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

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At least 235 records · Page 13
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1983

Adaptation of a software development methodology to the implementation of a large-scale data acquisition and control system

A progress report is presented on a program to upgrade the existing NASA Deep Space Network in terms of a redesigned computer-controlled data acquisition system for channelling tracking, telemetry, and command data between a California-based control center and three signal processing centers in Australia, California, and Spain. The methodology for the improvements is oriented towards single subsystem development with consideration for a multi-system and multi-subsystem network of operational software. Details of the existing hardware configurations and data transmission links are provided. The program methodology includes data flow design, interface design and coordination, incremental capability availability, increased inter-subsystem developmental synthesis and testing, system and network level synthesis and testing, and system verification and validation. The software has been implemented thus far to a 65 percent completion level, and the methodology being used to effect the changes, which will permit enhanced tracking and communication with spacecraft, has been concluded to feature effective techniques.

Madrid, G. A.↗
DOE OSTI2024

Status of SAS4A/SASSYS-1 Software Development and Application (FY2024)

SAS4A/SASSYS-1 is a simulation tool used to perform deterministic analysis of anticipated events as well as design basis and beyond design basis accidents for advanced liquid-metal-cooled nuclear reactors. With its origin as SAS1A in the late 1960s, the SAS series of codes has been under continuous use and development for over fifty years. It has been identified as a critical element of safety analysis capabilities for the U.S. Department of Energy and is utilized within industry to perform the transient safety analyses required to support the licensing of Liquid Metal-cooled Fast Reactors (LMFRs). This report summarizes the code development and update activities carried out during FY2024. In FY2024, programmatic activities focused on key improvements to software useability, such as enhanced user interfaces for reactivity feedback modeling, improvements in stability/useability of the Code Manual, and improvements to the acceptance testing infrastructure, including automation of acceptance testing and generation of the Acceptance Testing Report. To support end user applications, an open training was held, a semi-public forum was maintained, and a practical benchmarking and validation matrix was developed which allowed limitations of existing testing capabilities to be assessed. The existing fuel models were also enhanced with improved modeling capabilities and testing for the oxide and annular fuel models.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2016

Spaceport Command and Control System - Support Software Development

The Information Architecture Support (IAS) Team, the component of the Spaceport Command and Control System (SCCS) that is in charge of all the pre-runtime data, was in need of some report features to be added to their internal web application, Information Architecture (IA). Development of these reports is crucial for the speed and productivity of the development team, as they are needed to quickly and efficiently make specific and complicated data requests against the massive IA database. These reports were being put on the back burner, as other development of IA was prioritized over them, but the need for them resulted in internships being created to fill this need. The creation of these reports required learning Ruby on Rails development, along with related web technologies, and they will continue to serve IAS and other support software teams and their IA data needs.

Information Architecture↗
NASA NTRS1991

A case study in multi-component software development

McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Company has been actively involved in the development of the U.S. Army sponsored Second Generation Comprehensive Helicopter Analysis System (2GCHAS) over the last five years. This paper describes the multidisciplinary nature of the software, the multicontractor and multi-site environment within which the development took place, the development standards used and evolution of the final product. Valuable lessons were learned during this task that can be used in future developments.

Sangha, Karan↗
NASA NTRS2002

Managing MDO Software Development Projects

Over the past decade, the NASA Langley Research Center developed a series of 'grand challenge' applications demonstrating the use of parallel and distributed computation and multidisciplinary design optimization. All but the last of these applications were focused on the high-speed civil transport vehicle; the final application focused on reusable launch vehicles. Teams of discipline experts developed these multidisciplinary applications by integrating legacy engineering analysis codes. As teams became larger and the application development became more complex with increasing levels of fidelity and numbers of disciplines, the need for applying software engineering practices became evident. This paper briefly introduces the application projects and then describes the approaches taken in project management and software engineering for each project; lessons learned are highlighted.

Townsend, J. C.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Software development without languages

Automatic programming generally involves the construction of a formal specification; i.e., one which allows unambiguous interpretation by tools for the subsequent production of the corresponding software. Previous practical efforts in this direction have focused on the serious problems of: (1) designing the optimum specification language; and (2) mapping (translating or compiling) from this specification language to the program itself. The approach proposed bypasses the above problems. It postulates that the specification proper should be an intermediate form, with the sole function of containing information sufficient to facilitate construction of programs and also of matching documentation. Thus, the means of forming the intermediary becomes a human factors task rather than a linguistic one; human users will read documents generated from the specification, rather than the specification itself.

