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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 343 records · Page 19
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2008

Organizational Considerations for Implementing Systems Engineering and Integration in the Ares Projects Office

Systems Engineering and Integration (SE&I) is a critical discipline in developing new space systems. In 2005, NASA performed an internal study of 24 agency and Department of Defense (DoD) programs to evaluate methods of integrating SE&I practices and determine their effectiveness. The goal of the study was to determine the best SE&I implementation strategy for the Ares Projects Office. The study identified six SE&I organizational structures: 1. Lead systems integrator (LSI) with SE&I responsibility and government technical insight. 2a. Integration contractor with government SE&I responsibility (government insight). 2b. Integration contractor with government SE&I responsibility (government oversight). 3a. Prime contractor with SE&I responsibility (government insight). 3b. Prime contractor with SE&I responsibility (government oversight). 3c. Prime contractor with SE&I responsibility (government/industry partnership). 4a.Prime contractor with government SE&I responsibility (government insight). 4b. Prime contractor with government SE&I responsibility (government oversight). 4d.Prime contractors with total system performance responsibility (TSPR). 5. Prime contractor with government SE&I responsibility and integration products through a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC). 6. Government/FFRDC in-house development with SE&I responsibility and function. The organizational structure used most often was number 4, using a prime contractor with government SE&I responsibility and government technical insight. However, data analyses did not establish a positive relationship between program development costs and specific SE&I organizational types, nor did it positively determine the relationship between successful programs or projects and their SE&I structure. The SE&I study reached the following conclusions: (1) Large, long-duration, technically complex programs or projects reach their technical goals, but rarely meet schedule or cost goals. NASA's recent successes have been smaller, short-duration development projects using heritage hardware/software, focused technology development, technical oversight and stable external factors. (2) Programs and projects have failed or been terminated due to lack of technical insight, relaxing of SE&I processes, and unstable external factors. (3) The study did not find a single, clear optimum SE&I organization type to fit all projects. However, while any organizational structure can be made to work, the fewer complexities in the program, the better the likelihood of success. (4) The most common successful SE&I organization structure type in the study was type 4b, where the government maintained integration responsibility, with the prime contractor providing SE&I products and the government providing technical oversight. This study was instrumental in helping the APO select organization structure 4, following the same SE&I and oversight process used during humanlund7s last voyages to the Moon.

Thomas, LeAnn↗
NASA NTRS2008

Infusing Stretch Goal Requirements into the Constellation Program

In 2004, the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) was announced by the United States President's Administration in an effort to explore space and to extend a human presence across our solar system. Subsequently, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established the Exploration Systems Mission Directorate (ESMD) to develop a constellation of new capabilities, supporting technologies, and foundational research that allows for the sustained and affordable exploration of space. Then, ESMD specified the primary mission for the Constellation Program to carry out a series of human expeditions, ranging from Low Earth Orbit (LEO) to the surface of Moon, Mars, and beyond for the purposes of conducting human exploration of space. Thus, the Constellation Program was established at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) to manage the development of the flight and ground infrastructure and systems that can enable continued and extended human access to space. Constellation Program's "Design Objectives" call for an early attention to the program's life cycle costs management through the Program's Need, Goals, and Objectives (NGO) document, which provides the vision, scope, and key areas of focus for the Program. One general policy of the Constellation Program, found in the Constellation Architecture Requirements Document (CARD), states: "A sustainable program hinges on how effectively total life cycle costs are managed. Developmental costs are a key consideration, but total life cycle costs related to the production, processing, and operation of the entire architecture must be accounted for in design decisions sufficiently to ensure future resources are available for ever more ambitious missions into the solar system....It is the intent of the Constellation Program to aggressively manage this aspect of the program using the design policies and simplicity." To respond to the Program's strong desire to manage the program life cycle costs, special efforts were established to identify operability requirements to influence flight vehicle and ground infrastructure design in order to impact the life cycle operations costs, and stretch goal requirements were introduced to the Program. This paper will describe how these stretch goal requirements were identified, developed, refined, matured, approved, and infused into the CARD. The paper will also document several challenges encountered when infusing the stretch goal requirements into the Constellation Program.

