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This viewgraph presentation explores how NASA can apply the global shift in demographics, the popularity of collaborative technology and the desire for participation to the future of space exploration. Included in this is a review of the evolution of work, the engagement gap, user contribution systems and a case study concerning the "digital astronaut".
For the first time in decades, there is a significant amount of change in our nation's space program. Along with change, there are opportunities, and NASA has begun a set of planning to be prepared for the future, emphasizing innovation and technology development, increased emphasis on collaboration, commercially-provided access to space, and the need for reinvention. This discussion will briefly give an overview of NASA, showcase some of the diverse activities that are part of our nation' fs space program, identify some of the new changes envisioned to NASA's mission, and how our space program can continue to inspire the nation during changing times.
This presentation will include information about Double Data Rate (DDR) technology, NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) tasks and their purpose, collaborations, a roadmap, NEPP partners, results to date, and future plans.
This presentation will include information about Graphics Processor Units (GPUs) technology, NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) tasks, The test setup, test parameter considerations, lessons learned, collaborations, a roadmap, NEPP partners, results to date, and future plans.
This presentation will include information about Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) technology, NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) tasks and their purpose, collaborations, a roadmap, NEPP partners, results to date, and future plans.
This presentation will include information about Double Data Rate (DDR) technology, NASA Electronic Parts and Packaging (NEPP) tasks and their purpose, collaborations, a roadmap, NEPP partners, results to date, and future plans.
NASA recently collaborated with National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and AvMet Application Inc. to identify the weather information, existing aviation weather products, and the novel approaches that are required to model and mitigate various impacts of uncertain atmospheric conditions to support safe and efficient Urban Air Mobility (UAM) operations. This presentation will provide updates on the collaborative efforts of weather impacts modelling and analysis for future evaluation of UAM concepts of operations in the presence of weather.
As NASA transitions its focus to travel back to the moon and on to new destinations, the need to ensure the capture, analysis, and application of research and medical data is of greater urgency than at any other previous time. In this era of limited resources and challenging schedules, the Human Research Program (HRP), based at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC), recognizes the need to extract the greatest possible amount of information from the data already captured. To this end, the HRP Chief Scientist Office (CSO), HRP Program Planning and Control (PP&C) Office, and the Space Medicine Operations Division have been working together to make reuse of both research data and medical monitoring data more accessible to the user community through the Life Science Data Archive (LSDA) and the Lifetime Surveillance of Astronaut Health (LSAH) Repositories. The task of both LSDA and LSAH repositories is to acquire, preserve, and distribute retrospective research (LSDA) and medical (LSAH) data and information both within the NASA community and to the science community at large, for knowledge discovery, retrospective analysis, and planning of future research studies. An additional goal is to encourage collaboration with non-NASA institutions also faced with enhancing human performance in extreme environments. In September 2022, the LSDA website and its contents transitioned to a new NASA Life Sciences Portal (https://nlsp.nasa.gov/explore/lsdahome). This site continues to feature publicly releasable information such as non-attributable datasets, experiment descriptions (from Project Mercury to ISS, as well as from multiple flight analog missions), descriptions of medical monitoring data, and LSAH newsletters (1992 - 2022). The website also provides an updated portal to request additional research and medical data not accessible from the public website. This presentation will provide an in-depth look at the new system as it relates to finding and requesting retrospective data. We will also detail processes from making a request to delivering data for different types of data requests (i.e., attributable, or non-attributable). This includes descriptions of various approval boards, what information and actions the requestor is responsible for, and key milestones in making data available for reuse.