Osborne, Haywood S.↗
NASA NTRS1986

General object-oriented software development

Object-oriented design techniques are gaining increasing popularity for use with the Ada programming language. A general approach to object-oriented design which synthesizes the principles of previous object-oriented methods into the overall software life-cycle, providing transitions from specification to design and from design to code. It therefore provides the basis for a general object-oriented development methodology.

Seidewitz, Edwin V.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Command and Control System Software Development

Kennedy Space Center has been the heart of human space flight for decades. From the Apollo Program to the Space Shuttle Program, and now to the coming Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion, NASA will be a leader in deep space exploration for mankind. Before any rockets blast off, there is significant work to be done in preparation for launch. People working on all aspects of spaceflight must contribute by developing new technology that has yet to participate in a successful launch, and which can work with technology already proven in flight. These innovations, whether hardware or software, must be tried and true, and includes the projects to which interns contribute to. For this internship, the objective was to create a data recording system for the developers of a LCS section that records certain messages in the traffic of the system. Developers would then be able to use these recordings for analysis later on, either manually or by an automated test. The tool would be of convenience to a developer as it would be used if the system's main data recorder was not available for tests.

Velasquez, Ricky↗
NASA NTRS1989

Interdependent figure-of-merit software development

This program was undertaken in order to understand the complex nature of interdependent performance in space missions. At the first step in a planned sequence of progress, a spread sheet program was developed to evaluate different fuel/oxidizer combinations for a specific Martian mission. This program is to be linked with output attained using sophisticated software produced by Gordon and McBride. The programming to date makes use of 11 independent parameters. Optimization is essential when faced with the incredible magnitude of costs, risks, and benefits involved with space exploration. A system of weights needs to be devised on which to measure the options. It was the goal to devise a Figure of Merit (FoM) on which different choices can be presented and made. The plan was to model typical missions to Mars, identify the parameters, and vary them until the best one is found. Initially, most of the focus was placed on propellant selection.

Ramohalli, K.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Spaceport Command and Control System Automated Verification Software Development

For as long as we have walked the Earth, humans have always been explorers. We have visited our nearest celestial body and sent Voyager 1 beyond our solar system1 out into interstellar space. Now it is finally time for us to step beyond our home and onto another planet. The Spaceport Command and Control System (SCCS) is being developed along with the Space Launch System (SLS) to take us on a journey further than ever attempted. Within SCCS are separate subsystems and system level software, each of which have to be tested and verified. Testing is a long and tedious process, so automating it will be much more efficient and also helps to remove the possibility of human error from mission operations. I was part of a team of interns and full-time engineers who automated tests for the requirements on SCCS, and with that was able to help verify that the software systems are performing as expected.

Automation↗
NASA NTRS2017

Command and Control Software Development Memory Management

This internship was initially meant to cover the implementation of unit test automation for a NASA ground control project. As is often the case with large development projects, the scope and breadth of the internship changed. Instead, the internship focused on finding and correcting memory leaks and errors as reported by a COTS software product meant to track such issues. Memory leaks come in many different flavors and some of them are more benign than others. On the extreme end a program might be dynamically allocating memory and not correctly deallocating it when it is no longer in use. This is called a direct memory leak and in the worst case can use all the available memory and crash the program. If the leaks are small they may simply slow the program down which, in a safety critical system (a system for which a failure or design error can cause a risk to human life), is still unacceptable. The ground control system is managed in smaller sub-teams, referred to as CSCIs. The CSCI that this internship focused on is responsible for monitoring the health and status of the system. This team's software had several methods/modules that were leaking significant amounts of memory. Since most of the code in this system is safety-critical, correcting memory leaks is a necessity.

Programmin↗
NASA NTRS1992

Software development for safety-critical medical applications

There are many computer-based medical applications in which safety and not reliability is the overriding concern. Reduced, altered, or no functionality of such systems is acceptable as long as no harm is done. A precise, formal definition of what software safety means is essential, however, before any attempt can be made to achieve it. Without this definition, it is not possible to determine whether a specific software entity is safe. A set of definitions pertaining to software safety will be presented and a case study involving an experimental medical device will be described. Some new techniques aimed at improving software safety will also be discussed.

