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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 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2007

Lunar Dust on Heat Rejection System Surfaces: Problems and Prospects

Heat rejection from power systems will be necessary for human and robotic activity on the lunar surface. Functional operation of such heat rejection systems is at risk of degradation as a consequence of dust accumulation. The Apollo astronauts encountered marked degradation of performance in heat rejection systems for the lunar roving vehicle, science packages, and other components. Although ground testing of dust mitigation concepts in support of the Apollo mission identified mitigation tools, the brush concept adopted by the Apollo astronauts proved essentially ineffective. A better understanding of the issues associated with the impact of lunar dust on the functional performance of heat rejection systems and its removal is needed as planning gets underway for human and robotic missions to the Moon. Renewed emphasis must also be placed on ground testing of pristine and dust-covered heat rejection system surfaces to quantify degradation and address mitigation concepts. This paper presents a review of the degradation in performance of heat rejection systems encountered on the lunar surface to-date, and will discuss current activities underway to evaluate the durability of candidate heat rejection system surfaces and current dust mitigation concepts.

Gaier, James R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Protecting Crew and Surface Systems with a Long-Duration Lunar Safe Haven

NASA’s Artemis program will send astronauts to the lunar surface for extended mission durations throughout the 2030s, with a focus on sustainability and extensibility for Mars exploration, as described in NASA’s “Artemis Plan”. However, NASA must place more emphasis on protecting both the crew and the exploration surface systems if they hope to achieve long-duration sustainability on the lunar surface. It is now reasonably achievable with excavation, construction, and autonomy technologies to achieve a significant level of protection that architectures have been unable to achieve to date. The Lunar Safe Haven (LSH) was proposed to protect astronauts, electronics, and other surface exploration systems from the hazards of the lunar environment, including radiation, micrometeoroid strikes, lunar dust, thermal vacuum, etc. During the study, Level Zero Requirements were developed for the LSH, and a decision analysis framework was baselined to evaluate concepts. The LSH Study also performed a comprehensive trade study, during which it identified numerous alternatives for establishing and maintaining a safe haven shelter on the lunar surface. This paper reviews the products developed during the study and presents the final recommendations.

radiation shielding↗
NASA NTRS2016

Mars Surface Systems Common Capabilities and Challenges for Human Missions

This paper describes the current status of common systems and operations as they are applied to actual locations on Mars that are representative of Exploration Zones (EZ) - NASA's term for candidate locations where humans could land, live and work on the Martian surface. Given NASA's current concepts for human missions to Mars, an EZ is a collection of Regions of Interest (ROIs) located within approximately 100 kilometers of a centralized landing site. ROIs are areas that are relevant for scientific investigation and/or development/maturation of capabilities and resources necessary for a sustainable human presence. An EZ also contains a habitation site that will be used by multiple human crews during missions to explore and utilize the ROIs within the EZ. The Evolvable Mars Campaign (EMC), a description of NASA's current approach to these human Mars missions, assumes that a single EZ will be identified within which NASA will establish a substantial and durable surface infrastructure that will be used by multiple human crews. The process of identifying and eventually selecting this single EZ will likely take many years to finalized. Because of this extended EZ selection process it becomes important to evaluate the current suite of surface systems and operations being evaluated for the EMC as they are likely to perform at a variety of proposed EZ locations and for the types of operations - both scientific and development - that are proposed for these candidate EZs. It is also important to evaluate proposed EZs for their suitability to be explored or developed given the range of capabilities and constraints for the types of surface systems and operations being considered within the EMC. Four locations identified in the Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG)'s Human Exploration of Mars Science Analysis Group (HEM-SAG) report are used in this paper as representative of candidate EZs that will emerge from the selection process that NASA has initiated. A field station site plan is developed for each of these four HEM-SAG sites. Because of the difficulty in getting equipment and supplies to the surface of Mars, specific assessments have been conducted to identify those systems and processes that can perform in multiple, sometimes completely unrelated, situations. Examples of common systems that are assessed at all of these sites include: (a) habitation and associated logistics storage systems, (b) a centralized power plant capable of supplying power to a geographically distributed (but within the central habitation zone) set of systems, (c) mobility systems that can be used to off-load and move payloads to specific locations at the central field station location that could also be used to traverse long distances to reach some of the more remote ROIs and (d) robotic systems that can support various activities (such as system set up and maintenance) at the field station that could also be used to explore scientific ROIs and used to support site-specific ISRU (In Situ Resource Utilization) production activities.

