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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1980

Real-time operating system for selected Intel processors

The rationale for system development is given along with reasons for not using vendor supplied operating systems. Although many system design and performance goals were dictated by problems with vendor supplied systems, other goals surfaced as a result of a design for a custom system able to span multiple projects. System development and management problems and areas that required redesign or major code changes for system implementation are examined as well as the relative successes of the initial projects. A generic description of the actual project is provided and the ongoing support requirements and future plans are discussed.

Pool, W. R.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Data capture and processing

A systems concept developed in response to the specific requirements imposed by the Space Station and affiliated instrumentation is described. Particular attention is given to those subsystems associated with initial data capture, handling, routing, and distribution control for return link data via the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. The conceived approach, designated the Customer Data and Operations System, includes a data interface facility and a data handling center whose functions are data capture, demultiplexing and routing, early preprocessing, and ancillary data handling.

Lyon, John↗
NASA NTRS1987

A procedural method for the efficient implementation of full-custom VLSI designs

An imbedded language system for the layout of very large scale integration (VLSI) circuits is examined. It is shown that through the judicious use of this system, a large variety of circuits can be designed with circuit density and performance comparable to traditional full-custom design methods, but with design costs more comparable to semi-custom design methods. The high performance of this methodology is attributable to the flexibility of procedural descriptions of VLSI layouts and to a number of automatic and semi-automatic tools within the system.

Belk, P.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Acceptance Testing of a Satellite SCADA Photovoltaic-Diesel Hybrid System

Satellite Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) of a Photovoltaic (PV)/diesel hybrid system was tested using NASA's Advanced Communication Technology Satellite (ACTS) and Ultra Small Aperture Terminal (USAT) ground stations. The setup consisted of a custom-designed PV/diesel hybrid system, located at the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC), which was controlled and monitored at a "remote" hub via Ka-band satellite link connecting two 1/4 Watt USATs in a SCADA arrangement. The robustness of the communications link was tested for remote monitoring of the health and performance of a PV/diesel hybrid system, and for investigating load control and battery charging strategies to maximize battery capacity and lifetime, and minimize loss of critical load probability. Baseline hardware performance test results demonstrated that continuous two-second data transfers can be accomplished under clear sky conditions with an error rate of less than 1%. The delay introduced by the satellite (1/4 sec) was transparent to synchronization of satellite modem as well as to the PV/diesel-hybrid computer. End-to-end communications link recovery times were less than 36 seconds for loss of power and less than one second for loss of link. The system recovered by resuming operation without any manual intervention, which is important since the 4 dB margin is not sufficient to prevent loss of the satellite link during moderate to heavy rain. Hybrid operations during loss of communications link continued seamlessly but real-time monitoring was interrupted. For this sub-tropical region, the estimated amount of time that the signal fade will exceed the 4 dB margin is about 10%. These results suggest that data rates of 4800 bps and a link margin of 4 dB with a 1/4 Watt transmitter are sufficient for end-to-end operation in this SCADA application.

Kalu, A.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Rethinking Human-Centered Computing: Finding the Customer and Negotiated Interactions at the Airport

The breakdown in the air transportation system over the past several years raises an interesting question for researchers: How can we help improve the reliability of airline operations? In offering some answers to this question, we make a statement about Huuman-Centered Computing (HCC). First we offer the definition that HCC is a multi-disciplinary research and design methodology focused on supporting humans as they use technology by including cognitive and social systems, computational tools and the physical environment in the analysis of organizational systems. We suggest that a key element in understanding organizational systems is that there are external cognitive and social systems (customers) as well as internal cognitive and social systems (employees) and that they interact dynamically to impact the organization and its work. The design of human-centered intelligent systems must take this outside-inside dynamic into account. In the past, the design of intelligent systems has focused on supporting the work and improvisation requirements of employees but has often assumed that customer requirements are implicitly satisfied by employee requirements. Taking a customer-centric perspective provides a different lens for understanding this outside-inside dynamic, the work of the organization and the requirements of both customers and employees In this article we will: 1) Demonstrate how the use of ethnographic methods revealed the important outside-inside dynamic in an airline, specifically the consequential relationship between external customer requirements and perspectives and internal organizational processes and perspectives as they came together in a changing environment; 2) Describe how taking a customer centric perspective identifies places where the impact of the outside-inside dynamic is most critical and requires technology that can be adaptive; 3) Define and discuss the place of negotiated interactions in airline operations, identifying how these interactions between customers and airline employees provided new insights into design problems in the airline system; 4) Show how taking a customer-centric perspective influences the HCC design of an airline system and make recommendations for new architectures and intelligent devices that will enable airline systems to adapt flexibly to delay situations, supporting both customers and airline employees.

