SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Scientific Capabilities”

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.

SourceResearch connectionFrom yearThrough year

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

At least 217 records · Page 12

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1988

The Hubble Space Telescope high speed photometer

The Hubble Space Telescope will provide the opportunity to perform precise astronomical photometry above the disturbing effects of the atmosphere. The High Speed Photometer is designed to provide the observatory with a stable, precise photometer with wide dynamic range, broad wavelenth coverage, time resolution in the microsecond region, and polarimetric capability. Here, the scientific requirements for the instrument are examined, the unique design features of the photometer are explored, and the improvements to be expected over the performance of ground-based instruments are projected.

Vancitters, G. W., Jr.↗

NASA NTRS1991

Early results from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE)

Data obtained with the FIR Absolute Spectrophotometer, Differential Microwave Radiometers, and Diffuse IR Background Experiment (DIRBE) on the COBE satellite since its launch in November 1989 are briefly characterized. The COBE spacecraft and its 900-km 99-deg orbit are described; the scientific goals and capabilities of the instruments are reviewed; and sample DIRBE data are presented in a map and graph. Upper limits on the Comptonization parameter (y less than 0.001) and the chemical potential (mu less than 0.01 at the 3sigma level) are determined, and the spectrum of the dipole anisotropy is shown to be that of a Doppler-shifted blackbody. The DIRBE 100-micron sky brightness values at the ecliptic poles are found to be significantly lower than those measured by IRAS.

Mather, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS1990

Supercomputing systems - A projection to 2000

Advances in computer architecture, computer science, computational methods, and constituent technologies are expected to lead to significant advances in the performance of scientific supercomputing system capabilities over the next decade. By the year 2000, single 1-in-sq dies are projected to incorporate four processors, each of which would be operating faster than 750 million instructions per second (MIPS) for a total on-chip processing performance in excess of 2000 MIPS. Scalable parallel processors can be expected to contain thousands of such multiple processor chips. In general, semiconductor performance advances appear to change about one order of magnitude every five years. Rotating magnetic memory and communications technology are not advancing as rapidly, with the result that the allocation of functions within the system configurations fo future supercomputer systems will require important changes. Availability of massively parallel heterogeneous processing capabilities should be a catalyst leading to new approaches for applications.

Lundstrom, S. F.↗

NASA NTRS1990

X-ray spectroscopic instrumentation for the 21st century

Several technologies being developed for high resolution X-ray spectroscopy are compared to determine the most suitable applications for each. Nondispersive cryogenic technology is considered by means of devices such as microcalorimeters and superconducting tunnel-junction detectors, and dispersive technologies are represented by crystal diffractors, transmission gratings and reflection gratings. Calorimeters and superconducting tunnel-junction conductors are found to be suitable for high energies while reflection gratings are more effective at lower energies. In general, however, the selected technology depends primarily on the particular implementation. Parameters such as launch capability, constraints, and scientific drivers are the guiding forces for selecting a particular device.

Kahn, Steven M.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Space Station Furnace Facility. Volume 2: Summary of technical reports

The Space Station Furnace Facility (SSFF) is a modular facility for materials research in the microgravity environment of the Space Station Freedom (SSF). The SSFF is designed for crystal growth and solidification research in the fields of electronic and photonic materials, metals and alloys, and glasses and ceramics, and will allow for experimental determination of the role of gravitational forces in the solidification process. The facility will provide a capability for basic scientific research and will evaluate the commercial viability of low-gravity processing of selected technologically important materials. In order to accommodate the furnace modules with the resources required to operate, SSFF developed a design that meets the needs of the wide range of furnaces that are planned for the SSFF. The system design is divided into subsystems which provide the functions of interfacing to the SSF services, conditioning and control for furnace module use, providing the controlled services to the furnace modules, and interfacing to and acquiring data from the furnace modules. The subsystems, described in detail, are as follows: Power Conditioning and Distribution Subsystem; Data Management Subsystem; Software; Gas Distribution Subsystem; Thermal Control Subsystem; and Mechanical Structures Subsystem.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1992

SIRTF - Space Infrared Telescope Facility

SIRTF (Space Infrared Telescope Facility), a one meter class cryogenically cooled observatory for infrared astronomy, is briefly discussed. The characteristics of the Infrared Array Camera, Infrared Spectrograph, and Multiband Imaging Photometer on SIRTF are summarized and the SIRTF characteristics are compared with those of IRAS. The key scientific aims and capabilities of SIRTF are outlined.

