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At least 271 records · Page 15

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NASA NTRS2016

Origin of the Anomalously Rocky Appearance of Tsiolkovskiy Crater

Rock abundance maps derived from the Diviner Lunar Radiometer instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) show Tsiolkovskiy crater to have high surface rock abundance and relatively low regolith thickness. The location of the enhanced rock abundance to the southeast of the crater is consistent with a massive, well-preserved impact melt deposit apparent in LRO Miniature Radio Frequency instrument circular polarization ratio data. A new model crater age using LRO Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera imagery suggests that while it originated in the Late Imbrian, Tsiolkovskiy may be the youngest lunar crater of its size ( approximately 180 km diameter). Together these data show that Tsiolkovskiy has a unique surface rock population and regolith properties for a crater of its size and age. Explanation of these observations requires mechanisms that produce more large blocks, preserve boulders and large blocks from degradation to regolith, and/or uncover buried rocks. These processes have important implications for formation of regolith on the Moon.

Greenhagen, Benjamin T.↗

NASA NTRS2018

Documenting of Geologic Field Activities in Real-Time in Four Dimensions: Apollo 17 as a Case Study for Terrestrial Analogues and Future Exploration

During the Apollo exploration of the lunar surface, thousands of still images, 16 mm videos, TV footage, samples, and surface experiments were captured and collected. In addition, observations and descriptions of what was observed was radioed to Mission Control as part of standard communications and subsequently transcribed. The archive of this material represents perhaps the best recorded set of geologic field campaigns and will serve as the example of how to conduct field work on other planetary bodies for decades to come. However, that archive of material exists in disparate locations and formats with varying levels of completeness, making it not easily cross-referenceable. While video and audio exist for the missions, it is not time synchronized, and images taken during the missions are not time or location tagged. Sample data, while robust, is not easily available in a context of where the samples were collected, their descriptions by the astronauts are not connected to them, or the video footage of their collection (if available). A more than five year undertaking to reconstruct and reconcile the Apollo 17 mission archive, from launch through splashdown, has generated an integrated record of the entire mission, resulting in searchable, synchronized image, voice, and video data, with geologic context provided at the time each sample was collected. Through www.apollo17.org the documentation of the field investigation conducted by the Apollo 17 crew is presented in chronologic sequence, with additional context provided by high-resolution Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) images and a corresponding digital terrain model (DTM) of the Taurus-Littrow Valley.

APOLLO 17↗

NASA NTRS2018

Surface Reconstruction of a Challenging Region with Permanent Shadows on the Moon

As the Earth is orbiting the Sun, there is the region a sunlight can't be reached on the Moon, a satellite of the Earth. Usually, the permanent shadows are located near a pole area and the surface reconstruction in the permanent shadows region is challenging because of the lack of sunlight.In this research, the reconstruction method containing the permanent shadows is suggested. To apply this method, the time-varying shadow region and a permanently shadowed region are needed to be separated. In the time-varying shadow region, the pixel intensity of the image can be composed of the albedo and the reflectance model. Using the light source direction from ISIS3 of USGS, the shape of the region can be extracted from the reflectance model. Though this region is visible in the camera, the change of illumination is quite large in this region, it is hard to reconstruct the shape using stereo-photogrammetry or SfS. So, it is needed of collecting more surface normal information from several pixel level-aligned images. In this process, the albedo information can be initialized and enhanced easily from many images.In the middle of permanent shadows, the high-resolution DEM is generated by LOLA DEM. The LOLA DEM is generated by interpolation between measured data point strips, the actual scene of the permanent shadows. Using the sensor like DIVINER, the Imaginary scene generation via a trained network between the sunlight sensor and other kinds of a sensor is suggested.

Moon, Sunghyun↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Camera Calibration and Alignment Metrology at Johnson Space Center’s Electro-Optics Laboratory

