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Fundamental Research to Enable In-Situ Resource Utilization for NASA’s Artemis Program and Beyond Taking Place at The Glenn Research Center

In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) is regarded by many to be the key to future sustainability in space. The National Aeronautics & Space Administration’s (NASA) Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD) recently published a list of ranked technology shortfalls. ISRU specific capabilities of ‘Extraction and separation of water from extraterrestrial surface material’, ‘Extraction and separation of oxygen from extraterrestrial surface material’, and ‘Produce propellants and mission consumables from extracted in-situ resources’ are within the top 80 shortfalls identified. A team of researchers and engineers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio, are performing fundamental research and technology maturation to ensure concepts and technologies are ready to support when the mission architecture is primed for ISRU to activate. Through analytical modeling and initial lab-scale testing, researchers are establishing concepts that mature to more sophisticated tests in relevant environments. Numerous studies are underway assessing fundamental behaviors of regolith during various steps of a conceptual ISRU production plant. This paper shares some of GRC’s recent advancements in ISRU research and technology development, in the hopes of providing valuable information to the ISRU community at large, spark ideas for future collaborative endeavors, as well as spur interest in utilizing some of the world-class expertise and facilities GRC has to offer.

ISRU↗
DOE OSTI2026

H2@Scale - Validating an Electrolysis System with High Output Pressure: Cooperative Research and Development Final Report, CRADA Number CRD-18-00741

Electrolysis has been a commercially available product for a while and electrolyzers have been a proven capability to provide additional benefits (e.g. controllable load for grid services) in addition to production of hydrogen. The hydrogen output is typically compressed for storage and dispensing. Compression adds cost and decreases system reliability. Honda’s electrolyzer systems have been developed to include electrochemical compression to leverage the production system itself for at least partial compression. In this project, the team will evaluate Honda’s PEM based electrochemical compression system. The system is capable of compressing hydrogen up to 70 MPa electrochemically. Validation testing is the next step to accelerate this technology into the marketplace, as the validation will provide needed data under a variety of operation conditions and controls. These operating conditions and controls are based on over a decade of NLR research and development with low-temperature electrolysis. The validation testing will include preparing NLR’s site for third party evaluation, benchmark testing of Honda’s stack and system, and simulating operation connected to renewables or in a grid service profile. NLR’s Energy System Integration Lab will be the location for the electrolyzer validation research and integrated into the Hydrogen Infrastructure Test & Research Facility (HITRF). This will build into the existing retail style hydrogen fueling station for a fully integrated experimental setup.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

LDRD for a high-current polarized-beam photogun

The electron accelerator driving the Ce+BAF conversion target requires a spin-polarized photogun capable of delivering a CW beam current of at least 1 mA. As the high beam current limits the useful operating time of the gun between photocathode reactivations due to ion back-bombardment, it is critical to increase the charge lifetime. A Jefferson Lab LDRD project aims to calibrate the simulation models needed to predict photocathode lifetime as a function of electrostatic optics and drive laser parameters in order to design a gun providing at least 1000 C charge lifetime. A prototype gun demonstrating the validity of the scaling predictions will be built and tested at the Gun Test Stand. I will describe the background and progress of this project and give an outlook on the expected performance.

Bruker, Max [Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator↗
DOE OSTI2025

Unlocking America's Abundant Marine Energy Resources

NREL Marine Energy One-Pager: A resource designed for use during NREL campus visits - especially with high-profile guests - as well as at events in Washington, D.C., when engaging with the new administration, and for displays at WPTO or lab booths. The U.S. holds vast untapped marine energy resources - wave, tidal, river, and ocean currents - that can strengthen grid resilience, support coastal communities, and advance energy independence. NREL leads innovation in this space through advanced modeling tools, patented technologies, and world-class testing facilities. NREL's simulation platforms, like OpenFAST and SAM, help reduce development time and risk. Patented devices such as PKelp and FlexWEC demonstrate flexible, resilient approaches to energy capture. At Flatirons Campus, NREL offers motion simulation, structural testing, wave tanks, and megawatt-scale microgrid emulation via the ARIES platform. These capabilities help developers refine and validate devices before in-water trials. With upcoming open-water testing at PacWave and strong partnerships, NREL is accelerating the path to commercialization - positioning the U.S. as a global leader in marine energy innovation.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2026

Material Control & Accounting Statistical Test Modeling Supporting the Low Enriched Fuel Fabrication Facility Using F3M and MAPIT

This report covers the application of the TRi-structural ISOtropic (TRISO) fuel fabrication facility material control & accounting (MC&A) modeling capability developed by Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) under the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Materials Protection, Accounting, and Control Technologies (MPACT) program to support the development of MC&A approaches for the Low Enriched Fuel Fabrication Facility (LEFFF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL).

