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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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1,137 records · Page 14
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1994

Advanced nickel-hydrogen spacecraft battery development

Eagle-Picher currently has several advanced nickel-hydrogen (NiH2) cell component and battery designs under development including common pressure vessel (CPV), single pressure vessel (SPV), and dependent pressure vessel (DPV) designs. A CPV NiH2 battery, utilizing low-cost 64 mm (2.5 in.) cell diameter technology, has been designed and built for multiple smallsat programs, including the TUBSAT B spacecraft which is currently scheduled (24 Nov. 93) for launch aboard a Russian Proton rocket. An advanced 90 mm (3.5 in.) NiH2 cell design is currently being manufactured for the Space Station Freedom program. Prototype 254 mm (10 in.) diameter SPV batteries are currently under construction and initial boilerplate testing has shown excellent results. NiH2 cycle life testing is being continued at Eagle-Picher and IPV cells have currently completed more than 89,000 accelerated LEO cycles at 15% DOD, 49,000 real-time LEO cycles at 30 percent DOD, 37,800 cycles under a real-time LEO profile, 30 eclipse seasons in accelerated GEO, and 6 eclipse seasons in real-time GEO testing at 75 percent DOD maximum. Nickel-metal hydride battery development is continuing for both aerospace and electric vehicle applications. Eagle-Picher has also developed an extensive range of battery evaluation, test, and analysis (BETA) measurement and control equipment and software, based on Hewlett-Packard computerized data acquisition/control hardware.

Coates, Dwaine K.↗
NASA NTRS2002

The Design and Use of Calorimeters For Characterization of High-Enthalpy Flows in Arc-Heated Test Facilities

High-enthalpy, arc-heated flows used for aerothermal testing present a challenging environment for flow characterization. This paper describes the design and use of cooled dwell probes used for heat-transfer and pressure characterization of the NASA and United States Department of Defense (DoD) arc facilities located at Moffett Field, CA, and Arnold Air Force Base, TN. Dwell calorimeters designed, fabricated, and tested by Thermal Technologies, Inc. (TTI) in the NASA IHF and the USAF H1 and H2 arc test facilities provide heat flux and pressure data with excellent repeatability. These calorimeters use standard Gardon calorimeter gages and pressure ports with unique cooling systems enabling them to withstand the severe arc-heated environments for durations sufficient for acquisition of steady-state data. The TTI probes have proven very robust in the extreme aerothermal environments of these facilities. This paper provides an overview of calorimeter instruments typically used in arc facilities, discusses design features of the TTI dwell probes, presents selected data acquired by the TTI calorimeters, and provides comparisons with data acquired from using measurement techniques.

D Mark Smith↗
NASA NTRS1984

Test Results of a Ten Cell Bipolar Nickel-hydrogen Battery

A study was initiated to design and evaluate a new design concept for nickel-hydrogen cells. This concept involved constructing a battery in a bipolar stack with cells consisting of a one plate for each nickel and hydrogen electrode. Preliminary designs at the system level of this concept promised improvements in both volumetric and gravimetric energy densities, thermal management, life extension, costs, and peak power capability over more conventional designs. Test results were most encouraging. This preprototype battery, built with less than ideal components and hardware, exceeded expectations. A total of 2000 LEO cycles at 80 percent depth of discharge were accrued. A cycle life goal of 30,000 cycles appears achievable with minor design changes. These improvements include advanced technology nickel electrodes, insulated bipolar plates and specifically designed frames to minimize shunt currents. The discharge rate capability of this design exceeds 25C. At the 10C discharge rate, 80% of the battery capacity can be withdrawn in six minutes. This data shows that the bipolar design is well suited for those applications requiring high peak power pulses.

