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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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NASA NTRS2017

Microbial Extremophiles for Earth and Beyond: Pushing the Boundaries with Synthetic Biology

All organisms live in a multi-dimensional physical and chemical niche space. Discoveries in the 20th century enormously expanded the range of what was considered "habitable." However, the current diversity of life on Earth begs the question of what terrestrial life - or indeed, another life form - would be capable of. With the needs of both modern laboratory science and the burgeoning field of biotechnology, as well as our deeply held desire to answer the question "are we alone in the universe?, we are exploiting the tools of synthetic biology to probe the question of whether we can create "synthetic extremophiles" or, as our lab has dubbed them, "Hell Cells."

synthetic extremophiles↗
NASA NTRS2018

Role of a Chemist in Modern Industries: Design and Development of Nanoengineered Multifunctional Materials

During the past fifteen years significant investment has been made for the applications of nanotechnology in almost every aspect of life. Almost every area of research has projected improvements including biotechnology, bioinspired electronic, optical and radiological sensors, or a promise for the emergence of some novel device technologies. For such applications major focus has been placed on research nanoparticles, nanotubes nanorods and two-dimensional structures similar to that of graphene. Some near- term applications of nano- particles and nanowires have produced very promising results for better synthesis of energy storage materials, design of biologically active composites like apatites, laser host crystals, photodetectors and sensor materials for radiation detection. To achieve desired morphologies, nanomaterials can be utilized some organic melt and orient the grains by the directional solidification method. The organic treated materials produce different characteristics than coarsened oxide materials. The focus is also understanding the morphology and performance function in human organs that occur because of aging or disease, and responses to interventions. We annealed to determine the changes in morphologies and hence effect of aging. In this presentation, we will discuss correlation between the designed composition, micromorphology and the performance parameters of nanomaterials. To understand the mechanism of formation of nanoparticles, nanoboloids, fibers experimental details and observations on the of multinary compounds will be presented. These observations on the transition of nanomorphology can highlight the mechanism of the phase transition in some oxides and selenides.

Singh, N. B.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Annual Highlights of Results from the International Space Station October 1, 2017 - October 1, 2018

The International Space Station (ISS) is a unique place – a convergence of science, technology and human innovation that demonstrates new technologies and makes research breakthroughs that cannot be accomplished on Earth. As an international laboratory for scientific research in microgravity, the space station’s international crew lives and works while traveling at a speed of about five miles per second as they make new discoveries in the disciplines of biology and biotechnology, Earth and space science, human research, physical science, educational activities, and technology development and demonstrations.

ISS research highlight↗
NASA NTRS2017

The Evolution of Planetary Protection Implementation on Mars Landed Missions

NASA has developed requirements dedicated to the prevention of forward and backward contamination during space exploration. Historically, international agreements provided guidelines to prevent contamination of the Moon and other celestial bodies, as well as the Earth (e.g., sample return missions). The UN Outer Space Treaty was established in 1967 and the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) maintains a planetary protection policy complying with Article IX of this treaty. By avoiding forward contamination, the integrity of scientific exploration is preserved. Planetary Protection mission requirements are levied on missions to control contamination. These requirements are dependent on the science of the mission and on the celestial bodies encountered or targeted along the way. Consequently, categories are assigned to missions, and specific implementation plans are developed to meet the planetary protection requirements. NASA missions have evolved over time with increasingly more demanding scientific objectives and more complex flight systems to achieve those objectives and, thus, planetary protection methods and processes used for implementation have become much more intricate, complicated, and challenging. Here, we will portray the evolution of planetary protection implementation at JPL in several important areas throughout the course of NASA sponsored robotic Mars lander or rover missions, starting from Mars Pathfinder through the beginning of Mars 2020. Highlighted in the discussion will be process changes in planetary protection requirements development and flow down. Development and implementation of new and improved methods used in the reduction of spacecraft bioburden will be discussed as well as approaches and challenges that come along with setting up remote laboratories to perform bioassays. The consequences and forward planning of delays on missions will be highlighted as well as lessons learned on the impact of communication and training in achieving planetary protection requirements. The evolution of methods used for the detection of microbial bioburden on spacecraft hardware will be considered. These methods use standard microbiology as well as the adaptation of advances in biotechnology, molecular biology, and bioinformatics. Technical approaches developed for the prevention of contamination and recontamination of hardware during Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations will be discussed.

