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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 325 records · Page 18

The E-3 Test Facility at Stennis Space Center: Research and Development Testing for Cryogenic and Storable Propellant Combustion Systems

This paper will provide the reader a broad overview of the current upgraded capabilities of NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center E-3 Test Facility to perform testing for rocket engine combustion systems and components using liquid and gaseous oxygen, gaseous and liquid methane, gaseous hydrogen, hydrocarbon based fuels, hydrogen peroxide, high pressure water and various inert fluids. Details of propellant system capabilities will be highlighted as well as their application to recent test programs and accomplishments. Data acquisition and control, test monitoring, systems engineering and test processes will be discussed as part of the total capability of E-3 to provide affordable alternatives for subscale to full scale testing for many different requirements in the propulsion community.

Pazos, John T.↗

NASA Space Launch System Operations Outlook

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Space Launch System (SLS) Program, managed at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), is working with the Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program, based at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), to deliver a new safe, affordable, and sustainable capability for human and scientific exploration beyond Earth's orbit (BEO). Larger than the Saturn V Moon rocket, SLS will provide 10 percent more thrust at liftoff in its initial 70 metric ton (t) configuration and 20 percent more in its evolved 130-t configuration. The primary mission of the SLS rocket will be to launch astronauts to deep space destinations in the Orion Multi- Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV), also in development and managed by the Johnson Space Center. Several high-priority science missions also may benefit from the increased payload volume and reduced trip times offered by this powerful, versatile rocket. Reducing the lifecycle costs for NASA's space transportation flagship will maximize the exploration and scientific discovery returned from the taxpayer's investment. To that end, decisions made during development of SLS and associated systems will impact the nation's space exploration capabilities for decades. This paper will provide an update to the operations strategy presented at SpaceOps 2012. It will focus on: 1) Preparations to streamline the processing flow and infrastructure needed to produce and launch the world's largest rocket (i.e., through incorporation and modification of proven, heritage systems into the vehicle and ground systems); 2) Implementation of a lean approach to reach-back support of hardware manufacturing, green-run testing, and launch site processing and activities; and 3) Partnering between the vehicle design and operations communities on state-of-the-art predictive operations analysis techniques. An example of innovation is testing the integrated vehicle at the processing facility in parallel, rather than sequentially, saving both time and money. These themes are accomplished under the context of a new cross-program integration model that emphasizes peer-to-peer accountability and collaboration towards a common, shared goal. Utilizing the lessons learned through 50 years of human space flight experience, SLS is assigning the right number of people from appropriate backgrounds, providing them the right tools, and exercising the right processes for the job. The result will be a powerful, versatile, and capable heavy-lift, human-rated asset for the future human and scientific exploration of space.

Hefner, William Keith↗

SPHERES/Astrobee Working Group (SAWG) Quarterly Meeting

SPHERES Astrobee Working Group (SAWG) Quarterly meeting. Membership includes MIT, FIT, AFS, DARPA, CASIS, SJSU, and NASA (HQ, KSC, JSC, MSFC, and ARC). Face-to-Face, twice a year Purpose: Information sharing across the SPHERES community. Program office shares National Lab Facility availability. Status of resources (batteries, CO2 tanks, etc.), Overall Calendar (scheduled Test Sessions, upmassreturn), and Updates on new PD, Investigations, and ISS infrastructure. Provide the SPHERES community (PD, investigators, etc.) with up-to-date information to determine opportunities to use the NL Facility. Discuss proposed changes updates to SPHERES Nat Lab which may be required to support a specific activity or research. Discuss specific support requests made to the ISS Office

Benavides, Jose V.↗

The space shuttle ascent vehicle aerodynamic challenges configuration design and data base development