Cataldo, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS2026

Recirculating and Sub-Atmospheric Rapid Cycle Amine Swing Bed Testing at Various Metabolic Profiles, Temperatures, and Half-Cycle Times

Sixty years since the first spacewalk, NASA’s Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) exploration space suit has undergone numerous design improvements and iterations. As commercial manufacturers develop next-generation systems to support increasingly complex missions, including Moon-to-Mars architecture prototyping and the design of the Martian Portable Life Support System (PLSS), material selection and individual subunit testing under realistic metabolic and pressure conditions are paramount. To determine whether a reusable carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) scrubber design and adsorbent can be utilized in new suit configurations, an all-encompassing test rig is required to compare existing and newly developed technologies. The test rig must be capable of sub-atmospheric testing, calibrated humid CO 2 dosing, and facilitation of the evaluation of sorbents across a wide range of operational requirements. Recently, XploSafe has developed an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU) testing rig specifically designed to explore CO 2 and humidity control materials for spacesuits. This closed-loop recirculating swing bed (Rapid Cycle Amine Test Rig) was utilized to compare adsorbent utility across a wide range of xEMU operating conditions. Following successful testing with Xplo-SA9T over multiple simulated eight-hour Extravehicular Activity (EVA) tests, improvements to the test stand were considered. Regeneration vacuum supply within the test rig was updated to more closely resemble space vacuum, theoretically increasing half-cycle timing. An improved water vapor delivery system was incorporated to dose a wider calibrated range of humidity over both short and long-duration EVAs. A range of metabolic profiles between 800 and 3000 BTU/h were tested, and the corresponding average CO 2 steady-states were compared. The effect of dosing temperature at the adsorbent bed inlet between 10 and 40 ̊C and the corresponding CO 2 removal efficiency was also evaluated.

John R Tidwell↗
NASA NTRS2026

Thermal Considerations for 2039 Opposition Class Nuclear Electric Propulsion/Chemical Propulsion Crewed Mars Mission

The high specific impulse (Isp) of Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) technology offers the potential for advanced space mission capabilities. However, the five critical technology elements of NEP vehicles have yet to prove technical maturity levels for consideration into mission design. In response to the critical reviews by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) project created an NEP Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) for focused development of NEP technology. The TMP called for a coordinated set of technology development efforts to meet this objective. The Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP VehicLes (MARVL) Early Career Initiative (ECI) project was initiated to develop a portion of the fifth Critical Technology Element (CTE) of the NEP vehicle: the Primary Heat Rejection Subsystem (PHRS). A target application of a 2039 human-rated Mars mission was outlined in the TMP. For the outlined mission, a NEP vehicle will experience several thermal environments which will impact the design and operation of the PHRS. To maintain radiator temperatures within the required effective temperature range, the effect of natural, induced, and NEP internally generated heat loads on the radiator panel must be well understood. Furthermore, this analysis is critical for analyzing the influence of various orientations and positions of the NEP vehicle relative to nearby celestial bodies throughout the mission. This study conducted a complete enveloping analysis of the thermal environments influencing the NEP vehicle throughout the mission. Thermal analysis was conducted for the radiator panels based on the defined mission environments. This thermal analysis concludes with the selection of ideal radiator orientations for the NEP vehicle, and the identification of worst case hot and cold environmental sink temperatures throughout the mission. For the target application, the environmental sink temperature while the reactor is powered OFF or powered ON ranges from 30 K to 353 K and 2.7 K to 243 K respectively. When considering interplanetary space, the minimum environmental sink temperature when the reactor is powered OFF and the radiators are oriented “edge to Sun” is 2.7 K. The environmental thermal models generated in this study will be used for future studies with the full vehicle system model. The environmental sink temperature curves generated will be used for future radiator and component analysis to predict transient performance in the space environment. The environmental sink temperature and heat rejection capability curves will inform the trade between commissioning orbits that are in consideration. The model may also serve as a useful tool as reference for future crewed space missions, missions involving radiators or temperature sensitive equipment, or other missions requiring analysis of natural orbital thermal environments.

