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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 NTRS2003

An Overview of the NASA Aerospace Flight Battery Systems Program

The NASA Aerospace Flight Battery Systems Program is an agency-wide effort aimed at ensuring the quality, safety, reliability and performance of flight battery systems for NASA applications. The program provides for the validation of primary and secondary cell and battery level technology advances to ensure their availability and readiness for use in NASA missions. It serves to bridge the gap between the development of technology advances and the realization and incorporation of these advances into mission applications. The program is led by the Glenn Research Center and involves funded task activities at each of the NASA mission centers and JPL. The overall products are safe, reliable, high quality batteries for mission applications. The products are defined along three product lines: 1. Battery Systems Technology - Elements of this task area cover the systems aspects of battery operation and generally apply across chemistries. This includes the development of guidelines documents, the establishment and maintenance of a central battery database that serves a central repository for battery characterization and verification test data from tests performed under the support of this program, the NASA Battery Workshop, and general test facility support. 2. Secondary Battery Technology - l h s task area focuses on the validation of battery technology for nickel-cadmium, nickel-hydrogen, nickel-metal-hydride and lithium-ion secondary battery systems. Standardized test regimes are used to validate the quality of a cell lot or cell design for flight applications. In this area, efforts are now concentrated on the validation and verification of lithium-ion battery technology for aerospace applications. 3. Primary Battery Technology - The safety and reliability aspects for primary lithium battery systems that are used in manned operations on the Shuttle and International Space Station are addressed in the primary battery technology task area. An overview of the task areas supported under this program will be presented.

Manzo, Michelle A.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling Reliable, Fault-Tolerant Autonomous Lunar Habitats with High-Performance Spaceflight Computing

The lunar surface presents unfavorable constraints and harsh living conditions. To address these challenges, autonomous habitats will require complex integrated systems that combine advanced software, high-performance hardware, and cutting-edge sensors to ensure sustainability, safety, and operational efficiency. Consequently, maintaining a sustainable presence on the Moon requires reliable infrastructure and efficient development, precise monitoring, and utilization of resources within a lunar installation. These elements are essential not only to ensure that lunar settlement can be long-term, self-sustaining, and resource-efficient, but also to serve as a foundation for future missions and eventual human habitation on Mars. Humans are not native to the Moon; therefore, our survival and ability to thrive will depend on autonomous systems that can foster safety and resilience through high-availability architectures, graceful degradation, and highly fault-tolerant spaceflight hardware capable of continuing operation during failures. This requires advanced human-rated distributed systems architectures with specialized electronics, scalable capabilities, and an integrated design approach. Unlike current practices focused on short-term missions and regularly maintained components, permanent lunar compute systems must be designed for extended operations beyond mission durations. This paper explores the necessity of transitioning toward fault- tolerant, highly autonomous hardware systems designed for multi-year missions. It also identifies critical subsystems that require high levels of autonomy, supported by radiation-hardened processors and extreme thermal loads, which are essential to mitigate long-term degradation and ensure sustainable lunar habitation. Finally, the paper aligns with NASA’s identified Civil Space Shortfalls, particularly in high-performance onboard computing, advanced data acquisition, extreme-environment avionics, radiation monitoring and countermeasures, and autonomous health management. It proposes NASA’s new High-Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) processor as a turnkey solution, delivering 100 times the performance-per-watt of legacy rad-hard CPUs and enabling onboard AI, edge computing, and fault-tolerant features essential for sustained lunar autonomy and beyond.

Sarkis S Mikaelian↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Fire-Resistant Textile Development for Exploration Vehicles With Enriched-Oxygen Cabin Environments

Material selection is a key part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft fire safety management plan. Non-flammable textiles are necessary to ensure large-scale flame propagation events do not occur inside a spacecraft. An increased use of textiles and other softgood material is crucial to the pursuit of exploration spaceflight to reduce mass and volume. Exploration spaceflight missions benefit from enriched oxygen cabin environments (>21% O2) by allowing a reduced prebreathe protocol before Extravehicular Activity (EVA). However, materials become exponentially more flammable the higher the O2 levels become. Recent testing within the agency has revealed the lack of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) materials that can meet safety requirements in oxygen-enriched environments. Most of the fibers and textiles developed during Apollo (100% O2 cabin environment) and Skylab (>70% O2 cabin environment) are no longer commercially available due to those Programs ending and the discontinuation of raw materials or closure of the original manufacturers. As NASA returns to higher oxygen concentrations inside spacecraft, non-flammable textile development efforts have begun to meet the agency’s needs. This paper discusses those efforts including overall fire safety approach, state-of-the-art textile review and testing, an agency-wide assessment of textile needs performed by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC), the textile development strategy and expected challenges.