Toups, Larry↗
NASA NTRS2016

Mars Surface Systems Common Capabilities and Challenges for Human Missions

This paper describes the current status of common systems and operations as they are applied to actual locations on Mars that are representative of Exploration Zones (EZ) - NASA's term for candidate locations where humans could land, live and work on the martian surface. Given NASA's current concepts for human missions to Mars, an EZ is a collection of Regions of Interest (ROIs) located within approximately 100 kilometers of a centralized landing site. ROIs are areas that are relevant for scientific investigation and/or development/maturation of capabilities and resources necessary for a sustainable human presence. An EZ also contains a habitation site that will be used by multiple human crews during missions to explore and utilize the ROIs within the EZ. The Evolvable Mars Campaign (EMC), a description of NASA's current approach to these human Mars missions, assumes that a single EZ will be identified within which NASA will establish a substantial and durable surface infrastructure that will be used by multiple human crews. The process of identifying and eventually selecting this single EZ will likely take many years to finalized. Because of this extended EZ selection process it becomes important to evaluate the current suite of surface systems and operations being evaluated for the EMC as they are likely to perform at a variety of proposed EZ locations and for the types of operations - both scientific and development - that are proposed for these candidate EZs. It is also important to evaluate proposed EZs for their suitability to be explored or developed given the range of capabilities and constraints for the types of surface systems and operations being considered within the EMC.

Toups, Larry↗
NASA NTRS2010

A Study of Parallels Between Antarctica South Pole Traverse Equipment and Lunar/Mars Surface Systems

The parallels between an actual Antarctica South Pole re-supply traverse conducted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Office of Polar Programs in 2009 have been studied with respect to the latest mission architecture concepts being generated by the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for lunar and Mars surface systems scenarios. The challenges faced by both endeavors are similar since they must both deliver equipment and supplies to support operations in an extreme environment with little margin for error in order to be successful. By carefully and closely monitoring the manifesting and operational support equipment lists which will enable this South Pole traverse, functional areas have been identified. The equipment required to support these functions will be listed with relevant properties such as mass, volume, spare parts and maintenance schedules. This equipment will be compared to space systems currently in use and projected to be required to support equivalent and parallel functions in Lunar and Mars missions in order to provide a level of realistic benchmarking. Space operations have historically required significant amounts of support equipment and tools to operate and maintain the space systems that are the primary focus of the mission. By gaining insight and expertise in Antarctic South Pole traverses, space missions can use the experience gained over the last half century of Antarctic operations in order to design for operations, maintenance, dual use, robustness and safety which will result in a more cost effective, user friendly, and lower risk surface system on the Moon and Mars. It is anticipated that the U.S Antarctic Program (USAP) will also realize benefits for this interaction with NASA in at least two areas: an understanding of how NASA plans and carries out its missions and possible improved efficiency through factors such as weight savings, alternative technologies, or modifications in training and operations.

Mueller, Robert P.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Technologies for protection of the Space Station power system surfaces in atomic oxygen environment

Technologies for protecting Space Station surfaces from degradation caused by atomic oxygen are discussed, stressing protection of the power system surfaces. The Space Station power system is described and research concerning the solar array surfaces and radiator surfaces is examined. The possibility of coating the solar array sufaces with a sputter deposited thin film of silicon oxide containing small concentrations of polytetrafluoroethylene is presented. Hexamethyldisiloxane coating for these surfaces is also considered. For the radiator surfaces, possible coatings include silver teflon thermal coating and zinc orthotitanate.

