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This slide presentation outlines a competition that has as its goal to explores the viability of using public-private partnerships to open space frontier for commercial uses. The teams have the objective of designing a business plan to open the space frontier to commercial interests.
The strategy for accomplishing civilian exploration goals and objectives is in the process of a fundamental shift towards a potential new approach called Flexible Path. This paper suggests that a government-industry or public-private partnership in the commercial development of low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit (LEO-to-GEO (LTG)) space, following or in parallel with the commercialization of Earth-to-LEO and International Space Station (ISS) operations, could serve as a necessary, logical step that can be incorporated into the flexible path approach. A LTG satellite-servicing infrastructure and architecture concept is discussed within this new strategic context. The concept consists of a space harbor that serves as a transport facility for a fleet of specialized, fully- or semi-autonomous robotic servicing spacecraft. The baseline, conceptual system architecture is composed of a space harbor equipped with specialized servicer spacecraft; a satellite command, communication, and control system; a parts station; a fuel station or depot; and a fuel/parts replenishment transport. The commercial servicer fleet would consist of several types of spacecraft, each designed with specialized robotic manipulation subsystems to provide services such as refueling, upgrade, repair, inspection, relocation, and removal. The space harbor is conceptualized as an ISS-type, octagonal truss structure equipped with radiation tolerant subsystems. This space harbor would be primarily capable of serving as an operational platform for various commercially owned and operated servicer spacecraft positioned and docked symmetrically on four of the eight sides. Several aspects of this concept are discussed, such as: system-level feasibility in terms of ISS-truss-type infrastructure and subsystems emplacement and maintenance between LEO and GEO; infrastructure components assembly in LEO, derived from ISS assembly experience, and transfer to various higher orbital locations; the evolving Earth-to-orbit (ETO) capability to deliver humans and cargo to LEO for assembly purposes; system architectural definition, optimal orbital parameters, mass estimations, delta velocity ( V) estimations, power and propulsion options, and assessments of various critical technologies. Large-scale, robotic, LTG satellite servicing is considered as an essential economic pre-condition and next parallel or sequential step on the road toward exploration beyond LEO. Such a step might produce the necessary pre-requisite economic value that can be used by future decision makers to justify further investment in exploration beyond LEO.
The topics covered in this slide presentation are: (1) Post-war growth of U.S scientific enterprise, (2) Success of air quality regulations, (3) Complexity and coupled systems, (4) Advances in remote sensing technology, (5) Development planning in the 21stcentury, (5a) The challenge for policy maker and scientist, (5b) Decision-making science, (5c) Role of public-private partnerships.
A robust and competitive commercial space sector is vital to continued progress in space. The United States is committed to encouraging and facilitating the growth of a U.S. commercial space sector that supports U.S. needs, is globally competitive, and advances U.S. leadership in the generation of new markets and innovation-driven entrepreneurship. Energize competitive domestic industries to participate in global markets and advance the development of: satellite manufacturing; satellite-based services; space launch; terrestrial applications; and increased entrepreneurship. Purchase and use commercial space capabilities and services to the maximum practical extent Actively explore the use of inventive, nontraditional arrangements for acquiring commercial space goods and services to meet United States Government requirements, including measures such as public-private partnerships, . Refrain from conducting United States Government space activities that preclude, discourage, or compete with U.S. commercial space activities. Pursue potential opportunities for transferring routine, operational space functions to the commercial space sector where beneficial and cost-effective.
