Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Challenges”

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 253 records · Page 14

Challenges and Opportunities of International Cooperation for Safety & Mission Assurance (SMA) on the European Service Module (ESM) of the Orion Program

ESA is providing the ESM to NASA for the Orion Program in accordance with the Implementing Arrangement (IA) established between the two Agencies in 2012. This IA is a barter agreement, in which ESA provides Service Module vehicles for the first two flights of Orion in exchange for two servicing missions to the ISS. This arrangement has provided opportunities and challenges to both communities. It represents an important opportunity for ESA to build on its experience in the development and operations of ATV and play an active role in the development and flight of a manned space vehicle. This paper will explore some of the unique aspects of this arrangement as it affects Safety & Mission Assurance (SMA).The assessment of ESM compliance with applicable safety requirements is the responsibility of the Joint Safety and Engineering Review Panel (JSERP). The JSERP has two features that are relatively unique amongst NASA safety panels. First, NASA Engineering and SMA organizations co-chair this Panel. Previously, Safety has chaired, with Engineering as a member of the Panel. Inclusion of Engineering as a co-chair has offered greater leverage within the technical community. Second, the JSERP includes a second set of co-chairs from ESA Engineering and ESA Product Assurance and Safety (PA/S) organizations. This recognizes the international arrangement as one of partnership.Another source of both opportunity and challenge is the differing experience base of ESA and NASA. NASA has decades of experience in manned spaceflight, dating back to the Mercury program and following through Gemini, Apollo, Apollo-Soyuz, Skylab, Shuttle and the International Space Station. The risk posture for manned missions is much more rigorous than for unmanned missions. ESA brings a wealth of knowledge as well, with their flights of Ariane and Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV), development and operation of the Columbus module on ISS, and satellite programs. The result is that both parties have developed paradigms related to risk and failure that contribute to ESM discussions.Orion represents humanity's first venture beyond Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) in over fifty years. Much of that experience is captured in program documents, but first-hand knowledge is limited to a few spaceflight veterans. Missions to LEO have offered the opportunity of direct, near-instantaneous communications and assistance, and the ability to return to Earth within a matter of hours in case of emergency. Outward-bound missions do not have these features and will require a more autonomous spacecraft with attendant safety-related issues.This paper will explore these and other challenges as we approach the flight of the first Orion vehicle.

Ciancone, Michael L.↗

Voyager Interstellar Mission: Challenges of Flying a Very Old Spacecraft on a Very Long Mission

Two Voyager spacecraft were launched in 1977. After the successful flybys of Jupiter and Saturn by both Voyagers and Uranus and Neptune by Voyager 2, the mission has been extended for another 30 years in search of the transition region between the dominance of the solar energy and interstellar energy. The Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM) started on January 1, 1990. It can be characterized by several factors including extremely long communication distances, aging hardware, reduced staffing levels and difficulty in obtaining Deep Space Network (DSN) resources necessitated by the increasing distance between the spacecraft and Earth. The mission was redesigned to compensate for such factors while maximizing the science return. After 25 years of VIM and several significant science discoveries, both Voyager spacecraft are still functioning well and the Voyager flight team is preparing for an even longer mission - until the year 2025 and beyond. In order to work around the challenges and to continue the mission even further, the team has been implementing numerous changes, mainly through flight software modifications and hardware reconfiguration. The major drivers for the changes are two-fold: resource constraints (such as decreasing power output and difficulty in obtaining the necessary DSN coverage) and anomalies due to the aging hardware. The majority of changes occur through flight software modifications so the state of the on-board responses is appropriate for the changing space environment and mission phase, and the flight software is compatible in allowing the maximum data gathering. The on-board flight software routines such as baseline sequence, fault protection routines, the High Gain Antenna POINTing to Earth (HPOINT) table, and long-term events table need to be maintained through flight software updates. The changes also occur through hardware reconfiguration such as selecting the backup Hybrid Buffer Interface Circuits (HYBIC) or attitude propulsion thrusters. This paper will describe the challenges of VIM and what has been done to overcome or mitigate those challenges. The primary focus will be the major flight software changes made during VIM and the changes that are in store for the near future in preparation for continuing the extended mission, from the originally projected year of 2020 out to the year 2025 and possibly beyond.