Operability↗
NASA NTRS1972

Study 2.5 final report. DORCA computer program. Volume 4: Executive summary report

The functions and capabilities of the Dynamic Operational Requirements and Cost Analysis Program are explained. The existence and purpose of the program are presented to provide an evaluation of program applicability to areas of responsibility for potential users. The implementation of the program on the Univac 1108 computer is discussed. The application of the program for mission planning and project management is described.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1970

Cost advantages of an integrated documentation approach

Interactive use of on-line computing terminals for updating programs is discussed. An integrated documentation approach using predocumented subroutines and metaprogram techniques is found to be an efficient means of generating the relevant documentation and of reducing program development costs.

Felsman, W. O.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Advanced space power requirements and techniques. Task 1: Mission projections and requirements. Volume 3: Appendices

Contents: (1) general study guidelines and assumptions; (2) launch vehicle performance and cost assumptions; (3) satellite programs 1959 to 1979; (4) initiative mission and design characteristics; (5) satellite listing; (6) spacecraft design model; (7) spacecraft cost model; (8) mission cost model; and (9) nominal and optimistic budget program cost summaries.

Wolfe, M. G.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Q1-2025 Solar Photovoltaic System Cost Benchmarks

The U.S. Department of Energy’s solar office and its national laboratory partners analyze cost data for U.S. solar photovoltaic systems to develop cost benchmarks to measure progress toward goals and guide research and development programs. The cost data is available in an Excel spreadsheet model that can be downloaded here.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1979

Price and cost estimation

Price and Cost Estimating Program (PACE II) was developed to prepare man-hour and material cost estimates. Versatile and flexible tool significantly reduces computation time and errors and reduces typing and reproduction time involved in preparation of cost estimates.

Stewart, R. D.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Industry survey of space system cost benefits from New Ways Of Doing Business

The cost of designing, building and operating space system hardware has always been expensive. Small quantities of specialty parts escalate engineering design, production and operations cost. Funding cutbacks and shrinking revenues dictate aggressive cost saving programs. NASA's highest priority is providing economical transportation to and from space. Over the past three decades NASA has seen technological advances that provide grater efficiencies in designing, building, and operating of space system hardware. As future programs such as NLS, LUTE and SEI begin, these greater efficiencies and cost savings should be reflected in the cost models. There are several New Ways Of Doing Business (NWODB) which, when fully implemented will reduce space system costs. These philosophies and/or culture changes are integrated in five areas: (1) More Extensive Pre-Phase C/D & E, (2) Multi Year Funding Stability, (3) Improved Quality, Management and Procurement Processes, (4) Advanced Design Methods, and (5) Advanced Production Methods. Following is an overview of NWODB and the Cost Quantification Analysis results using an industry survey, one of the four quantification techniques used in the study. The NWODB Cost Quantification Analysis is a study performed at Marshall Space Flight Center by the Engineering Cost Group, Applied Research Incorporated and Pittsburg State University. This study took place over a period of four months in mid 1992. The purpose of the study was to identify potential NWODB which could lead to improved cost effectiveness within NASA and to quantify potential cost benefits that might accrue if these NWODB were implemented.

Rosmait, Russell L.↗
NASA NTRS2000

A Regeneratively-Cooled Thrust Chamber for the Fastrac Engine

This document consists of presentation slides about the development of the regeneratively cooled thrust chamber for the Fastrac engine. The Fastrac engine was originally developed to demonstrate low cost design and fabrication methods. It was intended to be used in an expendable booster. The regen thrust chamber enables a more cost efficient test program. Using the low cost design and fabrication methodology designed for the 12K regeneratively cooled chamber, the contractor designed, developed and fabricated a regeneratively cooled thrust chamber for the Fastrac engine.