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗
NASA NTRS2015

Monitoring Atmospheric CO2 From Space: Challenge & Approach

Atmospheric CO2 is the key radiative forcing for the Earth's climate and may contribute a major part of the Earth's warming during the past 150 years. Advanced knowledge on the CO2 distributions and changes can lead considerable model improvements in predictions of the Earth's future climate. Large uncertainties in the predictions have been found for decades owing to limited CO2 observations. To obtain precise measurements of atmospheric CO2, certain challenges have to be overcome. For an example, global annual means of the CO2 are rather stable, but, have a very small increasing trend that is significant for multi-decadal long-term climate. At short time scales (a second to a few hours), regional and subcontinental gradients in the CO2 concentration are very small and only in an order of a few parts per million (ppm) compared to the mean atmospheric CO2 concentration of about 400 ppm, which requires atmospheric CO2 space monitoring systems with extremely high accuracy and precision (about 0.5 ppm or 0.125%) in spatiotemporal scales around 75 km and 10-s. It also requires a decadal-scale system stability. Furthermore, rapid changes in high latitude environments such as melting ice, snow and frozen soil, persistent thin cirrus clouds in Amazon and other tropical areas, and harsh weather conditions over Southern Ocean all increase difficulties in satellite atmospheric CO2 observations. Space lidar approaches using Integrated Path Differential Absorption (IPDA) technique are considered to be capable of obtaining precise CO2 measurements and, thus, have been proposed by various studies including the 2007 Decadal Survey (DS) of the U.S. National Research Council. This study considers to use the Intensity-Modulated Continuous-Wave (IM-CW) lidar to monitor global atmospheric CO2 distribution and variability from space. Development and demonstration of space lidar for atmospheric CO2 measurements have been made through joint adventure of NASA Langley Research Center and Exelis, Inc. As prototype space IPDA lidars, airborne laser absorption lidar systems operating in 1.57 CO2 absorption band have been developed and tested through lab, ground-based range, and flight campaigns. Very encouraging results have been obtained. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for clear sky IPDA measurements of CO2 differential absorption optical depth (DAOD) for a 10-s integration over vegetated areas with about 10 km range was found to be as high as 1300, resulting in an error 0.077% or equivalent CO2 mixing ratio (XCO2) column precision of ~0.3 ppm. Precise range measurements using the IM-CW lidar approach were also achieved, and the uncertainties have been shown to be at sub meter level. Based on the airborne lidar development, space lidar and atmospheric CO2 observations are simulated. It shows that with the IM-CW approach, accurate atmospheric CO2 measurements can be achieved from space, and a space mission such as that proposed by the DS will meet science goals of atmospheric CO2 monitoring.

