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NASA NTRS2021

Cooperative Upper Class E Airspace: Concept of Operations and Simulation Development for Operational Feasibility Assessment

Upper Class E Traffic Management (ETM) is a novel community-based traffic management concept incorporating the FAA, NASA, and industry’s collaborative efforts to support safe, efficient, and scalable future operations in the airspace near and above 60,000 ft. The concept complements Air Traffic Control (ATC) infrastructure and Air Traffic Management (ATM) services by facilitating cooperative operations with ETM provided services. This paper presents an initial Cooperative Separation Management (CSM) concept for High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) vehicles’ conflict detection and resolution during their extended operations. A prototype simulation platform has been developed to visualize and assess the concept during demonstrations to stakeholders. Further development plans for simulations and the CSM concept are discussed.

upper Class E airspace↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Cooperative Upper Class E Airspace: Concept of Operations and Simulation Development for Operational Feasibility Assessment

upper Class E airspace↗

NASA NTRS2017

Development of a High-Fidelity Simulation Environment for Shadow-Mode Assessments of Air Traffic Concepts

This paper will describe the purpose, architecture, and implementation of a gate-to-gate, high-fidelity air traffic simulation environment called the Shadow Mode Assessment using Realistic Technologies for the National Airspace System (SMART-NAS) Test Bed.The overarching purpose of the SMART-NAS Test Bed (SNTB) is to conduct high-fidelity, real-time, human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations of current and proposed future air traffic concepts for the Next Generation Air Transportation System of the United States, called NextGen. SNTB is intended to enable simulations that are currently impractical or impossible for three major areas of NextGen research and development: Concepts across multiple operational domains such as the gate-to-gate trajectory-based operations concept; Concepts related to revolutionary operations such as the seamless and widespread integration of large and small Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) vehicles throughout U.S. airspace; Real-time system-wide safety assurance technologies to allow safe, increasingly autonomous aviation operations. SNTB is primarily accessed through a web browser. A set of secure support services are provided to simplify all aspects of real-time, human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations from design (i.e., prior to execution) through analysis (i.e., after execution). These services include simulation architecture and asset configuration; scenario generation; command, control and monitoring; and analysis support.

human-in-the-loop↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lunar Explorer Instrument for space biology Applications (LEIA): An overview of planned science concept of operations

Radiation and reduced gravity pose biological risks to crewed deep space exploration. To better understand deep space radiation biology, the LEIA mission will measure charged particles and fast neutrons as well as yeast growth, metabolic rate, and bioengineered production of carotenoids at the lunar surface. LEIA will be delivered to the south polar region of the Moon by the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program. The LEIA science concept of operations was developed to isolate radiation and partial gravity from other environmental conditions experienced by the payload. Due to CLPS integration requirements, there will be at least eight months from loading yeast into the payload until activation on the lunar surface. Replicate yeast strains will be loaded in a randomized complete block design to minimize batch differences in desiccation tolerance and positional effects in the microfluidics culture system. Temperature and relative humidity will be controlled throughout integration and flight to maintain yeast viability and to enable measurement of yeast growth parameters within the lunar surface operations timeframe, with the ground control matching environmental conditions where possible. LEIA is co-manifested with the European Space Agency’s PROSPECT mission, which will be operating a drill during yeast growth. Vibration translated through the lunar lander will be mitigated and quantified to account for potential impacts on LEIA optical measurements and yeast growth rate. Total space radiation dose, including the transit exposure from Earth to the Moon, will be measured to obtain more accurate charged particle and fast neutron dose rates on the lunar surface. These radiation data will also yield ground truth radiation dose experienced by the yeast during the mission. Quantifying these environmental factors impacting the LEIA payload will allow more accurate ground control experiments to better isolate the biological responses to radiation and reduced gravity at the lunar surface.

Lunar Surface Mission↗

NASA NTRS2018

A Model-based Approach to Developing the Concept of Operations for Potential Mars Sample Return

Mars Sample Return (MSR) is a proposed multi-agency eﬀort that would return soil and rock samples from the surface of Mars to Earth. Both the complexity of the potential missions, as well as the involvement of multiple geographically distributed organizations, presents a challenge from an information management perspective. In this paper, a Model-based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach to developing the Concept of Operations of a potential Mars Sample Return eﬀort using the System Modeling Language(SysML) is presented.