The phase B Space Shuttle systems definition studies resulted in a generic configuration consisting of a delta wing orbiter, and two solid rocket boosters (SRB) attached to an external fuel tank (ET). The initial challenge facing the aerodynamic community was aerodynamically optimizing, within limits, this configuration. As the Shuttle program developed and the sensitivities of the vehicle to aerodynamics were better understood the requirements of the aerodynamic data base grew. Adequately characterizing the vehicle to support the various design studies exploded the size of the data base to proportions that created a data modeling/management challenge for the aerodynamicist. The ascent aerodynamic data base originated primarily from wind tunnel test results. The complexity of the configuration rendered conventional analytic methods of little use. Initial wind tunnel tests provided results which included undesirable effects from model support tructure, inadequate element proximity, and inadequate plume simulation. The challenge to improve the quality of test results by determining the extent of these undesirable effects and subsequently develop testing techniques to eliminate them was imposed on the aerodynamic community. The challenges to the ascent aerodynamics community documented are unique due to the aerodynamic complexity of the Shuttle launch. Never before was such a complex vehicle aerodynamically characterized. The challenges were met with innovative engineering analyses/methodology development and wind tunnel testing techniques.

Dill, C. C.↗

Differential Gene Expression in A Cross-Feeding Two-Species Model Microbial Community Under Simulated Microgravity and Deep-Space Radiation

A long-term goal of space biology is to understand interspecies microbial interactions in space. Presently, little is known about the combined effect of microgravity and ionizing radiation on bacterial community response when species are interdependent through exchange of metabolites in fluid medium (cross-feeding). Microgravity is expected to slow interspecies mass transfer and growth in cross-feeding communities in the low-shear, diffusion-limited environment, while ionizing radiation may influence stress response to direct (DNA damage) and indirect damage (ROS). Using a well-understood, two-species (Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica) microbial community engineered to be a model for studying cross-feeding, we simulated galactic cosmic rays (GCRsim) and microgravity to test the hypothesis: exposure to ionizing radiation causes cell damage or stress, altering transcriptomic community responses in metabolically interdependent cells, which is exacerbated by microgravity. We expect to see differential gene expression between cross-feeding and non-cross-feeding communities. We measured GCRsim effects on growth and gene expression in well-mixed versus simulated-microgravity conditions and in cross-feeding and non-cross-feeding medium. Microbial cultures were inoculated into liquid medium in rotating wall vessels (RWV) with different rotation rates: 5 RPM (simulated microgravity) and 50 RPM (well-mixed). The E. coli-S. enterica consortium, under simulated microgravity, were exposed to 500 mGy of Simplified 5-ion Galactic Cosmic Ray Simulation for 2 hours at Brookhaven National Lab. We harvested samples 40 minutes after irradiation for extraction and sequencing (NASA GeneLab). Here we present the differential gene expression analysis results, which reveal altered transcriptomic community responses, even where growth rate differences are not observed. Gene expression of these actively metabolizing microbial communities in GCRsim may illuminate molecular mechanisms of microbial interactions in space. Understanding how microbial community gene expression, metabolism, and other cellular processes are influenced by spaceflight stressors can inform the use of microbes in human life support for low Earth orbit missions and beyond.

microgravity↗

The NASA Jitter Handbook Development Activity: A Multidisciplinary Collaborative Effort

Spaceflight missions hosting high-performance vibration-sensitive optical sensor payloads with stringent pointing stability requirements are especially challenged in the areas of predicting, managing, controlling, and testing spacecraft line-of-sight (LoS) jitter. The community recognizes that this is a formidable multidisciplinary engineering task. However, while some textbooks and references in the aerospace literature may touch on the subject of jitter, important details of specific flight proven methodologies and techniques used by today’s jitter engineering practitioners are not readily accessible. There is no know engineering reference document with guidelines and best practices for managing and mitigating space-craft jitter. To fill this knowledge gap the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) has undertaken the task of developing a NASA Jitter Handbook which would include lessons learned and best practices for design, analysis, and test, along with operational guidelines to mitigate jitter. In this paper the plan for this handbook development will be described along with the envisioned handbook framework, key NASA stakeholders, and potential envisioned jitter engineering case studies. Opportunities exist technical collaboration on this handbook with NASA-external organizations.