Nahra, Henry K.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Surface Systems Capability Gaps for Enabling NASA’s Sustainable Lunar Operations

This paper discusses the NASA Ground, Test, and Surface Systems Taxonomy (TX-13) related capability gaps, including details of architecture, technology, engineering, and policy gaps for enabling sustainable lunar surface operations and subsequent Mars missions. Architecture gaps include standardized architectures and interfaces, multi-element systems engineering and integration, design for supportability, and nuclear payload processing and launch approach. Technology gaps, primarily focused on uncrewed surface operations, include automated/autonomous cryogenic loading, transfer, servicing, and storage of commodities; health determination and fault management; automated/autonomous planning and scheduling; automated/autonomous inspection, maintenance and repair; logistics management and reliability; launch and landing site preparation; commodity management; and advanced umbilicals and dust tolerant interfaces. Engineering gaps include high-purity propellant production for ground and surface applications and large-scale xenon servicing capabilities. The policy gap includes nuclear propulsion acceptance testing and qualification approach. Strategically identifying human/automation roles and tasks and infusing automation and autonomy practices early in a system’s lifecycle is essential for achieving the mission objectives for a sustainable human lunar presence, improving performance and mission effectiveness, reducing operations costs and reliance on humans to perform tasks, and accommodating ground communication delays.

Surface Systems↗
NASA NTRS2012

Operator Interface and Control Software for the Reconfigurable Surface System Tri-ATHLETE

Graphical operator interface methods have been developed for modular, reconfigurable articulated surface systems in general, and a specific instantiation thereof for JPL's Tri-ATHLETE. The All- Terrain Hex-Limbed Extra-Terrestrial Explorer Robot (ATHLETE) has six limbs with six kinematic degrees of freedom each. The core advancement of this work was the development of a novel set of algorithms for dynamically maintaining a reduced coordinate model of any connected assembly of robot modules.

Norris, Jeffrey S.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 and Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator

The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 is an excavation robot for mining regolith on a planet like Mars. The robot is programmed using the Robotic Operating System (ROS) and it also uses a physical simulation program called Gazebo. This internship focused on various functions of the program in order to make it a more professional and efficient robot. During the internship another project called the Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator was worked on. This is a robot that is designed to dig through sand and extract sample material. The intern worked on programming the Sand-Swimming robot, and designing the electrical system to power and control the robot.

Regolith↗
NASA NTRS2022

Testing Mars 2020 Flight Software and Hardware in the Surface System Development Environment

The Mars 2020 (M2020) Perseverance Rover is NASA's most advanced planetary rover mission to date. It includes a novel Sample Caching Subsystem (SCS) which will collect rock cores for possible future return to Earth, as well as an improved mobility system with enhanced autonomous navigation which will enable it to traverse faster and farther than prior rovers. The development of both systems required extensive flight software and flight hardware testing. To support this testing, we developed the Surface System Development Environment (SSDEV) and used it for a wide variety of testing. SSDEV is a bundled subset of M2020 Flight Software which runs on commercially available Linux computers and can be combined with multiple backend options for simulation and hardware control. The SSDEV architecture enabled our teams to perform much more testing of flight software and flight hardware than would have otherwise been possible. As a secondary benefit, the SSDEV-based test campaigns also helped our teams enter the operations phase of the mission with greater readiness of operations products and tools. In this paper, we summarize the motivation for SSDEV, provide an overview of the SSDEV architecture, list several examples of how SSDEV was used, and summarize lessons learned. SSDEV is not a substitute for integrated testing with flight-like avionics, but it enabled substantially more testing than would have otherwise been possible and also provided some unique benefits. We recommend architectures like SSDEV to future projects that need to perform extensive hardware and software testing using a limited set of flight-like avionics.

