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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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At least 307 records · Page 17
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NASA NTRS2005

Public Outreach and Archiving of Data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera Onboard Mars Express: 2004 The First Year

During the first year of operation, corresponding to the calendar year 2004, the HRSC imaging experiment onboard ESA's Mars Express mission recorded 23 Gigabyte of 8-bit compressed raw data. After processing, the amount of data increased to more than 344 Gigabyte of decompressed and radiometrically calibrated scientifically useable image products. Every six months these HRSC Level 2 data are fed into ESA's Planetary Science Archive (PSA) that sends all data also to the Planetary Data System (PDS) to ensure easy availability to the interested user. On their respective web portals, the European Space Agency published in cooperation with the Principal Investigator-Group at Freie Universitat Berlin and the German Space Agency (DLR) almost 40 sets of high-level image scenes and movies for PR needs that have been electronically visited many hundred thousand times.

Koehler, U.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Towards Onboard Orbital Tracking of Seasonal Polar Volatiles on Mars

Current conditions on Mars support both a residual polar cap, composed mainly of water ice, and a seasonal cap, composed of CO2, which appears and disappears each winter. Kieffer and Titus characterized the recession of the seasonal south polar cap using an arctangent curve fit based on data from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer on Mars Global Surveyor [1]. They also found significant interannual deviations, at the regional scale, in the recession rate [2]. Further observations will enable the refinement of our models of polar cap evolution in both hemispheres. We have developed the Bimodal Image Temperature (BIT) Histogram Analysis method for the automated detection and tracking of the seasonal polar ice caps on Mars. It is specifically tailored for possible use onboard a spacecraft. We have evaluated BIT on uncalibrated data collected by the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) instrument [3] on the Mars Odyssey spacecraft. In this paper, we focus on the northern seasonal cap, but our approach is directly applicable to the future analysis of the southern seasonal ice cap as well.

Wagstaff, Kiri L.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Parallel Stirling Converters Being Developed for Spacecraft Onboard Power

Stirling Technology Co., as part of a NASA Lewis Research Center Phase II Small Business Innovation Research contract, has successfully demonstrated paralleling two thermodynamically independent Stirling converters. A system of four Stirling converters is being developed by NASA and the Department of Energy as an alternative high-efficiency radioisotope power source for spacecraft onboard electric power for NASA deep space missions. The high Stirling efficiency, exceeding 20 percent for this application, will greatly reduce the necessary isotope inventory in comparison to the current radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTG s), significantly reducing mission cost and risk. Stirling is the most developed converter option of the advanced power technologies under consideration.

Thieme, Lanny G.↗
NASA NTRS2002

In-flight testing of onboard UHF equipment

This paper proposes a plan to allow future flight projects to accomplish in-flight testing of on-board UHF equipment which the spacecraft carries for local relay link use at planet Mars only. This plan relies on onboard self-testing to verify receiver functional capabilities at various data rates, and on RF testing with narrow band CW signals transmitted at selected frequencies from an Earth station, non-interfering to existing UHF users, to verify the RF performance of antenna and microwave equipment. The Mars mission planners at JPL have accepted this concept as reasonable. The plan will be practical to implement with a frequency agile local link transceiver, like the next generation UHF transceiver being developed at JPL. The user can test it at one frequency and operate it at a different frequency within the operating range. Possible frequencies for uplink testing are identified. Further effort is needed to select specific test frequencies that will be agreeable to the users to which these bands are allocated.

UHF in-flight testing↗
NASA NTRS1998

Onboard Science Data Analysis: Opportunities, Benefits, and Effects on Mission Design

Much of the initial focus for spacecraft autonomy has been on developing new software and systems concepts to automate engineering functions of the spacecraft: guidance, navigation and control, fault protection, and resources management. However, the ultimate objectives of NASA missions are science objectives, which implies that we need a new framework for perfoming science data evaluation and observation planning autonomously onboard spacecraft.

spacecraft autonomy observation planning science d↗
NASA NTRS2004

Flight software issues in onboard automated planning: lessons learned on EO-1

This paper focuses on the onboard planner and scheduler CASPER, whose core planning engine is based on the ground system ASPEN. Given the challenges of developing flight software, we discuss several of the issues encountered in preparing the planner for flight, including reducing the code image size, determining what data to place within the engineering telemetry packet, and performing long term planning.

planning↗
NASA NTRS2007

Summary of the Science performed onboard the International Space Station during Increments 12 and 13