Nuclear Electric Propulsion↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Risks of Depress as a Fire Suppression Technique in Spacecraft

Spacecraft are designed to prevent fires through careful material selection and configuration control combined with electrical design controls and isolation of ignition sources. Despite these best efforts, fire risk still exists due to the potential for configuration changes with the introduction of crew and the potential for a ‘failure of imagination’ by designers in anticipating all fuel and ignition sources. Therefore, fire suppression is a critical capability for any crewed spacecraft as a last resort for crew survival. Many spacecraft suppression methods have relied on fire suppressants such as compressed carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and water. A proposed alternative is depressurization of the cabin as a method to extinguish a fire. Limited testing was conducted during Skylab and showed that depress could result in stirring the air flow and aggravating a fire before extinguishing. However, limited information was available on how the test was conducted. To better characterize the approach, testing was conducted at NASA’s White Sands Test Facility to evaluate the effect of depressurization on material extinguishment. The results showed that depressurization does not provide a safe and effective fire suppression capability. The testing approach, results, and conclusions are described and discussed.

Toni Griego↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

BEAST: Expanding Sustainable Data Infrastructure for High-Enthalpy Facilities

Reproducible, data-driven thermal protection system (TPS) research requires that experimental records from high-enthalpy testing be consistently structured, traceable, and accessible across campaigns and institutions. In practice, however, arcjet and plasma facilities data remain largely fragmented: raw diagnostics are stored in ad hoc formats, material sample histories are disconnected from test conditions, and metadata standards are absent, precluding systematic cross-campaign analysis and long-term reuse. BEAST (Backend for Experiment Analysis, Storage, and Traceability) is an open-source, web-based platform that addresses these limitations by providing a unified, queryable infrastructure for high-enthalpy ground-test data [1]. First presented at the 15th Ablation Workshop [2], BEAST has since undergone significant development. The platform ingests and structures multi-channel time-series diagnostics, facility configurations, and material property records within a common provenance model, ensuring end-to-end traceability from raw sensor acquisition to reduced experimental quantities. A versioned material library links specimen identity and processing history to the specific runs in which each sample was tested. An integrated modeling workbench enables training and evaluation of regression models directly on archived experimental data, supporting condition interpolation and the construction of empirical material response databases. Beyond its original deployment at NASA Ames Research Center, BEAST has been designed to be facility-agnostic, with ongoing efforts to extend its adoption to other facilities. Its modular architecture accommodates heterogeneous diagnostic setups and facility types, and its future open-source distribution allows institutions to build on a common data standard rather than maintaining isolated, bespoke solutions. BEAST is further integrated within a broader ecosystem of companion tools: arcjetCV [3] extracts recession rates and shock standoff distances from high-speed video using computer vision, and miniSTARscan [4] provides sub-minute, portable photogrammetric surface reconstruction of test articles before and after exposure. All tools share a common data schema, enabling seamless ingestion of surface geometry, imagery, and time-series data into a single, coherent experimental record.

Database↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

BEAST: Expanding Sustainable Data Infrastructure for High-Enthalpy Facilities

Reproducible, data-driven thermal protection system (TPS) research requires that experimental records from high-enthalpy testing be consistently structured, traceable, and accessible across campaigns and institutions. In practice, however, arcjet and plasma facilities data remain largely fragmented: raw diagnostics are stored in ad hoc formats, material sample histories are disconnected from test conditions, and metadata standards are absent, precluding systematic cross-campaign analysis and long-term reuse. BEAST (Backend for Experiment Analysis, Storage, and Traceability) is an open-source, web-based platform that addresses these limitations by providing a unified, queryable infrastructure for high-enthalpy ground-test data [1]. First presented at the 15th Ablation Workshop [2], BEAST has since undergone significant development. The platform ingests and structures multi-channel time-series diagnostics, facility configurations, and material property records within a common provenance model, ensuring end-to-end traceability from raw sensor acquisition to reduced experimental quantities. A versioned material library links specimen identity and processing history to the specific runs in which each sample was tested. An integrated modeling workbench enables training and evaluation of regression models directly on archived experimental data, supporting condition interpolation and the construction of empirical material response databases. Beyond its original deployment at NASA Ames Research Center, BEAST has been designed to be facility-agnostic, with ongoing efforts to extend its adoption to other facilities. Its modular architecture accommodates heterogeneous diagnostic setups and facility types, and its future open-source distribution allows institutions to build on a common data standard rather than maintaining isolated, bespoke solutions. BEAST is further integrated within a broader ecosystem of companion tools: arcjetCV [3] extracts recession rates and shock standoff distances from high-speed video using computer vision, and miniSTARscan [4] provides sub-minute, portable photogrammetric surface reconstruction of test articles before and after exposure. All tools share a common data schema, enabling seamless ingestion of surface geometry, imagery, and time-series data into a single, coherent experimental record.

