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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 253 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Motion Magnification to Visualize the Modes of Space Structures

Traditional structural testing involves using accelerometers and strain gages to measure the motion. While this traditional instrumentation suite has proven accurate, it is limited to capture data only in the discrete locations where the transducers are placed. Additionally, applying the instrumentation can be a difficult and labor intensive task. By using video cameras, the motion of the test article – such as a launch vehicle or launch vehicle payload – can be easily captured at any location in the field of view and easily visualized using a post-processing technique called Motion Magnification. It is also much easier to place video cameras to measure motion rather than having to place contact sensors, especially when placement locations can be limited on final flight hardware. Recently, a team of MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL) and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) have been collaborating to use Motion Magnification to measure the dynamics of large space structures. This presentation will detail some of the results of this collaboration.

Eric Colby Stewart↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Motion Magnification to Visualize the Modes of Space Structures

Traditional structural testing involves using accelerometers and strain gages to measure the motion. While this traditional instrumentation suite has proven accurate, it is limited to capture data only in the discrete locations where the transducers are placed. Additionally, applying the instrumentation can be a difficult and labor intensive task. By using video cameras, the motion of the test article – such as a launch vehicle or launch vehicle payload – can be easily captured at any location in the field of view and easily visualized using a post-processing technique called Motion Magnification. It is also much easier to place video cameras to measure motion rather than having to place contact sensors, especially when placement locations can be limited on final flight hardware. Recently, a team of MIT Lincoln Laboratory (MITLL) and NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) have been collaborating to use Motion Magnification to measure the dynamics of large space structures. This presentation will detail some of the results of this collaboration.

Eric Colby Stewart↗
DOE OSTI2020

Roadmap on cosmic EUV and x-ray spectroscopy

Cosmic EUV/x-ray spectroscopists, including both solar and astrophysical analysts, have a wide range of high-resolution and high-sensitivity tools in use and a number of new facilities in development for launch. As this bandpass requires placing the spectrometer beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, each mission represents a major investment by a national space agency such as NASA, ESA, or JAXA, and more typically a collaboration between two or three. In general justifying new mission requires an improvement in capabilities of at least an order of magnitude, but the sensitivity of these existing missions are already taxing existing atomic data quantity and accuracy. This roadmap reviews the existing missions, showing how in a number of areas atomic data limits the science that can be performed. The missions that will be launched in the coming Decade will without doubt require both more and improved measurements of wavelengths and rates, along with theoretical calculations of collisional and radiative cross sections for a wide range of processes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
NASA NTRS1980

Leadership and changing times

The role of NASA's administrators in the development of a wide-ranging program of Earth and space sciences is examined. Emphasis is placed on the manned space flight projects.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1986

The great observatories for space astrophysics

Motivated by the ancient urge to observe, measure, compute, and understand the nature of the Universe, the available advanced technology is used to place entire observatories into space for investigations across the spectrum. Stellar evolution, development and nature of the Universe, planetary exploration, technology, NASA's role, and careers in asronomy are displayed.

Harwit, M.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Real time control for NASA robotic gripper

The ability to easily manipulate objects in a zero gravity environment will pay a key role in future space activities. Emphasis will be placed on robotic manipulation. This will serve to increase astronaut safety and utility in addition to several other benefits. The aim is to develop control laws for the zero gravity robotic end effectors. A hybrid force/position controller will be used. Sensory data available to the controller are obtained from an array of strain gauges and a linear potentiometer. Applying well known optimal control theoretical principles, the control which minimizes the transition time between positions is obtained. A robust force control scheme is developed which allows the desired holding force to be achieved smoothly without oscillation. In addition, an algorithm is found to determine contact force and contact location.

