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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 NTRS2014

NASA's Physics of the Cosmos and Cosmic Origins Technology Development Programs

NASA's Physics of the Cosmos (PCOS) and Cosmic Origins (COR) Program Offices, established in 2011, reside at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). The offices serve as the implementation arm for the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. We present an overview of the programs' technology development activities and technology investment portfolio, funded by NASA's Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) program. We currently fund 19 technology advancements to enable future PCOS and COR missions to help answer the questions "How did our universe begin and evolve?" and "How did galaxies, stars, and planets come to be?" We discuss the process for addressing community-provided technology gaps and Technology Management Board (TMB)-vetted prioritization and investment recommendations that inform the SAT program. The process improves the transparency and relevance of our technology investments, provides the community a voice in the process, and promotes targeted external technology investments by defining needs and identifying customers. The programs' goal is to promote and support technology development needed to enable missions envisioned by the National Research Council's (NRC) "New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics" (NWNH) Decadal Survey report [1] and the Astrophysics Implementation Plan (AIP) [2]. These include technology development for dark energy, gravitational waves, X-ray and inflation probe science, and a 4m-class UV/optical telescope to conduct imaging and spectroscopy studies, as a post-Hubble observatory with significantly improved sensitivity and capability.

Technology Management Board (TMB)↗
NASA NTRS2015

A Novel Triple-Pulsed 2-micrometer Lidar for Simultaneous and Independent CO2 and H2O Column Measurement

The study of global warming needs precisely and accurately measuring greenhouse gases concentrations in the atmosphere. CO2 and H2O are important greenhouse gases that significantly contribute to the carbon cycle and global radiation budget on Earth. NRC Decadal Survey recommends a mission for Active Sensing of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) over Nights, Days and Seasons (ASCENDS). 2 micron laser is a viable IPDA transmitter to measure CO2 and H2O column density from space. The objective is to demonstrate a first airborne direct detection 2 micron IPDA lidar for CO2 and H2O measurements.

Yu, Jirong↗
NASA NTRS2015

Common Cause Failure Modeling in Space Launch Vehicles

Common Cause Failures (CCFs) are a known and documented phenomenon that defeats system redundancy. CCFs are a set of dependent type of failures that can be caused for example by system environments, manufacturing, transportation, storage, maintenance, and assembly. Since there are many factors that contribute to CCFs, they can be reduced, but are difficult to eliminate entirely. Furthermore, failure databases sometimes fail to differentiate between independent and dependent CCF. Because common cause failure data is limited in the aerospace industry, the Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) Team at Bastion Technology Inc. is estimating CCF risk using generic data collected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). Consequently, common cause risk estimates based on this database, when applied to other industry applications, are highly uncertain. Therefore, it is important to account for a range of values for independent and CCF risk and to communicate the uncertainty to decision makers. There is an existing methodology for reducing CCF risk during design, which includes a checklist of 40+ factors grouped into eight categories. Using this checklist, an approach to produce a beta factor estimate is being investigated that quantitatively relates these factors. In this example, the checklist will be tailored to space launch vehicles, a quantitative approach will be described, and an example of the method will be presented.

Hark, Frank↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA's Physics of the Cosmos and Cosmic Origins Technology Development Programs

The strategic astrophysics missions of the coming decades will help answer the questions "How did our universe begin and evolve?" and "How did galaxies, stars, and planets come to be?" Enabling these missions requires advances in key technologies far beyond the current state of the art. NASA's Physics of the Cosmos (PCOS) and Cosmic Origins (COR) Program Offices manage technology maturation projects funded through the Strategic Astrophysics Technology (SAT) program to accomplish such advances. The PCOS and COR Program Offices, residing at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), were established in 2011, and serve as the implementation arm for the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. We present an overview of the Programs' technology development activities and the current technology investment portfolio of 23 technology advancements. We discuss the process for addressing community-provided technology gaps and Technology Management Board (TMB)-vetted prioritization and investment recommendations that inform the SAT program. The process improves the transparency and relevance of our technology investments, provides the community a voice in the process, and promotes targeted external technology investments by defining needs and identifying customers. The Programs' priorities are driven by strategic direction from the Astrophysics Division, which is informed by the National Research Council's (NRC) "New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics" (NWNH) 2010 Decadal Survey report [1], the Astrophysics Implementation Plan (AIP) [2] as updated, and the Astrophysics Roadmap "Enduring Quests, Daring Visions" [3]. These priorities include technology development for missions to study dark energy, gravitational waves, X-ray and inflation probe science, and large far-infrared (IR) and ultraviolet (UV)/optical/IR telescopes to conduct imaging and spectroscopy studies. The SAT program is the Astrophysics Division's main investment method to mature technologies that will be identified by study teams set up to inform the 2020 Decadal Survey process on several large astrophysics mission concepts.