Climate policy in the United States is currently guided by public-private partnerships and actions at the local and state levels. This mitigation strategy is made up of programs that focus on energy efficiency, renewable energy, agricultural practices and implementation of technologies to reduce greenhouse gases. How will policy makers know if these strategies are working, particularly at the scales at which they are being implemented? The NASA Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) will provide information on carbon dioxide fluxes derived from observations of earth's land, ocean and atmosphere used in state of the art models describing their interactions. This new modeling system could be used to assess the impact of specific policy interventions on CO2 reductions, enabling an iterative, results-oriented policy process. In January of 2012, the CMS team held a meeting with carbon policy and decision makers in Washington DC to describe the developing modeling system to policy makers. The NASA CMS will develop pilot studies to provide information across a range of spatial scales, consider carbon storage in biomass, and improve measures of the atmospheric distribution of carbon dioxide. The pilot involves multiple institutions (four NASA centers as well as several universities) and over 20 scientists in its work. This pilot study will generate CO2 flux maps for two years using observational constraints in NASA's state-of -the-art models. Bottom-up surface flux estimates will be computed using data-constrained land and ocean models; comparison of the different techniques will provide some knowledge of uncertainty in these estimates. Ensembles of atmospheric carbon distributions will be computed using an atmospheric general circulation model (GEOS-5), with perturbations to the surface fluxes and to transport. Top-down flux estimates will be computed from observed atmospheric CO2 distributions (ACOS/GOSAT retrievals) alongside the forward-model fields, in conjunction with an inverse approach based on the CO2 model of GEOS ]Chem. The forward model ensembles will be used to build understanding of relationships among surface flux perturbations, transport uncertainty and atmospheric carbon concentration. This will help construct uncertainty estimates and information on the true spatial resolution of the top-down flux calculations. The relationship between the top-down and bottom-up flux distributions will be documented. Because the goal of NASA CMS is to be policy relevant, the scientists involved in the flux modeling pilot need to understand and be focused on the needs of the climate policy and decision making community. If policy makers are to use CMS products, they must be aware of the modeling effort and begin to design policies that can be evaluated with information. Improving estimates of carbon sequestered in forests, for example, will require information on the spatial variability of forest biomass that is far more explicit than is presently possible using only ground observations. Carbon mitigation policies being implemented by cities around the United States could be designed with the CMS data in mind, enabling sequential evaluation and subsequent improvements in incentives, structures and programs. The success of climate mitigation programs being implemented in the United States today will hang on the depth of the relationship between scientists and their policy and decision making counterparts. Ensuring that there is two-way communication between data providers and users is important for the success both of the policies and the scientific products meant to support them..
Since the beginning of the space age, the main actors in space exploration have been governmental agencies, enabling a privileged access to space, but with very restricted and rare missions. The last decade has seen the rise of space tourism, and the founding of ambitious private space mining companies, showing the beginnings of a new exploration era, that is based on a more generalized and regular access to space and which is not limited to the Earth's vicinity. However, the cost of launching sufficient mass into orbit to sustain these inspiring challenges is prohibitive, and the necessary infrastructures to support these missions is still lacking. To provide easy and affordable access into orbital and deep space destinations, there is the need to create a network of spaceports via specific waypoint locations coupled with the use of natural resources, or In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), to provide a more economical solution. As part of the International Space University Space Studies Program 2012, the international and intercultural team of Operations and Service Infrastructure for Space (OASIS) proposes an interdisciplinary answer to the problem of economical space access and transportation. This paper presents a summary of a detailed report [1] of the different phases of a project for developing a network of spaceports throughout the Solar System in a timeframe of 50 years. The requirements, functions, critical technologies and mission architecture of this network of spaceports are outlined in a roadmap of the important steps and phases. The economic and financial aspects are emphasized in order to allow a sustainable development of the network in a public-private partnership via the formation of an International Spaceport Authority (ISPA). The approach includes engineering, scientific, financial, legal, policy, and societal aspects. Team OASIS intends to provide guidelines to make the development of space transportation via a spaceports logistics network feasible, and believes that this pioneering effort will revolutionize space exploration, science and commerce, ultimately contributing to permanently expand humanity into space.
The Advance Manufacturing Technology (AMT) Project supports multiple activities within the Administration's National Manufacturing Initiative. A key component of the Initiative is the Advanced Manufacturing National Program Office (AMNPO), which includes participation from all federal agencies involved in U.S. manufacturing. In support of the AMNPO the AMT Project supports building and Growing the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation through a public-private partnership designed to help the industrial community accelerate manufacturing innovation. Integration with other projects/programs and partnerships: STMD (Space Technology Mission Directorate), HEOMD, other Centers; Industry, Academia; OGA's (e.g., DOD, DOE, DOC, USDA, NASA, NSF); Office of Science and Technology Policy, NIST Advanced Manufacturing Program Office; Generate insight within NASA and cross-agency for technology development priorities and investments. Technology Infusion Plan: PC; Potential customer infusion (TDM, HEOMD, SMD, OGA, Industry); Leverage; Collaborate with other Agencies, Industry and Academia; NASA roadmap. Initiatives include: Advanced Near Net Shape Technology Integrally Stiffened Cylinder Process Development (launch vehicles, sounding rockets); Materials Genome; Low Cost Upper Stage-Class Propulsion; Additive Construction with Mobile Emplacement (ACME); National Center for Advanced Manufacturing.