Brown, Kendall↗
NASA NTRS2008

Aircraft System Analysis of Technology Benefits to Civil Transport Rotorcraft

An aircraft systems analysis was conducted to evaluate the net benefits of advanced technologies on two conceptual civil transport rotorcraft, to quantify the potential of future civil rotorcraft to become operationally viable and economically competitive, with the ultimate goal of alleviating congestion in our airways, runways and terminals. These questions are three of many that must be resolved for the successful introduction of civil transport rotorcraft: 1) Can civil transport rotorcraft actually relieve current airport congestion and improve overall air traffic and passenger throughput at busy hub airports? What is that operational scenario? 2) Can advanced technology make future civil rotorcraft economically competitive in scheduled passenger transport? What are those enabling technologies? 3) What level of investment is necessary to mature the key enabling technologies? This study addresses the first two questions, and several others, by applying a systems analysis approach to a broad spectrum of potential advanced technologies at a conceptual level of design. The method was to identify those advanced technologies that showed the most promise and to quantify their benefits to the design, development, production, and operation of future civil rotorcraft. Adjustments are made to sizing data by subject matter experts to reflect the introduction of new technologies that offer improved performance, reduced weight, reduced maintenance, or reduced cost. This study used projected benefits from new, advanced technologies, generally based on research results, analysis, or small-scale test data. The technologies are identified, categorized and quantified in the report. The net benefit of selected advanced technologies is quantified for two civil transport rotorcraft concepts, a Single Main Rotor Compound (SMRC) helicopter designed for 250 ktas cruise airspeed and a Civil Tilt Rotor (CTR) designed for 350 ktas cruise airspeed. A baseline design of each concept was sized for a representative civil passenger transport mission, using current technology. Individual advanced technologies are quantified and applied to resize the aircraft, thereby quantifying the net benefit of that technology to the rotorcraft. Estimates of development cost, production cost and operating and support costs are made with a commercial cost estimating program, calibrated to Boeing products with adjustments for future civil production processes. A cost metric of cash direct operating cost per available seat-mile (DOC ASM) is used to compare the cost benefit of the technologies. The same metric is used to compare results with turboprop operating costs. Reduced engine SFC was the most advantageous advanced technology for both rotorcraft concepts. Structural weight reduction was the second most beneficial technology, followed by advanced drive systems and then by technology for rotorcraft performance. Most of the technologies evaluated in this report should apply similarly to conventional helicopters. The implicit assumption is that resources will become available to mature the technologies for fullscale production aircraft. That assumption is certainly the weak link in any forecast of future possibilities. The analysis serves the purpose of identifying which technologies offer the most potential benefit, and thus the ones that should receive the highest priority for continued development. This study directly addressed the following NASA Subsonic Rotary Wing (SRW) subtopics: SR W.4.8.I.J Establish capability for rotorcraft system analysis and SRW. 4.8.I.4 Conduct limited technology benefit assessment on baseline rotorcraft configurations.

Wilkerson, Joseph B.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Spaceflight Operations Services Grid (SOSG)

In an effort to adapt existing space flight operations services to new emerging Grid technologies we are developing a Grid-based prototype space flight operations Grid. This prototype is based on the operational services being provided to the International Space Station's Payload operations located at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama. The prototype services will be Grid or Web enabled and provided to four user communities through portal technology. Users will have the opportunity to assess the value and feasibility of Grid technologies to their specific areas or disciplines. In this presentation descriptions of the prototype development, User-based services, Grid-based services and status of the project will be presented. Expected benefits, findings and observations (if any) to date will also be discussed. The focus of the presentation will be on the project in general, status to date and future plans. The End-use services to be included in the prototype are voice, video, telemetry, commanding, collaboration tools and visualization among others. Security is addressed throughout the project and is being designed into the Grid technologies and standards development. The project is divided into three phases. Phase One establishes the baseline User-based services required for space flight operations listed above. Phase Two involves applying Gridlweb technologies to the User-based services and development of portals for access by users. Phase Three will allow NASA and end users to evaluate the services and determine the future of the technology as applied to space flight operational services. Although, Phase One, which includes the development of the quasi-operational User-based services of the prototype, development will be completed by March 2004, the application of Grid technologies to these services will have just begun. We will provide status of the Grid technologies to the individual User-based services. This effort will result in an extensible environment that incorporates existing and new spaceflight services into a standards-based framework providing current and future NASA programs with cost savings and new and evolvable methods to conduct science. This project will demonstrate how the use of new programming paradigms such as web and grid services can provide three significant benefits to the cost-effective delivery of spaceflight services. They will enable applications to operate more efficiently by being able to utilize pooled resources. They will also permit the reuse of common services to rapidly construct new and more powerful applications. Finally they will permit easy and secure access to services via a combination of grid and portal technology by a distributed user community consisting of NASA operations centers, scientists, the educational community and even the general population as outreach. The approach will be to deploy existing mission support applications such as the Telescience Resource Kit (TReK) and new applications under development, such as the Grid Video Distribution System (GViDS), together with existing grid applications and services such as high-performance computing and visualization services provided by NASA s Information Power Grid (IPG) in the MSFC s Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) HOSC Annex. Once the initial applications have been moved to the grid, a process will begin to apply the new programming paradigms to integrate them where possible. For example, with GViDS, instead of viewing the Distribution service as an application that must run on a single node, the new approach is to build it such that it can be dispatched across a pool of resources in response to dynamic loads. To make this a reality, reusable services will be critical, such as a brokering service to locate appropriate resource within the pool. This brokering service can then be used by other applications such as the TReK. To expand further, if the GViDS application is constructed using a services-based mel, then other applications such as the Video Auditorium can then use GViDS as a service to easily incorporate these video streams into a collaborative conference. Finally, as these applications are re-factored into this new services-based paradigm, the construction of portals to integrate them will be a simple process. As a result, portals can be tailored to meet the requirements of specific user communities.

