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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 NTRSDate not supplied

NASA and Blue Origin’s Flight Assessment of Precision Landing Algorithms Computing Performance

NASA’s Safe and Precise Landing - Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) project continues NASA’s work in the development and testing of technologies for Precision Landing and Hazard Avoidance (PL&HA). This paper presents results characterizing how SPLICE flight software utilizes the shared computing resources of the Descent Landing Computer (DLC), one of the PL&HA technologies under development. The SPLICE technologies are being tested as an integrated payload on Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital vehicle. The results presented in this paper are measured by applications running in and with the flight software both in flight, and in a high-fidelity Hardware-in-the-Loop (HWIL) simulation environment. Linux utilities to measure performance are also executed from the command line in the HWIL configuration. Performance measurements of the SPLICE workloads executing on the DLC provide insight on how efficiently the software is utilizing the DLC resources. Examples of how these measurements have guided improvements in the flight code are presented. In addition, the DLC uses a commercial processor as a surrogate for NASA’s High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor. This work provides insight on how an HPSC system may perform delivering PL&HA capabilities on a future mission. The measurements also can be used to infer architectural requirements for PL&HA capabilities, informing the HPSC project and other flight computer development efforts. Examples of the measurements collected include processor utilization, I/O bandwidth, cache and branch misses, and application profiles.

Precision Landing↗
NASA NTRS1992

Microwave systems applications in deep space telecommunications and navigation - Space Exploration Initiative architectures

The general support requirements of a typical SEI mission set, along with the mission operations objectives and related telecommunications, navigation, and information management (TNIM) support infrastructure options are described. Responsive system architectures and designs are proposed, including a Mars orbiting communications relay satellite system and a Mars-centered navigation capability for servicing all Mars missions. With the TNIM architecture as a basis, key elements of the microwave link design are proposed. The needed new technologies which enable these designs are identified, and current maturity is assessed.

Hall, Justin R.↗
NASA NTRS1999

An Overview of Future NASA Missions, Concepts, and Technologies Related to Imaging of the World's Land Areas

In the near term NASA is entering into the peak activity period of the Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS AM-1 /"Terra" spacecraft is nearing launch and operation to be followed soon by the New Millennium Program (NMP) Earth Observing (EO-1) mission. Other missions related to land imaging and studies include EOS PM-1 mission, the Earth System Sciences Program (ESSP) Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission, the EOS/IceSat mission. These missions involve clear advances in technologies and observational capability including improvements in multispectral imaging and other observing strategies, for example, "formation flying". Plans are underway to define the next era of EOS missions, commonly called "EOS Follow-on" or EOS II. The programmatic planning includes concepts that represent advances over the present Landsat-7 mission that concomitantly recognize the advances being made in land imaging within the private sector. The National Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite Series (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) is an effort that will help to transition EOS medium resolution (herein meaning spatial resolutions near 500 meters), multispectral measurement capabilities such as represented by the EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) into the NPOESS operational series of satellites. Developments in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and passive microwave land observing capabilities are also proceeding. Beyond these efforts the Earth Science Enterprise Technology Strategy is embarking efforts to advance technologies in several basic areas: instruments, flight systems and operational capability, and information systems. In the case of instruments architectures will be examined that offer significant reductions in mass, volume, power and observational flexibility. For flight systems and operational capability, formation flying including calibration and data fusion, systems operation autonomy, and mechanical and electronic innovations that can reduce spacecraft and subsystem resource requirements. The efforts in information systems will include better approaches for linking multiple data sets, extracting and visualizing information, and improvements in collecting, compressing, transmitting, processing, distributing and archiving data from multiple platforms. Overall concepts such as sensor webs, constellations of observing systems, and rapid and tailored data availability and delivery to multiple users comprise and notions Earth Science Vision for the future.