Lander Tech is three separate but synergistic efforts: Lunar CATALYST (Lunar Cargo Transportation and Landing by Soft Touchdown) Support U.S. industry led robotic lunar lander development via three public-private efforts. Support U.S. industry led robotic lunar lander development via three public-private partnerships. Infuse or transfer landing technologies into these public private partnerships. Advanced Exploration Systems-Automated Propellant Loading (APL) -Integrated Ground Operations. Demonstrate LH2 zero loss storage, loading and transfer operations via testing on a large scale in a relevant launch vehicle servicing environment. (KSC, GRC). Game Changing Technology-20 Kelvin -20 Watt Cryocooler Development of a Reverse Turbo-Brayton Cryocooler operating at 20 Kelvin with 20 Watts of refrigeration lift.
Currently making rapid progress toward first launch in 2018, NASA's exploration-class Space Launch System (SLS) represents a game-changing new spaceflight capability, enabling mission profiles that are currently impossible. Designed to launch human deep-space missions farther into space than ever before, the initial configuration of SLS will be able to deliver more than 70 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), and will send NASA's new Orion crew vehicle into lunar orbit. Plans call for the rocket to evolve on its second flight, via a new upper stage, to a more powerful configuration capable of lofting 105 tons to LEO or co-manifesting additional systems with Orion on launches to the lunar vicinity. Ultimately, SLS will evolve to a configuration capable of delivering more than 130 tons to LEO. SLS is a foundational asset for NASA's Journey to Mars, and has been recognized by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group as a key element for cooperative missions beyond LEO. In order to enable human deep-space exploration, SLS provides unrivaled mass, volume, and departure energy for payloads, offering numerous benefits for a variety of other missions. For robotic science probes to the outer solar system, for example, SLS can cut transit times to less than half that of currently available vehicles, producing earlier data return, enhancing iterative exploration, and reducing mission cost and risk. In the field of astrophysics, SLS' high payload volume, in the form of payload fairings with a diameter of up to 10 meters, creates the opportunity for launch of large-aperture telescopes providing an unprecedented look at our universe, and offers the ability to conduct crewed servicing missions to observatories stationed at locations beyond low Earth orbit. At the other end of the spectrum, SLS opens access to deep space for low-cost missions in the form of smallsats. The first launch of SLS will deliver beyond LEO 13 6-unit smallsat payloads, representing multiple disciplines, including three spacecraft competitively chosen through NASA's Centennial Challenges competition. Private organizations have also identified benefits of SLS for unique public-private partnerships. This paper will give an overview of SLS' capabilities and its current status, and discuss the vehicle's potential for human exploration of deep space and other game-changing utilization opportunities.
Currently making rapid progress toward first launch in 2018, NASA's exploration-class Space Launch System (SLS) represents a game-changing new spaceflight capability, enabling mission profiles that are currently impossible. Designed to launch human deep-space missions farther into space than ever before, the initial configuration of SLS will be able to deliver more than 70 metric tons of payload to low Earth orbit (LEO), and will send NASA's new Orion crew vehicle into lunar orbit. Plans call for the rocket to evolve on its second flight, via a new upper stage, to a more powerful configuration capable of lofting 105 t to LEO or comanifesting additional systems with Orion on launches to the lunar vicinity. Ultimately, SLS will evolve to a configuration capable of delivering more than 130 t to LEO. SLS is a foundational asset for NASA's Journey to Mars, and has been recognized by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group as a key element for cooperative missions beyond LEO. In order to enable human deep-space exploration, SLS provides unrivaled mass, volume, and departure energy for payloads, offering numerous benefits for a variety of other missions. For robotic science probes to the outer solar system, for example, SLS can cut transit times to less than half that of currently available vehicles, producing earlier data return, enhancing iterative exploration, and reducing mission cost and risk. In the field of astrophysics, SLS' high payload volume, in the form of payload fairings with a diameter of up to 10 meters, creates the opportunity for launch of large-aperture telescopes providing an unprecedented look at our universe, and offers the ability to conduct crewed servicing missions to observatories stationed at locations beyond low Earth orbit. At the other end of the spectrum, SLS opens access to deep space for low-cost missions in the form of smallsats. The first launch of SLS will deliver beyond LEO 13 6U smallsat payloads, representing multiple disciplines, including three spacecraft competitively chosen through NASA's Centennial Challenges competition. Private organizations have also identified benefits of SLS for unique public-private partnerships. This paper will give an overview of SLS' capabilities and its current status, and discuss the vehicle's potential for human exploration of deep space and other game-changing utilization opportunities.
