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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 NTRS2017

Agile: From Software to Mission Systems

To maximize efficiency and flexibility in Mission Operations System (MOS) design, we are evolving principles from agile and lean methods for software, to the complete mission system. This allows for reduced operational risk at reduced cost, and achieves a more effective design through early integration of operations into mission system engineering and flight system design. The core principles are assessment of capability through demonstration, risk reduction through targeted experiments, early test and deployment, and maturation of processes and tools through use.

Trimble, Jay↗
NASA NTRS2006

NASA's Aviation Safety and Modeling Project

The Aviation Safety Monitoring and Modeling (ASMM) Project of NASA's Aviation Safety program is cultivating sources of data and developing automated computer hardware and software to facilitate efficient, comprehensive, and accurate analyses of the data collected from large, heterogeneous databases throughout the national aviation system. The ASMM addresses the need to provide means for increasing safety by enabling the identification and correcting of predisposing conditions that could lead to accidents or to incidents that pose aviation risks. A major component of the ASMM Project is the Aviation Performance Measuring System (APMS), which is developing the next generation of software tools for analyzing and interpreting flight data.

Chidester, Thomas R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Surface Systems and Interface Standardization

Space exploration on planetary surfaces will require the use of various surface systems which will likely need to interface with one another. These systems must communicate and share data, as well as distribute power and transfer fluids for sustainable surface operations. Such systems can range from landers, surface habitats, mobility systems, cargo, and In-Situ Resource Utilizations (ISRUs). Previous and current programs have developed space interoperability standards that help aid in reducing potential risks of interface integration. One example of this is the International Deep Space Interoperability Standards (IDSIS) which focuses on deep space exploration. A goal of the Artemis program is to develop a sustained human presence on the lunar surface that would be a training ground for future Mars exploration. Therefore, it will be beneficial to identify interface standards between the surface assets which will help mitigate risk and reduce complexity in the harsh environments of space exploration. A key contribution to sustainability is commonality between hardware and software interfaces. Generic interfaces for data, power, and fluids will reduce risk, promote interoperability, and define standard interfaces across surface exploration projects and programs. Standardized interfaces would be advantageous for improving efficiency and reducing overall complexity, which are critical considerations for future space exploration. Furthermore, it will provide cost reductions to the Artemis programs over their life cycle (in Operations & Maintenance (O&M) and Logistics). Unique proprietary interfaces if considered or allowed would not only increase complexity but also add cost to the programs. Of course, understanding what will work and not work effectively in these unique environments such as the lunar surface is important. These unique environments require much needed intelligent design, prototyping, comprehensive testing, and field experience, utilizing consensus on common interface solutions.

Jaime Gomez↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Surface Systems and Interface Standardization

A key contribution to surface systems sustainability on Lunar and planetary surfaces is commonality between hardware and software interfaces. Generic interfaces for data, power, and fluids will reduce risk, promote interoperability, and define standard interfaces across surface exploration projects and programs. Standardized interfaces would be advantageous for improving efficiency and reducing overall complexity, which are critical considerations for future space exploration. Furthermore, it will provide cost reductions to NASA’s Artemis program over its life cycle (in Operations & Maintenance (O&M) and Logistics). Unique proprietary interfaces if considered or allowed would not only increase complexity but also add cost to the programs. Of course, understanding what will work and not work effectively in these unique environments such as the lunar surface is important. These unique environments require much needed intelligent design, prototyping, comprehensive testing, and field experience, utilizing consensus on common interface solutions.

Lunar↗
DOE OSTI2026

Smart Planning for Radioactive Source Transport Advanced Tools for Increased Safety and Efficiency