Salter, Carole A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Spacecraft Cabin Air Quality Control and Its Application to Tight Buildings

Air quality is an important consideration not only for the external environment, but also for the indoor environment. Most people spend a majority of their lives indoors and the air that they breathe is important to their physical and emotional well being. Since most modern building designs have focused on energy efficiency, less fresh air is brought from the outside. As a result, pollutants from building materials, furniture, cleaning, and cooking have no place to go. To make matters worse, most ventilation systems do not include any means for removing pollutants from the recycled air. Unfortunately, pollution at even a small level can result in eye, throat, and lung irritation in addition to chronic headaches, nausea, and fatigue. A spacecraft cabin, which represents the worst case in tight building design, requires special consideration of air quality since any effects pollutants may have on a crewmember can potentially place a mission or other crewmembers at risk. A detailed approach has been developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to minimize cabin atmosphere pollution and provide the crew with an environment which is as free of pollutants as possible. This approach is a combination of passive and active contamination control concepts involving the evaluation and selection of materials to be used onboard the spacecraft, the establishment of air quality standards to ensure crew health, and the use of active control means onboard the spacecraft to further ensure an acceptable atmosphere. This approach has allowed NASA to prevent illness by providing crewmembers with a cabin atmosphere which contains pollutant concentrations up to 100 times lower than those specified for terrestrial indoor environments. Standard building construction, however, does not take into account the potentially harmful effects of materials used in the construction process on the health of future occupants and relies primarily on remedial rather than preventive techniques when addressing contamination. This approach results in a building that theoretically has low operating costs, but may actually have high costs associated with lost work days, increased medical claims, decreased productivity, and problem remediation. A similar approach to NASA's may be adopted by the building construction community which can tap the extensive database of material offgassing properties that has been collected to support the space program. Many materials used by NASA are commercially available and are frequently used in building construction. In addition, computer models which have been developed for assessing various methods of active contamination control can be applied to building ventilation system design and the analysis of their economics. Through using NASA' s experience, the expense associated with the current remedial approach can be avoided.

Perry, J. L.↗
NASA NTRS2000

X-33, Demonstrating Revolutionary Operations for VentureStar(TM)

The X-33, reusable space plane technology demonstrator is on course to begin the flights of the X-33 by the end of 2002 that will serve as a basis for industry and government decisions that could lead to VentureStar(Trademark). Lockheed Martin has placed the VentureStar LLC in it's Space Company and is now competing in an industry wide effort that will permit NASA to select a Second Generation RLV source by 2005. This move provides the focus for firm business planning needed to enable the decision by the time X-33 flies in mid 2002 and possibly with upgraded technologies a year or so later. The operations concept for the X-33 is an integration of launch vehicle and aircraft operations approaches. VentureStar is a Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) and will therefore enable a new approach to Space Launch Operations that is more "aircraft like" and can produce substantially lower operating costs over current systems. NASA's initiatives over the past several years in Reusable Launch Vehicles (RLV) have had as a primary objective to demonstrate technologies that will result in significant reduction in costs of space access. Further, the end objective is to commercialize the development and operations of the next generation RLV. Hence, the X-33 and its operations demonstration is a major contributor to that next generation system.

Austin, Robert E.↗
NASA NTRS2007

AVGS, AR and D for Satellites, ISS, the Moon, Mars and Beyond

With the continuous need to rotate crew and re-supply the International Space Station (ISS) and the desire to return humans to the Moon and for the first time, place humans on Mars, NASA must develop a more robust and highly reliable capability to perform Autonomous Rendezvous and Capture (AR&C) because, unlike the Apollo missions, NASA plans to send the entire crew to the Lunar or Martian surface and must be able to dock with the Orion spacecraft upon return. In 1997, NASA developed the Video Guidance Sensor (VGS) which was flown and tested on STS-87 and STS-95. In 2001, NASA designed and built a more enhanced version of the VGS, called the Advanced Video Guidance Sensor (AVGS). The AVGS offered significant technology improvements to the precursor VGS design. This paper will describe the AVGS as it was in the DART mission of 2005 and the Orbital Express mission of 2007. The paper will describe the capabilities and design concepts of the AVGS as it was flown on the DART 2005 Mission and the DARPA Orbital Express Mission slated to fly in 2007. The paper will cover the Flight Software, problems encountered, testing for Orbital Express and where NASA is going in the future.

Hintze, Geoffrey C.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Roadmap on cosmic EUV and x-ray spectroscopy

Cosmic EUV/x-ray spectroscopists, including both solar and astrophysical analysts, have a wide range of high-resolution and high-sensitivity tools in use and a number of new facilities in development for launch. As this bandpass requires placing the spectrometer beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, each mission represents a major investment by a national space agency such as NASA, ESA, or JAXA, and more typically a collaboration between two or three. In general justifying new mission requires an improvement in capabilities of at least an order of magnitude, but the sensitivity of these existing missions are already taxing existing atomic data quantity and accuracy. This roadmap reviews the existing missions, showing how in a number of areas atomic data limits the science that can be performed. The missions that will be launched in the coming Decade will without doubt require both more and improved measurements of wavelengths and rates, along with theoretical calculations of collisional and radiative cross sections for a wide range of processes.

