to provide crew medical officers (CMO) with the equivalent of real-time, on-board medical consults. The EIMO ecosystem is envisioned as a “system of systems” where embedded reference databases and real-time data streams from multiple input vectors continuously and seamlessly assess crew health and performance. EIMO will be designed to make recommendations to the CMO using multi-modal AI-based natural language processing and machine learning methods with interoperability to push/pull data within and between multiple vehicle and habitat architectures. DISCUSSION: Data flows and storage/retrieval capacity are severely constrained during space missions and the challenges will become even greater during exploration missions. Just as each past program from Mercury to the International Space Station (ISS) required rethinking the interaction between ground-based controllers and space-based crew, so too will future missions to the Moon and Mars. While the NASA High-Performance Spaceflight Computing Processor project aims to increase computational capacity by 100 times over current spaceflight computers, the projected deliverable still lags considerably behind what will be needed to enable an AI-driven CDSS. Restrictions in processing speed and data storage capacity, coupled with transmission bottlenecks and delays, necessitate definition and optimization of an integrated data architecture to enable a progressively autonomous medical capability.

Medical operations↗

Autonomy to Enable NASA Missions from Aeronautics to Space

2024 ASCEND Call for Sessions Session Format: Panel Session Topic: Space Exploration and Infrastructure: Exploring, Living, and Working in Space (The panel must map to one of six Session Topics - https://www.ascend.events/presenters/call-for-sessions/#sessiontopics) Title: Autonomy to Enable NASA Missions from Aeronautics to Space Short Session Description: In this panel discussion the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will discuss the role that autonomy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play as humanity moves off-world. Recent advances in general autonomy tools are changing the way NASA and its partners leverage autonomy for its air and space initiatives, including Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) concepts and potential lunar and Martian operations. The panelists will consist of autonomy subject matter experts familiar with the current state of the art for autonomy across both aeronautical and space domains. They will discuss how those technologies could evolve as operations become more complex and which autonomy technologies can be used in both the space and aeronautical domains. For example, perhaps autonomy work originally developed for terrestrial applications, like Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), could be applied to off-world lunar and Martian applications and vice versa. Additionally, the panel will address common misconceptions of these technologies, obstacles to implementation, and possible solutions for overcoming those obstacles. Join NASA in exploring how research activities can align to streamline autonomy development efforts, advancing NASA's goals to expand humanity's reach beyond Earth for the benefit of all. Contact Information: • Dr. Adam Yingling • Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) • Adam.j.yingling@nasa.gov, 703-416-9129 Session Length: 1.25 hours, 75 minutes Extended Description: Moderator: Dr. Adam Yingling, NASA, Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy Panel Speakers: • Autonomy Forum Principals o Dr. Charles Norton, Deputy Chief Technologist, Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) o Dr. Carolyn Mercer, Chief Technologist, Space Mission Directorate (SMD) o Dr. Parimal Kopardekar (PK), Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Integration Manager o Danette Alan, NASA, Senior Leader for Autonomous Systems, Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) o Duane Armstrong, Intelligent Systems Lead, Autonomous Systems Laboratory (ASL) Panel Format: • Introduction (10 min): The panel moderator will provide a 10-minute session introduction that will include an overview NASA’s Moon to Mars architecture, AAM autonomy research, and an introduction of the principals as panel speakers. • Moderated Session Part 1 (30 min): There will be a 30-minute moderated session among the moderator and the five autonomy principals to discuss the current state of art for autonomy and how work developed in one domain may be applicable to other domains; including the merits and challenges for implementing those technologies. • Moderated Session Part 2 (25 min): The moderator will then ask the principals to consider how technologies developed across all the domains might be able to address the most salient challenges identified in the previous session. • Q&A (10 min): The session will conclude with 10-minutes of audience Q&A. Session Goals and Outcomes: The session goals are 1) to communicate the importance of autonomy for both aeronautical and space mission, 2) Investigate potential synergies across autonomy research efforts that will enable scalable operations, and 3) to receive community feedback as NASA leverages autonomy to evolve aviation on Earth and enable humanity to live and work off-world.