End-of-life (EOL) management of high-activity radioactive sources is made uniquely challenging by the inherent risks associated with storage and transportation of these sources, the complex logistics involved, and the strict requirements for regulatory compliance. Traditional methods lack comprehensive tools for accurate site assessments and precision planning for the transportation of radioactive sources. They also frequently fail to provide the adaptability required to consider diverse operational environments, resulting in inefficiencies and potential safety concerns. This paper introduces a novel software solution developed to address these issues by integrating advanced technologies such as light detection and ranging (LiDAR)-based 3D environment modeling, smart dynamic route planning, and customizable measurement functionalities. This software enables detailed terrain visualizations, facilitating thorough environmental assessments and enabling users to virtually navigate, analyze, and plan site-specific operations. Among the key features are a user-centric interface for virtual navigation, precise site measurement tools for site evaluations, interactive visualizations that highlight potential operational hazards, dynamic route planning capabilities, and real-time collision detection to promote safe workflows. By demonstrating the effectiveness of this tool through real-world application, the present work underscores the tool’s potential to revolutionize radioactive source EOL management by improving operational efficiencies, minimizing risk, and advancing the state of practice to achieve suitable and secure radioactive material handling.

99 - GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS↗
DOE OSTI2024

WETO Software Stack Best Practices

Wind energy researchers typically share one key characteristic: a passion for increasing wind energy in the global energy mix. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports this mission in a number of ways including allocating funding directly to various aspects of wind energy research through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) via the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). While the traditional output of research is academic publication, software development efforts are increasingly a major focus. Software tools in the research environment allow researchers to describe an idea and quickly increase the scope and scale as they study it further. As a product of research, these tools represent a direct pipeline from researcher to industry practitioners since they are the implementation of ideas described in academic publications. Given this vital role in wind energy research and commercial development, the broad research software portfolio supported by WETO must maintain a minimum level of quality to support the wind energy field in the growing transition to renewable energy. This report outlines a series o f best practices to be adopted by all WETO-supported software projects, as well as expectations that the communities interacting with these projects should have of the developers and tools themselves. Wind energy research software has a unique standing in the field of scientific software. The stakeholders are varied with a subset being: (1) DOE EERE leadership, (2) DOE WETO leadership and program managers, (3) National lab leadership, (4) Associated project principle investigators, (5) Research software engineers, (6) Wind energy researchers in academia (including graduate students, post docs, and national lab staff), (7) Industry researchers and practitioners, (8) Commercial software developers, and (9) The general public interested in wind energy. These software are typically the end-user of other generic software libraries, so the funding cycles are often tied to applied research rather than the development of the software itself. Since the developers are also wind energy researchers, these tools are typically designed in a way that closely resembles the application in which they're used. Additionally, the expertise and incentives for the developers have a high variability, and often neither are aligned with software engineering or computer science. Given the unique environment in which wind energy research software is produced and consumed, it is critical for model owners to understand the context of their software. A framework for developing this understanding is to answer the following questions of a given software project: What is it's purpose? What is its role in the field of wind energy? What is the profile of the expected users? For how long will it be relevant? What is the expected impact? These questions allow model owners to identify the appropriate methods for the design, development, and long term maintenance of their software. Additionally, the answer provide context for future planners to understand why particular decisions were made and discern the consequences of changing course. The information is aggregated from experience within WETO-supported software development groups as well as external organizations and efforts to define the craft of research software engineering. These best practices aim to make the collaborative development process efficient and effective while improving the model understanding across stakeholders. Additionally, the general adoption of a common framework for software quality ensures that the end users of WETO software can trust these tools and accurately understand the risks to workflow integration.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2013

Lean Development with the Morpheus Simulation Software

The Morpheus project is an autonomous robotic testbed currently in development at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC) with support from other centers. Its primary objectives are to test new 'green' fuel propulsion systems and to demonstrate the capability of the Autonomous Lander Hazard Avoidance Technology (ALHAT) sensor, provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) on a lunar landing trajectory. If successful, these technologies and lessons learned from the Morpheus testing cycle may be incorporated into a landing descent vehicle used on the moon, an asteroid, or Mars. In an effort to reduce development costs and cycle time, the project employs lean development engineering practices in its development of flight and simulation software. The Morpheus simulation makes use of existing software packages where possible to reduce the development time. The development and testing of flight software occurs primarily through the frequent test operation of the vehicle and incrementally increasing the scope of the test. With rapid development cycles, risk of loss of the vehicle and loss of the mission are possible, but efficient progress in development would not be possible without that risk.