Salomonson, Vincent V.↗
NASA NTRS2018

System Autonomy for Space Traffic Management

This paper proposes an initial architecture for a Space Traffic Management (STM) system, based on openApplication Programming Interfaces (APIs) and drawing on previous work by the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) to develop an architecture for low-altitude Unmanned Aerial System Traffic Management (UTM). The authors explore how autonomy could be used to enhance an STM system, and how constraints inherent in STM complicate and challenge certain applications of autonomy. We conceptually explore how autonomy could be used within an STM architecture, with multiple non-authoritative catalogs of resident space objects, and to determine which oftwo conjuncting spacecraft moves. NASA ARC is developing a software research environment for STM, along with a physical laboratory and visualization space. We invite STM stakeholders to collaborate in our infrastructure, to help inform the design of the proposed STM architecture, and to participate in the refinement and validation of its concept of operations using the software research platform.

space situational awareness↗
NASA NTRS2012

Architecting the Human Space Flight Program with Systems Modeling Language (SysML)

The next generation of missions in NASA's Human Space Flight program focuses on the development and deployment of highly complex systems (e.g., Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Space Launch System, 21st Century Ground System) that will enable astronauts to venture beyond low Earth orbit and explore the moon, near-Earth asteroids, and beyond. Architecting these highly complex system-of-systems requires formal systems engineering techniques for managing the evolution of the technical features in the information exchange domain (e.g., data exchanges, communication networks, ground software) and also, formal correlation of the technical architecture to stakeholders' programmatic concerns (e.g., budget, schedule, risk) and design development (e.g., assumptions, constraints, trades, tracking of unknowns). This paper will describe how the authors have applied System Modeling Language (SysML) to implement model-based systems engineering for managing the description of the End-to-End Information System (EEIS) architecture and associated development activities and ultimately enables stakeholders to understand, reason, and answer questions about the EEIS under design for proposed lunar Exploration Missions 1 and 2 (EM-1 and EM-2).

scheduling↗
NASA NTRS1989

Toward a complete EOS data and information system

Based on NASA EOS data panel analyses, an architectural concept is described in terms of elemental composition, top-level functions, and external and internal interfaces. This concept has been evaluated through the use of realistic user-generated scenarios consistent with existing plans for the 1990s and the Space Station. Developmental approaches for the requisite EOS data and information system are presented and a hybrid methodology for implementing this system is discussed.

Chase, Robert R. P.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Using Social Media and Mobile Devices to Discover and Share Disaster Data Products Derived From Satellites

Data products derived from Earth observing satellites are difficult to find and share without specialized software and often times a highly paid and specialized staff. For our research effort, we endeavored to prototype a distributed architecture that depends on a standardized communication protocol and applications program interface (API) that makes it easy for anyone to discover and access disaster related data. Providers can easily supply the public with their disaster related products by building an adapter for our API. Users can use the API to browse and find products that relate to the disaster at hand, without a centralized catalogue, for example floods, and then are able to share that data via social media. Furthermore, a longerterm goal for this architecture is to enable other users who see the shared disaster product to be able to generate the same product for other areas of interest via simple point and click actions on the API on their mobile device. Furthermore, the user will be able to edit the data with on the ground local observations and return the updated information to the original repository of this information if configured for this function. This architecture leverages SensorWeb functionality [1] presented at previous IGARSS conferences. The architecture is divided into two pieces, the frontend, which is the GeoSocial API, and the backend, which is a standardized disaster node that knows how to talk to other disaster nodes, and also can communicate with the GeoSocial API. The GeoSocial API, along with the disaster node basic functionality enables crowdsourcing and thus can leverage insitu observations by people external to a group to perform tasks such as improving water reference maps, which are maps of existing water before floods. This can lower the cost of generating precision water maps. Keywords-Data Discovery, Disaster Decision Support, Disaster Management, Interoperability, CEOS WGISS Disaster Architecture

0↗
NASA NTRS2005

A network architecture for precision formation flying using the IEEE 802.11 MAC Protocol

Precision Formation Flying missions involve the tracking and maintenance of spacecraft in a desired geometric formation. The strong coupling of spacecraft in formation flying control requires inter-spacecraft communication to exchange information. In this paper, we present a network architecture that supports PFF control, from the initial random deployment phase to the final formation. We show that a suitable MAC layer for the application protocol is IEEE's 802.11 MAC protocol. IEEE 802.11 MAC has two modes of operations: DCF and PCF. We show that DCF is suitable for the initial deployment phase while switching to PCF when the spacecraft are in formation improves jitter and throughput. We also consider the effect of routing on protocol performance and suggest when it is profitable to turn off route discovery to achieve better network performance.