Aerospace↗

The HERMES Payload for Gateway: Heliophysics Enabled by Lunar Exploration

At launch, the first two modules of the Gateway space station will carry external payloads from NASA and ESA designed to observe the space environment. The NASA payload is the Heliophysics Environmental and Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES). The HERMES instrumentation includes an ion mass spectrometer, an electron electrostatic analyzer, a proton and electron telescope for energetic particles, and a set of magnetometers. After an approximately one year transit to the Moon, HERMES will begin a science campaign that addresses heliophysics and space-weather objectives. Analyses of the in-situ measurements from HERMES will leverage observations from other Heliophysics spacecraft missions to enable multipoint studies of structure in the solar wind and in the magnetotail. Gateway’s polar lunar orbit is advantageous for this purpose. HERMES also is a pathfinder for future payloads on human-exploration vessels, for which there will be pragmatic interest in the variable radiation environment. Thus, with observations enabled by the ARTEMIS Program, HERMES is expected to be enabling of future exploration missions. Additionally, although HERMES objectives have a space-weather focus, the measurements also can be useful for studies of the Moon. Data, algorithms, calibrations, and related software produced by the project will be fully open and accessible through a Science Operations Center. In this presentation we provide an overview of science plans, including expectations for collaboration with other HSO missions and with international partners.

W.R. Paterson↗

Enabling Model Organism and Commercial Astronaut Data Access Through the NASA Open Science Data Repository

NASA’s Open Science Data Repository (OSDR) brings together omics data from NASA’s GeneLab project and non-omics data, including physiological, phenotypic, imaging, and behavioral data from NASA’s Ames Life Sciences Data Archive (ALSDA) collected from decades of space biology research, providing open and FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable) access of these precious data to scientists world-wide. This rich source of meticulously curated metadata and data from spaceflight and analog studies has been mined by the scientific community resulting in dozens of high impact scientific publications that reveals a complex network of molecular and physiological effects of spaceflight across living systems, from microbes to plants, to mammals. Understanding how these effects translate to the human condition is critical as we move deeper into the era of commercial space travel. However, the integration of data, specifically omics data, from astronauts is particularly challenging due to their sensitive nature. OSDR has risen to this challenge by developing a mechanism to control access to identifiable levels of omics data, such as raw sequence data, while enabling public access to processed, unidentifiable, data and associated metadata that will allow the scientific community to interrogate human astronaut data alongside data from model organisms to begin answering these critical questions. The 2021 SpaceX Inspiration4 (I4) mission collected a comprehensive atlas of biological measurements from four civilian astronauts, providing a wealth of data to characterize the effects of spaceflight on the human body. These data include both non-omics and omics assays such as direct RNA sequencing (RNA-seq), single nuclei ATAC-seq and RNA-seq, metagenomics, proteomics, and comprehensive metabolic and cytokine panels, all of which have been integrated into the OSDR system across no less than 9 studies. Each study has been carefully curated using community-backed OSDR standards for sample and assay level metadata ensuring these data are findable and accessible. In addition to hosting both raw and processed data from the principal investigator team for each assay type, the GeneLab team plans to re-process the I4 omics data using GeneLab’s standard processing pipelines. The GeneLab processed data outputs will allow for comparisons across studies on OSDR and enable visualization of these data through the OSDR data visualization platform thereby enabling data reusability and interoperability. Here we describe the robust privacy and security protocols implemented by OSDR to safeguard sensitive health data from astronauts while facilitating metadata and processed data sharing for research purposes. We further provide a road map for navigating the vast amount of data provided for each I4 study on the OSDR, including experimental design, associated experiments, payloads, and missions, data generation and analysis protocols, and associated scientific articles. Additionally, we illustrate how to interrogate the standardized metadata provided in the sample and assay tables as well as instructions for how to download and access the data. The I4 datasets described here re present the first ever comprehensive collection of commercial astronaut data.