Christopher D'Souza↗

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) National Campaign II

The Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) effort at NASA aims to enable access to low-altitude airspace for small UAS. This goal is being pursued partly through partnerships that NASA has developed with the UAS stakeholder community, the FAA, other government agencies, and the designated FAA UAS Test Sites. By partnering with the FAA UAS Test Sites, NASA's UTM project has performed a geographically diverse, simultaneous set of UAS operations at locations in six states. The demonstrations used an architecture that was developed by NASA in partnership with the FAA to safely coordinate such operations. These demonstrations-the second or 'Technical Capability Level (TCL 2)' National Campaign of UTM testing-was performed from May 15 through June 9, 2017. Multiple UAS operations occurred during the testing at sites located in Alaska, Nevada, Texas, North Dakota, Virginia, and New York with multiple organizations serving as UAS Service Suppliers and/or UAS Operators per the specifications provided by NASA. By engaging various members of the UAS community in development and operational roles, this campaign provided initial validation of different aspects of the UTM concept including: UAS Service Supplier technologies and procedures; geofencing technologies/conformance monitoring; ground-based surveillance/sense and avoid; airborne sense and avoid; communication, navigation, surveillance; and human factors related to UTM data creation and display. Additionally, measures of performance were defined and calculated from the flight data to establish quantitative bases for comparing flight test activities and to provide potential metrics that might be routinely monitored in future operational UTM systems.

Aweiss, Arwa S.↗

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) National Campaign II

The Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) effort at NASA aims to enable access to low-altitude airspace for small UAS. This goal is being pursued partly through partnerships that NASA has developed with the UAS stakeholder community, the FAA, other government agencies, and the designated FAA UAS Test Sites. By partnering with the FAA UAS Test Sites, NASA's UTM project has performed a geographically diverse, simultaneous set of UAS operations at locations in six states. The demonstrations used an architecture that was developed by NASA in partnership with the FAA to safely coordinate such operations. These demonstrations—the second or "Technical Capability Level (TCL 2)" National Campaign of UTM testing—was performed from May 15 through June 9, 2017. Multiple UAS operations occurred during the testing at sites located in Alaska, Nevada, Texas, North Dakota, Virginia, and New York with multiple organizations serving as UAS Service Suppliers and/or UAS Operators per the specifications provided by NASA. By engaging various members of the UAS community in development and operational roles, this campaign provided initial validation of different aspects of the UTM concept including: UAS Service Supplier technologies and procedures; geofencing technologies/conformance monitoring; ground-based surveillance/sense and avoid; airborne sense and avoid; communication, navigation, surveillance; and human factors related to UTM data creation and display. Additionally, measures of performance were defined and calculated from the flight data to establish quantitative bases for comparing flight test activities and to provide potential metrics that might be routinely monitored in future operational UTM systems.

Aweiss, Arwa↗

CFS Test Framework

NASA's Core Flight System (cFS) provides a generic flight software framework architecture for developing flight software. As the cFS framework has gained popularity over the years within the flight software community, supporting software tools have been developed to assist in the design, development, testing and verification of flight software. The cFS Test Framework (CTF) is a recently developed cFS tool with capabilities to develop and run automated test and verification scripts against flight software targets. The CTF tool parses and executes JSON-based test scripts containing test instructions, while logging and reporting the results. CTF utilizes a plugin-based architecture to allow developers to extend CTF with new test instructions, external interfaces, and custom functionality. To interface with flight software, CTF parses a set of CCSDS message definition files to create the necessary command and telemetry structures for use during the test run. Additionally, CTF also supports interfacing with multiple cFS instances, allowing a test script to verify requirements that involve multiple flight software targets. Lastly, CTF provides support for executing test scripts against FSW running on remote or embedded hardware. This allows CTF to execute the same test scripts across different target configurations throughout the development process. In this presentation, we will introduce the cFS Test Framework (CTF) architecture, discuss the history of cFS testing frameworks, and present the features and capabilities currently provided by CTF. Lastly, we will show a demo of the CTF tool being used to execute test scripts against flight software.