Randall Smith↗
NASA NTRS1990

Comparison of currents predicted by NASCAP/LEO model simulations with elementary Langmuir-type bare probe models for an insulated cable containing a single pinhole

The behavior of a defect in the insulation of a short biased section of cable in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO) space environment was examined. Such studies are of the utmost importance for large space power systems where great quantities of cabling will be deployed. An insulated probe containing a pinhole was placed into a hypothetical high speed LEO plasma. The NASA Charging Analyzer Program (NASCAP/LEO) was used to explore sheath growth about the probe as a function of applied voltage and to predict I-V behavior. A set of independent current calculations using Langmuir's formulations for concentric spheres and coaxial cylinders were also performed. The case of concentric spheres was here extended to include the case of concentric hemispheres. Several simple Langmuir-type models were then constructed to bracket the current collected by the cable. The space-charge sheath radius and impact parameters were used to determine the proper current regime. I-V curves were plotted for the models and comparisons were made with NASCAP/LEO results. Finally, NASCAP/LEO potential contours and surface cell potential plots were examined to explain interesting features in the NASCAP/LEO I-V curve.

Galofaro, Joel T.↗
NASA NTRS2014

The International Space Station: A Unique Platform for Remote Sensing of Natural Disasters

Assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) was completed in 2012, and the station is now fully operational as a platform for remote sensing instruments tasked with collecting scientific data about the Earth system. Remote sensing systems are mounted inside the ISS, primarily in the U.S. Destiny Module's Window Observational Research Facility (WORF), or are located on the outside of the ISS on any of several attachment points. While NASA and other space agencies have had remote sensing systems orbiting Earth and collecting publicly available data since the early 1970s, these sensors are carried onboard free-flying, unmanned satellites. These satellites are traditionally placed into Sun-synchronous polar orbits that allow imaging of the entire surface of the Earth to be repeated with approximately the same Sun illumination (typically local solar noon) over specific areas, with set revisit times that allow uniform data to be taken over long time periods and enable straightforward analysis of change over time. In contrast, the ISS has an inclined, Sun-asynchronous orbit (the solar illumination for data collections over any location changes as the orbit precesses) that carries it over locations on the Earth between approximately 52degnorth and 52deg south latitudes (figure 1). The ISS is also unique among NASA orbital platforms in that it has a human crew. The presence of a crew provides options not available to robotic sensors and platforms, such as the ability to collect unscheduled data of an unfolding event using handheld digital cameras as part of the Crew Earth Observations (CEO) facility and on-the-fly assessment of environmental conditions, such as cloud cover, to determine whether conditions are favorable for data collection. The crew can also swap out internal sensor systems installed in the WORF as needed. The ISS orbit covers more than 90 percent of the inhabited surface of the Earth, allowing the ISS to pass over the same ground locations at different times of the day and night. This is important for two reasons: 1) certain surface processes (i.e., development of coastal fog banks) occur at times other than local solar noon, making it difficult to collect relevant data from traditional satellite platforms, and 2) it provides opportunities for the ISS to collect data for short-duration events, such as natural disasters, that polar-orbiting satellites may miss due to their orbital dynamics - in essence, the ISS can be "in the right place at the right time" to collect data. An immediate application of ISS remote sensing data collection is that the data can be used to provide information for humanitarian aid after a natural disaster. This activity contributes directly to the station's Benefits to Humanity mission. The International Charter, Space and Major Disasters (also known as the International Disaster Charter, or IDC) is an agreement between agencies of several countries to provide - on a best-effort basis - remotely sensed data related to natural disasters to requesting countries in support of disaster response. In the United States, the lead agency for interaction with the IDC is the United States Geological Survey (USGS); when an IDC request, or activation, is received, the USGS notifies the science teams for NASA instruments with targeting information for data collection. In the case of the ISS, Earth scientists in the JSC ARES Directorate, in association with the ISS Program Science Office, coordinate targeting and data collection with the USGS. If data is collected, it is passed back to the USGS for posting on its Hazards Data Distribution System and made available for download. The ISS was added to the USGS's list of NASA remote sensing assets that could respond to IDC activations in May 2012. Initially, the NASA ISS sensor systems available to respond to IDC activations included the ISS Agricultural Camera (ISSAC), an internal multispectral visible-near infrared wavelength system mounted in the WORF; CEO, a project that collects imagery through the ISS windows using off-the-shelf handheld digital visible-wavelength cameras; and the Hyperspectral Imager for the Coastal Oceans (HICO), a visible to near-infrared system mounted externally on the Japanese Experiment Module - Exposed Facility. Since May 2012, there have been 37 IDC activations; ISS sensor systems have collected data for 10 of these events.