Advanced robotic and human missions to Mars require landed masses well in excess of current capabilities. One approach to safely land these large payloads on the Martian surface is to extend the propulsive capability currently required during subsonic descent to supersonic initiation velocities. However, until recently, no rocket engine had ever been fired into an opposing supersonic freestream. In September 2013, SpaceX performed the first supersonic retropropulsion (SRP) maneuver to decelerate the entry of the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket. Since that flight, SpaceX has continued to perform SRP for the reentry of their vehicle first stage, having completed multiple SRP events in Mars-relevant conditions in July 2017. In FY 2014, NASA and SpaceX formed a three-year public-private partnership centered upon SRP data analysis. These activities focused on flight reconstruction, CFD analysis, a visual and infrared imagery campaign, and Mars EDL design analysis. This paper provides an overview of these activities undertaken to advance the technology readiness of Mars SRP.
Advanced robotic and human missions to Mars require landed masses well in excess of current capabilities. One approach to safely land these large payloads on the Martian surface is to extend the propulsive capability currently required during subsonic descent to supersonic initiation velocities. However, until recently, no rocket engine had ever been fired into an opposing supersonic freestream. In September 2013, SpaceX performed the first supersonic retropropulsion (SRP) maneuver to decelerate the entry of the first stage of their Falcon 9 rocket. Since that flight, SpaceX has continued to perform SRP for the reentry of their vehicle first stage, having completed multiple SRP events in Mars-relevant conditions in July 2017. In FY 2014, NASA and SpaceX formed a three-year public-private partnership centered upon SRP data analysis. These activities focused on flight reconstruction, CFD analysis, a visual and infrared imagery campaign, and Mars EDL design analysis. This paper provides an overview of these activities undertaken to advance the technology readiness of Mars SRP.
Testing required to design and certify aircraft structures has increased dramatically with the growth in use of composite materials, and the development time and cost have become an issue as industry looks towards the next generation of aircraft. To help address this challenge, NASA has formed an industry-spanning consortium with the goal of cutting by 30% today's 10-year timeline for developing and certifying composite aircraft structures. This goal is to be achieved by infusing leading edge, physics-based tools to improve the prediction of the response and failure of composite aerospace structures. The plan for the public-private partnership of NASA, the FAA, airframe manufacturers, aircraft engine manufacturers, and several universities is to conduct joint research under the five-year Advanced Composites Program (ACP). The emphasis of the ACP project is the development of damage prediction and non-destructive inspection methods capabilities that are sufficiently reliable to enable a reduction in the element and subcomponent testing necessary for design and certification. ACP also is expected to create rapid design tools to speed preliminary design and improve safety and performance. A critical element of this research concerns the residual strength of postbuckled stiffened panels with impact damage. This presentation will discuss different aspects of ongoing research on the prediction of structural collapse due to skin/stiffener separation. In particular, the presentation will examine issues that must be addressed in the analysis, such as R-curve toughening, delamination migration, bridging, as well as some unexpected effects of ply orientation.
NASA planning for the human space flight frontier is now coming into alignment with goals promoted by other planetary-capable national space agencies. US policy aims to achieve the “horizon goal” of Humans to Mars through significant learning about systems, operations, and partnerships in the cislunar and lunar-surface environment first. US Space Policy Directive 1 made this shift explicit: “the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations”. The stage is now set for sufficient public and private American investment in a wide range of lunar activities. Assumptions about Moon base architectures and operations are likely to drive the invention of requirements that will in turn govern development of systems, commercial-services purchase agreements, and priorities for technology investment. Yet some fundamental architecture-shaping lessons already captured in the literature are not evident drivers, and remain absent from most depictions of lunar base concepts. A prime example is general failure to recognize that most of the time (i.e., before and between intermittent human occupancy), a Moon base must be robotic: most of the activity, most of the time, must be implemented by robot agents rather than astronauts. This paper reviews key findings of a seminal robotic-base design-operations analysis commissioned by NASA in 1989. It culminates by discussing implications of these lessons for today’s Moon Village and SPD-1 paradigms: exploration by multiple actors; public-private partnership development and operations; cislunar infrastructure; production-quantity exploitation of volatile resources near the poles to bootstrap further space activities; autonomy capability that was frontier in 1989 but now routine within terrestrial industry. We need to engineer today’s generation of practical, justifiable, and inspirational Moon base concepts.