Brogley, Aaron C.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Agile Approach to Adding Assurance and Mitigating Overall Mission Risk for Orion Software on EM-1

Human-rated missions like Orion are becoming exceedingly complex in terms of software contribution to achieving mission objectives, and this creates a resource challenge for everyone whose job is to add assurance that the mission is going to fly safely. Orion IV&V has addressed this challenge by providing focused assurance results of critical mission capabilities prioritized by a dynamic assessment of risk level. Prior to this approach, Orion IV&V was evaluating areas of risk in much broader, and more static, terms. Due to the Agile software development cycle that Orion follows, IV&V findings were often reported months out of phase with the developer. As a result of evolving the approach to providing assurance on Orion, IV&V is able to incrementally deliver high-priority assurance data and more impactful issues more in phase with the developer activities, thereby increasing the value of the findings to the project. The agile IV&V approach employed by the Orion IV&V team strives to achieve a cadence of delivery that matches the pace of development. This agile approach provides increased flexibility for the assurance provider to become more efficient in reporting assurance conclusions and issues. This presentation will discuss the principles which drive the design of our approach, results to date, and aspirations for long-term performance.

Assurance↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

OASSIS: Onboard Adaptive Safe-site Identification System Y3

The OASSIS Year 3 project continues to innovate with three goals: 1) transition to a generic configuration compatible with GNC flight software, 2) implement a new, computationally-efficient TRN algorithm for lunar landing, and 3) integrate with the a HWIL testbed to validate lunar landing GNC systems. This project enables lunar lander GNC flight software to be tested dynamically without the need of a costly flight campaign and without the risk of catastrophic hardware loss. Additionally, the TRN algorithm development and testing enhances the state-of-the-art in pinpoint landing navigation, ultimately improving the overall landing accuracy, safety, and reliability of a crewed lunar landing mission.

James S Mccabe↗
DOE OSTI2025

sup3ruhi (Super Resolution for Renewable Resource Data and Urban Heat Islands) [SWR-25-05]

Urban heat is a growing concern, particularly in dense metropolitan areas where high temperatures increase the risk of heat-related illness and drive energy expenses for cooling. Estimating the effects of urban heat remains a challenge due to limitations in describing the built environment, computational constraints, and the need for high-resolution data. This software presents open-source, computationally efficient machine learning methods that enhance the accuracy of urban temperature estimates compared to historical reanalysis data. Models trained using this software have been applied to urban microclimates in Los Angeles and Seattle showing greater accuracy and less bias when compared to low-resolution reanalysis datasets like ERA5 and even when compared to high-resolution mesoscale numerical weather models like WRF with an urban canopy model. Initial findings highlight how machine learning can support urban heat resilience planning by enabling improved assessments of local heat islands, mitigation strategies, and their energy implications. This software is an extension of (sup3r). This software supports the following publication: Buster, Grant, et al. Tackling Extreme Urban Heat: A Machine Learning Approach to Assess the Impacts of Climate Change and the Efficacy of Climate Adaptation Strategies in Urban Microclimates. arXiv:2411.05952, arXiv, 8 Nov. 2024. arXiv.org, https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2411.05952. And has related public data records available at: Buster, Grant, Cox, Jordan, Benton, Brandon, and King, Ryan. Super-Resolution for Renewable Resource Data and Urban Heat Islands (Sup3rUHI). United States: N.p., 16 Oct, 2024. Web. https://data.openei.org/submissions/6220.

Buster, Grant [National Renewable Energy Laborator↗
DOE OSTI2025

Electron Beam Irradiation for Water Treatment of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are widely used but are now considered a water contamination risk. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory’s IARC group has demonstrated that passing water through electron beam radiation can destroy PFAS. This project aims to develop a process to scale the system for bulk water treatment. The key is efficient radiation usage, ensuring that all water receives only the minimum dose. Software was developed for this purpose, consisting of a computational fluid dynamics model (CFD) in COMSOL, which calculates particle trajectories through the radiation area. A MATLAB script integrates the radiation dose of these particles, and statistical analysis is performed to evaluate the radiation utilization efficiency. These models are validated with a flow test where colored dye is injected and optically tracked. Radiation dose is measured by testing under an e-beam to measure the degradation of a PFAS analog.