It is increasingly common to see spacecraft equipped with cameras for the purpose of navigation. Images are either sent to Earth or processed autonomously on-board to provide information about the vehicle’s position, velocity, and/or attitude. These can be images of stars or celestial bodies for absolute navigation, or images of another spacecraft for relative navigation. While monocular cameras do not provide range information, the images they capture can be processed to determine bearing vectors to target objects within the camera’s field of view. For a camera to be effective in navigation, it must be carefully calibrated and aligned. This involves accurately modeling the optical effects that govern the projection of line-of-sight directions onto the camera’s pixels and determining the camera’s orientation relative to the spacecraft’s reference frame. Engineers at Johnson Space Center’s Electro-Optics Lab regularly perform camera inspection, calibration, and alignment metrology. This was done for the Orion Optical Navigation (OpNav) Camera, the Orion Docking Camera (DCAM), and for numerous cameras belonging to commercial partners. The nature of optical navigation means that cameras must be well-calibrated and their attitude well understood to provide high accuracy bearing measurements to the navigation filter. The stringent accuracy requirements for Orion could not have been met using traditional checkerboard camera calibration or by simply relying on design drawings. This paper details the hardware, software, techniques, and algorithms used by the EOL team to achieve this level of accuracy.

Paul D Mckee↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Camera Calibration and Alignment Metrology at Johnson Space Center’s Electro-Optics Laboratory

Paul McKee↗

DOE OSTI2025

Monitoring river flow status using low-cost wildlife camera and image segmentation artificial intelligence

Continuous measurement and monitoring of surface water coverage in non-perennial streams are essential for understanding the exchange fluxes between surface and subsurface waters under both inundated and non-inundated conditions. In this study, a wildlife camera photo-based framework was developed to monitor small stream water inundation, depth, discharge, and velocity. Two advanced machine learning models, YOLOv8 and Mask2Former, were utilized to efficiently analyze images captured by wildlife cameras. The accuracy of the framework was validated against on-site depth measurements at six sites in the Yakima River Basin, along with the gage height, discharge, and velocity data from four USGS sites. This approach facilitates long-term, continuous monitoring and quantification of river intermittency and water availability with high precision and low cost, thereby advancing river ecosystem research and management.

machine learning↗

NASA NTRS1988

Calculating Robot-Joint Coordinates From Image Coordinates

Detailed knowledge of robot joints not required. Algorithm generates approximate mathematical models of coordinates of joints of robot as functions of coordinates of points in images of work region viewed by television cameras. Joint coordinates necessary to position and orient end effector calculated by mathematical models fitted to experimentally determined data on positions, orientations, and joint coordinates. Generates models as functions of desired location of end effector of robot. Does not require priori knowledge of kinematic equations of robot.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2001

Synchronized Electronic Shutter System (SESS) for Thermal Nondestructive Evaluation

The purpose of this paper is to describe a new method for thermal nondestructive evaluation. This method uses a synchronized electronic shutter system (SESS) to remove the heat lamp's influence on the thermal data during and after flash heating. There are two main concerns when using flash heating. The first concern is during the flash when the photons are reflected back into the camera. This tends to saturate the detectors and potentially introduces unknown and uncorrectable errors when curve fitting the data to a model. To address this, an electronically controlled shutter was placed over the infrared camera lens. Before firing the flash lamps, the shutter is opened to acquire the necessary background data for offset calibration. During flash heating, the shutter is closed to prevent the photons from the high intensity flash from saturating the camera's detectors. The second concern is after the flash heating where the lamps radiate heat after firing. This residual cooling introduces an unwanted transient thermal response into the data. To remove this residual effect, a shutter was placed over the flash lamps to block the infrared heat radiating from the flash head after heating. This helped to remove the transient contribution of the flash. The flash lamp shutters were synchronized electronically with the camera shutter. Results are given comparing the use of the thermal inspection with and without the shutter system.

Zalameda, Joseph N.↗

NASA NTRS2006

Modeling and Correcting the Time-Dependent ACS PSF

The ability to accurately measure the shapes of faint objects in images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) depends upon detailed knowledge of the Point Spread Function (PSF). We show that thermal fluctuations cause the PSF of the ACS Wide Field Camera (WFC) to vary over time. We describe a modified version of the TinyTim PSF modeling software to create artificial grids of stars across the ACS field of view at a range of telescope focus values. These models closely resemble the stars in real ACS images. Using 10 bright stars in a real image, we have been able to measure HST s apparent focus at the time of the exposure. TinyTim can then be used to model the PSF at any position on the ACS field of view. This obviates the need for images of dense stellar fields at different focus values, or interpolation between the few observed stars. We show that residual differences between our TinyTim models and real data are likely due to the effects of Charge Transfer Efficiency (CTE) degradation. Furthermore, we discuss stochastic noise that is added to the shape of point sources when distortion is removed, and we present MultiDrizzle parameters that are optimal for weak lensing science. Specifically, we find that reducing the MultiDrizzle output pixel scale and choosing a Gaussian kernel significantly stabilizes the resulting PSF after image combination, while still eliminating cosmic rays/bad pixels, and correcting the large geometric distortion in the ACS. We discuss future plans, which include more detailed study of the effects of CTE degradation on object shapes and releasing our TinyTim models to the astronomical community.