Bradford, Robert N.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Tankless Water Heater

Kennedy Space Center specialists aided Space, Energy, Time Saving (SETS) Systems, Inc. in working out the problems they encountered with their new electronic "tankless" water heater. The flow switch design suffered intermittent problems. Hiring several testing and engineering firms produced only graphs, printouts, and a large expense, but no solutions. Then through the Kennedy Space Center/State of Florida Technology Outreach Program, SETS was referred to Michael Brooks, a 21-year space program veteran and flowmeter expert. Run throughout Florida to provide technical service to businesses at no cost, the program applies scientific and engineering expertise originally developed for space applications to the Florida business community. Brooks discovered several key problems, resulting in a new design that turned out to be simpler, yielding a 63 percent reduction in labor and material costs over the old design.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2020

Measuring Atmospheric Gas Using Small Satellites (Final Report)

The research focused on demonstrating that a small satellite (< 10 kg) is able to provide useable data in support of stratospheric circulation and broader atmospheric measurement generally thought to required large, lengthy and high cost space programs. The research goals targeting enabling CubeSats to serve as science platforms including low-cost communication infrastructure, science enabling solar panels and a ruggedized small form factor science instrument were highly successful with demonstrated on-orbit results. The collection of science data on-orbit was not successful due to a high tumbling rate impacted to the spacecraft at time of release on orbit, preventing reliable solar charging and leading to premature ending of the mission. The successes acquired on orbit will act as a springboard for further research and space projects at LLNL. Several research groups (both private and government) have expressed interest in the area of this research that proved successful such as the solar panels and iridium crosslink as well as the LLNL developed CubeSat standard.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS1983

Ad Hoc modeling, expert problem solving, and R&T program evaluation

A simplified cost and time (SCAT) analysis program utilizing personal-computer technology is presented and demonstrated in the case of the NASA-Goddard end-to-end data system. The difficulties encountered in implementing complex program-selection and evaluation models in the research and technology field are outlined. The prototype SCAT system described here is designed to allow user-friendly ad hoc modeling in real time and at low cost. A worksheet constructed on the computer screen displays the critical parameters and shows how each is affected when one is altered experimentally. In the NASA case, satellite data-output and control requirements, ground-facility data-handling capabilities, and project priorities are intricately interrelated. Scenario studies of the effects of spacecraft phaseout or new spacecraft on throughput and delay parameters are shown. The use of a network of personal computers for higher-level coordination of decision-making processes is suggested, as a complement or alternative to complex large-scale modeling.

Silverman, B. G.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Development of termination and utilization concepts for flat conductor cables. Volume 3: Cost study comparison, flat versus round conductor cable

A cost study comparing flat conductor cable (FCC) with small-gage wire (SGW) and conventional round conductor cable (RCC) is presented. This study was based on a vehicle wiring system consisting of 110,000 ft of conventional RCC equally divided between AWG sizes 20,22, and 24 using MIL-W-81044-type wire and MIL-C-26500 circular connectors. Basic cost data were developed on a similar-sized commercial jet airplane wiring system on a previous company R&D program in which advanced wiring techniques were carried through equivalent installations on an airplane mockup; and on data developed on typical average bundles during this program. Various cost elements included were engineering labor, operations (manufacturing) labor, material costs, and cost impact on payload. Engineering labor includes design, wiring system integration, wiring diagrams and cable assembly drawings, wire installations, and other related supporting functions such as the electronic data processing for the wiring. Operations labor includes mockup, tooling and production planning, fabrication, assembly, installation, and quality control cost impact on payload is the conversion of wiring system weight variations through use of different wiring concepts to program payload benefits in terms of dollars.

Source record↗