SPIE paper↗
NASA NTRS2014

Trajectory Design for the Europa Clipper Mission Concept

Europa is one of the most scientifically intriguing targets in planetary science due to its potential suitability for extant life. As such, NASA has funded the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory to jointly determine and develop the best mission concept to explore Europa in the near future. The result of nearly 4 years of work--the Europa Clipper mission concept--is a multiple Europa flyby mission that could efficiently execute a number of high caliber science investigations to meet Europa science priorities specified in the 2011 NRC Decadal Survey, and is capable of providing reconnaissance data to maximize the probability of both a safe landing and access to surface material of high scientific value for a future Europa lander. This paper will focus on the major enabling component for this mission concept--the trajectory. A representative trajectory, referred to as 13F7-A21, would obtain global-regional coverage of Europa via a complex network of 45 flybys over the course of 3.5 years while also mitigating the effects of the harsh Jovian radiation environment. In addition, 5 Ganymede and 9 Callisto flybys would be used to manipulate the trajectory relative to Europa. The tour would reach a maximum Jovicentric inclination of 20.1 deg. have a deterministic (Delta)V of 164 m/s (post periapsis raise maneuver), and a total ionizing dose of 2.8 Mrad (Si).

orbital mechanics↗
NASA NTRS2016

Final Report: Laser-Based Optical Trap for Remote Sampling of Interplanetary and Atmospheric Particulate Matter

Applicability to Early Stage Innovation NIAC Cutting edge and innovative technologies are needed to achieve the demanding requirements for NASA origin missions that require sample collection as laid out in the NRC Decadal Survey. This proposal focused on fully understanding the state of remote laser optical trapping techniques for capturing particles and returning them to a target site. In future missions, a laser-based optical trapping system could be deployed on a lander that would then target particles in the lower atmosphere and deliver them to the main instrument for analysis, providing remote access to otherwise inaccessible samples. Alternatively, for a planetary mission the laser could combine ablation and trapping capabilities on targets typically too far away or too hard for traditional drilling sampling systems. For an interstellar mission, a remote laser system could gather particles continuously at a safe distance; this would avoid the necessity of having a spacecraft fly through a target cloud such as a comet tail. If properly designed and implemented, a laser-based optical trapping system could fundamentally change the way scientists designand implement NASA missions that require mass spectroscopy and particle collection.

Laser↗
NASA NTRS2016

2015 Science Mission Directorate Technology Highlights

The role of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is to enable NASA to achieve its science goals in the context of the Nation's science agenda. SMD's strategic decisions regarding future missions and scientific pursuits are guided by Agency goals, input from the science community including the recommendations set forth in the National Research Council (NRC) decadal surveys and a commitment to preserve a balanced program across the major science disciplines. Toward this end, each of the four SMD science divisions -- Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics -- develops fundamental science questions upon which to base future research and mission programs. Often the breakthrough science required to answer these questions requires significant technological innovation, e.g., instruments or platforms with capabilities beyond the current state of the art. SMD's targeted technology investments fill technology gaps, enabling NASA to build the challenging and complex missions that accomplish groundbreaking science.