Stefanov, William L.↗
NASA NTRS1976

NASA Tech Briefs Index, 1976

Abstracts of new technology derived from the research and development activities of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are presented. Emphasis is placed on information considered likely to be transferrable across industrial, regional, or disciplinary lines. Subject matter covered includes: electronic components and circuits; electronic systems; physical sciences; materials; life sciences; mechanics; machinery; fabrication technology; and mathematics and information sciences.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2014

Co-op Essay - Tour 1

The Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) is responsible for the training, planning and performance of all U.S. manned operations in space. Within this directorate all responsibilities are divided up into divisions. The EVA, Robotics & Crew Systems Operations Division performs ground operations and trains astronauts to carry out some of the more "high action" procedures in space. For example they orchestrate procedures like EVAs, or ExtraVehicular Activities (spacewalks), and robotics operations external to the International Space Station (ISS). The robotics branch of this division is responsible for the use of the Mobile Servicing System (MSS). This system is a combination of two robotic mechanisms and a series of equipment used to transport them on the ISS. The MSS is used to capture and position visiting vehicles, transport astronauts during EVAs, and perform external maintenance tasks on the ISS. This branch consists of two groups which are responsible for crew training and flight controlling, respectively. My first co-op tour took place Fall 2013. During this time I was given the opportunity to work in the robotics operations branch of the Mission Operations Directorate at NASA's Johnson Space Center. I was given a variety of tasks that encompassed, at a base level, all the aspects of the branch.

Porter, Derrick↗
NASA NTRS1984

Cryogenic and thermal design for the Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF)

The 1-meter class cryogenically cooled Space Infrared Telescope Facility (SIRTF) planned by NASA, is scheduled for a 1992 launch. SIRTF would be deployed from the Shuttle, and placed into a sun synchronous polar orbit of 700 km. The facility has been defined for a mission with a minimum initial lifetime of one year in orbit with mission extension that could be made possible through in-orbit servicing of the superfluid helium cryogenic system, and use of a thermal control system. The superfluid dewar would use an orbital disconnect system for the tank supports, and vapor cooling of the barrel baffle. The transient analysis of the design shows that the superfluid helium tank with no active feedback comes within temperature requirements for the nominal orbital aperture heat load, quiescent instrument, and chopper conditions.

Lee, J. H.↗
NASA NTRS1985

Research and technology

As the NASA Center responsible for assembly, checkout, servicing, launch, recovery, and operational support of Space Transportation System elements and payloads, Kennedy Space Center is placing increasing emphasis on the Center's research and technology program. In addition to strengthening those areas of engineering and operations technology that contribute to safe, more efficient, and more economical execution of our current mission, we are developing the technological tools needed to execute the Center's mission relative to Space Station and other future programs. The Engineering Development Directorate encompasses most of the laboratories and other Center resources that are key elements of research and technology program implementation and is responsible for implementation of the majority of the projects in this Kennedy Space Center 1985 Annual Report. The report contains brief descriptions of research and technology projects in major areas of Kennedy Space Center's disciplinary expertise.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1986

Research and technology

As the NASA Center responsible for assembly, checkout, servicing, launch, recovery, and operational support of Space Transportation System elements and payloads, Kennedy Space Center is placing increasing emphasis on the Center's research and technology program. In addition to strengthening those areas of engineering and operations technology that contribute to safer, more efficient, and more economical execution of our current mission, we are developing the technological tools needed to execute the Center's mission relative to future programs. The Engineering Development Directorate encompasses most of the laboratories and other Center resources that are key elements of research and technology program implementation, and is responsible for implementation of the majority of the projects in this Kennedy Space Center 1986 Annual Report.

Source record↗