Lin, Bing↗
NASA NTRS2017

Incorporating Speech Recognition into a Natural User Interface

The Augmented/ Virtual Reality (AVR) Lab has been working to study the applicability of recent virtual and augmented reality hardware and software to KSC operations. This includes the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens, and Unity game engine. My project in this lab is to integrate voice recognition and voice commands into an easy to modify system that can be added to an existing portion of a Natural User Interface (NUI). A NUI is an intuitive and simple to use interface incorporating visual, touch, and speech recognition. The inclusion of speech recognition capability will allow users to perform actions or make inquiries using only their voice. The simplicity of needing only to speak to control an on-screen object or enact some digital action means that any user can quickly become accustomed to using this system. Multiple programs were tested for use in a speech command and recognition system. Sphinx4 translates speech to text using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based Language Model, an Acoustic Model, and a word Dictionary running on Java. PocketSphinx had similar functionality to Sphinx4 but instead ran on C. However, neither of these programs were ideal as building a Java or C wrapper slowed performance. The most ideal speech recognition system tested was the Unity Engine Grammar Recognizer. A Context Free Grammar (CFG) structure is written in an XML file to specify the structure of phrases and words that will be recognized by Unity Grammar Recognizer. Using Speech Recognition Grammar Specification (SRGS) 1.0 makes modifying the recognized combinations of words and phrases very simple and quick to do. With SRGS 1.0, semantic information can also be added to the XML file, which allows for even more control over how spoken words and phrases are interpreted by Unity. Additionally, using a CFG with SRGS 1.0 produces a Finite State Machine (FSM) functionality limiting the potential for incorrectly heard words or phrases. The purpose of my project was to investigate options for a Speech Recognition System. To that end I attempted to integrate Sphinx4 into a user interface. Sphinx4 had great accuracy and is the only free program able to perform offline speech dictation. However it had a limited dictionary of words that could be recognized, single syllable words were almost impossible for it to hear, and since it ran on Java it could not be integrated into the Unity based NUI. PocketSphinx ran much faster than Sphinx4 which would've made it ideal as a plugin to the Unity NUI, unfortunately creating a C# wrapper for the C code made the program unusable with Unity due to the wrapper slowing code execution and class files becoming unreachable. Unity Grammar Recognizer is the ideal speech recognition interface, it is flexible in recognizing multiple variations of the same command. It is also the most accurate program in recognizing speech due to using an XML grammar to specify speech structure instead of relying solely on a Dictionary and Language model. The Unity Grammar Recognizer will be used with the NUI for these reasons as well as being written in C# which further simplifies the incorporation.

Chapa, Nicholas↗
NASA NTRS2018

Semi-Autonomous Rodent Habitat for Deep Space Exploration

NASA has flown animals to space as part of trailblazing missions and to understand the biological responses to spaceflight. Mice traveled in the Lunar Module with the Apollo 17 astronauts and now mice are frequent research subjects in LEO on the ISS. The ISS rodent missions have focused on unravelling biological mechanisms, better understanding risks to astronaut health, and testing candidate countermeasures. A critical barrier for longer-duration animal missions is the need for humans-in-the-loop to perform animal husbandry and perform routine tasks during a mission. Using autonomous or telerobotic systems to alleviate some of these tasks would enable longer-duration missions to be performed at the Deep Space Gateway. Rodent missions performed using the Gateway as a platform could address a number of critical risks identified by the Human Research Program (HRP), as well as Space Biology Program questions identified by NRC Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, (2011). HRP risk areas of potentially greatest relevance that the Gateway rodent missions can address include those related to visual impairment (VIIP) and radiation risks to central nervous system, cardiovascular disease, as well as countermeasure testing. Space Biology focus areas addressed by the Gateway rodent missions include mechanisms and combinatorial effects of microgravity and radiation. The objectives of the work proposed here are to 1) develop capability for semi-autonomous rodent research in cis-lunar orbit, 2) conduct key experiments for testing countermeasures against low gravity and space radiation. The hardware and operations system developed will enable experiments at least one month in duration, which potentially could be extended to one year in duration. To gain novel insights into the health risks to crew of deep space travel (i.e., exposure to space radiation), results obtained from Gateway flight rodents can be compared to ground control groups and separate groups of mice exposed to simulated Galactic Cosmic Radiation (at the NASA Space Radiation Lab). Results can then be compared to identical experiments conducted on the ISS. Together results from Gateway, ground-based, and ISS rodent experiments will provide novel insight into the effects of space radiation.

deep space gateway↗
NASA NTRS1992

SDIO Producibility and Manufacturing Intelligent Processing Programs

SDIO has to fashion a comprehensive strategy to insert the capability of an industrial base into ongoing design tradeoffs. This means that there is not only a need to determine if something can be made to the precision needed to meet system performance, but also what changes need to be made in that industry sector to develop a deterministic approach to fabrication precision components. Developing and introducing advanced production and quality control systems is part of this success. To address this situation, SDIO has developed the MODIL (Manufacturing Operations Development and Integration Labs) program. MODILs were developed into three areas: Survivable Optics, Electronics and Sensors, and Spacecraft Fabrication and Test.