planetary↗
NASA NTRS2016

Possible Mechanisms for Turbofan Engine Ice Crystal Icing at High Altitude

A thermodynamic model is presented to describe possible mechanisms of ice formation on unheated surfaces inside a turbofan engine compression system from fully glaciated ice crystal clouds often formed at high altitude near deep convective weather systems. It is shown from the analysis that generally there could be two distinct types of ice formation: (1) when the "surface freezing fraction" is in the range of 0 to 1, dominated by the freezing of water melt from fully or partially melted ice crystals, the ice structure is formed from accretion with strong adhesion to the surface, and (2) when the "surface melting fraction" is the range of 0 to 1, dominated by the further melting of ice crystals, the ice structure is formed from accumulation of un-melted ice crystals with relatively weak bonding to the surface. The model captures important qualitative trends of the fundamental ice-crystal icing phenomenon reported earlier (Refs. 1 and 2) from the research collaboration work by NASA and the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada. Further, preliminary analysis of test data from the 2013 full scale turbofan engine ice crystal icing test (Ref. 3) conducted in the NASA Glenn Propulsion Systems Laboratory (PSL) has also suggested that (1) both types of ice formation occurred during the test, and (2) the model has captured some important qualitative trend of turning on (or off) the ice crystal ice formation process in the tested engine low pressure compressor (LPC) targeted area under different icing conditions that ultimately would lead to (or suppress) an engine core roll back (RB) event.

Crystal Icing↗
NASA NTRS2013

Woven TPS Enabling Missions Beyond Heritage Carbon Phenolic

WTPS is a new approach to producing TPS architectures that uses precisely engineered 3D weaving techniques to customize material characteristics needed to meet specific missions requirements for protecting space vehicles from the intense heating generated during atmospheric entry. Using WTPS, sustainable, scalable, mission-optimized TPS solutions can be achieved with relatively low life cycle costs compared with the high costs and long development schedules currently associated with material development and certification. WTPS leverages the mature state-of-the-art weaving technology that has evolved from the textile industry to design TPS materials with tailorable performance. Currently, missions anticipated encountering heat fluxes in the range of 1500 4000 Wcm2 and pressures greater than 1.5 atm are limited to using fully dense Carbon Phenolic. However, fully dense carbon phenolic is only mass efficient at higher heat fluxes greater than 4000 Wcm2), and current mission designs suffer this mass inefficiency for lack of an alternative mid-density TPS. WTPS not only bridges this mid-density TPS gap but also offers a replacement for carbon phenolic, which itself requires a significant and costly redevelopment effort to re-establish its capability for use in the high heat flux missions recently prioritized in the NRC Decadal survey, including probe missions to Venus, Saturn and Neptune. This presentation will overview the WTPS concept and present some results from initial testing completed comparing WTPS architectures to heritage carbon phenolic.

ablators↗
NASA NTRS2017

SMD Technology Development Story for NASA Annual Technology report

The role of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is to enable NASA to achieve its science goals in the context of the Nation's science agenda. SMD's strategic decisions regarding future missions and scientific pursuits are guided by Agency goals, input from the science community-including the recommendations set forth in the National Research Council (NRC) decadal surveys-and a commitment to preserve a balanced program across the major science disciplines. Toward this end, each of the four SMD science divisions-Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics-develops fundamental science questions upon which to base future research and mission programs. Often the breakthrough science required to answer these questions requires significant technological innovation-e.g., instruments or platforms with capabilities beyond the current state of the art. SMD's targeted technology investments fill technology gaps, enabling NASA to build the challenging and complex missions that accomplish groundbreaking science.

technology↗
NASA NTRS2016

A Global Capacity Building Vision for Societal Applications of Earth Observing Systems and Data: Key Questions and Recommendations

Capacity building using Earth observing (EO) systems and data (i.e., from orbital and nonorbital platforms) to enable societal applications includes the network of human, nonhuman, technical, nontechnical, hardware, and software dimensions that are necessary to successfully cross the valley [of death; see NRC (2001)] between science and research (port of departure) and societal application (port of arrival). In many parts of the world (especially where ground-based measurements are scarce or insufficient), applications of EO data still struggle for longevity or continuity for a variety of reasons, foremost among them being the lack of resilient capacity. An organization is said to have resilient capacity when it can retain and continue to build capacity in the face of unexpected shocks or stresses. Stresses can include intermittent power and limited Internet bandwidth, constant need for education on ever-increasing complexity of EO systems and data, communication challenges between the ports of departure and arrival (especially across time zones), and financial limitations and instability. Shocks may also include extreme events such as disasters and losing key staff with technical and institutional knowledge.

shocks↗
NASA NTRS2017

2016 Science Mission Directorate Technology Highlights

The role of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is to enable NASA to achieve its science goals in the context of the nation's science agenda. SMD's strategic decisions regarding future missions and scientific pursuits are guided by agency goals, input from the science community including the recommendations set forth in the National Research Council (NRC) decadal surveys and a commitment to preserve a balanced program across the major science disciplines. Toward this end, each of the four SMD science divisions -- Heliophysics, Earth Science, Planetary Science, and Astrophysics -- develops fundamental science questions upon which to base future research and mission programs.