cfs↗

Pre-Flight Testing of Spaceborne GPS Receivers using a GPS Constellation Simulator

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Global Positioning System (GPS) applications test facility has been established within the GSFC Guidance Navigation and Control Center. The GPS test facility is currently housing the Global Simulation Systems Inc. (GSSI) STR2760 GPS satellite 40-channel attitude simulator and a STR4760 12-channel navigation simulator. The facility also contains a few other resources such as an atomic time standard test bed, a rooftop antenna platform and a radome. It provides a new capability for high dynamics GPS simulations of space flight that is unique within the aerospace community. The GPS facility provides a critical element for the development and testing of GPS based technologies i.e. position, attitude and precise time determination used on-board a spacecraft, suborbital rocket balloon. The GPS simulation system is configured in a transportable rack and is available for GPS component development as well as for component, spacecraft subsystem and system level testing at spacecraft integration and tests sites. The GPS facility has been operational since early 1996 and has utilized by space flight projects carrying GPS experiments, such as the OrbView-2 and the Argentine SAC-A spacecrafts. The SAC-A pre-flight test data obtained by using the STR2760 simulator and the comparison with preliminary analysis of the GPS data from SAC-A telemetry are summarized. This paper describes pre-flight tests and simulations used to support a unique spaceborne GPS experiment. The GPS experiment mission objectives and the test program are described, as well as the GPS test facility configuration needed to verify experiment feasibility. Some operational and critical issues inherent in GPS receiver pre-flight tests and simulations using this GPS simulation, and test methodology are described. Simulation and flight data are presented. A complete program of pre-flight testing of spaceborne GPS receivers using a GPS constellation simulator is detailed.

Kizhner, Semion↗

Pre-Flight Testing of Spaceborne GPS Receivers Using a GPS Constellation Simulator

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Global Positioning System (GPS) applications test facility has been established within the GSFC Guidance Navigation and Control Center. The GPS test facility is currently housing the Global Simulation Systems Inc. (GSSI) STR2760 GPS satellite 40-channel attitude simulator and a STR4760 12-channel navigation simulator. The facility also contains a few other resources such as an atomic time standard test bed, a rooftop antenna platform and a radome. It provides a new capability for high dynamics GPS simulations of space flight that is unique within the aerospace community. The GPS facility provides a critical element for the development and testing of GPS based technologies i.e. position, attitude and precise time determination used on-board a spacecraft, suborbital rocket or balloon. The GPS simulator system is configured in a transportable rack and is available for GPS component development as well as for component, spacecraft subsystem and system level testing at spacecraft integration and test sites. The GPS facility has been operational since early 1996 and has been utilized by space flight projects carrying GPS experiments, such as the OrbView-2 and the Argentine SAC-A spacecrafts. The SAC-A pre-flight test data obtained by using the STR2760 simulator and the comparison with preliminary analysis of the GPS data from SAC-A telemetry are summarized. This paper describes pre-flight tests and simulations used to support a unique spaceborne GPS experiment. The GPS experiment mission objectives and the test program are described, as well as the GPS test facility configuration needed to verify experiment feasibility. Some operational and critical issues inherent in GPS receiver pre-flight tests and simulations using this GPS simulator, and test methodology are described. Simulation and flight data are presented. A complete program of pre-flight testing of spaceborne GPS receivers using a GPS constellation simulator is detailed.