By generalizing the unconstrained p-hub approach for the park-and-ride (P&R) facility location problem under the multinomial logit demand function, the capacitated p-hub approach for the problem under the nested logit demand function captures a broader range of real-world cases. To solve this problem optimally, we introduce a mixed-integer linear program and accelerate its solution by enhancing the branch-and-cut procedure. To address the problem at a large scale, we introduce two other polyhedral approaches: variable neighborhood search (VNS) and adaptive randomized rounding (ARR). Downtown areas in Seoul have a high modal share of public transportation and congested road traffic, yet P&R has not been widely implemented. Therefore, we apply the ARR procedure to solve a real-world problem using traffic and geographic data from the Seoul metropolitan area. ARR performs better than VNS and addresses real-world cases. The solutions obtained by ARR present a phased expansion plan that encourages policymakers to start installing a small number of P&Rs immediately.
To facilitate the provision of electric vehicle charging stations (EVCS) in urban areas, this study investigates the benefits of co-locating fleet-owned chargers with public charging stations to enable construction incentives and cord-sharing cost savings. Shared EVCS can serve charging demand from both user types: private (household) EV owners and those managing fleet vehicles – like shared and fully automated EV (SAEV) fleets. Using POLARIS to simulate all person-travel across the 6-county Austin, Texas region, new EVCS were sited and sized with DC fast-charging (DCFC) plugs to lower operating and construction costs while providing public + private (PP) service across an 81-square-mile core geofence (where 200 SAEVs were active) over 24-hour days. When co-location is permitted, 115 DCFC cords were added to the 23 existing (publicly available) stations to enable SAEVs and household EVs (HHEVs) charging access, within the geofence. Each 250-mile-range SAEV was simulated to travel an average of 330 miles per day, serve over 92 person-trips, and recharge 2.7 times a day (for 2.4 h per session). The new DCFC plugs were primarily added to public EVCS at shopping centers and schools, and in residential settings along freeways. The average plug served 4.8 EVs per day. Most co-located PP EVCS permitted immediate (no-wait) charging, except for 2 stations along freeways that averaged 8 min of wait time to begin charging. In conclusion, the co-location strategy lowered fleet owners’ initial EVCS construction costs by 12 % (thanks to cord-sharing to avoid cord duplication), while reducing SAEV wait times to just 3.1 min (versus 10.7 min if SAEV managers had to build and operate their own EVCS).
The Launch Alaska Transportation and Energy Accelerator (LATEA), funded through the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Technology Commercialization’s Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC),advanced deployment of innovative and efficient transportation and energy technology in Alaska from October 2021 through June 2025. The project was designed to leverage Launch Alaska’s accelerator model to identify, recruit, and support transportation technology companies with novel solutions to market needs while building the stakeholder networks, demonstration opportunities, and institutional capacity necessary to accelerate commercialization in one of the most challenging operating environments in the United States.
The NASA Human Health and Performance Center (NHHPC) was established in October 2010 to promote collaborative problem solving and project development to advance human health and performance innovations benefiting life in space and on Earth. The NHHPC, which now boasts over 135 corporate, government, academic and non-profit members, has convened four successful workshops and engaged in multiple collaborative projects. The center is currently developing a streamlined partner engagement process to capture technical needs and opportunities of NHHPC members, facilitate partnership development, and establish and manage collaborative projects for NASA. The virtual center facilitates member engagement through a variety of vehicles, including annual inperson workshops, webcasts, quarterly electronic newsletters, web postings, and the new system for partner engagement. The most recent NHHPC workshop was conducted in November 2013 on the topic of "Accelerating Innovation: New Organizational Business Models," and focused on various collaborative approaches successfully used by organizations to achieve their goals. The powerful notion of collaboration across sectors to solve intractable problems was recently highlighted in Williams Eggers' book "The Solution Revolution,"i which provides numerous examples of how business, government and social enterprises partner to solve tough problems. Mr. Eggers was a keynote speaker at the workshop, along with Harvard Business School, Jump Associates, and the Conrad Foundation. The robust program also included an expert panel addressing collaboration across sectors, four interactive breakout sessions, and a concluding keynote on innovative ways to increase science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education by NASA Associate Administrator for Education, Leland Melvin. The NHHPC forum also provides a platform for international partners to interact on many topics. Members from around the world include ISS International Partner JAXA; the World Biomimetic Foundation in Spain who is interested in advancing the use of biomimicry to provide technical solutions in many industries; Satellite Application Catapult in London, England who interested in pursuing U.S. collaborations with the Space and Life Sciences Innovation Centre under development in Scotland; and DLR in Cologne, Germany who developed :envihab, a collaborative facility for partners to pursue research and technology projects of mutual interest. The NHHPC has sponsored two global networking forums on innovation by partners Wyle, NASA, and DLR, was featured in the 2013 Humans in Space Symposium Panel on "NHHPC and :envihab - reach out to Future Markets," and is working on an international meeting for Spring 2014 in Cologne with :envihab.