Mary Walker↗
NASA NTRS2026

The Relevance of the VIPER Mission to NASA’s Artemis Human Exploration of the Moon

NASA has ambitious plans to send astronaut crews to the south polar region of the Moon and explore this lunar terrain with humans for the first time through a series of Artemis missions. Artemis will provide economic benefits, drive technological advancement, and inspire the next generation of explorers. Simultaneously, Artemis presents a unique opportunity for humans to conduct high-priority planetary science in situ in the south polar region of the Moon. Prior to human exploration, landed robotic precursor investigations can provide valuable information to reduce risk and maximize discovery and productivity of subsequent crewed missions. NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) is a robotic mission designed to explore and characterize the lunar south polar region prior to crewed Artemis landed missions. VIPER is designed to explore multiple thermal regimes to characterize the lunar polar environment and regolith properties, and to explore for surface and subsurface ices. Each of these objectives are key for both scientific investigation and to detect and assess volatile deposits to support in situ resource utilization (ISRU) and a sustained human presence on the Moon. VIPER would also operate with a real-time mission operations architecture with relevance and feed-forward to Artemis crewed operations on the lunar surface. VIPER would provide key information regarding the lunar environment, scientific exploration, technologies, and real-time operations to optimize the valuable surface exploration time of Artemis crew members while simultaneously reducing risk to crew and increasing health and human safety on the lunar surface.

Jennifer L Heldmann↗
NASA NTRS1993

Telescope Pointing for GOPEX

In order for photons emitted by the GOPEX lasers to "be detected by Galileo's camera, the telescopes at Table Mountain Observatory and Starfire Optical Range had to be pointed in the right direction within a tolerance less than the beam divergence. At both sites nearby stars were used as pointing references. The technical challenge was to ensure that the transmission direction and the star positions were specified in exactly the same coordinate system; given this assurance, neither the uncertainty in the star catalog positions nor the difficulty in offset pointing was expected to exceed the pointing error budget. The correctness of the pointing scheme was verified by the success of GOPEX.

W M Owen, Jr↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Fire-Resistant Textile Development for Exploration Vehicles With Enriched-Oxygen Cabin Environments

Material selection is a key part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spacecraft fire safety management plan. Non-flammable textiles are necessary to ensure large-scale flame propagation events do not occur inside a spacecraft. An increased use of textiles and other softgood material is crucial to the pursuit of exploration spaceflight to reduce mass and volume. Exploration spaceflight missions benefit from enriched oxygen cabin environments (>21% O2) by allowing a reduced prebreathe protocol before Extravehicular Activity (EVA). However, materials become exponentially more flammable the higher the O2 levels become. Recent testing within the agency has revealed the lack of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) materials that can meet safety requirements in oxygen-enriched environments. Most of the fibers and textiles developed during Apollo (100% O2 cabin environment) and Skylab (>70% O2 cabin environment) are no longer commercially available due to those Programs ending and the discontinuation of raw materials or closure of the original manufacturers. As NASA returns to higher oxygen concentrations inside spacecraft, non-flammable textile development efforts have begun to meet the agency’s needs. This paper discusses those efforts including overall fire safety approach, priorities, interactions with industry, flammability testing and expected challenges.