TECHNOLOGY↗
NASA NTRS2016

Manufactured Porous Ambient Surface Simulants

The planetary science decadal survey for 2013-2022 (Vision and Voyages, NRC 2011) has promoted mission concepts for sample acquisition from small solar system bodies. Numerous comet-sampling tools are in development to meet this standard. Manufactured Porous Ambient Surface Simulants (MPASS) materials provide an opportunity to simulate variable features at ambient temperatures and pressures to appropriately test potential sample acquisition systems for comets, asteroids, and planetary surfaces. The original "flavor" of MPASS materials is known as Manufactured Porous Ambient Comet Simulants (MPACS), which was developed in parallel with the development of the Biblade Comet Sampling System (Backes et al., in review). The current suite of MPACS materials was developed through research of the physical and mechanical properties of comets from past comet missions results and modeling efforts, coordination with the science community at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and testing of a wide range of materials and formulations. These simulants were required to represent the physical and mechanical properties of cometary nuclei, based on the current understanding of the science community. Working with cryogenic simulants can be tedious and costly; thus MPACS is a suite of ambient simulants that yields a brittle failure mode similar to that of cryogenic icy materials. Here we describe our suite of comet simulants known as MPACS that will be used to test and validate the Biblade Comet Sampling System (Backes et al., in review).

Carey, Elizabeth M.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Altitude Scaling of Thermal Ice Protection Systems in Running Wet Operation

A study into the effects of altitude on an aircraft thermal Ice Protection System (IPS) performance has been conducted by the National Research Council Canada (NRC) in collaboration with the NASA Glenn Icing Branch. The study included tests of an airfoil model, with a heated-air IPS, installed in the NRCs Altitude Icing Wind Tunnel (AIWT) at altitude and ground level conditions.

Running wet mode↗
NASA NTRS2018

Semi-Autonomous Rodent Habitat for Deep Space Exploration

NASA has flown animals to space as part of trailblazing missions and to understand the biological responses to spaceflight. Mice traveled in the Lunar Module with the Apollo 17 astronauts and now mice are frequent research subjects in LEO on the ISS. The ISS rodent missions have focused on unravelling biological mechanisms, better understanding risks to astronaut health, and testing candidate countermeasures. A critical barrier for longer-duration animal missions is the need for humans-in-the-loop to perform animal husbandry and perform routine tasks during a mission. Using autonomous or telerobotic systems to alleviate some of these tasks would enable longer-duration missions to be performed at the Deep Space Gateway. Rodent missions performed using the Gateway as a platform could address a number of critical risks identified by the Human Research Program (HRP), as well as Space Biology Program questions identified by NRC Decadal Survey on Biological and Physical Sciences in Space, (2011). HRP risk areas of potentially greatest relevance that the Gateway rodent missions can address include those related to visual impairment (VIIP) and radiation risks to central nervous system, cardiovascular disease, as well as countermeasure testing. Space Biology focus areas addressed by the Gateway rodent missions include mechanisms and combinatorial effects of microgravity and radiation. The objectives of the work proposed here are to 1) develop capability for semi-autonomous rodent research in cis-lunar orbit, 2) conduct key experiments for testing countermeasures against low gravity and space radiation. The hardware and operations system developed will enable experiments at least one month in duration, which potentially could be extended to one year in duration. To gain novel insights into the health risks to crew of deep space travel (i.e., exposure to space radiation), results obtained from Gateway flight rodents can be compared to ground control groups and separate groups of mice exposed to simulated Galactic Cosmic Radiation (at the NASA Space Radiation Lab). Results can then be compared to identical experiments conducted on the ISS. Together results from Gateway, ground-based, and ISS rodent experiments will provide novel insight into the effects of space radiation.

deep space gateway↗
NASA NTRS2018

Evaluation of a Thermodynamic Ice Crystal Icing Model Using Experimental Ice Accretion Data