Kazarians, Gayane A.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Advanced Colloids Experiment (Temperature Controlled) – ACE-T5

The attached will be presented at the JSC Science Symposium as a preview of the ACE-T5 flight experiment. The Principal Investigator (PI) for this experiment is Professor Ali Mohraz at the University of California - Irvine.Bijels (bicontinuous interfacially jammed emulsion gels) were discovered in 2007 at the University of Edinburgh. These materials feature a tubular, bicontinuous arrangement of two fluid phases separated by a monolayer of jammed colloidal particles at the interface.Because of their unique morphological characteristics, bijels hold significant promise as next-generation materials for energy and biotechnology applications. But in order to fully realize their potential, their physics and mechanical properties must be better understood. The mechanical properties and stability of bijels is mediated by an interplay between interfacial forces that impart elasticity to the system, and external stresses. Unfortunately, the interfacial forces are inherently coupled with density differences and cannot be studied systematically in the presence of gravity.

Mohraz, Ali↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

3D Construction of Biologically Derived Materials

System for the 3D Construction of Biologically Derived Materials, Structures, and Parts NASA has developed a novel approach for macroscale biomaterial production by combining synthetic biology with 3D printing. Cells are biologically engineered to deposit desired materials, such as proteins or metals, derived from locally available resources. The bioengineered cells build different materials in a specified 3D pattern to produce novel microstructures with precise molecular composition, thickness, print pattern, and shape. Scaffolds and reagents can be used for further control over material product. This innovation provides modern design and fabrication techniques for custom-designed organic or organic-inorganic composite biomaterials produced from limited resources. Benefits Conserves resources. Few raw or bulk starting materials needed Enables custom design of diverse materials Fast, portable, macroscale, on-demand manufacturing High-fidelity microstructures Uses commercially available parts Applications Biomaterials, biotechnology Organic-inorganic composite materials On-demand manufacturing In situ resource utilization Space stations Military Infrastructure materials The Technology Once genes for a desired material type, delivery mode, control method and affinity have been chosen, assembling the genetic components and creating the cell lines can be done with well-established synthetic biology techniques. A 3D microdeposition system is used to make a 3D array of these cells in a precise, microstructure pattern and shape. The engineered cells are suspended in a printable 'ink'. The 3D microdeposition system deposits minute droplets of the cells onto a substrates surface in a designed print pattern. Additional printer passes thicken the material. The cell array is fed nutrients and reagents to activate the engineered genes within the cells to create and deposit the desired molecules. These molecules form the designed new material. If desired, the cells may be removed by flushing. The end product is thus a 3D composite microstructure comprising the novel material. This innovation provides a fast, controlled production of natural, synthetic, and novel biomaterials with minimum resource overhead and reduced pre- and post-processing requirements.

3D↗
NASA NTRS2021

What to Take? When to Make? How to Break Even? Avoid Mistakes in Microbial Biomanufacturing in Support of Human Near-to-Deep-Space Exploration

In this whitepaper, we call for the concept of biomanufacturing to be expanded and widely adopted as a support function of human Space-travel. To demonstrate the impact and value of this strategy, we identify the specific offworld scenarios where the concept is most applicable, as well as the vital inventories that can be made available thereby. This will serve to increase capabilities of human operations beyond Earth-orbit and allow for extended mission design through greater autonomy while minimizing risks through redundancy. To this end, we sketch the potential routes and systems to arrive at these goals, in the form of specialized microbial cell factories that can most meaningfully leverage the resources available along the journey. The strategic vision presented here relies heavily on Synthetic Biology as it integrates with major plans for In Situ Resource Utilization and highlights applications that engineered biology is uniquely suited to address. We finish by advocating for the research and development investments that need to be made in order to significantly increase readiness of these technologies over the coming decade. This dovetails with current efforts to return humans to the Moon with Mars on the horizon. Besides ensuring the feasibility and sustainability of crewed Space exploration and habitation, the advancement of these technologies may spawn a new scalable microgravity-based biotechnology industry that contributes to the creation of a circular economy on Earth.