Knight, John C.↗
NASA NTRS1970

Preliminary software development for optical mirror figure control

The maintenance of accurate primary mirror figure in the face of environmental disturbances is the key to the achievement of diffraction-limited performance in a large space telescope. In order to develop the concepts of optical mirror figure control, an experimental program was initiated. A major component in this experiment will be an XDS Sigma 5.7 digital computer which will realize the control algorithm. A software package is described which realizes linear optimal, simplified linear, and iterative optimal control algorithms. The software, in addition, provides for interactive communication between the operator and the computer, and interaction between the computer and the experimental hardware elements. A brief description of a small hybrid computer system is also presented.

Mackinnon, D.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Mars Ascent Vehicle GNC Targeting Routines with Considerations for Flight Software Development

The Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) will be the first vehicle to perform an ascent from the surface of another atmospheric planetary body outside of the Earth-Moon system. Significant light-time delay requires complete autonomy of flight throughout ascent, and naturally a high level of reliability is desired in both MAV’s hardware and software subsystems. The MAV Guidance, Navigation and Controls (GNC) team and the MAV Flight Software (FSW) team have partnered together to improve the efficiency of algorithm integration onto the MAV flight processor, and to increase confidence that said integration is successful and without human error. An interface architecture is proposed for the GNC suite that allows both the guidance and navigation subsystems to provide code algorithms directly in C++, and the controls subsystem to provide MATLAB Simulink auto-coded algorithms. Several continuous integration/deployment (CI/CD) methodologies have been considered for ease of transition of algorithm code from the GNC team to the FSW team. The GNC/FSW teams also worked together to develop a cFS-friendly wrapper which abstracts the integration of the GNC algorithm code into an interface-level API that is compatible with cFS. Several iterations of vehicle GNC code have been produced between the GNC/FSW team’s partnership, and this strong interface between these two teams have allowed the GNC/FSW teams to greatly increase confidence of efficient and error-free implementation of the GNC code onto MAV for a successful flight.

Jason Everett↗
NASA NTRS2017

Data Collection and Analysis Software Development for Rotor Dynamics Testing in Spin Laboratory

Gas turbine engine components undergo high rotational loading another complex environmental conditions. Such operating environment leads these components to experience damages and cracks that can cause catastrophic failure during flights. There are traditional crack detections and health monitoring methodologies currently being used which rely on periodic routine maintenances, nondestructive inspections that often times involve engine and components dis-assemblies. These methods do not also offer adequate information about the faults, especially, if these faults at subsurface or not clearly evident. At NASA Glenn research center, the rotor dynamics laboratory is presently involved in developing newer techniques that are highly dependent on sensor technology to enable health monitoring and prediction of damage and cracks in rotor disks. These approaches are noninvasive and relatively economical. Spin tests are performed using a subscale test article mimicking turbine rotor disk undergoing rotational load. Non-contact instruments such as capacitive and microwave sensors are used to measure the blade tip gap displacement and blade vibrations characteristics in an attempt develop a physics based model to assess/predict the faults in the rotor disk. Data collection is a major component in this experimental-analytical procedure and as a result, an upgrade to an older version of the data acquisition software which is based on LabVIEW program has been implemented to support efficiently running tests and analyze the results. Outcomes obtained from the tests data and related experimental and analytical rotor dynamics modeling including key features of the updated software are presented and discussed.

Rotor Dynamics↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Fostering Better Collaboration in Software Development Cycles Between Scientists and Programmers to Ensure the Integrity of and Promote the Development of New Scientific Data Products.

Misaligned incentives lead to reduced interaction between scientists and programmers on modern NASA science data-product development teams. Typically, situations arise where the scientist is not incentivized to learn modern coding practices and the programmer does not understand the science algorithms in the code. A programmer is responsible for the deliverable code thus setting a tradeoff between the desire for code improvement versus fear of compromising the integrity of data-product while the scientist continues to rely on their legacy codebases owing to the complexity of using the delivered code outside the processing environment and lack of validation modules. The NASA/CERES-TISA project has adopted a collaborative approach, with scientists and programmers both utilizing the same software repository with multiple branches, some optimized for delivery to a processing datacenter and others for scientific product development and validation. A team of scientists and programmers jointly review any new science code updates for integration into the codebase and strive to improve practices through promoting algorithm understanding, better institutional knowledge exchange and documentation, modularization, and developing data processing flow-dictated validation and debugging methods. This leads to a reduction in the personnel single point failures and reduced development time for creation of new science data-products.

CERES↗