Matsumoto, Sun Kang↗

Challenges in Qualification of Thermal Protection Systems for Extreme Entry Environments

Planetary entry vehicles employ ablative TPS materials to shield the aeroshell from entry aeroheating environments. To ensure mission success, it must be demonstrated that the heatshield system, including local features such as seams, does not fail at conditions that are suitably margined beyond those expected in flight. Furthermore, its thermal response must be predictable, with acceptable fidelity, by computational tools used in heatshield design. Mission assurance is accomplished through a combination of ground testing and material response modelling. A material's robustness to failure is verified through arcjet testing while its thermal response is predicted by analytical tools that are verified against experimental data. Due to limitations in flight-like ground testing capability and lack of validated high-fidelity computational models, qualification of heatshield materials is often achieved by piecing together evidence from multiple ground tests and analytical simulations, none of which fully bound the flight conditions and vehicle configuration. Extreme heating environments (>2000 W/cm2 heat flux and >2 atm pressure), experienced during entries at Venus, Saturn and Ice Giants, further stretch the current testing and modelling capabilities for applicable TPS materials. Fully-dense Carbon Phenolic was the material of choice for these applications; however, since heritage raw materials are no longer available, future uses of re-created Carbon Phenolic will require re-qualification. To address this sustainability challenge, NASA is developing a new dual-layer material based on 3D weaving technology called Heatshield for Extreme Entry Environments (HEEET) [1]. Regardless of TPS material, extreme environments pose additional certification challenges beyond what has been typical in recent NASA missions.Scope of this presentation: This presentation will give an overview of challenges faced in verifying TPS performance at extreme heating conditions.

Mahzari, Milad↗

A Case Study of Productivity Challenges in Mars Science Laboratory Operations

Achieving consistently high levels of productivity has been a challenge for Mars surface missions. While the rovers have made major discoveries and dramatically increased our understanding of Mars, they often require a great deal of effort from the operations teams and achieving mission objectives can take longer than anticipated. We conducted an in-depth case study of Mars Science Laboratory operations in order to identify the productivity challenges facing surface missions. In this paper, we describe how we performed the case study and analyzed the data. We present and discuss the significant productivity challenges we identified during the study. In addition to informing future surface exploration missions, the study is relevant for a wide range of applications in which operators must interact with a robotic system with limited communication opportunities.

Gaines, Daniel↗

Spacecraft Contamination Control Challenges for Space Missions with Organic Compound Detection Capabilities and for Potential Sample Return

Contamination control is critical to missions with organic compound detection capabilities, and for missions targeting acquisition of samples for potential return to Earth. Significant challenges are being addressed in the design of current flight projects and conceptual mission studies at JPL. These challenges extend to both orbiting spacecraft, as well as landed missions, for future missions to Mars and Europa, and potential missions to Titan and Enceladus. Contamination control during all phases of a mission, from preliminary design through operation, is fundamental to ensure that organic compounds of terrestrial origin are controlled to ensure successful completion of science objectives. This presentation summarizes contamination control challenges specific to landed missions (which include sample acquisition, encapsulation, caching, potential sample return, and UV instruments), and orbiting missions (modeling interactions between the spacecraft, and local exospheres and plumes).

Soares, Carlos↗

New Era, New Opportunity, Is GES DISC Ready for Big Data Challenge?

The new era of Big Data has opened doors for many new opportunities, as well as new challenges, for both Earth science research/application and data communities. As one of the twelve NASA data centers - Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), one of our great challenges has been how to help research/application community efficiently (quickly and properly) accessing, visualizing and analyzing the massive and diverse data in natural hazard research, management, or even prediction. GES DISC has archived over 2000 TB data on premises and distributed over 23,000 TB of data since 2010. Our data has been widely used in every phase of natural hazard management and research, i.e. long term risk assessment and reduction, forecasting and predicting, monitoring and detection, early warning, damage assessment and response. The big data challenge is not just about data storage, but also about data discoverability and accessibility, and even more, about data migration/mirroring in the cloud. This paper is going to demonstrate GES DISC’s efforts and approaches of evolving our overall Web services and powerful Giovanni (Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) tool into further improving data discoverability and accessibility. Prototype works will also be presented.