Muirhead, Brian↗

NASA NTRS2012

The International Space Station: Unique In-Space Testbed as Exploration Analog

Final assembly of the International Space Station (ISS) was completed in 2011. As articulated in the 2011 NASA Strategic Plan, the Agency's first goal is to extend and sustain human activities across the solar system. Thus, the emerging NASA vision is to launch a bold and ambitious new space initiative to enable human space exploration beyond low-Earth orbit to Lagrange points, the moon, near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), and Mars and its environs. To accomplish this vision, it is necessary to develop and validate innovative exploration technologies and operational concepts. With the extended life of the ISS to 2020 and possibly 2028, NASA has a mandate to maximize the potential of the Nation's newest National Laboratory. Exploration and ISS teams within NASA's Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate (HEOMD) have initiated a cooperative effort: the ISS Testbed for Analog Research (ISTAR), a high-fidelity operational analog that complements existing NASA terrestrial laboratory and field testing. To maximize use of the ISS platform to evaluate new exploration technologies, capabilities, and operational concepts to better comprehend and mitigate human spaceflight risks, ISTAR seeks out and encourages investigations dubbed "exploration detailed test objectives" (xDTOs). These xDTOs, building blocks of ISTAR missions, develop and optimize the operations concepts and the use of new technologies that should reduce risks and challenges facing astronauts on long exploration spaceflight voyages. In this paper, we describe (1) the rationale behind ISTAR, (2) a five-year strategic plan, (3) the approach for mission formulation, development, integration, and execution, (4) concepts for near-term missions that implement a phased approach for using ISS as an exploration testbed, and (5) the planned Mars mission simulation using the ISS. This paper will also document several challenges ISTAR must address to execute its missions.

Analog Mission↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Gateway Refueling Architecture and Concept of Operation

The Lunar Gateway is a deep space orbiting outpost being developed by NASA in partnership with ESA and other domestic and international partners. It is a critical component of NASA’s Artemis program supporting long-term human exploration of the moon and is designed to be refueled, requiring the on-orbit transfer of propellants. The first two modules of Gateway to be launched will be the Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and the Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO). The PPE contains the bipropellant chemical and electrical propulsion systems that will provide attitude control and orbit raising capability for Gateway. The reaction control system (RCS) utilizes monomethylhydrazine (MMH) and mixed oxides of nitrogen-3 (MON-3) as the fuel and oxidizer, respectively. Helium is used as a pressurant. The Advanced Electric Propulsion Systems (AEPS) and Busek hall thrusters that comprise the solar electric propulsion (SEP) system use xenon as the propellent. The ESPRIT Refueling Module, provided by ESA, will supply the propellant refueling function to Gateway’s propulsion systems. On-orbit refueling is a complex, technically challenging operation that is key to enabling sustainable crewed Lunar and Martian exploration. Numerous systems may be involved in the refueling operation. Also numerous systems are required to enable the successful ability for Gateway to refuel such as, SEP, RCS, Structure & Mechanisms (S&M), Guidance, Navigation and Control (GNC), Thermal, Software, Vehicle System Manager (VSM), Flight Ops, Extra Vehicular Robotics (EVR), Communication and Tracking (C&T), Avionics, and more. This paper will detail the design architecture, concept of operations, and challenges associated with the Gateway refueling system. The methodologies used in Gateway will be compared to those implemented in OSAM-1 and the best practices documented by AIAA and CONFERS (Consortium For Execution Of Rendezvous And Servicing Operations).