Mueller, Scott [Northern Illinois U.]↗
NASA NTRS1989

Space biology initiative program definition review. Trade study 2: Prototype utilization in the development of space biology hardware

The objective was to define the factors which space flight hardware developers and planners should consider when determining: (1) the number of hardware units required to support program; (2) design level of the units; and (3) most efficient means of utilization of the units. The analysis considered technology risk, maintainability, reliability, and safety design requirements for achieving the delivery of highest quality flight hardware. Relative cost impacts of the utilization of prototyping were identified. The development of Space Biology Initiative research hardware will involve intertwined hardware/software activities. Experience has shown that software development can be an expensive portion of a system design program. While software prototyping could imply the development of a significantly different end item, an operational system prototype must be considered to be a combination of software and hardware. Hundreds of factors were identified that could be considered in determining the quantity and types of prototypes that should be constructed. In developing the decision models, these factors were combined and reduced by approximately ten-to-one in order to develop a manageable structure based on the major determining factors. The Baseline SBI hardware list of Appendix D was examined and reviewed in detail; however, from the facts available it was impossible to identify the exact types and quantities of prototypes required for each of these items. Although the factors that must be considered could be enumerated for each of these pieces of equipment, the exact status and state of development of the equipment is variable and uncertain at this time.

Jackson, L. Neal↗
NASA NTRS2008

The J-2X Upper Stage Engine: From Heritage to Hardware

NASA's Global Exploration Strategy requires safe, reliable, robust, efficient transportation to support sustainable operations from Earth to orbit and into the far reaches of the solar system. NASA selected the Ares I crew launch vehicle and the Ares V cargo launch vehicle to provide that transportation. Guiding principles in creating the architecture represented by the Ares vehicles were the maximum use of heritage hardware and legacy knowledge, particularly Space Shuttle assets, and commonality between the Ares vehicles where possible to streamline the hardware development approach and reduce programmatic, technical, and budget risks. The J-2X exemplifies those goals. It was selected by the Exploration Systems Architecture Study (ESAS) as the upper stage propulsion for the Ares I Upper Stage and the Ares V Earth Departure Stage (EDS). The J-2X is an evolved version ofthe historic J-2 engine that successfully powered the second stage of the Saturn I launch vehicle and the second and third stages of the Saturn V launch vehicle. The Constellation architecture, however, requires performance greater than its predecessor. The new architecture calls for larger payloads delivered to the Moon and demands greater loss of mission reliability and numerous other requirements associated with human rating that were not applied to the original J-2. As a result, the J-2X must operate at much higher temperatures, pressures, and flow rates than the heritage J-2, making it one of the highest performing gas generator cycle engines ever built, approaching the efficiency of more complex stage combustion engines. Development is focused on early risk mitigation, component and subassembly test, and engine system test. The development plans include testing engine components, including the subscale injector, main igniter, powerpack assembly (turbopumps, gas generator and associated ducting and structural mounts), full-scale gas generator, valves, and control software with hardware-in-the-loop. Testing expanded in 2007, accompanied by the refinement of the design through several key milestones. This paper discusses those 2007 tests and milestones, as well as updates key developments in 2008.

Byrd, THomas↗
DOE OSTI2024

ARCADE (Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment)

SAND2025-11780O ARCADE (Advanced Reactor Cyber Analysis and Development Environment) software performs cybersecurity experiments on Defensive Cyber Security Architectures (DCSA) for Distributed Control Systems (DCSs). The application is integrated into a cohesive environment that performs cyber risk analyses and reduces costs. ARCADE can investigate the entire cyber-attack surface of a DCS from the physics of control, down to the firmware of individual components with automated efficiency. ARCADE has five major functional components: the Data Broker system, the virtualization environment, the cyber-attack simulator, the cyber-physical analysis system, and the physics simulator. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory managed and operated by National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-NA0003525.