Wales, Roxana↗
NASA NTRS1992

An integrated database with system optimization and design features

A customized, mission-specific relational database package was developed to allow researchers working on the Mars oxygen manufacturing plant to enter physical description, engineering, and connectivity data through a uniform, graphical interface and to store the data in formats compatible with other software also developed as part of the project. These latter components include an optimization program to maximize or minimize various criteria as the system evolves into its final design; programs to simulate the behavior of various parts of the plant in Martian conditions; an animation program which, in different modes, provides visual feedback to designers and researchers about the location of and temperature distribution among components as well as heat, mass, and data flow through the plant as it operates in different scenarios; and a control program to investigate the stability and response of the system under different disturbance conditions. All components of the system are interconnected so that changes entered through one component are reflected in the others.

Arabyan, A.↗
NASA NTRS2002

A Ground Systems Architecture Transition for A Distributed Operations System

The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Ground Systems Department (GSD) recently undertook an architecture change in the product line that serves the ISS program. As a result, the architecture tradeoffs between data system product lines that serve remote users versus those that serve control center flight control teams were explored extensively. This paper describes the resulting architecture that will be used in the ISS payloads program, and the resulting functional breakdown of the products that support that architecture. It also describes the lessons learned from the path that was followed, as a migration of products cause the need to reevaluate the allocation of functions across the architecture. The result is a set of innovative ground system solutions that is scalable so it can support facilities of wide-ranging sizes, from a small site up to large control centers. Effective use of system automation, custom components, design optimization for data management, data storage, data transmissions, and advanced local and wide area networking architectures, plus the effective use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products, provides flexible Remote Ground System options that can be tailored to the needs of each user. This paper offers a description of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Ground Systems architectural options that have been implemented, and includes successful implementation examples and lessons learned.

Sellers, Donna↗
NASA NTRS2003

A Ground Systems Architecture Transition for a Distributed Operations System

The Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Ground Systems Department (GSD) recently undertook an architecture change in the product line that serves the ISS program. As a result, the architecture tradeoffs between data system product lines that serve remote users versus those that serve control center flight control teams were explored extensively. This paper describes the resulting architecture that will be used in the International Space Station (ISS) payloads program, and the resulting functional breakdown of the products that support this architecture. It also describes the lessons learned from the path that was followed, as a migration of products cause the need to reevaluate the allocation of functions across the architecture. The result is a set of innovative ground system solutions that is scalable so it can support facilities of wide-ranging sizes, from a small site up to large control centers. Effective use of system automation, custom components, design optimization for data management, data storage, data transmissions, and advanced local and wide area networking architectures, plus the effective use of Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) products, provides flexible Remote Ground System options that can be tailored to the needs of each user. This paper offers a description of the efficiency and effectiveness of the Ground Systems architectural options that have been implemented, and includes successful implementation examples and lessons learned.

Sellers, Donna↗
NASA NTRS2002

Scanning Electron Microscope Mapping System Developed for Detecting Surface Defects in Fatigue Specimens

An automated two-degree-of-freedom specimen positioning stage has been developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center to map and monitor defects in fatigue specimens. This system expedites the examination of the entire gauge section of fatigue specimens so that defects can be found using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Translation and rotation stages are driven by microprocessor-based controllers that are, in turn, interfaced to a computer running custom-designed software. This system is currently being used to find and record the location of ceramic inclusions in powder metallurgy materials. The mapped inclusions are periodically examined during interrupted fatigue experiments. The number of cycles to initiate cracks from these inclusions and the rate of growth of initiated cracks can then be quantified. This information is necessary to quantify the effect of this type of defect on the durability of powder metallurgy materials. This system was developed with support of the Ultra Safe program.