Brandie L. Rhodes↗

NASA NTRS2021

High-Density Automated Vertiport Concept of Operations

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) vision for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) includes Urban Air Mobility (UAM) – a concept involving vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, decentralized (or federated) traffic management, and new infrastructure to support urban, suburban, and rural flight operations. High-density performance-based routes or corridors enable prompt transportation of people and goods from node to node, where each node represents a vertiport, defined as an identifiable ground or elevated area used for the takeoff and landing of VTOL aircraft. In the presence of uncertainty surrounding aircraft turnaround time on the ground, vertiports are the critical end points in scheduling, sequencing, and spacing (SSS) of aircraft in dense metropolitan environments. This Concept of Operations (ConOps) includes vertiports of varying sizes, configurations, service offerings, and locations. UAM air vehicles include conventional rotorcraft, unmanned VTOL aircraft, and novel piloted VTOL aircraft. This ConOps focuses on operations at a high-density vertiport, supported by a Vertiport Automation System (VAS) with high-throughput operation capabilities under conditions defined as NASA’s Urban Air Mobility Maturity Level Four (UML-4).

UAM↗

NASA NTRS2020

Interoperability and Concepts of Operation Assessment for Space Relay Services and Partnerships

The United States National Space Policy provides guidance and directives for U.S. Government agencies to purchase commercial space services and capabilities to the maximum extent practical. In alignment with this guidance, NASA is exploring potential industry partnerships to leverage current or planned commercial space communication and navigation infrastructure to provide services to NASA user missions in the mid-2020s. Leveraging commercial infrastructure and reducing NASA’s reliance on government-owned and operated infrastructure should yield substantial development and operations cost savings. Additionally, the commercial services market will offer NASA a variety of service offerings at competitive prices, while simultaneously allowing NASA to benefit from commercial best practices. Under Appendix G of the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP-2) Broad Agency Announcement (BAA), NASA awarded contracts to eight study vendors in May 2019 to investigate the feasibility of applying commercial services concepts to the NASA user mission community. The studies, managed by NASA Glenn Research Center, were completed in October 2019 and detailed ten study topic areas, three of which included: service provider interoperability, user terminal interoperability, and commercial services concept of operations. This report provides a summary of the significant (non-proprietary) findings and recommendations relating to those study areas from the BAA study vendors.

Eric J Knoblock↗

NASA NTRS2019

In-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) Concept of Operations

Emerging operations involving Urban Air Mobility (UAM) poses a challenge to safety assurance and accessibility to the NAS. In particular, the public has a low tolerance for risk in aviation and the current NAS tends to be labor-intensive with limited ability to scale up for UAM. In response to this landscape, NASA is collaborating with industry to define an In-time Aviation Safety Management System (IASMS) Concept of Operations (ConOps) for a scalable UAM along with a service-oriented architecture. This architecture would better focus safety investments for technological solutions that overcome safety related barriers for emerging operations. By working with industry, consensus can be reached on desirable system traits that are based on integration of data and leverage increasingly autonomous and automated systems. These complex systems can identify anomalies, precursors, and trends that together enable more proactive management of operational risks.

Ellis, Kyle↗

NASA NTRS2002

Flight Test Evaluation of the Airborne Information for Lateral Spacing (AILS) Concept

The Airborne Information for Lateral Spacing (AILS) concept is designed to support independent parallel approach operations to runways spaced as close as 2,500 feet. This report briefly describes the AILS operational concept and the results of a flight test of one implementation of this concept. The focus of this flight test experiment was to validate a prior simulator study, evaluating pilot performance, pilot acceptability, and minimum miss-distances for the rare situation in which an aircraft on one approach intrudes into the path of an aircraft on the other approach. Although the flight data set was not meant to be a statistically valid sample, the trends acquired in flight followed those of the simulator and therefore met the intent of validating the findings from the simulator. Results from this study showed that the design-goal mean miss-distance of 1,200 feet to potential collision situations was surpassed with an actual mean miss-distance of 1,859 feet. Pilot reaction times to the alerting system, which was an operational concern, averaged 0.65 seconds, were well below the design goal reaction time of 2.0 seconds. From the results of both of these tests, it can be concluded that this operational concept, with supporting technology and procedures, may provide an operationally viable means for conducting simultaneous, independent instrument approaches to runways spaced as close as 2500 ft.