Karim Aly↗
NASA NTRS2006

Low Temperature Life-Cycle Testing of a Lithium-Ion Battery for Low-Earth-Orbiting Spacecraft

A flight-qualified, lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery developed for the Mars Surveyor Program 2001 Landeris undergoing life-testing at low temperature under a low-Earth-orbit (LEO) profile to assess its capability to provide long term energy storage for aerospace missions. NASA has embarked upon an ambitious course to return humans to the moon by 2015-2020 in preparation for robotic and human exploration of Mars and robotic exploration of the moons of outer planets. Li-ion batteries are excellent candidates to provide power and energy storage for multiple aspects of these missions due to their high specific energy, high energy density, and excellent low temperature performance. Laboratory testing of Li-ion technology is necessary in order to assess lifetime, characterize multi-cell battery-level performance under aerospace conditions, and to gauge safety aspects of the technology. Life-cycle testing provides an opportunity to examine battery-level performance and the dynamics of individual cells in the stack over the entire life of the battery. Data generated through this testing will be critical to establish confidence in the technology for its widespread use in manned and unmanned missions.

Reid, Concha↗
NASA NTRS1989

A survey of advanced battery systems for space applications

The results of a survey on advanced secondary battery systems for space applications are presented. Fifty-five battery experts from government, industry and universities participated in the survey by providing their opinions on the use of several battery types for six space missions, and their predictions of likely technological advances that would impact the development of these batteries. The results of the survey predict that only four battery types are likely to exceed a specific energy of 150 Wh/kg and meet the safety and reliability requirements for space applications within the next 15 years.

Attia, Alan I.↗
NASA NTRS2026

Hydrofluoroether (HFE) Cleaning Fluid Replacement and Qualification

This NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) Technical Assessment Report addresses the urgent need to identify, test, and qualify replacement cleaning solvents and technologies following 3M’s decision to discontinue production of hydrofluoroether (HFE) products, including Novec HFE-7100, by the end of 2025. HFE-7100 is widely used across NASA for precision cleaning of ground and flight hardware, especially in oxygen system components, and as a heat transfer fluid in high-power-density thermal control systems. The assessment evaluates commercially available replacement solvents, alternative cleaning technologies, and their compatibility with NASA’s operational requirements. Key findings include the identification of viable solvent replacements, their performance in contaminant removal, materials compatibility, and oxygen system safety. The report also explores novel cleaning approaches, including aqueous, supercritical CO₂, cryogenic aerosol, plasma, UV-ozone, magnetically optimized fluids, and induced charge active filtration, highlighting their merits, limitations, and readiness for NASA adoption. The NESC provides recommendations for solvent selection, facility adaptation, and continued technology maturation to ensure mission continuity and regulatory compliance.

Alternative Cleaning Technologies↗
NASA NTRS2026

Thermal Considerations for 2039 Opposition Class Nuclear Electric Propulsion/Chemical Propulsion Crewed Mars Mission

The high specific impulse (Isp) of Nuclear Electric Propulsion (NEP) technology offers the potential for advanced space mission capabilities. However, the five critical technology elements of NEP vehicles have yet to prove technical maturity levels for consideration into mission design. In response to the critical reviews by the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM), NASA’s Space Nuclear Propulsion (SNP) project created an NEP Technology Maturation Plan (TMP) for focused development of NEP technology. The TMP called for a coordinated set of technology development efforts to meet this objective. The Modular Assembled Radiators for NEP VehicLes (MARVL) Early Career Initiative (ECI) project was initiated to develop a portion of the fifth Critical Technology Element (CTE) of the NEP vehicle: the Primary Heat Rejection Subsystem (PHRS). A target application of a 2039 human-rated Mars mission was outlined in the TMP. For the outlined mission, a NEP vehicle will experience several thermal environments which will impact the design and operation of the PHRS. To maintain radiator temperatures within the required effective temperature range, the effect of natural, induced, and NEP internally generated heat loads on the radiator panel must be well understood. Furthermore, this analysis is critical for analyzing the influence of various orientations and positions of the NEP vehicle relative to nearby celestial bodies throughout the mission. This study conducted a complete enveloping analysis of the thermal environments influencing the NEP vehicle throughout the mission. Thermal analysis was conducted for the radiator panels based on the defined mission environments. This thermal analysis concludes with the selection of ideal radiator orientations for the NEP vehicle, and the identification of worst case hot and cold environmental sink temperatures throughout the mission. For the target application, the environmental sink temperature while the reactor is powered OFF or powered ON ranges from 30 K to 353 K and 2.7 K to 243 K respectively. When considering interplanetary space, the minimum environmental sink temperature when the reactor is powered OFF and the radiators are oriented “edge to Sun” is 2.7 K. The environmental thermal models generated in this study will be used for future studies with the full vehicle system model. The environmental sink temperature curves generated will be used for future radiator and component analysis to predict transient performance in the space environment. The environmental sink temperature and heat rejection capability curves will inform the trade between commissioning orbits that are in consideration. The model may also serve as a useful tool as reference for future crewed space missions, missions involving radiators or temperature sensitive equipment, or other missions requiring analysis of natural orbital thermal environments.