Database↗
NASA NTRS1984

A Battery Charger and State of Charge Indicator

A battery charger which has a full wave rectifier in series with a transformer isolated 20 kHz dc-dc converter with high frequency switches, which are programmed to actively shape the input dc line current to be a mirror image of the ac line voltage is discussed. The power circuit operates at 2 kW peak and 1 kW average power. The BC/SCI has two major subsystems: (1) the battery charger power electronics with its controls; and (2) a microcomputer subsystem which is used to acquire battery terminal data and exercise the state of charge software programs. The state of charge definition employed is the energy remaining in the battery when extracted at a 10 kW rate divided by the energy capacity of a fully charged new battery. The battery charger circuit is an isolated boost converter operating at an internal frequency of 20 kHz. The switches selected for the battery charger are the single most important item in determining its efficiency. The combination of voltage and current requirements dictate the use of high power NPN Darlington switching transistors. The power circuit topology is a three switch design which utilizes a power FET on the center tap of the isolation transformer and the power Darlingtons on each of the two ends. An analog control system is employed to accomplish active input current waveshaping as well as the necessary regulation.

Latos, T. S.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Ares I-X Ground Diagnostic Prototype

Automating prelaunch diagnostics for launch vehicles offers three potential benefits. First, it potentially improves safety by detecting faults that might otherwise have been missed so that they can be corrected before launch. Second, it potentially reduces launch delays by more quickly diagnosing the cause of anomalies that occur during prelaunch processing. Reducing launch delays will be critical to the success of NASA's planned future missions that require in-orbit rendezvous. Third, it potentially reduces costs by reducing both launch delays and the number of people needed to monitor the prelaunch process. NASA is currently developing the Ares I launch vehicle to bring the Orion capsule and its crew of four astronauts to low-earth orbit on their way to the moon. Ares I-X will be the first unmanned test flight of Ares I. It is scheduled to launch on October 27, 2009. The Ares I-X Ground Diagnostic Prototype is a prototype ground diagnostic system that will provide anomaly detection, fault detection, fault isolation, and diagnostics for the Ares I-X first-stage thrust vector control (TVC) and for the associated ground hydraulics while it is in the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and on the launch pad. It will serve as a prototype for a future operational ground diagnostic system for Ares I. The prototype combines three existing diagnostic tools. The first tool, TEAMS (Testability Engineering and Maintenance System), is a model-based tool that is commercially produced by Qualtech Systems, Inc. It uses a qualitative model of failure propagation to perform fault isolation and diagnostics. We adapted an existing TEAMS model of the TVC to use for diagnostics and developed a TEAMS model of the ground hydraulics. The second tool, Spacecraft Health Inference Engine (SHINE), is a rule-based expert system developed at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. We developed SHINE rules for fault detection and mode identification. The prototype uses the outputs of SHINE as inputs to TEAMS. The third tool, the Inductive Monitoring System (IMS), is an anomaly detection tool developed at NASA Ames Research Center and is currently used to monitor the International Space Station Control Moment Gyroscopes. IMS automatically "learns" a model of historical nominal data in the form of a set of clusters and signals an alarm when new data fails to match this model. IMS offers the potential to detect faults that have not been modeled. The three tools have been integrated and deployed to Hangar AE at KSC where they interface with live data from the Ares I-X vehicle and from the ground hydraulics. The outputs of the tools are displayed on a console in Hangar AE, one of the locations from which the Ares I-X launch will be monitored. In a previous publication, we