By September of 2007, continuous human presence on the International Space Station will reach a milestone of eighty months. The many astronauts and cosmonauts, who live onboard the station during the last fourteen Increments over that time span, spend their time building the station as well as performing science on a daily basis. Over those eighty months, the U.S astronauts crew members logged over 2954 hours of research time. Far more research time has been accumulated by experiments controlled by investigators on the ground. The U.S astronauts conducted over one hundred and twenty six (126) science investigations. From these hundred and twenty six science investigations, many were operated across multiple Increments. The crew also installed, activated and operated nine (9) science racks that supported six science disciplines ranging from material sciences to life science. By the end of Increment 14, a total of 5083 kg of research rack mass were ferried to the station as well as 5021 kg of research mass. The objectives of this paper are three-fold. (1) To briefly review the science conducted on the International Space Station during the previous eleven Increments; (2) to discuss in detail the science investigations that were conducted on the station during Increments 12 and 13. The discussion will focus mainly on the primary objectives of each investigation and their associated hypotheses that were investigated during these two Increments. Also, some preliminary science results will be discussed for each of the investigation as science results availability permit. (3) The paper will briefly touch on what the science complement planning was and what was actually accomplished due to real time science implementation and challenges during these two Increments in question to illustrate the challenges of daily science activity while the science platform is under construction. Finally, the paper will briefly discuss the science research complements for the other two Increments, Increments 14 and 15, to preview how much science might be accomplished during these two Increments.

Jules, Kenol↗
NASA NTRS2006

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Tropospheric Clouds and Aerosols Observed by MODIS Onboard the Terra and Aqua Satellites

Remote sensing of cloud and aerosol optical properties is routinely obtained using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. Instruments that are being used to enhance our ability to characterize the global distribution of cloud and aerosol properties include well-calibrated multispectral radiometers that measure in the visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared. The availability of thermal channels to enhance detection of cloud when estimating aerosol properties is an important improvement. In this paper, we describe the radiative properties of clouds as currently determined from satellites (cloud fraction, optical thickness, cloud top pressure, and cloud particle effective radius) and highlight the global/regional cloud microphysical properties currently available for assessing climate variability and forcing. These include the latitudinal distribution of cloud optical and radiative properties of both liquid water and ice clouds, as well as joint histograms of cloud optical thickness and effective particle radius for selected geographical locations around the world. In addition, we will illustrate the radiative and microphysical properties of aerosol particles (in cloud free regions) that are currently available from space-based observations, and show the latitudinal distribution of aerosol optical properties over both land and ocean surfaces.

King, Michael D.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Situation Awareness of Onboard System Autonomy

We have developed intelligent agent software for onboard system autonomy. Our approach is to provide control agents that automate crew and vehicle systems, and operations assistants that aid humans in working with these autonomous systems. We use the 3 Tier control architecture to develop the control agent software that automates system reconfiguration and routine fault management. We use the Distributed Collaboration and Interaction (DCI) System to develop the operations assistants that provide human services, including situation summarization, event notification, activity management, and support for manual commanding of autonomous system. In this paper we describe how the operations assistants aid situation awareness of the autonomous control agents. We also describe our evaluation of the DCI System to support control engineers during a ground test at Johnson Space Center (JSC) of the Post Processing System (PPS) for regenerative water recovery.

Schreckenghost, Debra↗
NASA NTRS2006

Spatial and Temporal Distribution of Clouds as Observed by MODIS Onboard the Terra and Aqua Satellites

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) was developed by NASA and launched onboard the Terra spacecraft on December 18,1999 and Aqua spacecraft on May 4, 2002. It achieved its final orbit and began Earth observations on February 24,2000 for Terra and June 24,2002 for Aqua. A comprehensive set of remote sensing algorithms for cloud masking and the retrieval of cloud physical and optical properties has been developed by members of the MODIS atmosphere science team. The archived products from these algorithms have applications in climate change studies, climate modeling, numerical weather prediction, and fundamental atmospheric research. In addition to an extensive cloud mask, products include cloud-top properties (temperature, pressure, effective emissivity), cloud thermodynamic phase, cloud optical and microphysical parameters (optical thickness, effective particle radius, water path), as well as derived statistics. Over the last year, extensive improvements and enhancements in the global cloud products have been implemented, and reprocessing of all MODIS data on Terra has commenced since first light in February 2000. In the cloud mask algorithm, the most extensive improvements were in distinguishing clouds at nighttime, including the challenging polar darkness regions of the world. Additional improvements have been made to properly distinguish sunglint from clouds in the tropical ocean regions, and to improve the identification of clouds from snow during daytime in Polar Regions. We will show global monthly mean cloud fraction for both Terra and Aqua, and show how similar the global daytime cloud fraction is from these morning and afternoon orbits, respectively. We will also show the zonal distribution of cloud fraction over land and ocean regions for both Terra and Aqua, and show the time series of global cloud fraction from July 2002 through June 2006.