Active optical (Laser/Lidar) measurement techniques are critical for the future National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth, Planetary Science, Exploration, and Aeronautics measurements. The latest science decadal surveys recommend a number of missions requiring active optical systems to meet the science measurement objectives and the aeronautics community continues to use Laser/Lidar technologies to meet the aeronautics measurement objectives. With these drivers, the NASA Agency Program Management Council (APMC), chaired by the NASA Associate Administrator, has tasked the NASA Sensors and Instrumentation (S&I) Capability Leadership Team (CLT) Leader to determine if the Agency has the necessary expertise and capabilities to execute successfully the active optical-based systems necessary to make the required measurements for Science, Exploration, and Aeronautics. This NASA Technical Interchange Meeting (TIM) was a forum to exchange perspectives on the current state of the discipline’s technologies and the direction NASA needs to take in the future to raise the Technical Readiness Level (TRL) of the measurement technologies to meet these measurement needs in the applications domains. The information developed at this TIM was used in formulating the Agency-level strategy and solutions for advancing high-risk Laser/Lidar technologies that are not currently being sufficiently planned, developed, or risk-reduced to meet NASA’s mission requirements. Given the crosscutting synergies in critical Active Optical measurements for NASA Science, Exploration, and Aeronautics, a strategic approach is needed to identify areas where NASA should “lead, leverage or collaborate” with existing national and international industries to meet its future needs. The TIM aimed at focusing NASA’s directions to attain the necessary TRLs to meet the Agency-level priority Active Optical measurements in Space and Aeronautics. The TIM presentations and strategic inputs were synthesized by the NASA Active Optical Tiger Team for presentation to the NASA APMC with a suggested strategy to address the Agency’s needs in a crosscutting, synergistic and cost-effective manner.
Surface Trajectory-Based Operations (STBO) is a future concept for surface operations where time requirements are incorporated into taxi operations to support surface planning and coordination. Pilot-in-the-loop flight deck simulations have been conducted to study flight deck displays algorithms to aid pilots in complying with the time requirements of time-based taxi operations (i.e., at discrete locations in 3 12 D operations or at all points along the route in 4DT operations). The results of these studies (conformance, time-of-arrival error, eye-tracking data, and safety ratings) are presented. Flight deck simulation work done in collaboration with DLR is described. Flight deck research issues in future auto-taxi operations are also introduced.
Future space mission concepts and designs pose many networking challenges for command, telemetry, and science data applications with diverse end-to-end data delivery needs. For future end-to-end architecture designs, a key challenge is meeting expected application quality of service requirements for multiple simultaneous mission data flows with options to use diverse onboard local data buses, commercial ground networks, and multiple satellite relay constellations in LEO, MEO, GEO, or even deep space relay links. Effectively utilizing a complex network topology requires orchestration and direction that spans the many discrete, individually addressable computer systems, which cause them to act in concert to achieve the overall network goals. The system must be intelligent enough to not only function under nominal conditions, but also adapt to unexpected situations, and reorganize or adapt to perform roles not originally intended for the system or explicitly programmed. This paper describes architecture features of cognitive networking within the future NASA space communications infrastructure, and interacting with the legacy systems and infrastructure in the meantime. The paper begins by discussing the need for increased automation, including inter-system collaboration. This discussion motivates the features of an architecture including cognitive networking for future missions and relays, interoperating with both existing endpoint-based networking models and emerging information-centric models. From this basis, we discuss progress on a proof-of-concept implementation of this architecture as a cognitive networking on-orbit application on the SCaN Testbed attached to the International Space Station.
Atmospheric dynamics often play a critical role in the sustainability and reliability of diverse forms of energy production. This is especially true for the growing number of renewable energy deployments that harness aspects of the environment for power production. While the University of Memphis has a strong research background in energy systems, we have little experience working with the Earth and Environmental Systems Science Division (EESSD) and their associated User Facilities. Of particular interest to us is the Atmospheric Science Research and the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility to address surface-boundary layer interactions and physical phenomena. One of the major challenges for understanding and developing energy systems and management platforms is accurate modeling/forecasting of atmospheric conditions across disparate spatial and temporal scales. These conditions are often required to understand the lowest levels of the atmospheric boundary layer, but are also important to understand higher atmospheric conditions where aerosols affect cloud development. The objective of this work was to develop partnerships with national laboratories for collaboration on environmental science and its intersection with sustainable energy systems, as well as to leverage the ARM user facility data repositories to enhance our research capabilities in energy systems and their inter-dependence on environmental systems for future engagement with EESSD. Specifically, we accomplished these objectives by (1) developing collaborations with Oakridge National Laboratory ARM Data Science and Integration Group which resulted in student internships, (2) employed ARM data to develope modeling of the atmospheric boundary layer optical turbulence, and (3) optimally-sized large-scale renewable energy systems and their associated energy storage systems with ARM repository data.