Li, A.↗

A Framework for Assessment of Autonomy Challenges in Air Traffic Management

Traditionally, air traffic management services have been provided by air traffic controllers and managers stationed in ground facilities, employed or contracted by the public sector, and supported by automation. These centralized, human-centric air traffic management services do not scale to accommodate increasing demands from conventional and new entrant operations for access to the national airspace system. One transformation that provides much needed scalability is increasing the level of autonomy of air traffic management by enabling edge agents of the system, including vehicles, operators, and third-party service suppliers, to collectively self-manage independently from the centralized service providers and enabling the automation to also take on more independent traffic management responsibility from the human agents. This paper identifies challenges to increasing the level of autonomy of air traffic management services. It describes a framework to enable a systematic identification of these challenges. The framework consists of a functional breakdown of air traffic management services and several dimensions characterizing different autonomy scales. The autonomy dimensions include the automation level between human and machine agents, the locus of control between centralized and distributed edge agents, cognitive activities for autonomous situation awareness and decision making, intelligence levels ranging from skill-based to expertise-based autonomous behavior, and uncertainty levels of the dynamics and environment in which autonomous agents operate. Several challenges are identified and categorized using the different dimensions of the autonomy framework.

automation, autonomy framework, collective autonom↗

Multidisciplinary Dynamic Testing Challenges in Validating the NASA Artemis Architecture

NASA is in the midst of bold and exciting next steps in human exploration and spaceflight. The designs of the new Space Launch System (SLS), the Orion spacecraft and the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) for vehicle processing and launch are essentially complete and there has been significant progress in manufacturing and assembly of specific hardware for the Artemis I and Artemis II missions. Equally as important, the program level and integrated system level testing and analyses are also well underway to support integrated verification, validation, and certificate of flight readiness (CoFR) for the first Artemis mission. Testing and analysis are key to addressing technical challenges that the Artemis missions offer. Building block approaches are required that provide the right balance between component, system, and/or element level testing that satisfies verification and validation objectives and where, uncertainties are quantified and minimized. Artemis I is a system of systems that requires a fusion of test and analysis that adeptly characterizes critical interfaces between major program elements. NASA is implementing new in-situ testing that fuse traditional aerospace structures with civil structures, such as the Integrated Modal Test for the Artemis I vehicle where the Mobile Launcher and Crawler Transporter serve as a support structure whose dynamics couple with that of the Artemis I vehicle. This new paradigm requires a closer inspection of structural behavior of the Crawler Transporter and the Mobile Launcher as they now serve multiple purposes. This requires a paradigm shift to look beyond experimental modal techniques and incorporates operational modal analysis techniques to validate dynamic models from data collected during rollout to the launch pad. A further complicating factor is the Crawler Transporter generated ground forces have numerous harmonics making extracting dynamic responses of the Artemis I, Mobile Launcher, and Crawler Transporter coupled system challenging. This discussion explores all these challenges with and attempts to understand how we best build confidence in systems and system-of-systems performance capabilities and margins and understand uncertainties.

Joel W Sills↗

The Challenger disaster was caused by an Apollo decision

NASA’s view of risk changed between early Apollo and the Space Shuttle. Risk was a known serious problem at the beginning of Apollo and the risk estimates were disturbingly high. To avoid public concern, risk analysis was discontinued. Risk analysis was avoided in Shuttle, leading to an unnecessarily risky design. The immediate cause of the Challenger tragedy was the mistaken decision to launch in cold weather. The fundamental cause was the high risk of the Shuttle design. Before Challenger, management thought and testified that the probability of an accident was 1 in 100,000. After Challenger, Probabilistic Risk Analysis (PRA) found a roughly 1 in 100 chance of a Shuttle failure. The recent Orion design uses the safer Apollo approach, with a hardened capsule, launch abort escape, and the crew placed above the rocket tanks and engines. During Apollo it was estimated that, “assuming all elements from propulsion to rendezvous and life support were done as well or better than ever before, that 30 astronauts would be lost before 3 were returned safely to the Earth.” The chance of astronaut survival was only 10%. After the Apollo 1 tragedy, the awareness of risk led to an intense focus on achieving safety. “The only possible explanation for the astonishing success – no losses in space and on time – was that every participant at every level in every area far exceeded the norm of human capabilities.” During Apollo, a NASA PRA found that the chance of success was “less than 5 percent.” The NASA Administrator felt that “the numbers could do irreparable harm,” and discontinued numerical risk assessment.

Harry W Jones↗

Spacecraft Contamination Control Challenges for Space Missions with Organic Compound Detection Capabilities and for Potential Sample Return

Spacecraft contamination control is critical to space exploration missions with organic compound detection capabilities, and also for missions targeting acquisition of samples for potential return to Earth. Significant challenges are being addressed and resolved in the design of current flight projects and conceptual mission studies at JPL. These challenges extend to both orbiting spacecraft, as well as landed missions, for future missions to Mars and Europa, and potential missions to Titan and Enceladus. Contamination control during all phases of a mission, from preliminary design through operation, is fundamental to ensure that organic compounds of terrestrial origin are controlled to ensure successful completion of science objectives. This paper examines contamination control challenges specific to landed missions (which include sample acquisition, encapsulation, caching, potential sample return, and UV instruments), and orbiting missions (modeling interactions between the spacecraft and local exospheres and plumes).