Nuclear Electric Propulsion↗
NASA NTRS2006

Lithium-Ion Small Cell Battery Shorting Study

Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) provides adequate sustained hard short protection for AEA batteries with up to 8 cells in series. PTC cannot protect against sustained hard short in AEA batteries with 10 cells or more in series. Protective fused connector is a proven way to protect larger batteries from hard short damage: a) Hard short not credible in unmanned missions; b) However, recommended during ground handling; c) Inexpensive item. Preliminary diode protection scheme has passed manned space safety requirements for high voltage batteries. SCM confirmed fused connector did not affect battery health, however, this affect of hard short on the its long calendar and cycle life performance needs to be verified.

Pearson, Chris↗
NASA NTRS2017

Novel Polyimide Battery Separator Imbibed with Room-Temperature Ionic Liquids

The journey to Mars will require advancements in many existing technologies, including space power and energy storage systems. According to the 2015 NASA Technology Roadmaps, energy storage is a critical technology area to develop for both terrestrial as well as future long-term space missions. Currently, batteries represent one of the major areas in need of advancement, both in terms of energy density as well as safety. Recently, concerns regarding the fire safety of commercial lithium-ion batteries have prompted efforts to produce nonflammable battery components, namely the electrolyte and separator. Commercial lithium-ion batteries utilize polyolefin separators imbibed with a lithium salt dissolved in cyclic carbonates. This separator/electrolyte combination imparts good ionic conductivities in the range of 10(exp -2) to 10(exp -3) S/cm. However, the cyclic carbonates and polyolefin separator are inherently flammable. Room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) appear to be a safer alternative to cyclic carbonates. They offer good ionic conductivities, similar to those observed in cyclic carbonates, but are inherently nonvolatile and nonflammable giving them a safety advantage. Many promising RTILs for battery electrolytes are not compatible with commercial polyolefin separator materials. Polyimide aerogels possess an open-porous, fibrillar network architecture which offers a high degree of porosity (typically greater than 85 porous), required for lithium ion conduction, as well as good mechanical properties. Furthermore, these materials are compatible with all tested RTILs. By creating a polyimide gel and imbibing the gel with a RTIL containing a lithium salt instead of super critically drying them to form aerogels, a nonflammable separator/electrolyte system with conductivities in the range of 1x10(exp -3) S/cm has been demonstrated.

Polyimide↗
NASA NTRS2010

NASA Aerospace Flight Battery Program: Recommendations for Technical Requirements for Inclusion in Aerospace Battery Procurements

This NASA Aerospace Flight Battery Systems Working Group was chartered within the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC). The Battery Working Group was tasked to complete tasks and to propose proactive work to address battery related, agency-wide issues on an annual basis. In its first year of operation, this proactive program addressed various aspects of the validation and verification of aerospace battery systems for NASA missions. Studies were performed, issues were discussed and in many cases, test programs were executed to generate recommendations and guidelines to reduce risk associated with various aspects of implementing battery technology in the aerospace industry. This document contains Part 2 - Volume II Appendix A to Part 2 - Volume I.

Jung, David S.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Battery Design and Safety

Power is essential for crewed and uncrewed spaceflight operations. Spacecraft batteries are designed and tested to be safe under extreme environmental conditions.

Melvin Abraham↗
NASA NTRS2001

Lithium Ion Battery Design and Safety

This viewgraph presentation makes several recommendations to ensure the safe and effective design of Lithium ion cell batteries. Large lithium ion cells require pressure switches and small cells require pressure disconnects and other safety devices with the ability to instantly interrupt flow. Other suggestions include specifications for batteries and battery chargers.

Au, George↗