Abbott, Terence S.↗

NASA NTRS2020

In-time System-wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) Concept of Operations and Design Considerations for Urban Air Mobility (UAM)

Emerging operations involving Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), such as Urban Air Mobility (UAM), pose a challenge to safety assurance and to accessibility within the National Airspace System (NAS).In particular, the public has a low tolerance for risk in aviation and the current NAS tends to be labor-intensive with limited ability to scale up for UAM. In response to this landscape, NASA is collaborating with industry to define a Concept of Operations (ConOps) for In-time System-Wide Safety Assurance (ISSA) for scalable UAM involving a service-oriented architecture. This architecture focuses safety investments for technological solutions that can overcome safety related barriers for emerging operations. By working with industry, consensus can be reached on desirable system traits that are based on integration and fusion of data and leverage increasingly autonomous and automated systems. These complex systems can identify anomalies, precursors, and trends that together enable more proactive management of operational risks. AAM and UAM elevate the need for risk management in relation to increasing density and heterogeneity of vehicles and operations. Whereas safety in today’s NAS is built on a history of programs and technologies that react to incidents and accidents, AAM presents an opportunity to leverage that experience and its implications and proactively integrate safety into the earliest designs of vehicles and systems. In a perfect world AAM and UAM would not be inherently dangerous but until then ensuring the highest quality of safety requirements is the bridge to mitigating risks.

In-Time System-Wide Safety Assurance↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Implementation of a SysML Model-Based Concept of Operations for Level of Care IV: Long-Duration Lunar Orbital and Surface Operations

One goal of the Human Research Program (HRP) Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element Systems Engineering (SE) team is to define the technical system needed to support crew medical system capabilities for future exploration missions, including orbital and surface operations for long duration lunar missions. This is accomplished through the development of a Medical System Foundation, which communicates medical system requirements, capabilities, conditions, and resources that define a starting point for a medical system that meets the specification for design reference missions and associated Levels of Care (as defined by NASA-STD-3001). The starting point for creating this Medical System Foundation Model is the development of a Concept of Operations (ConOps) that describes the operation of the system from the point of view of the users. It includes a comprehensive and thoroughly vetted list of the users, their specific needs, the goals of the system, key assumptions about the system, and definitions of the system’s operational environments. The use case scenarios included in the ConOps illustrate required medical system capabilities for Level of Care IV and enable the ExMC SE team to develop integrated medical system requirements and identify capabilities required to meet those requirements. For this “Long Duration” Medical System Foundation development effort, ExMC replaced the traditional document-based ConOps with a model-based ConOps using model-based systems engineering. This approach has several advantages, including the facilitation of more efficient understanding of the material through information-dense images with less opportunity for misinterpretation than text alone, the roll-out of changes to the ConOps to stakeholders in real-time as they are approved, and the consolidation of all salient information into one centralized location. This discussion will focus on both how the model represents the ConOps content and how the SE team utilized lessons learned in an agile environment to improve the way this information was created and presented to stakeholders.

M Kaetzer↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Implementation of a SysML Model-Based Concept of Operations for Level of Care IV: Long-Duration Lunar Orbital and Surface Operations

Mary Susan Kaetzer↗

NASA NTRS2012

Mission Concepts and Operations for Asteroid Mitigation Involving Multiple Gravity Tractors

The gravity tractor concept is a proposed method to deflect an imminent asteroid impact through gravitational tugging over a time scale of years. In this study, we present mission scenarios and operational considerations for asteroid mitigation efforts involving multiple gravity tractors. We quantify the deflection performance improvement provided by a multiple gravity tractor campaign and assess its sensitivity to staggered launches. We next explore several proximity operation strategies to accommodate multiple gravity tractors at a single asteroid including formation-flying and mechanically-docked configurations. Finally, we utilize 99942 Apophis as an illustrative example to assess the performance of a multiple gravity tractor campaign.

Foster, Cyrus↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Clinical Decision Support - Concepts of Operation