Kizhner, Semion↗

Understanding Community Needs and Desires

This panel exchange is focused on the Integration Test phase within the development lifecycle with special emphasis and dedicated discussion on integration and testing of complex systems. Layout and scheduling of integration tasks come from the verification of interface and performance requirements. However, planning for integration activities of complex systems is inherently different from traditional systems engineering integration planning activities. Decisions about the systems under development have to consider not only the technical and programmatic viewpoints but also the political, societal, operational, and economic viewpoints. Definition of performance measures, found intrinsic in the plan, with trans-disciplinary implications will be discussed. A scenario of integration of UAS in the NAS will be used as a benchmark of current views and lifecycle challenges.

Murphy, James R.↗

cFS Test Framework (CTF)

NASA's Core Flight System (cFS) provides a generic flight software framework architecture for developing flight software. As the cFS framework has gained popularity over the years within the flight software community, supporting software tools have been developed to assist in the design, development, testing and verification of flight software. The cFS Test Framework (CTF) is a recently developed cFS tool with capabilities to develop and run automated test and verification scripts against flight software targets. The CTF tool parses and executes JSON-based test scripts containing test instructions, while logging and reporting the results. CTF utilizes a plugin-based architecture to allow developers to extend CTF with new test instructions, external interfaces, and custom functionality. To interface with flight software, CTF parses a set of CCSDS message definition files to create the necessary command and telemetry structures for use during the test run. Additionally, CTF also supports interfacing with multiple cFS instances, allowing a test script to verify requirements that involve multiple flight software targets. Lastly, CTF provides support for executing test scripts against FSW running on remote or embedded hardware. This allows CTF to execute the same test scripts across different target configurations throughout the development process. In this presentation, we will introduce the cFS Test Framework (CTF) architecture, discuss the history of cFS testing frameworks, and present the features and capabilities currently provided by CTF. Lastly, we will show a demo of the CTF tool being used to execute test scripts against flight software.

Aly I Shehata↗

The Space Systems Environmental Test Facility Database (SSETFD), Website Development Status

The Aerospace Corporation has been developing a database of U.S. environmental test laboratory capabilities utilized by the space systems hardware development community. To date, 19 sites have been visited by The Aerospace Corporation and verbal agreements reached to include their capability descriptions in the database. A website is being developed to make this database accessible by all interested government, civil, university and industry personnel. The website will be accessible by all interested in learning more about the extensive collective capability that the US based space industry has to offer. The Environments, Test & Assessment Department within The Aerospace Corporation will be responsible for overall coordination and maintenance of the database. Several US government agencies are interested in utilizing this database to assist in the source selection process for future spacecraft programs. This paper introduces the website by providing an overview of its development, location and search capabilities. It will show how the aerospace community can apply this new tool as a way to increase the utilization of existing lab facilities, and as a starting point for capital expenditure/upgrade trade studies. The long term result is expected to be increased utilization of existing laboratory capability and reduced overall development cost of space systems hardware. Finally, the paper will present the process for adding new participants, and how the database will be maintained.

Snyder, James M.↗

Test stand 116 at the Marshall Space Flight Center

A discussion of propulsion component testing in general and the capabilities of Test Stand 116 at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in particular will serve to educate the aerospace community concerning this national resource. Historical significance, facility systems and capabilities, and day-to-day test operations are the focus of this discussion.

Best, Philip↗

SPHERES: Synchronized, Position, Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites

SPHERES/Astrobee Working Group (SAWG) Quarterly meeting. Membership includes MIT, FIT, AFS, DARPA, CASIS, SJSU, and NASA (HQ, KSC, JSC, MSFC, and ARC) Face-to-Face, twice a year. The purpose is information sharing across the SPHERES community. Program office shares National Lab facility availability. Status of resources (batteries, CO2 tanks, etc.), overall calendar (scheduled Test Sessions, upmass return), and updates on new PD, investigations, and ISS infrastructure. Provide the SPHERES community (PD, investigators, etc.) with up-to-date information to determine opportunities to use the National Lab facility. Discuss proposed changes and updates to SPHERES National Lab which may be required to support a specific activity or research. Discuss specific support requests made to the ISS Office.

SPHERES satellites↗