Stottlemyer, Greg↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA Smallsat Technology Advancement and Rapid Test Program

In the heart of Silicon Valley, NASA Ames Research Center has been at the forefront of nanosat development and adoption for the past 20 years. Continuing these efforts, a new program has begun focused on advancing smallsat technologies by on-orbit demonstration of new capabilities in sensors, subsystems and components with a rapid deployment cadence. The initial goal is to have at least two experiment platforms launched every year and to increase the cadence from there. We intend to bridge the TRL valley of death and make incremental progress with actual on-orbit demonstration. New technologies that will enable future NASA, commercial and DoD missions and leveraging SBIR efforts will be targeted and prioritized for flight opportunities. The workshop and labs developing these systems will rely on COTS technology as much as possible and have a great degree of freedom with development practices and policies. Success will be determined by the series of experiments over multiple flights, not by the performance of any one experiment. Lessons learned from the TechEdSat program will be used to incorporate student involvement to enhance the creativity and energy of the program while working alongside experienced engineers. In this presentation, we lay out the framework for this program and invite the community to participate in advancing all of our interests.

Vaughan, R.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Experiences with SYCL on AMD GPUs with Kokkos

With the recent diversification of the hardware landscape in the high-performance computing (HPC) community, performance-portability solutions are becoming more and more important. One of the most popular choices is Kokkos, which recently became a Linux Foundation project. Most of its development is supported by the US Department of Energy and the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission. Kokkos is implemented as a C++ library with multiple backends to support CPUs as well as various GPU architectures. These backends include OpenMP, CUDA, HIP, and also SCYL. This approach enables users to leverage the preferred vendor toolchain for the respective platform (e.g. CUDA, ROCm, OneAPI). The SYCL backend is used to target Intel GPUs, in particular to support the Aurora exascale supercomputer. However, SYCL itself also offers a large degree of portability, and in fact Kokkos’ CI for SYCL has been running on NVIDIA hardware due to a lack of access to Intel GPUs. In this report, we describe our experience with using Kokkos SYCL backend on AMD GPUs targeting the Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The two major SYCL implementations are DPC++ and AdaptiveCpp. While the Kokkos SYCL backend has been implemented using the former, the latter was the first implementation to target AMD GPUs. We will discuss the experience with both of these SYCL implementations in terms of functionality and performance. Using Kokkos to evaluate SYCL toolchains has a number of benefits. Kokkos’ use of SYCL is fairly complex, exercising features such as graphs, relocatable device functions, atomics – including for non-arithmetic types, as well as pinned and page migratable memory allocations. Kokkos also needs to implement capabilities such as Kokkos’ hierarchical parallelism that are not a straight-forward mapping to SYCL capabilities. Furthermore, a large number of libraries and applications that represent diverse use cases are implemented in Kokkos, providing readily available test cases for a toolchain evaluation. Preliminary results show that support for AMD GPUs in DPC++ is much less mature than for NVIDIA GPUs or Intel GPUs. While the situation has improved significantly over the last year, we still encounter many runtime failures, dispatching problems, and code generation issues. With AdaptiveCpp the challenges arise even earlier in the evaluation process. Since Kokkos’ SYCL implementation is largely focused on supporting Intel GPUs, we opted to leverage SYCL extensions which are available in DPC++ but not in AdaptiveCpp. Furthermore, AdaptiveCpp appears to be less conformant with the SYCL2020 standard which Kokkos relies on. In some cases, we are able to work around the lack of feature support, in other cases we have to disable certain Kokkos capabilities to evaluate the toolchain. Our evaluation will leverage Kokkos’ unit tests to establish basic functionality and feature completeness. We then use simple benchmarks for components of a CG implementation as a measure of usability and performance of the SYCL toolchains.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2004

Outbrief - Long Life Rocket Engine Panel

This white paper is an overview of the JANNAF Long Life Rocket Engine (LLRE) Panel results from the last several years of activity. The LLRE Panel has met over the last several years in order to develop an approach for the development of long life rocket engines. Membership for this panel was drawn from a diverse set of the groups currently working on rocket engines (Le. government labs, both large and small companies and university members). The LLRE Panel was formed in order to determine the best way to enable the design of rocket engine systems that have life capability greater than 500 cycles while meeting or exceeding current performance levels (Specific Impulse and Thrust/Weight) with a 1/1,OOO,OOO likelihood of vehicle loss due to rocket system failure. After several meetings and much independent work the panel reached a consensus opinion that the primary issues preventing LLRE are a lack of: physics based life prediction, combined loads prediction, understanding of material microphysics, cost effective system level testing. and the inclusion of fabrication process effects into physics based models. With the expected level of funding devoted to LLRE development, the panel recommended that fundamental research efforts focused on these five areas be emphasized.