Rhodes, Jason↗

NASA NTRS1999

The Fringe-Imaging Skin Friction Technique PC Application User's Manual

A personal computer application (CXWIN4G) has been written which greatly simplifies the task of extracting skin friction measurements from interferograms of oil flows on the surface of wind tunnel models. Images are first calibrated, using a novel approach to one-camera photogrammetry, to obtain accurate spatial information on surfaces with curvature. As part of the image calibration process, an auxiliary file containing the wind tunnel model geometry is used in conjunction with a two-dimensional direct linear transformation to relate the image plane to the physical (model) coordinates. The application then applies a nonlinear regression model to accurately determine the fringe spacing from interferometric intensity records as required by the Fringe Imaging Skin Friction (FISF) technique. The skin friction is found through application of a simple expression that makes use of lubrication theory to relate fringe spacing to skin friction.

Zilliac, Gregory G.↗

NASA NTRS2014

Characteristics of the 2012 Geminids

The parent of the Geminids, 3200 Phaethon, is a unique body in that it is classified as an asteroid, however is responsible for one of the most prolific meteor showers of the year and has shown comet-like behavior in its past (Jewitt and Li 2010). The Geminid meteor shower is also anomalous as its rates have been increasing since it was first detected. Understanding the composition and properties of meteoroids that belong to this meteor shower is an important area of study and of interest to both theoreticians and experimentalists. Using the light curve and decelerations of ten double-station Geminids as seen in the Meteoroid Environment Office's widefield meteor cameras, densities were able to be approximated using a model of meteoroid ablation by Campbell-Brown et al (2013) which employs thermal disruption to model the release of grains during ablation. Bulk densities of Geminids give unique insight into the composition of Phaethon that would only be derived by going to the asteroid itself. The bulk densities of these ten Geminids were found to be between 2.6 and 3.0 g/cm(3), supporting results from Babadzhanov (2009) and Borovicka et al (2010) which prove Phaethon has a much lower porosity than most other meteor shower parents. NASA's Meteoroid Environment Office established these two wide-field meteor cameras to observe meteors in the milligram-mass-range. Each camera consists of a 17 mm focal length Schneider lens (f/0.95) on a Watec 902U2 Ultimate CCD video camera, producing a 21.7x15.5 degree field-of-view. This configuration sees meteors down to a magnitude of +6. Data from these cameras are currently being used to calculate daily automated meteor fluxes. On the first night of operation, December 13-14, 2012, 18 double-station and 53 unique single-station Geminids were detected. The Geminid flux results from this system will be presented as well as ZHR's over the peak of the Geminids. The average flux density over the night was 0.058, 0.052, and 0.062 meteors/km(2)/hour down to a limiting magnitude of +6.5, for the double-station results and each single-station's results. This equates to ZHR's of 113, 102, and 122 respectively. Included in the flux algorithm is a process to find the collecting area per height and a method to find the limiting meteor magnitude per 10 minute time period.

Blaauw, R.↗

NASA NTRS2024

Soil Salinity Level Assessment and Prediction Integrating UAV-borne Hyperspectral Imaging and Machine Learning Algorithms to Combat Desertification

In response to the ongoing global food crisis, the United Nations has identified “Zero Hunger” as one of its Sustainable Development Goals. A central contributor to the crisis is the process in which agricultural lands go through desertification. Research has shown a direct correlation between soil salinity and desertification - increased salinity levels indicate a higher risk for desertification. Furthermore, researchers have explored various techniques to map soil salinity, but these methods are oftentimes inefficient and don’t address future salinity predictions. To improve desertification monitoring, soil salinity can be observed via hyperspectral imaging on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to predict the risk of agricultural desertification using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques. A significant gap exists in past research that applies ML and imaging techniques to soil salinity: convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and regression models are rarely leveraged together, despite the efficiency and accuracy of these models. To compensate for this gap, the proposed system leverages the use of these AI and ML models to improve soil assessment and prediction techniques. This approach involves three steps - data collection, image analysis, and future prediction. Using hyperspectral cameras on UAVs to collect the data from the region, a trained CNN model will output estimated soil salinity levels at a specific time. The estimations will then be analyzed by a regression model to assess the accuracy of future soil salinity predictions. The proposed system will identify regions at risk of desertification to help farmers mitigate agricultural loss, in turn helping alleviate the food crisis.