Sylvia, Margarite↗

Challenges in applying model-based systems engineering: human-centered design perspective

Systems engineering is, by its nature, human-centered. It is about tradeoffs and negotiations by systems engineers among different disciplines and systems to ensure the resulting system of systems can achieve the mission objectives successfully. Applying MBSE means enabling system engineers to use MBSE processes, methods, and tools to perform such work. This requires not only tools and infrastructure that support MBSE but also cultural change in how system engineers approach their work. Although the cultural change is listed as one of the challenges for MBSE infusion to address, its details and how to address them are not often discussed in the literature and the community. We used Human-Centered Design framework to articulate a core set of related challenges and the implications to tool and infrastructure developments. We will discuss the details of the HCD framework applied and discuss the core challenges using an electrical system engineering to harness engineering workflow as a case study.

Jimenez, Alejandro↗

Heliophysics Environmental & Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite (HERMES): A Small External Payload for the Lunar Gateway with Big Challenges

Currently scheduled for liftoff in 2024, Gateway will be an outpost orbiting the moon for astronauts headed to and from the lunar surface and serve as a staging point for deep space exploration. In January of 2020 NASA headquarters contacted Goddard Space Flight Center to request that they develop a Heliophysics instrumentation package for Gateway. This package would later become known as HERMES-Heliophysics Environmental & Radiation Measurement Experiment Suite. HERMES consists of a Miniaturized Electron pRoton Telescope (MERIT), an Electron Electrostatic Analyzer (EEA), Solar Probe Analyzers (SPAN)-A-ions, and Noise Eliminating Magnetometer Instrument in a Small Integrated System (NEMISIS), which consists of one fluxgate and two Magneto-Inductive Magnetometers. From the beginning the HERMES mission faced a number of Challenges. It was constrained to fit in a small, half meter, cube and it was required to weigh no more than 25kg. A new boom design for the magnetometer would be required and for safety reasons it must be able to retract autonomously with power removed. To complicate matters the location of the SORI-Small ORU- (Orbital Replacement Unit) Robotics Interface, the primary interface for the HERMES platform to the Gateway elements, was undetermined. Also, the mechanical, thermal and electrical interfaces are not fully defined. The Canadian Space Agency is still in process of designing the version of the SORI that will be flown on the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) elements, each of which are being developed by different contractors. At the time of initiating the HERMES project, neither of the Gateway module providers were under contract. Additionally, we would later learn the ISS heritage SORI modules were not originally designed for launching on the Gateway elements with a payload directly attached but rather were intended to be brought up on a separate carrier outfitted with launch locks and specialized launch structures from which the robotic arm on Gateway would then be used to detach the payload and install it on the SORI adapters while on orbit. Launching the integrated Payload/SORI on the PPE and HALO elements complicates the stiffness requirements and coupled loads analysis. Adding to this are serious constraints on Field-Of-View (FOV) for solar viewing and severe radiation exposure considerations brought on by slowly raising the orbit through the Van Allen Belts. Just to make things a little more challenging the budget for the entire project was intended to be a low-cost tailored Class-D mission approach. Plus, the effects of Corona VIrus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) were not factored in from the beginning. This paper will discuss what’s being done to overcome these challenges and put HERMES on track for a 2024 Launch Readiness Date (LRD).

Irving Joseph Burt↗

High Temperature Material Property Data and Challenges to Thermal Process Model Predictions and In-Situ/Ex-Situ Measurements for Metallic Additive Manufacturing

Understanding and predicting performance properties of parts produced by metallic additive manufacturing has improved significantly over the past decade; however, difficult to measure material properties and process outcomes continue to be challenges. The qualification or certification of aerospace parts require extensive measures to quantify variable part properties in order to buy down the risk of component failure. The variability, inherent to the additive manufacturing, process adds unwanted uncertainty in the production of load critical structural components. Process modeling has proven valuable in providing predictions and context for understanding outcomes of the additive manufacturing process; however, these physically informed process models require material properties at temperatures that are difficult to measure and rarely available. Further, calibrating or validating such models is difficult because the process itself is challenging to measure. This talk will explore some of the challenges resulting from difficult to acquire input data by relating thermal process model predictions to in-situ and ex-situ optical microscopy measurements.