We are entering a new era in space exploration to return to the moon and explore Mars. These ambitious goals will require significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints make it absolutely necessary to develop transformative solutions using new technologies. The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element of the Human Research Program (HRP) pushes the boundary of space medical systems to advance the care of astronauts on future exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit by identifying and testing next-generation medical care and crew health maintenance technologies. The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) project addresses the gap Medical-701 within the Inflight Medical Conditions risk: Enhance medical capabilities within an exploration medical system. For long-duration, deep space missions, computational and data resources will play an important role in maintaining crew health, wellness and performance where the crew will need to be more self-reliant. The aim of the CDS project is to develop and provide recommended requirements for an in-vehicle CDSS that acts as an assistant for delivering optimal health and performance and medical care during exploration missions. The CDSS is envisioned as a software-based tool that will augment a crewmembers’ knowledge, skills and abilities to assist in decision-making and crew health and performance (CHP) management thus increasing CHP systems capabilities. The human interface will be context aware and lessen the cognitive load to assimilate and use information as well as combine large disparate data sets in such a manner that provides the crew with actionable insight to decisions related to crew medical, health and performance management. Crew autonomy will be provided through a CDS that presents knowledge and data in a context aware manner to augment a crew members’ knowledge, skills and abilities during the process of observation, orientation, decisions and action. The CDS project addresses the need for crew members to operate independently during long duration space exploration missions that require medical Levels of Care (LoC) V, the highest level specified by NASA-STD-3001 and described in more detail by the ExMC interpretation of LoC document (NASA/TM-2017-219290), where significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care necessitate increasing crew autonomy in decision making and task performance. The CDS project will develop and test a series of iterative and increasingly more complex system prototypes. These annual demonstrations of the data system integration with the crew health and performance domain will inform exploration medical system requirements for an on-board Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) through a series of use cases that guide CDS prototype functionality. CDS concepts are based on ExMC Concept of Operations documents (presented separately) and will highlight architecture extensibility to other more complex analyses and tests using core crew health and performance integrated data management, processing and visualization capabilities. This approach also establishes how externally developed analyses and approaches could be added to expand a clinical decision support system and thus highlight how a comprehensive system can be commercially and/or globally developed. The CDS project will build upon the concept of an integrated data management approach based on the Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project to more fully address challenges associated with in-flight and habitat medical, health and performance care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities required for medical LoC V. These requirements will be derived through systems engineering approaches and software prototype developments over the course of the multi-year CDS project to address crew health and performance decision-making and task performance, often autonomously executed by the crew, in a manner that is consistent with the appropriate medical level of care for the mission. This presentation will provide an overview of the vision for the CDS project and highlight the initial accomplishments in project planning, implementation and requirements identification in fiscal year 2020.

clinical decision support↗

NASA NTRS2019

IMPACT Concept of Operations

NASA’s future exploration missions mandate a significant paradigm change for mission planning, spacecraft design, human systems integration, and in-flight medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, resupply missions, and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints require further development of the human health and performance system, which includes the medical, task performance, wellness, data, human and other systems necessary to keep the crew healthy and functioning optimally. The human health and performance system will be tightly integrated with mission and habitat design to provide a sufficient human health and performance infrastructure to enable mission success. A suite of systems engineering tools will aid in the decision making process for the development of such a human health and performance system. This Concept of Operations provides a vision for a tool suite to conduct evaluations of human health and performance system options, inform research prioritization, and provide trade study support, based on evidence, risks, and systems engineering principles. The integrated tool suite under development is IMPACT.

Lumpkins, Sara↗

DOE OSTI2024

AGN-201 Digital Twin Concept of Operations

The AGN-201 is a nuclear reactor at Idaho State University (ISU) and is currently being used in the development of a digital twin (DT) with Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The goal is to create a DT (called the AGN-201 DT) which can monitor an operating nuclear reactor to determine when the reactor is being operated normally; normal operations are any operations that is declared by the ISU staff. To accomplish this, researchers at INL developed a DT ecosystem which can ingest data from the AGN-201 reactor. This data is fed into a series of machine learning (ML) and reactor physics models. The ML and reactor physics models assess the data and determine if the reactor is operating normally. Event(s) that are flagged as anomalies are investigated by the INL staff to determine if any undeclared experiments were conducted. The AGN-201 DT was verified in July/August 2023, when the ISU staff performed undeclared experiments and the INL staff were able to assess the anomalous events and determine what likely caused each event. This project was a steppingstone to promote the use of DTs for international safeguards and marks the first time a DT was able to monitor a nuclear reactor for this purpose. This document provides the concept of operations (CONOPS) for the AGN-201 digital twin (DT). The CONOPS describes how the AGN-201 and AGN-201 DT are expected to operate and details how each are established.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