Erickson, E. F.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Scientific study in solar and plasma physics relative to rocket and balloon projects

The goals of this research are to provide scientific and technical capabilities in the areas of solar and plasma physics contained in research programs and instrumentation development relative to current rocket and balloon projects; to develop flight instrumentation design, flight hardware, and flight program objectives and participate in peer reviews as appropriate; and to participate in solar-terrestrial physics modeling studies and analysis of flight data and provide theoretical investigations as required by these studies.

Wu, S. T.↗

NASA NTRS1994

The 1995 NASA guide to graduate support

The future of the United States is in the classrooms of America and tomorrow's scientific and technological capabilities are derived from today's investments in research. In 1980, NASA initiated the Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP) to cultivate additional research ties to the academic community and to support promising students pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering. Since then, approximately 1300 students have completed the program's requirements. In 1987, the program was expanded to include the Underrepresented Minority and Disabled Focus (UMDF) Component. This program was designed to increase participation of underrepresented groups in graduate study and research and, ultimately, in space science and aerospace technology careers. Approximately 270 minority students have completed the program's requirements while making significant contributions to the nation's aerospace efforts. Continuing to expand fellowship opportunities, NASA announced the Graduate Student Fellowships in Global Change Research in 1990. Designed to support the rapid growth in the study of earth as a system, more than 250 fellowships have been awarded. And, in 1992, NASA announced opportunities in the multiagency High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program designed to accelerate the development and application of massively parallel processing. Approximately five new fellowships will be awarded yearly. This booklet will guide you in your efforts to participate in programs for graduate student support.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1999

GPS Sounding Rocket Developments

Sounding rockets are suborbital launch vehicles capable of carrying scientific payloads several hundred miles in altitude. These missions return a variety of scientific data including; chemical makeup and physical processes taking place In the atmosphere, natural radiation surrounding the Earth, data on the Sun, stars, galaxies and many other phenomena. In addition, sounding rockets provide a reasonably economical means of conducting engineering tests for instruments and devices used on satellites and other spacecraft prior to their use in more expensive activities. The NASA Sounding Rocket Program is managed by personnel from Goddard Space Flight Center Wallops Flight Facility (GSFC/WFF) in Virginia. Typically around thirty of these rockets are launched each year, either from established ranges at Wallops Island, Virginia, Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska; White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico or from Canada, Norway and Sweden. Many times launches are conducted from temporary launch ranges in remote parts of the world requi6ng considerable expense to transport and operate tracking radars. An inverse differential GPS system has been developed for Sounding Rocket. This paper addresses the NASA Wallops Island history of GPS Sounding Rocket experience since 1994 and the development of a high accurate and useful system.

Bull, Barton↗

NASA NTRS1999

GPS Sounding Rocket Developments

Bull, Barton↗

NASA NTRS2000

A Real Time Differential GPS Tracking System for NASA Sounding Rockets

Sounding rockets are suborbital launch vehicles capable of carrying scientific payloads to several hundred miles in altitude. These missions return a variety of scientific data including: chemical makeup and physical processes taking place in the atmosphere, natural radiation surrounding the Earth, data on the Sun, stars, galaxies and many other phenomena. In addition, sounding rockets provide a reasonably economical means of conducting engineering tests for instruments and devices to be used on satellites and other spacecraft prior to their use in these more expensive missions. Typically around thirty of these rockets are launched each year, from established ranges at Wallops Island, Virginia; Poker Flat Research Range, Alaska; White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico and from a number of ranges outside the United States. Many times launches are conducted from temporary launch ranges in remote parts of the world requiring considerable expense to transport and operate tracking radars. In order to support these missions, an inverse differential GPS system has been developed. The flight system consists of a small, inexpensive receiver, a preamplifier and a wrap-around antenna. A rugged, compact, portable ground station extracts GPS data from the raw payload telemetry stream, performs a real time differential solution and graphically displays the rocket's path relative to a predicted trajectory plot. In addition to generating a real time navigation solution, the system has been used for payload recovery, timing, data timetagging, precise tracking of multiple payloads and slaving of optical tracking systems for over the horizon acquisition. This paper discusses, in detail, the flight and ground hardware, as well as data processing and operational aspects of the system, and provides evidence of the system accuracy.