Quinn, Jason Eugene↗
NASA NTRS2014

Direct Signal-to-Noise Quality Comparison between an Electronic and Conventional Stethoscope aboard the International Space Station

Introduction: Evaluation of heart, lung, and bowel sounds is routinely performed with the use of a stethoscope to help detect a broad range of medical conditions. Stethoscope acquired information is even more valuable in a resource limited environments such as the International Space Station (ISS) where additional testing is not available. The high ambient noise level aboard the ISS poses a specific challenge to auscultation by stethoscope. An electronic stethoscope's ambient noise‐reduction, greater sound amplification, recording capabilities, and sound visualization software may be an advantage to a conventional stethoscope in this environment. Methods: A single operator rated signal‐to‐noise quality from a conventional stethoscope (Littman 2218BE) and an electronic stethoscope (Litmann 3200). Borborygmi, pulmonic, and cardiac sound quality was ranked with both stethoscopes. Signal‐to‐noise rankings were preformed on a 1 to 10 subjective scale with 1 being inaudible, 6 the expected quality in an emergency department, 8 the expected quality in a clinic, and 10 the clearest possible quality. Testing took place in the Japanese Pressurized Module (JPM), Unity (Node 2), Destiny (US Lab), Tranquility (Node 3), and the Cupola of the International Space Station. All examinations were conducted at a single point in time. Results: The electronic stethoscope's performance ranked higher than the conventional stethoscope for each body sound in all modules tested. The electronic stethoscope's sound quality was rated between 7 and 10 in all modules tested. In comparison, the traditional stethoscope's sound quality was rated between 4 and 7. The signal to noise ratio of borborygmi showed the biggest difference between stethoscopes. In the modules tested, the auscultation of borborygmi was rated between 5 and 7 by the conventional stethoscope and consistently 10 by the electronic stethoscope. Discussion: This stethoscope comparison was limited to a single operator. However, we believe the results are noteworthy. The electronic stethoscope out preformed the traditional stethoscope in each direct comparison. Consideration should be made to incorporate an electronic stethoscope into current and future space vehicle medical kits.

Marshburn, Thomas↗
NASA NTRS2014

SPHERES National Lab Facility

SPHERES is a facility of the ISS National Laboratory with three IVA nano-satellites designed and delivered by MIT to research estimation, control, and autonomy algorithms. Since Fall 2010, The SPHERES system is now operationally supported and managed by NASA Ames Research Center (ARC). A SPHERES Program Office was established and is located at NASA Ames Research Center. The SPHERES Program Office coordinates all SPHERES related research and STEM activities on-board the International Space Station (ISS), as well as, current and future payload development. By working aboard ISS under crew supervision, it provides a risk tolerant Test-bed Environment for Distributed Satellite Free-flying Control Algorithms. If anything goes wrong, reset and try again! NASA has made the capability available to other U.S. government agencies, schools, commercial companies and students to expand the pool of ideas for how to test and use these bowling ball-sized droids. For many of the researchers, SPHERES offers the only opportunity to do affordable on-orbit characterization of their technology in the microgravity environment. Future utilization of SPHERES as a facility will grow its capabilities as a platform for science, technology development, and education.

Free Flyer↗
NASA NTRS1976

The Viking mission search for life on Mars

The scientific payload on the Viking Mars landers is described. Shortly after landing, two facsimile cameras capable of stereoscopic imaging will scan the landing site area in black and white, color, and infrared to reveal gross evidence of past or present living systems. A wide range mass spectrometer will record a complete mass spectrum for soil samples from mass 12 to mass 200 every 10.3 sec. Three experiments based on different assumptions on the nature of life on Mars, if it exists, will be carried out by the bio-lab. A pyrolytic release experiment is designed to measure photosynthetic or dark fixation of carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide into organic compounds. A labelled release experiment will test for metabolic activity during incubation of a surface sample moistened with a solution of radioactively labelled simple organic compounds. A gas exchange experiment will detect changes in the gaseous medium surrounding a soil sample as the result of metabolic activity. The hardware, function, and terrestrial test results of the bio-lab experiments are discussed.