This paper presents the evaluation of a thermodynamic ice crystal icing model, previously presented to describe the possible mechanisms of icing within the core of a turbofan jet engine. It has been proposed that there are two types of distinct ice accretions based on a surface energy balance: freeze-dominated icing and melt-dominated icing. In the former, ice accretion occurs where a freeze fraction (0 to 1) of melted ice crystals freezes on a surface, along with the existing ice of the impinging water and ice mass. This freeze-dominated icing is characterized by having strong adhesion to the surface. In the latter, icing occurs from accumulated unmelted ice on a surface, where a melt fraction (0 to 1) dictates the amount of unmelted impinged ice. This melt-dominated icing is characterized by weakly bonded surface adhesion. The experimentally observed ice growth rates suggest that only a small fraction of the impinging ice remains on the surface, implying a mass loss mechanism such as splash, runback, bounce, or erosion. This mass loss parameter must be determined in conjunction with the fraction of freezing liquid water or fraction of melting ice on an icing surface. This loss parameter, however, along with the freeze and melt fraction, are the only experimental parameters that are currently not measured directly. Using reported icing growth rates from published ice crystal icing experiments, a methodology is proposed to determine these unknown parameters. This work takes reported ice accretion data from tests conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 2016 and tests NASA collaborated on with the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada in 2012 that examined the fundamental physics of ice crystal icing. Those research efforts sought to generate icing conditions representative of those that occur inside a jet engine when ingesting ice crystals. This paper presents the fundamental equations of the thermodynamic model, the methodology used to determine the aforementioned unknown icing parameters, and results from model evaluation using experimental data. In addition, this paper builds on the previously proposed model by adding a transient conduction term to explain ice growth behavior at the onset of experimental tests that was observed to be different from steady-state ice growth that occurred later in the test run.With the addition of this energy term, this becomes a quasi-steady model. A key finding from this work suggests that mass loss fractions can exceed 0.90 for steady ice growth periods. In addition, due to conductive heat fluxes when using a warmer-than-freezing airfoil, lower mass loss fraction values were calculated during the initial transient period.

Ice-Crystal Ice Accretion↗
NASA NTRS2015

White Paper on Nuclear Astrophysics and Low Energy Nuclear Physics Part 1: Nuclear Astrophysics

This white paper informs the nuclear astrophysics community and funding agencies about the scientific directions and priorities of the field and provides input from this community for the 2015 Nuclear Science Long Range Plan. It summarizes the outcome of the nuclear astrophysics town meeting that was held on August 21-23, 2014 in College Station at the campus of Texas AM University in preparation of the NSAC Nuclear Science Long Range Plan. It also reflects the outcome of an earlier town meeting of the nuclear astrophysics community organized by the Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) on October 9-10, 2012 Detroit, Michigan, with the purpose of developing a vision for nuclear astrophysics in light of the recent NRC decadal surveys in nuclear physics (NP2010) and astronomy (ASTRO2010). The white paper is furthermore informed by the town meeting of the Association of Research at University Nuclear Accelerators (ARUNA) that took place at the University of Notre Dame on June 12-13, 2014. In summary we find that nuclear astrophysics is a modern and vibrant field addressing fundamental science questions at the intersection of nuclear physics and astrophysics. These questions relate to the origin of the elements, the nuclear engines that drive life and death of stars, and the properties of dense matter. A broad range of nuclear accelerator facilities, astronomical observatories, theory efforts, and computational capabilities are needed. With the developments outlined in this white paper, answers to long standing key questions are well within reach in the coming decade.

Nuclear astrophysics; White paper; Nucleosynthesis↗
NASA NTRS2018

Modeling the Risk of U.S. Offshore Oil & Gas Exploration-Well Drilling, Commercial Nuclear Plants, and Human Spaceflight

Nuclear power, offshore oil & gas exploration, and human spaceflight all have high consequence potential if something goes wrong. Each has had at least one major incident that pointed to a need for improved risk assessment. Careful risk analysis is very important for technologies having complexity, uncertainty, and high consequence potential. All rely on multiple barriers/controls/redundancy to minimize risk. NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission) has moved towards risk informed regulation with Probabilistic Risk Assessment (PRA) as a major input.

PRA↗