Amanda M Saravia-Butler↗

Summary of Technical Interchange Meetings (TIMs) Designed to Enable Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO)

The Exploration Medical Capability Element (ExMC) in NASA’s Human Research Program hosted a series of TIMs in 2023-2024 designed to stimulate discussion around specific topics with the goal of enabling EIMO. In context of the thematic constituent elements of EIMO, namely pre-mission planning, acute/emergent/prolonged medical decision making, supply/resource management and task load management, subject matter experts from industry, academia and government (NASA and other Agencies) provided valuable and actionable guidance and recommendations. Earth-based medical experts will remain indispensable for pre-mission planning, however, management of acute/emergent medical contingencies will require a gradual transition of medical care and decision making from terrestrial to space-based assets to enable support of astronaut health and performance and reduce overall mission risk. Key to achieving these enhancements is providing an integrated data system platform capable of utilizing multiple data streams in concert with a variety of on-board databases and passive monitoring of video and wearable sensors to enable a multi-modal, agentic AI-based clinical decision support system (CDSS) to support crew medical officer (CMO) medical decision-making. The EIMO series of TIMs (I-V) have proven to be instructive and portend a significant paradigm shift will be necessary to maintain crew health and performance on exploration class missions. Importantly, since the expected paradigm shift will be significantly different from the methods of operation that have been employed for the majority of missions from the inception of human spaceflight to date, any proposed methods must be deployed in the setting of ongoing operations early and be “tested, reviewed and practiced” while reliable back-up is available to facilitate an Enterprise-wide level of comfort and acceptance. Serious constraints on data transmission coupled with a large and expanding universe of on-board medical informatics data streams will necessitate implementation of a CDSS to supplant the current reliance on support provided by ground-based SMEs. Establishment of trust in the system by CMO/crew and the ground-based medical support team will be essential. Co-development of a CDSS with industry partners will assure that state of the art tools can be employed, and industry efficiencies can be leveraged. Training regimens, materials and tools must evolve to be responsive (just-in-time training) and facilitate autonomous execution of procedures. Proficiency metrics should be established and be based on validated competencies or milestones as opposed to a prescribed number of training hours. Training should be prioritized for broad, translatable skills that have universal application across a variety of medical conditions. Repetition was deemed to be the key to achieving proficiency and emphasis should lie in procedural training which is known to extinguish more rapidly than diagnostic skills. Advanced tools, e.g., extended reality, can provide more realistic and effective training. Use of advanced probabilistic risk assessment tools will be essential to optimize the medical system capability while carefully balancing risk relative to mass/power/volume limitations. Importance of factoring use-life of medical supplies and maintaining awareness of redundancy and opportunity to re-purpose under off nominal situations was emphasized. Consideration of adopting optimized performance standards vs. “good-enough” performance thresholds is warranted. The use of legacy systems as opposed to creating new systems may be preferable. Managing task load and associated cognitive load will be essential to maintain operational safety and behavioral health. ExMC aspires to create a shared EIMO paradigm and strategic vision for advancing medical system design through novel technologies, training, protocols, and support capabilities, built upon the spirit of successful strategies and innovations over the past six decades of space medicine operations.

Jay Lemery↗

Enabling Interoperability in Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT): Integrating Observations, Models, and AI for Actionable Insights Through NASA'S Intelligent Systems Technology Program