UAV systems↗

NASA NTRS2008

Deployable Wireless Camera Penetrators

A lightweight, low-power camera dart has been designed and tested for context imaging of sampling sites and ground surveys from an aerobot or an orbiting spacecraft in a microgravity environment. The camera penetrators also can be used to image any line-of-sight surface, such as cliff walls, that is difficult to access. Tethered cameras to inspect the surfaces of planetary bodies use both power and signal transmission lines to operate. A tether adds the possibility of inadvertently anchoring the aerobot, and requires some form of station-keeping capability of the aerobot if extended examination time is required. The new camera penetrators are deployed without a tether, weigh less than 30 grams, and are disposable. They are designed to drop from any altitude with the boost in transmitting power currently demonstrated at approximately 100-m line-of-sight. The penetrators also can be deployed to monitor lander or rover operations from a distance, and can be used for surface surveys or for context information gathering from a touch-and-go sampling site. Thanks to wireless operation, the complexity of the sampling or survey mechanisms may be reduced. The penetrators may be battery powered for short-duration missions, or have solar panels for longer or intermittent duration missions. The imaging device is embedded in the penetrator, which is dropped or projected at the surface of a study site at 90 to the surface. Mirrors can be used in the design to image the ground or the horizon. Some of the camera features were tested using commercial "nanny" or "spy" camera components with the charge-coupled device (CCD) looking at a direction parallel to the ground. Figure 1 shows components of one camera that weighs less than 8 g and occupies a volume of 11 cm3. This camera could transmit a standard television signal, including sound, up to 100 m. Figure 2 shows the CAD models of a version of the penetrator. A low-volume array of such penetrator cameras could be deployed from an aerobot or a spacecraft onto a comet or asteroid. A system of 20 of these penetrators could be designed and built in a 1- to 2-kg mass envelope. Possible future modifications of the camera penetrators, such as the addition of a chemical spray device, would allow the study of simple chemical reactions of reagents sprayed at the landing site and looking at the color changes. Zoom lenses also could be added for future use.

Badescu, Mircea↗

NASA NTRS2016

Searching for Decaying Dark Matter in Deep XMM-Newton Observation of the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal

We present results of a search for the 3.5 keV emission line in our recent very long (approx. 1.4 Ms) XMM-Newton observation of the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy. The astrophysical X-ray emission from such dark matter-dominated galaxies is faint, thus they provide a test for the dark matter origin of the 3.5 keV line previously detected in other massive, but X-ray bright objects, such as galaxies and galaxy clusters. We do not detect a statistically significant emission line from Draco; this constrains the lifetime of a decaying dark matter particle to tau >(7-9) × 10(exp 27) s at 95% CL (combining all three XMM-Newton cameras; the interval corresponds to the uncertainty of the dark matter column density in the direction of Draco). The PN camera, which has the highest sensitivity of the three, does show a positive spectral residual (above the carefully modeled continuum) at E = 3.54 +/- 0.06 keV with a 2.3(sigma) significance. The two MOS cameras show less-significant or no positive deviations, consistently within 1(sigma) with PN. Our Draco limit on tau is consistent with previous detections in the stacked galaxy clusters, M31 and the Galactic Centre within their 1 − 2(sigma) uncertainties, but is inconsistent with the high signal from the core of the Perseus cluster (which has itself been inconsistent with the rest of the detections). We conclude that this Draco observation does not exclude the dark matter interpretation of the 3.5 keV line in those objects.

dark matter↗

NASA NTRS2024

Preventing Camera Clipping Through Varied Terrain and Other Planetary Objects

Within the scope of computer visualization systems and technologies, camera objects allow users to navigate three-dimensional (3D) scenes much like a person would navigate the real world. As such, when one seeks to model a scene or environment based on real-world laws, the camera must often follow these same conventions. Accomplishing this in the world of computer renderings presents unique challenges for defining space, spatial relations, depth, distance, and height. Therefore, movement for a camera must be specifically designated and processed by the program in order to achieve accurate movement representations. Although this thought process involves each aspect of camera movement, one specific aspect of camera movement is the primary focus of this report: ensuring that the camera does not clip through an object and appear subsurface. This is important to mimic real-world movements because people in the real world would not go beneath the solid-surface terrain unless they intended to do so. By working with numerical definitions, equations, and variables, a computer can relate an object to its existence in space. Thus, such challenges in camera movements with computationally rendered 3D spaces can be mitigated.