Wai, Dennis↗
NASA NTRS2009

Development of a Modified Vacuum Cleaner for Lunar Surface Systems

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) mission to expand space exploration will return humans to the Moon with the goal of maintaining a long-term presence. One challenge that NASA will face returning to the Moon is managing the lunar regolith found on the Moon's surface, which will collect on extravehicular activity (EVA) suits and other equipment. Based on the Apollo experience, the issues astronauts encountered with lunar regolith included eye/lung irritation, and various hardware failures (seals, screw threads, electrical connectors and fabric contamination), which were all related to inadequate lunar regolith mitigation. A vacuum cleaner capable of detaching, transferring, and efficiently capturing lunar regolith has been proposed as a method to mitigate the lunar regolith problem in the habitable environment on lunar surface. In order to develop this vacuum, a modified "off-the-shelf" vacuum cleaner has been used to determine detachment efficiency, vacuum requirements, and optimal cleaning techniques to ensure efficient dust removal in habitable lunar surfaces, EVA spacesuits, and air exchange volume. During the initial development of the Lunar Surface System vacuum cleaner, systematic testing was performed with varying flow rates on multiple surfaces (fabrics and metallics), atmospheric (14.7 psia) and reduced pressures (10.2 and 8.3 psia), different vacuum tool attachments, and several vacuum cleaning techniques to determine the performance requirements for the vacuum cleaner. The data recorded during testing was evaluated by calculating percent removal, relative to the retained simulant on the tested surface. In addition, Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) imaging was used to determine particle size distribution retained on the surface. The scope of this paper is to explain the initial phase of vacuum cleaner development, including historical Apollo mission data, current state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner technology, and vacuum cleaner testing that has focused on detachment capabilities varying pressure environments.

Toon, Katherine P.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Development of a Modified Vacuum Cleaner for Lunar Surface Systems

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) mission to expand space exploration will return humans to the Moon with the goal of maintaining a long-term presence. One challenge that NASA will face returning to the Moon is managing the lunar regolith found on the Moon's surface, which will collect on extravehicular activity (EVA) suits and other equipment. Based on the Apollo experience, the issues astronauts encountered with lunar regolith included eye/lung irritation, and various hardware failures (seals, screw threads, electrical connectors and fabric contamination), which were all related to inadequate lunar regolith mitigation. A vacuum cleaner capable of detaching, transferring, and efficiently capturing lunar regolith has been proposed as a method to mitigate the lunar regolith problem in the habitable environment on lunar surface. In order to develop this vacuum, a modified "off-the-shelf' vacuum cleaner will be used to determine detachment efficiency, vacuum requirements, and optimal cleaning techniques to ensure efficient dust removal in habitable lunar surfaces, EVA spacesuits, and air exchange volume. During the initial development of the Lunar Surface System vacuum cleaner, systematic testing was performed with varying flow rates on multiple surfaces (fabrics and metallics), atmospheric (14.7 psia) and reduced pressures (10.2 and 8.3 psia), different vacuum tool attachments, and several vacuum cleaning techniques in order to determine the performance requirements for the vacuum cleaner. The data recorded during testing was evaluated by calculating particulate removal, relative to the retained simulant on the tested surface. In addition, optical microscopy was used to determine particle size distribution retained on the surface. The scope of this paper is to explain the initial phase of vacuum cleaner development, including historical Apollo mission data, current state-of-the-art vacuum cleaner technology, and vacuum cleaner testing that has focused on detachment capabilities at varying pressure environments.

Toon, Katherine P.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Three-Body Abrasion Testing Using Lunar Dust Simulants to Evaluate Surface System Materials