Klein, H. P.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Development of a 1K x 1K GaAs QWIP Far IR Imaging Array

In the on-going evolution of GaAs Quantum Well Infrared Photodetectors (QWIPs) we have developed a 1,024 x 1,024 (1K x1K), 8.4-9 microns infrared focal plane array (FPA). This 1 megapixel detector array is a hybrid using the Rockwell TCM 8050 silicon readout integrated circuit (ROIC) bump bonded to a GaAs QWIP array fabricated jointly by engineers at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) and the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). The finished hybrid is thinned at the Jet Propulsion Lab. Prior to this development the largest format array was a 512 x 640 FPA. We have integrated the 1K x 1K array into an imaging camera system and performed tests over the 40K-90K temperature range achieving BLIP performance at an operating temperature of 76K (f/2 camera system). The GaAs array is relatively easy to fabricate once the superlattice structure of the quantum wells has been defined and grown. The overall arrays costs are currently dominated by the costs associated with the silicon readout since the GaAs array fabrication is based on high yield, well-established GaAs processing capabilities. In this paper we will present the first results of our 1K x 1K QWIP array development including fabrication methodology, test data and our imaging results.

Jhabvala, M.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Initial Characterization of the NREL Large-Amplitude Motion Platform

The Large Amplitude Motion Platform (LAMP) at NREL represents a significant advancement in the controlled testing of Wave Energy Converters (WECs) under laboratory conditions. Originally designed by E2M as a six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) Stewart platform for flight simulation, LAMP has been adapted by NREL to facilitate the mounting and evaluation of WECs. This adaptation enables dry testing of WECs using motion profiles similar to the ocean, facilitating the iterative design, testing, and validation of WEC performance prior to ocean deployments. This report presents the initial work completed to characterize LAMP, with particular emphasis on its stability and operational capabilities across various single and multi-degree-of-freedom (DOF) motion profiles. The report includes planned comparisons at three distinct mass payloads, aimed at assessing the platform's positional accuracy, frequency response, and endurance over extended runtime periods. These experimental tests are critical for establishing the platform's limitations and ensuring that the data generated during WEC validation is both accurate and reproducible. The outcomes of this study not only contribute to a deeper understanding of LAMP's capabilities but also lay the groundwork for future advancements in WEC testing methodologies. By providing robust and reliable performance data within a controlled laboratory setting, the findings are expected to significantly enhance the development and commercialization of marine energy technologies. This report presents the initial findings of the LAMP Characterization work and proposed steps to further understand and characterize LAMP. Data collected during this work can be found on MHKDR at: https://mhkdr.openei.org/submissions/602 Note that this report shares the measured/found instantaneous maximum operating range of LAMP. For most applications the maximum operating range cannot be used for system health and longevity. The operating range and capabilities of LAMP will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, single-DOF position, velocity, and acceleration values presented in Table 4a-c, and Table 5 should be taken as instantaneous absolute maximum values. Future use of LAMP will likely be limited to smaller values.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
NASA NTRS1994

Applications of Thin Film Thermocouples for Surface Temperature Measurement

Thin film thermocouples provide a minimally intrusive means of measuring surface temperature in hostile, high temperature environments. Unlike wire thermocouples, thin films do not necessitate any machining of the surface, therefore leaving intact its structural integrity. Thin films are many orders of magnitude thinner than wire, resulting in less disruption to the gas flow and thermal patterns that exist in the operating environment. Thin film thermocouples have been developed for surface temperature measurement on a variety of engine materials. The sensors are fabricated in the NASA Lewis Research Center's Thin Film Sensor Lab, which is a class 1000 clean room. The thermocouples are platinum-13 percent rhodium versus platinum and are fabricated by the sputtering process. Thin film-to-leadwire connections are made using the parallel-gap welding process. Thermocouples have been developed for use on superalloys, ceramics and ceramic composites, and intermetallics. Some applications of thin film thermocouples are: temperature measurement of space shuttle main engine turbine blade materials, temperature measurement in gas turbine engine testing of advanced materials, and temperature and heat flux measurements in a diesel engine. Fabrication of thin film thermocouples is described. Sensor durability, drift rate, and maximum temperature capabilities are addressed.

Martin, Lisa C.↗