Bull, Barton↗

NASA NTRS1996

Fact Sheet: National Space Policy

For over three decades, the United States has led the world in the exploration and use of outer space. Our achievements in space have inspired a generation of Americans and people throughout the world. We will maintain this leadership role by supporting a strong, stable, and balanced national space program that serves our goals in national security, foreign policy, economic growth, environmental stewardship, and scientific and technical excellence. Access to and use of space are central for preserving peace and protecting US national security as well as civil and commercial interests. The United States will pursue greater levels of partnership and cooperation in national and international space activities and work with other nations to ensure the continued exploration and use of outer space for peaceful purposes. The goals of the US space program are to: (a) Enhance knowledge of the Earth, the solar system, and the universe through human and robotic exploration; (b) Strengthen and maintain the national security of the United States; (c) Enhance the economic competitiveness and scientific and technical capabilities of the United States; (d) Encourage State, local, and private sector investment in, and use of, space technologies; (e) Promote international cooperation to further US domestic, national security, and foreign policies. The United States is committed to the exploration and use of outer space by all nations for peaceful purposes and for the benefit of all humanity. "Peaceful purposes" allow defense and intelligence-related activities in pursuit of national security and other goals. The United States rejects any claims to sovereignty by any nation over outer space or celestial bodies, or any portion thereof, and rejects any limitations on the fundamental right of sovereign nations to acquire data from space. The United States considers the space systems of any nation to be national property with the right of passage through and operations in space without interference. Purposeful interference with space systems shall be viewed as an infringement on sovereign rights. The US Government will maintain and coordinate separate national security and civil space systems where differing needs dictate. All actions undertaken by agencies and departments in implementing the national space policy shall be consistent with US law, regulations, national security requirements, foreign policy, international obligations, and nonproliferation policy. The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) is the principal forum for resolving issues related to national space policy. As appropriate, the NSTC and NSC will co-chair policy process. This policy will be implemented within the overall resource and policy guidance provided by the President.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2002

Bioastronautics: optimizing human performance through research and medical innovations

A strategic use of resources is essential to achieving long-duration space travel and understanding the human physiological changes in space, including the roles of food and nutrition in space. To effectively address the challenges of space flight, the Bioastronautics Initiative, undertaken in 2001, expands extramural collaboration and leverages unique capabilities of the scientific community and the federal government, all the while applying this integrated knowledge to Earth-based problems. Integral to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's missions in space is the reduction of risk of medical complications, particularly during missions of long duration. Cumulative medical experience and research provide the ability to develop evidence-based medicine for prevention, countermeasures, and treatment modalities for space flight. The early approach applied terrestrial clinical judgment to predict medical problems in space. Space medicine has evolved to an evidence-based approach with the use of biomedical data gathered and lessons learned from previous space flight missions to systematically aid in decision making. This approach led, for example, to the determination of preliminary nutritional requirements for space flight, and it aids in the development of nutrition itself as a countermeasure to support nutritional mitigation of adaptation to space.

Nutritional Requirements↗

NASA NTRS2004

Space Exploration Technologies Developed through Existing and New Research Partnerships Initiatives

The Space Partnership Development Program of NASA has been highly successful in leveraging commercial research investments to the strategic mission and applied research goals of the Agency through industry academic partnerships. This program is currently undergoing an outward-looking transformation towards Agency wide research and discovery goals that leverage partnership contributions to the strategic research needed to demonstrate enabling space exploration technologies encompassing both robotic spacecraft missions and human space flight. New Space Partnership Initiatives with incremental goals and milestones will allow a continuing series of accomplishments to be achieved throughout the duration of each initiative, permit the "lessons learned" and capabilities acquired from previous implementation steps to be incorporated into subsequent phases of the initiatives, and allow adjustments to be made to the implementation of the initiatives as new opportunities or challenges arise. An Agency technological risk reduction roadmap for any required technologies not currently available will identify the initiative focus areas for the development, demonstration and utilization of space resources supporting the production of power, air, and water, structures and shielding materials. This paper examines the successes to date, lessons learned, and programmatic outlook of enabling sustainable exploration and discovery through governmental, industrial, academic, and international partnerships. Previous government and industry technology development programs have demonstrated that a focused research program that appropriately shares the developmental risk can rapidly mature low Technology Readiness Level (TRL) technologies to the demonstration level. This cost effective and timely, reduced time to discovery, partnership approach to the development of needed technological capabilities addresses the dual use requirements by the investing partners. In addition, these partnerships help to ensure the attainment of complimenting human and robotic exploration goals for NASA while providing additional capabilities for sustainable scientific research benefiting life and security on Earth.