precision formation flying↗
NASA NTRS1993

Automated Assembly Center (AAC)

The objectives of this project are as follows: to integrate advanced assembly and assembly support technology under a comprehensive architecture; to implement automated assembly technologies in the production of high-visibility DOD weapon systems; and to document the improved cost, quality, and lead time. This will enhance the production of DOD weapon systems by utilizing the latest commercially available technologies combined into a flexible system that will be able to readily incorporate new technologies as they emerge. Automated assembly encompasses the following areas: product data, process planning, information management policies and framework, three schema architecture, open systems communications, intelligent robots, flexible multi-ability end effectors, knowledge-based/expert systems, intelligent workstations, intelligent sensor systems, and PDES/PDDI data standards.

Stauffer, Robert J.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Acting to gain information

This report is concerned with agents that act to gain information. In previous work, we developed agent models combining qualitative modeling with real-time control. That work, however, focused primarily on actions that affect physical states of the environment. The current study extends that work by explicitly considering problems of active information-gathering and by exploring specialized aspects of information-gathering in computational perception, learning, and language. In our theoretical investigations, we analyzed agents into their perceptual and action components and identified these with elements of a state-machine model of control. The mathematical properties of each was developed in isolation and interactions were then studied. We considered the complexity dimension and the uncertainty dimension and related these to intelligent-agent design issues. We also explored active information gathering in visual processing. Working within the active vision paradigm, we developed a concept of 'minimal meaningful measurements' suitable for demand-driven vision. We then developed and tested an architecture for ongoing recognition and interpretation of visual information. In the area of information gathering through learning, we explored techniques for coping with combinatorial complexity. We also explored information gathering through explicit linguistic action by considering the nature of conversational rules, coordination, and situated communication behavior.

Rosenchein, Stanley J.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Flexible Rover Architecture for Science Instrument Integration and Testing

At NASA Ames Research Center, the Intelligent Robotics Group (IRG) fields the K9 and K10 class rovers. Both use a mobile robot hardware architecture designed for extensibility and reconfigurability that allows for rapid changes in instrumentation and provides a high degree of modularity. Over the past ssveral years, we have worked with instrument developers at NASA centers, universities, and national laboratories to integrate or partially integrate their instruments onboard the K9 and K10 rovers. Early efforts required considerable interaction to work through integration issues such as power, data protocol and mechanical mounting. These interactions informed the design of our current avionics architecture, and have simplified more recent integration projects. In this paper, we will describe the IRG extensible avionics and software architecture and the effect it has had on our recent instrument integration efforts, including integration of four Mars Instrument Development Program devices.

Bualat, Maria G.↗
NASA NTRS2007

Sensor Webs with a Service-Oriented Architecture for On-demand Science Products

This paper describes the work being managed by the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Information System Division (ISD) under a NASA Earth Science Technology Ofice (ESTO) Advanced Information System Technology (AIST) grant to develop a modular sensor web architecture which enables discovery of sensors and workflows that can create customized science via a high-level service-oriented architecture based on Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) Sensor Web Enablement (SWE) web service standards. These capabilities serve as a prototype to a user-centric architecture for Global Earth Observing System of Systems (GEOSS). This work builds and extends previous sensor web efforts conducted at NASA/GSFC using the Earth Observing 1 (EO-1) satellite and other low-earth orbiting satellites.

Mandl, Daniel↗
NASA NTRS1991

An unpredictable-dynamics approach to neural intelligence

The theoretical basis for a dynamic neural network architecture that takes advantage of the notion of terminal chaos to process information in a way that is phenomenologically similar to brain activity is presented. The architecture exploits the phenomenology of nonlinear dynamic systems as an alternative to the traditional paradigm of finite-state machines. It is based on some effects of non-Lipschitzian dynamics. The nonlinear phenomenon of terminal chaos and its relevance to brain activity are examined.