discussed how we selected the three tools based primarily on their ability to be certified for human spaceflight and described our plans for the prototype. This abstract is due October 23, 2009, and the Ares I-X launch is currently scheduled for October 27, 2009. If this abstract is accepted, then the full paper will describe how the prototype performed before the launch. It will include an analysis of the prototype's accuracy, including false-positive rates, false-negative rates, and receiver operating characteristics (ROC) curves. It will also include a description of the prototype's computational requirements, including CPU usage, main memory usage, and disk usage. If the prototype detects any faults during the prelaunch period then the paper will include a description of those faults. Similarly, if the prototype has any false alarms then the paper will describe them and will attempt to explain their causes. Also, the paper will describe the three tools and how they are used in the prototype. It will include a description of the TEAMS models of the Ares I-X first-stage TVC and associated ground hydraulics and how we adapted the TVC model for use in real-time diagnostics. It will describe the SHINE rules used for fault detection and mode identification and the software architecture that interfaces the various pieces of existing software that are part of the prototype to one another. It will describe how we selected the sensor values and commands that were used to train the IMS model and how we optimized the number of clusters in the IMS model. It will include screen shots of the graphical display that we developed in Java to display the outputs of the three tools. Because Ares I-X data was not yet available to us while we were developing the prototype, we used historical data from the Space Shuttle's Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) TVCs and the associated ground hydraulics to train IMS and to test the entire prototype. Because most of the failure modes that we modeled have never occurred in the Shuttle we inserted simulated failures into the Shuttle data. The Ares I-X first-stage TVC is very similar to the SRB TVC and we expect the data will be very similar. After the launch, we will determine how similar the data actually is and report how any differences in the data affected the diagnostic accuracy of the prototype. Finally, although we did not get the prototype certified, we designed it in a way that it could be certified and wrote a preliminary certification plan. The paper will include a brief summary of how we considered the need for certification in the design of the prototype, how we tested the prototype before deploying it to Hangar AE, and how we would propose to get it certified if it were deployed as an operational system. The paper will conclude with a description of some of the challenges we faced and some of the lessons learned in developing and deploying the prototype.

International Space Station↗
NASA NTRS1995

CAE for Thermal Management of Aerospace Electronic Boards Using the BETAsoft Program

Aerospace electronic boards require special attention to thermal management due to constraints such as their need to be light, small, and maintain high power densities. Also, cooling is mainly through conductive and radiative modes with minor or negligible convective cooling. Due to these particular requirements, thermal design has become an integrated part of the electronic design process in order to avoid expensive repeat prototyping and to ensure high reliability. To achieve high speed simulations, the BETAsoft code uses semi-empirical formulations and an advanced finite difference scheme that incorporates local adaptive grids. Detailed conduction, convection and radiation heat transfer is considered. Various benchmark verifications of the software simulation compared to infrared images typically prove to be within 10% of each other. The thermal analysis of a sample avionic card in a natural convection environment is shown. Then, the individual effects of attaching metal screws to the casing, increasing radiative emissivities of the casing, increasing the conductance of the wedge lock, adding an aluminum core to the board, adding metal strips in board layers, inserting conduction pads under components, and adding heat sinks to components are demonstrated.