Process Model↗

Core Stage TVC Systems Engineering Challenges in Reusing Heritage Hardware

The Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage (CS) Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system is comprised of 8 mechanical feedback Shuttle heritage Type III TVC actuators and four RS-25 engines, each attached to a Shuttle heritage gimbal block/bearing. Two actuators are used to move each engine in two planes perpendicular to one another (i.e., pitch and yaw). The TVC system design leverages hardware from the Space Shuttle program as well as new hardware designed specifically for the Core Stage. The Space Shuttle heritage hardware directly reused on SLS includes the Orbiter TVC hydraulic servo-actuators (with two slight design modifications), the Orbiter hydraulic circulation pumps, the Orbiter gimbal block/bearing, and the Solid Rocket Booster hydraulic pumps. The Core Auxiliary Power Unit (CAPU) is derived from the Orbiter Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). The Orbiter and Solid Rocket Booster APU turbines are powered by hot gas produced by catalyzed hydrazine decomposition. On the SLS Core Stage, the CAPU turbine is spun using cold gas tapped-off from the RS-25 to CS liquid hydrogen autogenous pressurization line. While direct reuse or slight modification of existing hardware may seem to be a triple-win for a program in cost, schedule, and technical risk mitigation, those benefits can only be realized when its degree of application in a new system is carefully and thoughtfully managed. The heritage hardware reuse should be prescribed within the heritage design capability and reuse environments must lie within the envelope of heritage qualification testing. Despite the significant test and flight experience of the Shuttle heritage hardware components, successful integration with the newly designed CS TVC components and incorporation into the stage design proved to be a challenge which required re-qualification of the heritage hardware as well as thorough integrated testing to support flight certification. Examples of the challenges that were overcome include: re-qualifying heritage hardware to survive new shock and vibration environments, certifying performance of extensively modified heritage hardware, regenerating design insight due to lack of available heritage vendor data, showing compliance to modern structural design standards, translation of heritage requirements for analog avionics to modern digital avionics, and interfacing heritage mechanical hardware with newly designed avionics. This paper is the second installment in a seven-paper series surveying the design, engineering, test validation, and flight performance of the Core Stage Thrust Vector Control system. This paper will discuss several engineering challenges encountered during the development process for SLS CS TVC and how they were successfully overcome to reach flight readiness.

Thrust Vector Control↗

Space Launch System: Core Stage Thrust Vector Control Systems Engineering Challenges in Reusing Heritage Hardware

The Space Launch System (SLS) Core Stage (CS) Thrust Vector Control (TVC) system is comprised of 8 mechanical feedback Shuttle heritage Type III TVC actuators and four RS-25 engines, each attached to a Shuttle heritage gimbal block/bearing. Two actuators are used to move each engine in two planes perpendicular to one another (i.e., pitch and yaw). The TVC system design leverages hardware from the Space Shuttle program as well as new hardware designed specifically for the Core Stage. The Space Shuttle heritage hardware directly reused on SLS includes the Orbiter TVC hydraulic servo-actuators (with two slight design modifications), the Orbiter hydraulic circulation pumps, the Orbiter gimbal block/bearing, and the Solid Rocket Booster hydraulic pumps. The Core Auxiliary Power Unit (CAPU) is derived from the Orbiter Auxiliary Power Unit (APU). The Orbiter and Solid Rocket Booster APU turbines are powered by hot gas produced by catalyzed hydrazine decomposition. On the SLS Core Stage, the CAPU turbine is spun using cold gas tapped-off from the RS-25 to CS liquid hydrogen autogenous pressurization line. While direct reuse or slight modification of existing hardware may seem to be a triple-win for a program in cost, schedule, and technical risk mitigation, those benefits can only be realized when its degree of application in a new system is carefully and thoughtfully managed. The heritage hardware reuse should be prescribed within the heritage design capability and reuse environments must lie within the envelope of heritage qualification testing. Despite the significant test and flight experience of the Shuttle heritage hardware components, successful integration with the newly designed CS TVC components and incorporation into the stage design proved to be a challenge which required re-qualification of the heritage hardware as well as thorough integrated testing to support flight certification. Examples of the challenges that were overcome include: re-qualifying heritage hardware to survive new shock and vibration environments, certifying performance of extensively modified heritage hardware, regenerating design insight due to lack of available heritage vendor data, showing compliance to modern structural design standards, translation of heritage requirements for analog avionics to modern digital avionics, and interfacing heritage mechanical hardware with newly designed avionics. This paper is the second installment in a seven-paper series surveying the design, engineering, test validation, and flight performance of the Core Stage Thrust Vector Control system. This paper will discuss several engineering challenges encountered during the development process for SLS CS TVC and how they were successfully overcome to reach flight readiness.