Zak, Michail↗
NASA NTRS2018

A Standard Reference Model for Data Archives

An implementable Data Archive Architecture is being developed for trusted digital repositories based on the Reference Model for an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) – ISO 14721. A set of interoperable protocols and interface specifications are planned that will offer capabilities for accessing, merging, and re-using data, both within and across the operational boundaries of trustworthy digital repositories. The model will also provide support for the fundamental scientific need to verify the reproducibility of results. This standards development task is being performed by the Data Archive Interoperability (DAI) working group within the Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS). The architecture integrates concepts from the OAIS Reference Model, the ISO/IEC 11179 Metadata Registry (MDR) standard, the CCSDS Reference Architecture for Space Information Management (RASIM), the proposed draft recommended practice document, Information Preparation to Enable Long Term Use (IPELTU), and three decades of digital repository development for science research.

Ambacher, Bruce↗
NASA NTRS2016

A Network Scheduling Model for Distributed Control Simulation

Distributed engine control is a hardware technology that radically alters the architecture for aircraft engine control systems. Of its own accord, it does not change the function of control, rather it seeks to address the implementation issues for weight-constrained vehicles that can limit overall system performance and increase life-cycle cost. However, an inherent feature of this technology, digital communication networks, alters the flow of information between critical elements of the closed-loop control. Whereas control information has been available continuously in conventional centralized control architectures through virtue of analog signaling, moving forward, it will be transmitted digitally in serial fashion over the network(s) in distributed control architectures. An underlying effect is that all of the control information arrives asynchronously and may not be available every loop interval of the controller, therefore it must be scheduled. This paper proposes a methodology for modeling the nominal data flow over these networks and examines the resulting impact for an aero turbine engine system simulation.

distributed control↗
NASA NTRS2018

Incremental States for Precise On-Orbit Relative Knowledge in Formation Flight

High precision and close proximity formation flight is an enabling technology for future space missions and requires an on-board relative navigation capability that is accurate to the mm-level and robust to formation parameters. Common estimation techniques linearize the entire formation about one spacecraft’s position, resulting in degraded accuracy due to linearization errors when separation distances become large. Additionally, methods which decouple absolute and relative state estimates usually require ad-hoc methods to incorporate the estimates together. This work discusses an alternative ”incremental” formulation of the relative navigation problem which is in variant to formation size, robust to coupling between absolute and relative dynamics, and can undergo similarity transformations to smoothly incorporate either absolute or relative information without numerical issues. A specific example of this architecture is presented in the context of formation navigation using Carrier-Differential Global Positioning System measurements, and is compared to a traditional leader-linearized filter. In the presence of accurate measurements, the incremental architecture is shown to reduce linearization errors and mean estimate errors by up to three orders of magnitude without the incorporation of new sensor information.

Seubert, Carl↗
NASA NTRS2005

A Reliable Service-Oriented Architecture for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission

The Collaborative Information Portal (CIP) was enterprise software developed jointly by the NASA Ames Research Center and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA's highly successful Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission. Both MER and CIP have performed far beyond their original expectations. Mission managers and engineers ran CIP inside the mission control room at JPL, and the scientists ran CIP in their laboratories, homes, and offices. All the users connected securely over the Internet. Since the mission ran on Mars time, CIP displayed the current time in various Mars and Earth time zones, and it presented staffing and event schedules with Martian time scales. Users could send and receive broadcast messages, and they could view and download data and image files generated by the rovers' instruments. CIP had a three-tiered, service-oriented architecture (SOA) based on industry standards, including J2EE and web services, and it integrated commercial off-the-shelf software. A user's interactions with the graphical interface of the CIP client application generated web services requests to the CIP middleware. The middleware accessed the back-end data repositories if necessary and returned results for these requests. The client application could make multiple service requests for a single user action and then present a composition of the results. This happened transparently, and many users did not even realize that they were connecting to a server. CIP performed well and was extremely reliable; it attained better than 99% uptime during the course of the mission. In this paper, we present overviews of the MER mission and of CIP. We show how CIP helped to fulfill some of the mission needs and how people used it. We discuss the criteria for choosing its architecture, and we describe how the developers made the software so reliable. CIP's reliability did not come about by chance, but was the result of several key design decisions. We conclude with some of the important lessons we learned form developing, deploying, and supporting the software.

Mak, Ronald↗