Kristie O'Brien↗

NASA NTRS1993

The hot white-dwarf companions of HR 1608, HR 8210, and HD 15638

We have obtained low-dispersion IUE spectra of the late-type stars HD 15638 (F3 V), HR 1608 (=63 Eridani, KO IV), and HR 8210 (A8m). Each of these stars had been detected as a strong EUV source with the Wide Field Camera aboard the ROSAT satellite. The short-wavelength IUE spectrum of each star reveals the presence of a hot white-dwarf companion. We have fit the Lyman-alpha profile and UV continuum of each white dwarf using pure hydrogen models. The excellent fit of the data to the models provides confirmation of the Finley and Koester absolute calibration of the SWP camera of IUE. The UV data alone are insufficient to constrain the model gravity, but an additional constraint is provided by the photometric distance to the late-type primary. The most interesting of the three white dwarfs is the companion to HR 8210 for which our results imply a mass of 1.15 +0.05/-0.15 solar mass. This result is in good agreement with the lower limit on the mass derived from the spectroscopic orbit (greater than 1.1 solar mass), provided that the inclination is close to 90 deg.

Landsman, Wayne↗

NASA NTRS2019

Using Deep Learning to Automate Inference of Meteoroid Pre-Entry Properties

Properly assessing the asteroid threat depends on the knowledge of asteroid pre-entry parameters, such as size, velocity, mass, density, and strength. Although a vast number of possible bodies to study exist, such characterization of asteroid populations is currently limited by substantial costs associated with space rendezvous missions and rare meteorite findings. As asteroids fragment, ablate, and decelerate in the atmosphere, they emit light detectable by ground-based and space-borne instruments. Earth’s atmosphere, thus, becomes an accessible laboratory that enables impactor risk assessments by facilitating inference of the pre-entry parameters. These asteroid pre-entry conditions are typically deduced by modeling the entry and breakup physics that best reproduce the observed light or energy deposition curve. However, this process requires extensive manual trial-and-error of uncertain modeling parameters. Automating meteor modeling and inference would improve property distributions used in risk assessments and enable population characterization as more light curves become more readily available through the presence of space assets and ground-based camera networks. We previously developed a genetic algorithm to automate meteor modeling by using the fragment-cloud model (FCM) to search for the values of the FCM input parameters (e.g., diameter) that generate energy deposition profiles that match the observed one. Now, we apply deep learning to infer asteroid diameter, velocity, and density from observed energy deposition curves. We trained and tested our neural network models with synthetic energy deposition curves modeled using the FCM rubble pile implementation. We present an application of a 1D convolutional neural network and compare its performance to other attempted regressors and machine learning techniques, such as a fully connected neural network and Random Forest regression, to demonstrate its capabilities. We validate our model weights and approach using the Chelyabinsk, Tagish Lake, Benešov, Košice, and Lost City meteors.

Tarano, Ana Maria↗

NASA NTRS2005

Effect of Clouds on Shuttle Imaging

This report describes the results of the AMU's task for determining the effect of clouds on optical imaging of the Space Shuttle launch vehicle during its ascent phase from lift-off to Solid Rocket Booster (SRB) Separation. This effort was motivated by Recommendation R3.4-1 from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board Report. The AMU developed a 3-dimensional (3D) model to forecast the probability that at any time from lift-off to SRB separation, at least three of the ascent imaging cameras would have a view of the Shuttle unobstructed by cloud. Because current observational and modeling capabilities do not permit accurate forecasts of cloud morphology and location, the AMU simulated obscuration of the lines-of-sight (LOS) from a network of cameras to the Shuttle by idealized cloud-fields placed randomly within the 3D domain. For each random realization of numerous cloud-field scenarios the number of simultaneous views of the Shuttle was computed from the LOS data between lift-off and SRB separation. The percent of time with 3 simultaneous views was averaged from 100 random realizations of each scenario. Analyses of the percent of time viewable were made to determine its sensitivity to cloud amount, cloud base height, cloud thickness, cloud horizontal dimensions, and an upgrade of the camera network.

Short, David A.↗