In this work, using as references the posterior probability distribution functions of the equation of state (EOS) parameters inferred from the radii of canonical neutron stars (NSs) reported by the LIGO/VIRGO and NICER Collaborations based on their observations of GW170817 and PSR J0030+0451, we investigate how future radius measurements of more massive NSs will improve our current knowledge about the EOS of superdense neutron-rich nuclear matter, especially its symmetry energy term. Within the Bayesian statistical approach using an explicitly isospin-dependent parametric EOS for the core of NSs, we infer the EOS parameters of superdense neutron-rich nuclear matter from three sets of imagined mass–radius correlation data representing typical predictions by various nuclear many-body theories, that is, the radius stays the same, decreases, or increases with increasing NS mass within ±15% between 1.4 and 2.0 M$_\odot$. The corresponding NS average density increases quickly or slowly or slightly decreases as the NS mass increases from 1.4 to 2.0 M$_\odot$. While the EOSs of symmetric nuclear matter (SNM) inferred from the three data sets are approximately the same, the corresponding symmetry energies above about twice the saturation density of nuclear matter are very different, indicating that the radii of massive NSs carry important information about the high-density behavior of nuclear symmetry energy with little influence from the remaining uncertainties of the SNM EOS at suprasaturation densities.
Recently, NASA formally completed the Polymer Energy Rechargeable System (PERS) Program, which was established in 2000 in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) to support the development of polymer-based, lithium-based cell chemistries and battery technologies to address the next generation of aerospace applications and mission needs. The goal of this program was to ultimately develop an advanced, space-qualified battery technology, which embodied a solid polymer electrolyte (SPE) and complementary components, with improved performance characteristics that would address future aerospace battery requirements. Programmatically, the PERS initiative exploited both interagency collaborations to address common technology and engineering issues and the active participation of academia and private industry. The initial program phases focused on R&D activities to address the critical technical issues and challenges at the cell level. A variety of cell and polymeric electrolyte concepts were pursued as part of the development efforts undertaken at numerous governmental, industrial and academic laboratories. Numerous candidate electrolyte materials were developed, synthesized and optimized for evaluation. Utilizing the component screening facility and the "standardized" test procedures developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center, electrochemical screening and performance evaluations of promising candidate materials were completed. This overview summarizes test results for a variety of candidate electrolyte materials that were developed under the PERS Program. Electrolyte properties are contrasted and compared to the original project goals, and the strengths and weaknesses of the electrolyte chemistries are discussed. Limited cycling data for full-cells using lithium metal and vanadium oxide electrodes are also presented. Based on measured electrolyte properties, the projected performance characteristics and temperature limitations of batteries utilizing the advanced electrolytes and components have been estimated. Limitations for the achievement of practical performance levels are also discussed, as well as needs for future research and development.
In 2015 and 2016, the AfriSAR campaign was carried out as a collaborative effort among international space and National Park agencies (ESA, NASA, ONERA, DLR, ANPN and AGEOS) in support of the upcoming ESA BIOMASS, NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) and NASA Global Ecosystem Dynamics Initiative (GEDI) missions. The NASA contribution to the campaign was conducted in 2016 with the NASA LVIS (Land Vegetation and Ice Sensor) Lidar, the NASA L-band UAVSAR (Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar). A central motivation for the AfriSAR deployment was the common AGBD estimation requirement for the three future spaceborne missions, the lack of sufficient airborne and ground calibration data covering the full range of ABGD in tropical forest systems, and the intercomparison and fusion of the technologies. During the campaign, over 7000 km2 of waveform Lidar data from LVIS and 30000 km2 of UAVSAR data were collected over 10 key sites and transects. In addition, field measurements of forest structure and biomass were collected in sixteen 1 hectare sized plots. The campaign produced gridded Lidar canopy structure products, gridded aboveground biomass and associated uncertainties, Lidar based vegetation canopy cover profile products, Polarimetric Interferometric SAR and Tomographic SAR products and field measurements. Our results showcase the types of data products and scientific results expected from the spaceborne Lidar and SAR missions; we also expect that the AfriSAR campaign data will facilitate further analysis and use of waveform Lidar and multiple baseline polarimetric SAR datasets for carbon cycle, biodiversity, water resources and more applications by the greater scientific community.