NASA’s Intelligent Systems Technology Program (IST) is driving a paradigm shift in Earth science through the development of Earth System Digital Twins (ESDT). These integrated information systems create a dynamic "digital replica" of the Earth by harmonizing continuous, multi-source observations with high-fidelity models and state-of-the-art artificial intelligence (AI) that enable “What now?”, “What next?”, and “What if?” scenario building. These scenarios are reflected in NASA IST’s series of ESDTs, from the Coastal Zone Digital Twin that integrates complex data on the current state of the Chesapeake Bay to the Terrestrial Environmental Rapid-Replication and Assimilation Hydrometeorological (TerraHydro) AI-based ESDT that forecasts water movement across Earth’s surface, to the Agriculture Land Information System (AgLIS) which can be used to assess optimal planting dates and crop yield estimates. By bridging the gap between vast data archives and actionable insights, these projects enable a system-of-systems approach to understanding complex, interacting Earth processes. This poster will highlight recent innovations and future directions from NASA’s ESDT initiatives: Continuous Data Assimilation & Multi-Source Fusion. A core requirement of the ESDT work is the transition from static models to dynamic "living" replicas. This involves creating frameworks for the continual assimilation of near-real-time data from uncoordinated, heterogeneous sources, including satellite observations and airborne assets, and ground-based Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. These systems link design, operational status, and environmental data, ensuring the digital twin accurately reflects the current state of the physical Earth system. High-Fidelity Hybrid Modeling & Computational Acceleration to enable interactive "what-if" explorations, programs are moving beyond traditional, slow physical solvers by developing fast surrogate machine learning models and Deep Generative Models (DGMs). These hybrid approaches use neural networks to emulate complex physics, such as cloud feedback or ocean dynamics, at a fraction of the original computing cost, often leveraging advanced hardware like Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) to achieve the necessary scale. Federated Ecosystems & Interoperable Frameworks rather than building isolated tools, NASA IST is moving toward federated ESDTs and reusable analytic collaborative frameworks. This theme focuses on interoperability standards and common ontologies that allow specialized digital twins to interact and share data. This system-of-systems architecture supports multi-discipline investigations, such as analyzing how upstream watershed changes impact downstream urban flooding or how wildfire emissions affect regional air quality. By leveraging these advancements, ESDTs empower researchers and decision-makers to conduct real-time analysis and run complex hypothetical scenarios, ultimately improving our understanding of Earth’s evolving systems and informing critical real-world applications.

Earth System↗

Power Electronics for Electrolyzer Applications to Enable Grid Services

The Power Electronics for Electrolyzer Applications to Enable Grid Services project aims to develop smart converter for dedicated electrolyzer applications to enable grid services via standardization of control interfaces between hydrogen electrolyzer system low-level controls and power converter controls. The project provides additional revenue source for electrolyzer through participation in grid services and reduces the cost of deployment and controls integration through standardization and risk due to supply-chain issues. It also enables the adoption of green hydrogen via standardizing the integration of energy storage, renewables, and distributed energy resources. Furthermore, the work provides a controlled validation environment to evaluate scalable integration solution for hydrogen production technologies, improves overall reliability and maintainability of the electrolyzer system for grid applications, and directly contributes to DOE HFTO's "Hydrogen Shot" goal.

energy transitions↗

Investigating Stable Oxygen and Carbon Isotopic Variability in Speleothem Records Over the Last Millennium Using Multiple Isotope-Enabled Climate Models