Numerous unexpected operational issues relating to the abrasive nature of lunar dust, such as scratched visors and spacesuit pressure seal leaks, were encountered during the Apollo missions. To avoid reoccurrence of these unexpected detrimental equipment problems on future missions to the Moon, a series of two- and three-body abrasion tests were developed and conducted in order to begin rigorously characterizing the effect of lunar dust abrasiveness on candidate surface system materials. Two-body scratch tests were initially performed to examine fundamental interactions of a single particle on a flat surface. These simple and robust tests were used to establish standardized measurement techniques for quantifying controlled volumetric wear. Subsequent efforts described in the paper involved three-body abrasion testing designed to be more representative of actual lunar interactions. For these tests, a new tribotester was developed to expose samples to a variety of industrial abrasives and lunar simulants. The work discussed in this paper describes the three-body hardware setup consisting of a rotating rubber wheel that applies a load on a specimen as a loose abrasive is fed into the system. The test methodology is based on ASTM International (ASTM) B611, except it does not mix water with the abrasive. All tests were run under identical conditions. Abraded material specimens included poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), hardened 1045 steel, 6061-T6 aluminum (Al) and 1018 steel. Abrasives included lunar mare simulant JSC- 1A-F (nominal size distribution), sieved JSC-1A-F (<25 m particle diameter), lunar highland simulant NU-LHT-2M, alumina (average diameter of 50 m used per ASTM G76), and silica (50/70 mesh used per ASTM G65). The measured mass loss from each specimen was converted using standard densities to determine total wear volume in cm3. Abrasion was dominated by the alumina and the simulants were only similar to the silica (i.e., sand) on the softer materials of aluminum and PMMA. The nominal JSC- 1A-F consistently showed more abrasion wear than the sieved version of the simulant. The lunar dust displayed abrasivity to all of the test materials, which are likely to be used in lunar landing equipment. Based on this test experience and pilot results obtained, recommendations are made for systematic abrasion testing of candidate materials intended for use in lunar exploration systems and in other environments with similar dust challenges.

Kobrick, Ryan L.↗
NASA NTRS2009

Strategies for Ground Testing of Manned Lunar Surface Systems

One of the primary objectives of NASA's Vision for Space Exploration is the creation of a permanently manned lunar outpost. Facing the challenge of establishing a human presence on the moon will require new innovations and technologies that will be critical to expanding this exploration to Mars and beyond. However, accomplishing this task presents an unprecedented set of obstacles, one of the more significant of which is the development of new strategies for ground test and verification. Present concepts for the Lunar Surface System (LSS) architecture call for the construction of a series of independent yet tightly coupled modules and elements to be launched and assembled in incremental stages. Many of these will be fabricated at distributed locations and delivered shortly before launch, precluding any opportunity for testing in an actual integrated configuration. Furthermore, these components must operate flawlessly once delivered to the lunar surface since there is no possibility for returning a malfunctioning module to Earth for repair or modification. Although undergoing continual refinement, this paper will present the current state of the plans and models that have been devised for meeting the challenge of ground based testing for Constellation Program LSS as well as the rationale behind their selection.

Beyer, Jeff↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modeling Deformable Linear Objects for Autonomous Robotic Outfitting of Lunar Surface Systems

The construction of in-space facilities is a significant capability for the establishment of a long-term human presence in space. Autonomous robotic technologies are a critical tool to enabling the construction and maintenance of such permanent facilities. This paper evaluates the outfitting portion of the construction process, focusing on modeling required for robotic manipulation of cable-like objects, referred to as Deformable Linear Objects (DLOs). DLOs contain a high degree of variability, which makes accurate real-time autonomous operations a difficult task. Different modeling methods for DLOs such as discrete mass-spring systems and Cosserat elastic rod models range in problem complexity and accuracy, a trade-off that must be understood to fully realize autonomous cable routing technologies. This paper validates different DLO models through simulation and a hardware experiment, highlighting the size of the state space and accuracy of different approaches. The development of DLO manipulation models for outfitting enables an autonomous architecture for the construction of lunar surface systems.

Amy M Quartaro↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modeling Deformable Linear Objects for Autonomous Robotic Outfitting of Lunar Surface Systems

The construction of in-space facilities is a significant capability for the establishment of a long-term human presence in space. Autonomous robotic technologies are a critical tool to enabling the construction and maintenance of such permanent facilities. This paper evaluates the outfitting portion of the construction process, focusing on modeling required for robotic manipulation of cable-like objects, referred to as Deformable Linear Objects (DLOs). DLOs contain a high degree of variability, which makes accurate real-time autonomous operations a difficult task. Different modeling methods for DLOs such as discrete mass-spring systems and Cosserat elastic rod models range in problem complexity and accuracy, a trade-off that must be understood to fully realize autonomous cable routing technologies. This paper validates different DLO models through simulation and a hardware experiment, highlighting the size of the state space and accuracy of different approaches. The development of DLO manipulation models for outfitting enables an autonomous architecture for the construction of lunar surface systems.

Deformable Modeling↗