Kimberly Bobish↗
NASA NTRS2026

Dynamic Regulation of Sub-Atmospheric Pressure for Constant and Cyclic Gas Loads During Testing of Spacesuit Components

New iterations of the various subsystems within the spacesuit will benefit from a new sorbent technology. For example, sorbents used in the Trace Contaminant Control (TCC) and the Rapid Cycle Amine (RCA) systems within the Exploration Portable Life Support System (xPLSS), part of the Extra-Vehicular Mobility Unit (xEMU). For proper validation, the sub-atmospheric pressure needs to be maintained within a simulated 2 ft 3 spacesuit volume. The traditional approach, which involves placing the entire vent loop within a hypobaric chamber, is not practical for the widespread testing of components and prototypes, as these specialized chambers are costly and not widely available. A two-stage regulator based sub-atmospheric pressure system is presented in this work. The method regulates the pressure based on pressure differentials between the pressure regulation pump, the test system, and the ambient environment. The performance of this system is demonstrated using data collected during a 150+ hour non-regenerative TCC sorbent evaluation, several 24-hour regenerative TCC sorbent evaluations with different regeneration cycles, and an 8-hour RCA sorbent evaluation, all under xEMU operating conditions. For regulation, the inlet regulator was set to propagate a small leak to increase the stability of the system as the gas load from the testing system changes. It was also found that controlling the input flow rate that replaces the material lost during regeneration is critical for ensuring the stability of the system. This system provided excellent pressure regulation, without adjustments, for constant loads during shorter time evaluations (hours), while longer time evaluations (days) are easily obtainable with periodic regulator adjustments. A second method is under development to address longer-term stability and to automate pressure regulation. It will incorporate flow and pressure measurements to dynamically control a set of electronically controlled proportional valves for adjusting the pumping speed and air bleed supply.

Nicholas F Materer↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Aerothermodynamic Analysis of a Flexible Thermal Protection System under Reentry Loads

The Carryall Block 1 reentry vehicle being developed by Outpost Space utilizes a strut supported semirigid deployable heatshield. This consists of a flexible thermal protection system, a heat-resistant fabric stack, stretched over actuated spars. The advantages of a deployable heatshield include reduced heat loading and earlier deceleration in the trajectory. However, the nature of the flexible thermal protection system necessitates considering the loaded shape of the heat shield. The flexible thermal protection system will deflect under reentry loads leading to areas of higher heating rates as well as a reduced axial coefficient as compared to the nominal shape. The Carryall Block 1 is analyzed using NASA’s FUN3D and DPLR CFD solvers with a deflected shape based on the catenary equations. The aerodynamic results are found to be within a percent for both solvers and both structured and unstructured mesh types. Fluid Structure Interaction (FSI) analysis is currently a work in progress, using file I/O to communicate between FUN3D and LS-DYNA, a commercial nonlinear structural solver. Challenges in deforming the geometry, mesh, and initial results are presented here.

thermal protection system↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

On-Orbit Calibration Assessment of NOAA-21 VIIRS Thermal Emissive Bands and Implications for JPSS-4 VIIRS

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument onboard the NOAA-21 (N21) satellite has been successfully operating for over three years collecting valuable scientific measurements. A large suite of weather forecasting models and scientific research applications are supported with the VIIRS measurements from N21 combined with those acquired from the VIIRS instrument onboard the S-NPP and NOAA-20 spacecraft. Among the 22 VIIRS spectral bands, there are seven thermal emissive bands (TEB) covering the 3.7 to 12.2 µm spectral range at two different spatial resolutions. The VIIRS TEB detectors are calibrated onboard using a blackbody at a controlled temperature and a space view for background signal measurement. In this paper, we discuss the on-orbit performance of the N21 VIIRS TEB using various parameters such as the detector gain, noise, and offset. This on-orbit assessment provides critical insights into instrument behavior and calibration performance that will inform pre-launch testing and post-launch validation strategies for the upcoming JPSS-4 VIIRS mission scheduled for launch in 2027. The methodologies and lessons learned from characterizing the N21 TEB performance will enable more efficient and comprehensive radiometric assessment of the next VIIRS instrument. Specific focus is placed on identifying performance trends and anomaly signatures observed during the N21 commissioning phase that can enhance the JPSS4 instrument checkout procedures and accelerate the transition to routine on-orbit operations. The established performance baselines and uncertainty estimates will serve as an acceptance criterion for the JPSS-4 commissioning activities, ensuring mission readiness and data continuity for operational users.

Amit Angal↗