Nall, Mark↗

NASA NTRS2009

Multi-Mission Suitability of the NASA Ames Modular Common Bus

The obvious advantages of small spacecraft - their lower cost structure and the rapid development schedule - have enabled a large number of missions in the past. However, most of these missions have been focused on Earth observation from low Earth orbits. In 2006, the Small Spacecraft Division at the NASA Ames Research Center began the development of the Modular Common Bus, a spacecraft capable of delivering scientifically and technically useful payloads to a variety of destinations within 0.1 AU around the Earth. The core technologies used in the Common Bus design are a composite structure with body-mounted solar cells, an integrated avionics unit, and a high performance bipropellant propulsion system. Due to its modular approach, the Common Bus can be adapted to fit specific mission needs while still using a standardized and qualified set of components. Additionally a number of low cost launch vehicles are supported, resulting in overall mission costs of around $150M including the launch vehicle but excluding the science payloads. This significant reduction in cost and the shorter development time would enable NASA to conduct more frequent exploration missions within its budget and timeframe constraints, compared to the status quo. In this paper the suitability of the Common Spacecraft Bus for four different exploration scenarios is analyzed. These scenarios include a lunar orbiter, a lunar lander, a mission to a Sun-Earth Libration Point, and a rendezvous mission to a Near Earth Object. For each scenario, a preliminary design reference mission is developed and key design parameters for the spacecraft are determined.

Tietz, Sascha↗

NASA NTRS2014

Aerosol Polarimetry Sensor (APS): Design Summary, Performance and Potential Modifications

APS is a mature design that has already been built and has a TRL of 7. Algorithmic and retrieval capabilities continue to improve and make better and more sophisticated used of the data. Adjoint solutions, both in one dimensional and three dimensional are computationally efficient and should be the preferred implementation for the calculation of Jacobians (one dimensional), or cost-function gradients (three dimensional). Adjoint solutions necessarily provide resolution of internal fields and simplify incorporation of active measurements in retrievals, which will be necessary for a future ACE mission. Its best to test these capabilities when you know the answer: OSSEs that are well constrained observationally provide the best place to test future multi-instrument platform capabilities and ensure capabilities will meet scientific needs.

algorithms↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-27111-DND

Rigid aeroshell systems are rapidly approaching the payload limit that current technology can deliver while fitting within the payload envelope of existing launch vehicles. The need for higher entry mass, landing elevation, and more controllability has pushed NASA to improve existing atmospheric entry technologies to further its scientific and exploration capabilities. Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerators (HIADs) are an emerging technology that allows entry vehicles to deliver larger payloads to higher landing elevations by providing a larger aeroshell diameter than rigid aeroshells. HIADs offer new methods of entry vehicle trajectory control through shape morphing of the inflatable aeroshell. This dissertation explores different concepts of morphing a HIAD by assessing its structural integrity, aerodynamic performance, and systems integration. Analytical models are developed to predict the amount of force required to achieve a desired morphed shape, an actuator and sensor are selected based on performance requirements, and a controller is designed to morph the HIAD through Lift-to-Drag modulation. The actuator and sensor system and controller are then integrated into a small-scale development unit of a HIAD and experimental results are compared to numerical simulations. Conclusions and contributions of this research are presented along with a discussion on further research opportunities of Morphing HIADs.

Adam Milne Slagle↗

NASA NTRS2021

Modeling of Guided Waves for Aerospace Applications

Advancements in computer hardware has led to new possibilities for rapid modeling and simulation capabilities across many scientific fields. Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) can benefit from increased use of simulation tools to guide optimization of inspection and health monitoring methods, enhance understanding of data, aid in development of defect characterization methods, and generate data sets for use with machine learning and model-assisted probability of detection. Recent work at NASA has entailed development and benchmarking of both custom simulation codes and commercial simulation tools for ultrasonic wave propagation. This paper describes recent work at NASA in modeling of guided waves in composites and other aerospace materials. Results and computational speeds for a composite benchmark case are reported for a custom finite difference Rotated Staggered Grid code and for the commercial finite element software package, Pogo. Recent progress in linking NDE models to parametric analysis tools is also discussed.

Nondestructive evaluation↗