Thrust Vector Control↗

Leveraging Observing System Simulation Experiments for Satellite Instrument Design: Advancements and Challenges

This abstract highlights NASA's OSSE framework, developed at the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office, which has become a widely adopted tool for evaluating the impact of new observations on weather forecasts. The framework involves simulating realistic observations by introducing errors to mimic real-world scenarios. By utilizing advanced radiative transfer modeling, the accuracy of simulated observations is significantly improved, enhancing the reliability of experimental outcomes. The talk focuses on recent progress and challenges in three key areas. Firstly, it explores the techniques used to simulate synthetic observations, a crucial aspect of OSSE experiments. Secondly, the presentation also discusses the challenges of examining the observation errors that need to be added to the perfect observations to generate realistic simulated observations. Lastly, the assimilation of synthetic observations and their impact on forecast skills is evaluated, providing valuable insights for optimizing current and future observing systems for improving the weather forecasts. By sharing recent advancements and acknowledging challenges, this presentation seeks to inspire researchers to leverage the OSSE framework in weather forecasting. NASA's OSSE techniques hold promise for a better understanding of the atmosphere and the development of more accurate and reliable weather predictions.

Isaac Moradi↗

In Space Manufacturing and Extraterrestrial Construction: How Did We Get Here?Where Are We? Where Should We Be Going? THE CHALLENGE: Will We Be Ready?

NASA has held multiple workshops and sought inputs from a broad spectrum of sources, including international partners, other space agencies, industry, large and small businesses, academia, and private citizens to develop its Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives. The goals and objectives set forth in the resulting documents are “designed to achieve the vision to create a blueprint for sustained human presence and exploration throughout the solar system.” The objectives were categorized into four distinct tracks: Operations, Infrastructure, Transportation and Habitation, and Science. In addition, common themes across the objectives were captured under Recurring Tenets. Within the Infrastructure category, several objectives directly address the need for manufacturing and construction on the lunar surface to support continuous human lunar presence and a robust lunar economy. In exploring the vision for creation of on-demand infrastructure on the lunar surface and beyond, this presentation will examine the development of these capabilities, starting in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s, up to the current state, and offer a perspective on the challenges facing operational implementation of these technologies. In the early 2000’s, the destination was the Moon. The International Space Station (ISS) was to be the test bed for demonstration of in space manufacturing technologies. Additive construction was in its infancy. These pioneering initiatives, having begun primarily under NASA’s Office of Biological and Physical Research In Situ Fabrication and Repair (ISFAR) Project, were short-lived. It was not until the early 2010’s that in space manufacturing and later extraterrestrial construction experienced renewed interest and support. At this time, the destination was Mars. This period saw the initial in space additive manufacturing experiments on the ISS, creation of a roadmap for development of in space manufacturing technologies, and development of additive construction systems for terrestrial use at scale. The period also included NASA’s 3D Printed Mars Habitat Centennial Challenge, which catalyzed interest in extraterrestrial construction. With NASA’s announcement of the intention to return to the Moon, and the subsequent release of the Artemis Accords in 2020, and the commensurate Moon to Mars Strategy, NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate initiated the Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII). The LSII has spurred technology development and maturation efforts across a spectrum of capabilities that would be needed to live on the lunar surface. The presentation will provide an overview of current technology developments in the areas of in space manufacturing and extraterrestrial construction. Looking forward from the current state, a perspective will be offered on capabilities that are still needed to “institutionalize” in space manufacturing and extraterrestrial construction to achieve the vision of NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy. Finally, a challenge will be posed to the community to accelerate the development of these capabilities. When the explorers of the future need these enabling capabilities, will they be ready?

Raymond G Clinton Jr.↗

Big Data Challenges at CCMC

Like other research centers, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC, https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is also experiencing the big data challenges. CCMC hosts over 80 space weather models for Runs On Request (ROR), Continuous Runs and Instant Runs simulation services for the research community. In addition, CCMC has started to support simulation output onboarding in response to the Open Science initiative. Overall, we have accumulated over petabytes of simulation output data and are rapidly growing. In this presentation, we will discuss our data and storage challenges. We will present our attempts to address our challenges and any associated lessons learned. CCMC uses Apache Airflow to ensure data transfer is consistent. We will give a brief overview on how we leverage Apache Airflow to enhance our environment.

space weather↗