King, Michael D.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Nadir Measurements of Carbon Monoxide Distributions by the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer Instrument Onboard the Aura Spacecraft: Overview of Analysis Approach and Examples of Initial Results

We provide an overview of the nadir measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) obtained thus far by the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES). The instrument is a high resolution array Fourier transform spectrometer designed to measure infrared spectral radiances from low Earth orbit. It is one of four instruments successfully launched onboard the Aura platform into a sun synchronous orbit at an altitude of 705 km on July 15, 2004 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, California. Nadir spectra are recorded at 0.06/cm spectral resolution with a nadir footprint of 5 x 8 km. We describe the TES retrieval approach for the analysis of the nadir measurements, report averaging kernels for typical tropical and polar ocean locations, characterize random and systematic errors for those locations, and describe instrument performance changes in the CO spectral region as a function of time. Sample maps of retrieved CO for the middle and upper troposphere from global surveys during December 2005 and April 2006 highlight the potential of the results for measurement and tracking of global pollution and determining air quality from space.

carbon monoxide↗
NASA NTRS2006

AutoNav Mark3: Engineering the Next Generation of Autonomous Onboard Navigation and Guidance

The success of JPL's AutoNav system at comet Tempel-1 on July 4, 2005, demonstrated the power of autonomous navigation technology for the Deep Impact Mission. This software is being planned for use as the onboard navigation, tracking and rendezvous system for a Mars Sample Return Mission technology demonstration, and several mission proposals are evaluating its use for rendezvous with, and landing on asteroids. Before this however, extensive re-engineering of AutoNav will take place. This paper describes the AutoNav systems-engineering effort in several areas: extending the capabilities, improving operability, utilizing new hardware elements, and demonstrating the new possibilities of AutoNav in simulations.

navigation↗
NASA NTRS2004

Onboard Autonomy on the Earth Observing One Mission

The Earth Observing One Spacecraft is currently flying The Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment (ASE) - onboard autonomy software to improve science return. The ASE software enables the spacecraft to autonomously detect and respond to science events occurring on the Earth. ASE includes software systems that perform science data analysis, mission planning, and run-time robust execution. In this article we describe the autonomy flight software and how it enables a new paradigm of autonomous science and mission operations.

autonomy↗
NASA NTRS2008

Summary of the Science Performed Onboard the International Space Station within the United States Orbital Segment during Increments 16 and 17

With the launch of the STS-122 on February 7, 2008, which delivered the European Columbus science module and the upcoming STS-124 flight, which will deliver the Japanese Kibo science module in May 2008, the International Space Station will become truly International with Europe and Japan joining the United States of America and Russia to perform science on a continuous basis in a wide spectrum of science disciplines. The last science module, Kibo, of the United States Orbital Segment (USOS) will be mated to the station on time to celebrate its first decade in low Earth orbit in October 2008 (end of Increment 17), thus ushering in the second decade of the station with all the USOS science modules mated and performing science. The arrival of the Kibo science module will also mark continuous human presence on the station for eighty eight (88) months, and, with the addition of the ESA science module during the STS-122 flight, the USOS will be made up of four space agencies: CSA, ESA, JAXA and NASA, spanning three continents. With the additional partners coming onboard with different research needs, every effort is being made to coordinate science across the USOS segment in an integrated manner for the benefit of all parties. One of the objectives of this paper is to discuss the integrated manner in which science planning/replanning and prioritization during the execution phase of an increment is being done. The main focus, though, of this paper is to summarize and to discuss the science performed during Increments 16 and 17 (October 2007 to October 2008). The discussion will focus mainly on the primary objectives of each investigation and their associated hypotheses that were investigated during these two Increments. Also, preliminary science results will be discussed for each of the investigation as science results availability permit. Additionally, the paper will briefly touch on what the science complement for these two increments was and what was actually accomplished due to real time science implementation and constraints. Finally, the paper will briefly discuss the science research complements for the next three Increments: Increments 18 to 20, in order to preview how much science might be accomplished during these three upcoming Increments of the station next decade.

Jules, Kenol↗
NASA NTRS2005

NASA/GSFC Onboard Autonomy For The Swift Mission

This viewgraph presentation reviews the work that NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is currently doing and has been involved in in developing onboard autonomy and automation. Emphasis is given to the work being done for the Swift observatory

Ong, John↗
NASA NTRS2008

Onboard Data Processor for Change-Detection Radar Imaging

A computer system denoted a change-detection onboard processor (CDOP) is being developed as a means of processing the digitized output of a synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) apparatus aboard an aircraft or spacecraft to generate images showing changes that have occurred in the terrain below between repeat passes of the aircraft or spacecraft over the terrain. When fully developed, the CDOP is intended to be capable of generating SAR images and/or SAR differential interferograms in nearly real time. The CDOP is expected to be especially useful for understanding some large-scale natural phenomena and/or mitigating natural hazards: For example, it could be used for near-real-time observation of surface changes caused by floods, landslides, forest fires, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, glaciers, and sea ice movements. It could also be used to observe such longer-term surface changes as those associated with growth of vegetation (relevant to estimation of wildfire fuel loads). The CDOP is, essentially, an interferometric SAR processor designed to operate aboard a radar platform.

Lou, Yunling↗