Bonacuse, Peter J.↗
NASA NTRS2015

NASA Data Acquisition System Software Development for Rocket Propulsion Test Facilities

Current NASA propulsion test facilities include Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, Plum Brook Station in Ohio, and White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico. Within and across these centers, a diverse set of data acquisition systems exist with different hardware and software platforms. The NASA Data Acquisition System (NDAS) is a software suite designed to operate and control many critical aspects of rocket engine testing. The software suite combines real-time data visualization, data recording to a variety formats, short-term and long-term acquisition system calibration capabilities, test stand configuration control, and a variety of data post-processing capabilities. Additionally, data stream conversion functions exist to translate test facility data streams to and from downstream systems, including engine customer systems. The primary design goals for NDAS are flexibility, extensibility, and modularity. Providing a common user interface for a variety of hardware platforms helps drive consistency and error reduction during testing. In addition, with an understanding that test facilities have different requirements and setups, the software is designed to be modular. One engine program may require real-time displays and data recording; others may require more complex data stream conversion, measurement filtering, or test stand configuration management. The NDAS suite allows test facilities to choose which components to use based on their specific needs. The NDAS code is primarily written in LabVIEW, a graphical, data-flow driven language. Although LabVIEW is a general-purpose programming language; large-scale software development in the language is relatively rare compared to more commonly used languages. The NDAS software suite also makes extensive use of a new, advanced development framework called the Actor Framework. The Actor Framework provides a level of code reuse and extensibility that has previously been difficult to achieve using LabVIEW. The

Herbert, Phillip W., Sr.↗
NASA NTRS2012

SPRITE: A TPS Test Bed for Ground and Flight

Engineers in the Entry Systems and Technology Division at NASA Ames Research Center developed a fully instrumented, small atmospheric entry probe called SPRITE (Small Probe Reentry Investigation for TPS Engineering). SPRITE, conceived as a flight test bed for thermal protection materials, was tested at full scale in an arc-jet facility so that the aerothermal environments the probe experiences over portions of its flight trajectory and in the arc-jet are similar. This ground-to-flight traceability enhances the ability of mission designers to evaluate margins needed in the design of thermal protection systems (TPS) of larger scale atmospheric entry vehicles. SPRITE is a 14-inch diameter, 45 deg. sphere-cone with a conical aftbody and designed for testing in the NASA Ames Aerodynamic Heating Facility (AHF). The probe is a two-part aluminum shell with PICA (phenolic impregnated carbon ablator) bonded on the forebody and LI-2200 (Shuttle tile material) bonded to the aftbody. Plugs with embedded thermocouples, similar to those installed in the heat shield of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), and a number of distributed sensors are integrated into the design. The data from these sensors are fed to an innovative, custom-designed data acquisition system also integrated with the test article. Two identical SPRITE models were built and successfully tested in late 2010-early 2011, and the concept is currently being modified to enable testing of conformable and/or flexible materials.

Ablation↗
NASA NTRS2005

Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Flight Software (FSW): A Unique Approach to Exercise in Long Duration Habitats

ARED flight instrumentation software is associated with an overall custom designed resistive exercise system that will be deployed on the International Space Station (ISS). This innovative software application fuses together many diverse and new technologies into a robust and usable package. The software takes advantage of touchscreen user interface technology by providing a graphical user interface on a Windows based tablet PC, meeting a design constraint of keyboard-less interaction with flight crewmembers. The software interacts with modified commercial data acquisition (DAQ) hardware to acquire multiple channels of sensor measurment from the ARED device. This information is recorded on the tablet PC and made available, via International Space Station (ISS) Wireless LAN (WLAN) and telemetry subsystems, to ground based mission medics and trainers for analysis. The software includes a feature to accept electronically encoded prescriptions of exercises that guide crewmembers through a customized regimen of resistive weight training, based on personal analysis. These electronically encoded prescriptions are provided to the crew via ISS WLAN and telemetry subsystems. All personal data is securely associated with an individual crew member, based on a PIN ID mechanism.

Mangieri, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2000

ProSEDS Telemetry System Utilization of GPS Position Data for Transmitter Cycling

NASA Marshall Space Flight Center will launch the Propulsive Small Expendable Deployer System (ProSEDS) space experiment in late 2000. ProSEDS will demonstrate the use of an electrodynamic tether propulsion system and will utilize a conducting wire tether to generate limited spacecraft power. This paper will provide an overview of the ProSEDS mission and will discuss the design, development and test of the spacecraft telemetry system which utilizes a custom designed GPS subsystem to determine spacecraft position relative to ground station location and to control transmitter on/off cycling based on spacecraft state vector and ground station visibility.