The incorporation of water isotopologues into the hydrology of general circulation models (GCMs) facilitates the comparison between modeled and measured proxy data in paleoclimate archives. However, the variability and drivers of measured and modeled water isotopologues, as well as the diversity of their representation in different models, are not well constrained. Improving our understanding of this variability in past and present climates will help to better constrain future climate change projections and decrease their range of uncertainty. Speleothems are a precisely datable terrestrial paleoclimate archives and provide well-preserved (semi-)continuous multivariate isotope time series in the lower latitudes and mid-latitudes and are therefore well suited to assess climate and isotope variability on decadal and longer timescales. However, the relationships of speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopes to climate variables are influenced by site-specific parameters, and their comparison to GCMs is not always straightforward. Here we compare speleothem oxygen and carbon isotopic signatures from the Speleothem Isotopes Synthesis and Analysis database version 2 (SISALv2) to the output of five different water-isotope-enabled GCMs (ECHAM5-wiso, GISS-E2-R, iCESM, iHadCM3, and isoGSM) over the last millennium (850–1850 CE). We systematically evaluate differences and commonalities between the standardized model simulation outputs. The goal is to distinguish climatic drivers of variability for modeled isotopes and compare them to those of measured isotopes. We find strong regional differences in the oxygen isotope signatures between models that can partly be attributed to differences in modeled surface temperature. At low latitudes, precipitation amount is the dominant driver for stable water isotope variability; however, at cave locations the agreement between modeled temperature variability is higher than for precipitation variability. While modeled isotopic signatures at cave locations exhibited extreme events coinciding with changes in volcanic and solar forcing, such fingerprints are not apparent in the speleothem isotopes. This may be attributed to the lower temporal resolution of speleothem records compared to the events that are to be detected. Using spectral analysis, we can show that all models underestimate decadal and longer variability compared to speleothems (albeit to varying extents). We found that no model excels in all analyzed comparisons, although some perform better than the others in either mean or variability. Therefore, we advise a multi-model approach whenever comparing proxy data to modeled data. Considering karst and cave internal processes, e.g., through isotope-enabled karst models, may alter the variability in speleothem isotopes and play an important role in determining the most appropriate model. By exploring new ways of analyzing the relationship between the oxygen and carbon isotopes, their variability, and co-variability across timescales, we provide methods that may serve as a baseline for future studies with different models using, e.g., different isotopes, different climate archives, or different time periods.

isotope-enabled simulations↗

Initial Analysis of Digitally Enabled Cooperative Operations in Class D Terminal Airspace

The primary contribution of this paper is an initial analysis of integrating digitally enabled cooperative operations (or digital operations for short) with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations in the terminal airspace around a Class D airport, specifically around Fort Worth Alliance airport (KAFW). Enabled by connected digital technologies and automated information exchange, digital operations as envisioned would utilize cooperative practices and operator-responsible separation to ensure safety. In the present study, three conflict management configurations for digital operations were analyzed: 1) centralized with a single instance of a conflict management service to model a scenario with only one fleet operator conducting digital operations or all fleet operators utilizing the same service, 2) federated with two different instances to model a scenario with two different fleet operators conducting digital operations, and 3) fully distributed with a different instance for each digital operation. In simulations in which recorded tracks for VFR and IFR operations were played back and digital operations were modeled that would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 20 minutes (given no conflict resolution maneuvers), there were one or fewer losses of separation (LOS) across the three conflict management configurations. The same result was seen in simulations in which digital operations would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 10 minutes. However, in simulations in which digital operations would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 5 minutes, the number of LOS ranged between six and ten. This highlights the need for follow-on research to investigate the extent to which additional capabilities for digital operations, such as complexity management and/or flow organization, may be needed.

digitally enabled cooperative operations, digital ↗

Initial Analysis of Digitally Enabled Cooperative Operations in Class D Terminal Airspace

The primary contribution of this paper is an initial analysis of integrating digitally enabled cooperative operations (or digital operations for short) with Visual Flight Rules (VFR) and Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) operations in the terminal airspace around a Class D airport, specifically around Fort Worth Alliance airport (KAFW). Enabled by connected digital technologies and automated information exchange, digital operations as envisioned would utilize cooperative practices and operator-responsible separation to ensure safety. In the present study, three conflict management configurations for digital operations were analyzed: 1) centralized with a single instance of a conflict management service to model a scenario with only one fleet operator conducting digital operations or all fleet operators utilizing the same service, 2) federated with two different instances to model a scenario with two different fleet operators conducting digital operations, and 3) fully distributed with a different instance for each digital operation. In simulations in which recorded tracks for VFR and IFR operations were played back and digital operations were modeled that would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 20 minutes (given no conflict resolution maneuvers), there were one or fewer losses of separation (LOS) across the three conflict management configurations. The same result was seen in simulations in which digital operations would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 10 minutes. However, in simulations in which digital operations would nominally arrive at KAFW once every 5 minutes, the number of LOS ranged between six and ten. This highlights the need for follow-on research to investigate the extent to which additional capabilities for digital operations, such as complexity management and/or flow organization, may be needed.