Biomanufacturing↗
NASA NTRS2022

ThermoBase: A Database of the Phylogeny and Physiology of Thermophilic and Hyperthermophilic Organisms

Thermophiles and hyperthermophiles are those organisms which grow at high temperature (> 40°C). The unusual properties of these organisms have received interest in multiple fields of biological research, and have found applications in biotechnology, especially in industrial processes. However, there are few listings of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic organisms and their relevant environmental and physiological data. Such repositories can be used to standardize definitions of thermophile and hyperthermophile limits and tolerances and would mitigate the need for extracting organism data from diverse literature sources across multiple, sometimes loosely related, research fields. Therefore, we have developed ThermoBase, a web-based and freely available database which currently houses comprehensive descriptions for 1238 thermophilic or hyperthermophilic organisms. ThermoBase reports taxonomic, metabolic, environmental, experimental, and physiological information in addition to literature resources. This includes parameters such as coupling ions for chemiosmosis, optimal pH and range, optimal temperature and range, optimal pressure, and optimal salinity. The database interface allows for search features and sorting of parameters. As such, it is the goal of ThermoBase to facilitate and expedite hypothesis generation, literature research, and understanding relating to thermophiles and hyperthermophiles within the scientific community in an accessible and centralized repository. ThermoBase is freely available online at the Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED; https://ahed.nasa.gov), at the Database Center for Life Science (TogoDB; http://togodb.org/db/thermobase), and in the S1 File.

Thermophiles↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Omics Archive Project

The space environment consists of a complex set of hazards including altered gravity, radiation, psychological/physiological stress, isolation, and confinement leading to complex biological responses. Advances in biotechnology capabilities offer considerable potential to provide novel insight into those responses as well as innovative diagnostic, treatment, and countermeasure solutions for astronauts as NASA begins to travel beyond low Earth orbit. Omics data (genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, etc.) is one example that can provide NASA with critical knowledge of how a crewmember’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle can be used to develop individualized approaches for disease prevention, advance diagnostics, and improve treatment strategies. NASA ventured into the field of omics on human subjects with the successful completion of the NASA Twins Study which was the first step in mapping the multi-omic profile of astronauts to understand and mitigate the health consequences of spaceflight. The Human Research Program aims to build upon the success of the Twins Study with the NASA Omics Archive flight study, establishing a longitudinal biospecimen archive and efficiently generating a comprehensive high-quality multi-omic dataset from astronauts for the purpose of studying molecular, metabolic, and microbial changes associated with longduration spaceflight missions. The goal is to facilitate scientific and medical research community efforts to characterize and mitigate spaceflight health and performance risks. In this presentation, we will review details regarding the biospecimen and data archive to be generated by the NASA Omics Archive flight study. Data generated as part of this project will be archived in the NASA Life Sciences Portal (NLSP) and be made available for future hypothesis-driven research efforts or occupational surveillance through Institutional Review Board-approved data sharing and retrospective data requests submitted to the Life Sciences Data Archive (LSDA) team. We will also present results of a ground study performed to evaluate in-house procedures, new sample collection hardware, and vendor capabilities. The data repository generated and the samples to be archived by this study will enable future research efforts to assess an astronauts’ unique molecular and genetic profile with respect to individual spaceflight responses. Results of which will be instrumental in enabling precision health capabilities to better assess and mitigate spaceflight risks, detect disease states earlier, and actively monitor countermeasure treatments, ultimately improving clinical outcomes during future exploration class missions.

C. A. Theriot↗
NASA NTRS2021

Romie: A Domain-Independent Tool for Computer-Aided Robust Operations Management

Romie is a decision support tool based on AI's latest advances in the domain of robust scheduling. Unlike all its predecessors, the tool allows to (i) visually model the operational problem and context entirely (ii) optimize to find near-optimal schedules while taking uncertainty into account and deals with (iii) a combination of various {key performance indicators (KPIs). It comes with a web user interface. Part or all of the modelled activities may be associated to random variables describing their stochastic durations, in order to produce schedules that are robust w.r.t. temporal uncertainty. Hence, depending on the pursued KPIs, the schedules maximize a combination of the following terms: the probability of satisfying the problem constraints, the expected return/efficiency, the expected outcome quality, and even the operators' wellness by minimizing its expected extra-hours. Initially developed for spatial exploration and demonstration in the context of Mars analog missions, this versatile tool is here applied to operations management in both biotechnology manufacturing and robots parametrization in a cave exploration context.