Kennedy, Paul↗
NASA NTRS2013

Flat Surface Damage Detection System (FSDDS)

The Flat Surface Damage Detection system (FSDDS} is a sensory system that is capable of detecting impact damages to surfaces utilizing a novel sensor system. This system will provide the ability to monitor the integrity of an inflatable habitat during in situ system health monitoring. The system consists of three main custom designed subsystems: the multi-layer sensing panel, the embedded monitoring system, and the graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI LABVIEW software uses a custom developed damage detection algorithm to determine the damage location based on the sequence of broken sensing lines. It estimates the damage size, the maximum depth, and plots the damage location on a graph. Successfully demonstrated as a stand alone technology during 2011 D-RATS. Software modification also allowed for communication with HDU avionics crew display which was demonstrated remotely (KSC to JSC} during 2012 integration testing. Integrated FSDDS system and stand alone multi-panel systems were demonstrated remotely and at JSC, Mission Operations Test using Space Network Research Federation (SNRF} network in 2012. FY13, FSDDS multi-panel integration with JSC and SNRF network Technology can allow for integration with other complementary damage detection systems.

Williams, Martha↗
NASA NTRS1990

Worldwide differential GPS for Space Shuttle landing operations

Worldwide differential Global Positioning System (WWDGPS) is viewed as an effective method of offering continuous high-quality navigation worldwide. The concept utilizes a network with as few as 33 ground stations to observe most of the error sources of GPS and provide error corrections to users on a worldwide basis. The WWDGPS real-time GPS tracking concept promises a threefold or fourfold improvement in accuracy for authorized dual-frequency users, and in addition maintains an accurate and current ionosphere model for single-frequency users. A real-time global tracking network also has the potential to reverse declarations of poor health on marginal satellites, increasing the number of satellites in the constellation and lessening the probability of GPS navigation outage. For Space Shuttle operations, the use of WWDGPS-aided P-code equipment promises performance equal to or better than other current landing guidance systems in terms of accuracy and reliability. This performance comes at significantly less cost to NASA, which will participate as a customer in a system designed as a commercial operation serving the global civil navigation community.

Loomis, Peter V. W.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Systematic Propulsion Optimization Tools (SPOT)

This paper describes a computer program written by senior-level Mechanical Engineering students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville which is capable of optimizing user-defined delivery systems for carrying payloads into orbit. The custom propulsion system is designed by the user through the input of configuration, payload, and orbital parameters. The primary advantages of the software, called Systematic Propulsion Optimization Tools (SPOT), are a user-friendly interface and a modular FORTRAN 77 code designed for ease of modification. The optimization of variables in an orbital delivery system is of critical concern in the propulsion environment. The mass of the overall system must be minimized within the maximum stress, force, and pressure constraints. SPOT utilizes the Design Optimization Tools (DOT) program for the optimization techniques. The SPOT program is divided into a main program and five modules: aerodynamic losses, orbital parameters, liquid engines, solid engines, and nozzles. The program is designed to be upgraded easily and expanded to meet specific user needs. A user's manual and a programmer's manual are currently being developed to facilitate implementation and modification.

Bower, Mark↗
NASA NTRS2011

Phaeton Mast Dynamics: On-Orbit Characterization of Deployable Masts

The PMD instrument is a set of three custom-designed triaxial accelerometer systems designed specifically to detect and characterize the modal dynamics of deployable masts in orbit. The instrument was designed and built as a payload for the NuSTAR spacecraft, but it is now sponsored by the Air Force Research Laboratory's DSX project. It can detect acceleration levels from 1 micro gram to 0.12g over a frequency range of 0.1Hz to 30Hz, the results of which can support future modeling and designing of deployable mast structures for space. This paper details the hardware architecture and design, calibration test and results, and current status of the PMD instrument.

Phaeton Mast Dynamics (PMD)↗
NASA NTRS2018

Introduction to NASA Goddard Workshop on Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a collection of advanced technologies that allows machines to think and act, both humanly and rationally, through sensing, comprehending, acting and learning. AI's foundations lie at the intersection of several traditional fields Philosophy, Mathematics, Economics, Neuroscience, Psychology and Computer Science. Although the inception of AI started in the 1950's, it has recently made a strong comeback in all aspects of society and all over the world; this is mainly due to the timely combination of increased data volumes, advanced and mature algorithms, and improvements in computing power and storage. Current AI applications include big data analytics, robotics, intelligent sensing, assisted decision making, and speech recognition just to name a few.This workshop will be investigating how AI technologies can be adapted or developed to address the following challenges: Discover events of interest and correlations in large amounts of science data; improve the outcomes of science modeling and data assimilation using improved data processing, integration, and analysis. Design advisors for mission planning and operations, including anomaly detection and spacecraft health monitoring. Develop tools for engineering support, including advanced manufacturing, orbit determination, new component design and system engineering. Customize intelligent user interfaces, including visual analytics and natural language processing.

Le Moigne, Jacqueline↗