digitally enabled cooperative operations↗

AI-ENABLED MONITORING OPTIONS TOWARDS SECURE MICROREACTOR DEPLOYMENT AND OPERATIONS

Global nuclear energy deployment scenarios suggest favorable economics for smaller, more versatile, and self-contained reactor technologies. Recognizing their key features as integrated, autonomous and either semi-remotely operated or fully remotely operated systems, microreactors are expected to be deployed in large numbers servicing off/micro-grids, many in geographically remote locations. Integrated nature of these systems as well as ease of their transportation as complete units, simplified installation and relocation/decommissioning challenge traditional continuity-of-knowledge practices used for conventional light water reactors where refueling is done onsite at designated times only replacing portions of their cores and only after their full commissioning for operations including completion of their containment building with security and safeguards measures in place. This effort is exploring AI (artificial intelligence)-enabled monitoring options that would be design agnostic and would assure secure unit deployment and operations. The principle is to maintain situational awareness via real-time evaluations of simultaneous and remotely transmitted monitoring data capturing key safeguards attributes including such characteristics as temperature, radiation, vibrational signals (inter alia), and others. The key principle is to provide reliable and resilient security options while maintaining simplified and economical deployment. The paper will review feasible options for AI-enabled solutions for such evaluations.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

Reversible Phase Transitions Enable Cyclic Isothermal CO 2 Capture in Redox‐Activated Perovskite‐Structured Sorbents

Sorption‐enhanced steam reforming and gasification using CO 2 sorbents enable the production of H 2 ‐rich syngas from carbonaceous feedstocks but are limited by significant temperature swings and sintering‐induced activity loss. Perovskite‐structured oxides are presented herein as sintering‐resistant, redox‐activated isothermal CO 2 sorbents capable of overcoming these challenges by releasing lattice oxygen to partially oxidize the carbonaceous feedstock while capturing CO 2 , shifting equilibrium toward H 2 production. Building on this, the structural and thermodynamic impact of Fe doping on the CO 2 sorption properties of SrMn 1‐ x Fe x O 3‐ δ is investigated for sorption‐enhanced reforming. Experimental results demonstrate that these sorbents enable isothermal production of high‐quality, H 2 ‐enriched syngas from carbonaceous feedstocks. Laboratory and synchrotron‐based powder X‐ray diffraction analyses, coupled with density functional theory calculations, reveal the structural dynamics and energy landscape of the SrMn 1‐ x Fe x O 3‐ δ perovskite system under reaction conditions, elucidating the solid‐state reaction pathway and the effect of Fe doping on the extent of carbonation.

CO2 capture↗

3D Artificial Solid-Electrolyte Interphase for Lithium Metal Anodes Enabled by Insulator–Metal–Insulator Layered Heterostructures

Despite considerable efforts to prevent lithium (Li) dendrite growth, stable cycling of Li metal anodes with various structures remains extremely difficult due to the direct contact of the liquid electrolyte with Li. Rational design of solid-electrolyte interphase (SEI) for 3D electrodes is a promising but still challenging strategy for preventing Li dendrite growth and avoiding lithium–electrolyte side reactions in Li-metal batteries. Here, a 3D architecture is constructed with g-C 3 N 4 /graphene/g-C 3 N 4 insulator–metal–insulator sandwiched nanosheets to guide uniform Li plating/stripping in the van der Waals gap between the graphene and the g-C 3 N 4 , and the function of which can be regarded as a 3D artificial SEI. Li deposition on the surface of g-C 3 N 4 is suppressed due to its insulating nature. However, its uniform lithiophilic sites and nanopore channels enable homogeneous lithium plating between the graphene and the g-C 3 N 4 , prohibiting the direct contact of the electrolyte with the Li metal. The use of the g-C 3 N 4 -layer-modified 3D anode enables long-term Li deposition with a high Coulombic efficiency and stable cycling of full cells under high cathode loading, limited Li excess, and lean electrolyte conditions. The concept of a 3D artificial SEI will shed light on developing safe and stable Li-metal anodes.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