Chien, Steve A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Cleanroom Microbes Survive Drying, Vacuum, and Proton Irradiation

Introduction : The goal of planetary protection at NASA is to mitigate the risk of contaminating sensitive target bodies with biological life. While many cleaning procedures have been put in place to reduce bioburden on spacecraft, microbes are experts at evolving to survive harsh conditions. Specifically, the dry, low-nutrient environment of a cleanroom (commonly used for assembly of spacecraft) can represent an environment where extremophiles can survive. Methods : Scientists at NASA MSFC wished to gather a snapshot of the microbial population within a variety of cleanrooms on site. A study was undertaken to collect air, surface, and floor samples from clean-rooms and isolate unique morphologies. From this study, 95 isolates were collected and saved in a microbial library. About 86% of these were identified at least to a genus level. Following identification, 24 microbes were selected, based on a literature review, as potential extremophiles. These were grown in liquid cultures, diluted to a set optical density, washed with water, and then applied to a sterilized Kapton coupon. Droplets were allowed to dry overnight in a biosafety cabinet. Coupons were then installed in a pelletron and pumped down to high vacuum (~1E-6 Torr). Samples were then subjected 100 keV protons at a fluence of 2x10 15 p+/cm 2 up to 4x10 15 p+/cm 2 . Following exposure, samples were returned to the microbiology lab where they were pro-cessed by submerging in water, vortexing, and then plating either droplets or spread plates. Recovery data collected was qualitative with a ranking or +, minor, or – for growth. Some selected radiotolerant strains were sequenced using the Illumina sequencing platform. The resulting genomes were annotated with the Rapid Annotations using Subsystems Technology (RAST) server and analyzed for conserved and unique stress response relevant genomic signatures to identify clues related to specific tolerances. Results and Discussion : After five rounds of proton radiation, we narrowed our isolates to five, non-spore forming bacteria that demonstrated survival: Arthrobacter koreensis, Paenarthrobacter nitroguajacolicus, Mycetocola manganoxydans , and an Erwinia sp. Furthermore, we exposed these four microbes to 254 nm wavelength light at an intensity of 80 W/m 2 at a distance of ~18 cm for 10 minutes. Only A. koreensis demonstrated survival following UV exposure. Finally, we performed whole genome sequencing on the four strains to look for genetic markers of stress resistance. When we compared the genomes of the four strains, we found that genes coding for GGDEF and EAL domains with PAS/PAC sensors were only found in A. koreensis . These domains, modulated by PAS/PAC sensors, are hypothesized to facilitate survival under drying, desiccation, and proton irradiation. Drying and Desiccation : PAS domains sense hydration changes and modulate GGDEF and EAL domain activity to adjust c-di-GMP levels, enhancing resistance to desiccation. For instance, in Pseudomonas aeruginosa , the PAS domain of RbdA modulates activity under varying hydration conditions, affecting stress responses [1]. Proton Irradiation : Proton irradiation causes oxidative stress, leading to ROS generation. PAS domains detect this stress and modulate GGDEF and EAL domains to manage oxidative stress responses. In Shewanella , EAL domain proteins modulated by PAS sensors help bacteria adapt to extreme conditions [2]. These genes upregulate other stress response genes, protecting membrane function, protein stability, DNA repair, and antioxidant defenses. The modulation of c-di-GMP by PAS domains is crucial for bacterial adaptation to stress conditions, enabling dynamic physio-logical adjustments [3]. Understanding these mechanisms provides insights into bacterial stress responses and strategies for controlling bacterial growth [4]. Conclusions : These findings indicate that clean-rooms harbor extremophile microbes that may be able to survive conditions in deep space. Furthermore, while we identified certain stress-response genes that may be at least partly responsible for the phenotypes observed in this study, there are likely unidentified genes or characteristics about A. koreensis , and other bacteria, that may allow them to survive in harsh environments. Future studies will focus on identifying these unknown genes and characteristics, further elucidating the mechanisms of extremophile survival and potentially informing the development of new biotechnologies for space exploration and other extreme environments.

Chelsi Cassilly↗