BACKGROUND: Communication delays are an inherent challenge of space missions to the Moon and beyond. Past research studies showed that 50+ second delays adversely affected individual well-being, team cohesion, and overall task performance (Kintz et al., 2016; Larson et al., 2019). However, there is a dearth of research on the effects of shorter delays (on the order of 4-12 seconds one-way) that may present a more immediate challenge during the upcoming Artemis missions. Even these shorter delays could make it difficult or infeasible for ground control to provide real-time support to Artemis astronauts, especially in complex and time-critical tasks such as extra-vehicular activities (EVAs). Results from studies on longer or Mars-like delays cannot be directly applied to Artemis-like delays, due to the large differences in delay magnitude and task types between these mission categories. For example, real-time oversight and guidance from ground control is impossible under Mars-like delays but may be performed under Artemis-like delays, albeit with potentially high workload and communication difficulty. Thus, a better understanding of the effects of Artemis-like communication delays on collaborative task performance is needed. Additionally, there is a need to develop reliable task paradigms that can be used in future studies on communication delays. METHODS: This project will study the effects of Artemis-like communication delays on collaborative task performance in a simulated space-to-ground team task via a lunar Gateway-like interface prototype. Teams of two astronaut-like participants - one serving as “crewmember” and one as “flight controller” - will perform a spaceflight-relevant task under six delay conditions (i.e., 0, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12 seconds). Audio, video, texting, and file transfer will be delayed between the participants to mimic lunar-like communication delays. Measures related to workload, situation awareness, system usability, task performance, team cohesion, well-being, and communication strategies will be collected. These measures will be compared across delay levels, participant roles, and off-nominal and nominal tasks. Participants will be given the choice to use any combination of video and text communication in order to study preferences in interaction modality. RESEARCH AIMS: One aim is to identify a delay level or range of levels at which there may be significant decrements in individual and team-based measures. Identifying such ranges may help design novel workload management or communication countermeasures for future space missions. Also, the spaceflight-relevant research tasks and corresponding communication delay technology developed as part of this effort may be used for future studies on communication delays. Results from this work are also expected to inform study scenarios in the Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) Campaign.
There were two major developments in 1994 in our collaborative GPS experiment in the Tien Shan of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). Both were motivated by our expectation that we will ultimately obtain better science at lower cost if we involve our colleagues in the FSU more deeply in (1) the collection and (2) the analysis of data. As an experimental test of the concept of having our local collaborators carry out the field work semi-autonomously, we sent 6 MIT receivers to the Tien Shan for a period of 3 months. To enable our collaborators to have the capability for data analysis, we provided computers for two data analysis centers and organized a two-week training session. This report emphasizes the rationale for deeper involvement of FSU scientists, describes the training sessions, discusses the data collection, and presents the results. We also discuss future plans. More detailed discussion of background, general scientific objectives, discussions with collaborators, and results for the campaigns in 1992 and 1993 have been given in previous reports.
For over 16 years, the Louisiana Space Grant Consortium (LaSPACE), the NASA Balloon Program Office (BPO), and the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (CSBF) have collaborated in a series of high altitude balloon-based programs involving hands-on authentic learning experiences that expose university students and other participants to technical skills, teamwork dynamics, and effective communication methods. Such programs go beyond what is possible to achieve in a normal classroom and help prepare future engineers and scientists for a successful aerospace workforce career. In our collaborative effort, LaSPACE has focused on the program content and student mentoring while NASA BPO and CSBF provide balloon flight support and operations. The entry-level Louisiana Aerospace Catalyst Experiences for Students (LaACES) builds students’ skills in basic electronics, sensor interfacing, real-time programming, mechanical development, and project management. These skills are then applied to the design, development, fabrication, and flight of a small (∼500 gram) balloon payload. Finally, the payloads are flight-tested to an altitude of ∼30 km using a 2 kg latex sounding balloon. The LaACES program includes a set of lectures, activities, and Arduino Mega based electronic kits that are used for skill building and as a core control system for the student payload. The more advanced High Altitude Student Platform (HASP) is designed to carry ∼twelve 3 to 20 kg student payloads to an altitude of about 36 kilometers with flight durations of 10 to 20 hours using a ∼311,500 cubic meter, zero pressure balloon. HASP provides all student payloads with power, downlink telemetry, uplink commanding, and real-time HD video for instrument control and assessment during the flight. While originally developed for university students, these programs have been adapted to projects focused on high school teachers as well as affecting minorities underrepresented in aerospace related science and engineering fields. We are now in the process of adapting the LaACES materials to a pre-engineering curriculum for high school students as well as for widespread access over the internet. During this presentation, we will provide details of both the LaACES and HASP programs, how these programs have engaged participants from all demographic groups, and our current plans for continuing and expanding upon our success.