Valme, Romuald↗
DOE OSTI2025

VA EDH Advanced Software Pipeline Framework Report: Enhancing Automation and Scalability

The VA Environmental Determinants of Health (EDH) Advanced Software Pipeline Framework is designed to enhance the efficiency, scalability, and security of geospatial data processing workflows. This framework integrates modern data orchestration and containerization technologies, including Prefect for workflow automation, Docker for containerization, and PostgreSQL/PostGIS for geospatial data storage and analysis. It ensures standardized, reproducible, and automated data processing, supporting VA objectives related to substance use risk assessment and recovery research. The pipeline addresses key scalability and performance challenges through horizontal and vertical scaling, high-performance computing (HPC) integration, parallel processing, task caching, and dynamic resource allocation. These optimizations improve throughput and reduce latency, allowing the system to efficiently manage large and complex datasets. Additionally, security and compliance measures—such as data encryption (SSL), Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), and adherence to GDPR and HIPAA standards—safeguard sensitive information throughout data transmission and storage. A key implementation of this framework includes the automation of shelter list geolocation workflows, ensuring that up-to-date data is readily available for VA decision-making. Lessons learned from this project include the transition from in-memory processing to incremental storage writes, improving resource management and reliability. Future enhancements aim to expand automation, integrate AI-driven anomaly detection, and incorporate high-performance computing resources. This framework provides a scalable, secure, and adaptable solution for managing geospatial datasets, reinforcing the VA’s ability to support clinical and strategic initiatives through data-driven decision-making.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2019

The Space Communications and Navigation Testbed aboard International Space Station: Seven Years of Space-based Reconfigurable Software Defined Communications, Navigation, and Networking

The adoption of software defined radios offers space missions a new way to develop and operate space transceivers for communications and navigation.The SCaN Testbed on-board the ISS led groundbreaking efforts to champion use of software defined radios for space communications. The SCaN Testbed has allowed NASA, industry, academia, and international partners to pursue their respective interests in joint collaboration with NASA, and move this technology and it's applications to the space domain. Launched in 2012, The SCaN Testbed has logged over 4000 hours of operation exploring the development, reconfiguration, and operation of software defined radios and their software applications. Over the past seven years, experimenters and organizations from across the United States and around the world, have advanced the applications of software defined radios and networks using the SCaN Tested. Some of SCaN Testbed's successful experiments include the demonstration of the first Ka-band full duplex space transceiver, which became an R&D 100 award winning technology, and was inducted into the Space Technology Hall of Fame, following the launch and space deployment of a successful commercial product line based on the Testbed radios.Experiments have focused on new software development and operations concepts for understanding how to manage and apply this relatively new technology to space to improve communications and navigation for space science and exploration missions. The advanced capabilities of the software radios allow for multiple applications or functions (e.g., communication and navigation) to operate from the same radio platform. Multiple software waveform applications enable software component reuse and improve efficiency for multiple applications operating over different mission phases. The new capabilities of software defined radios such as on-orbit reconfiguration, also present new challenges such as increased operational complexity. Experiments of the SCaN testbed include more intelligent or cognitive applications to improve communications efficiency and manage the complexity of the radios, the communication channels, and the network itself. The software defined radios on the SCaN Testbed are each compliant to NASA's Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture. The STRS Architecture provides commonality among radio developments from different providers and different mission applications, and is designed to reduce the cost, risk, and complexity of unique and custom radio developments. This radio architecture standard defines common waveform software interfaces, methods of instantiation, operation, and documentation. As the SCaN Testbed concludes its operations on ISS, this presentation explores the advancements and accomplishments made to advance software defined radio technology and its applications for exploration. The accomplishments cover a number of experiment areas in Ka-band and S-band communications with TDRS, high rate communications, adaptive waveform operation, navigation using both GPA and Galileo constellations, complex networking and disruptive tolerant link protocols, user initiative service, and initial experiments with intelligent and cognitive applications which demonstrate the significant potential of software defined and cognitive radios.

Mortensen, Dale↗
DOE OSTI2024

Evaluating Methods of Software Bill of Materials Generation to Enhance Nuclear Power Plant Cybersecurity

Instrumentation and control (I&C) systems in nuclear power plants (NPPs) are potential targets of cyberattacks and can prove deleterious for the safety of the NPPs. A Software Bill of Materials (SBOM) provides a detailed list of the various components and their dependencies in software, which helps in vulnerability and risk assessment for cyber hygiene and situational awareness. For an NPP, the process of generating an accurate SBOM report can be complex due to the legacy systems and firmware binaries involved. While most current SBOM tools are focused more on modern internet technology software, this research provides insights and guidelines for an NPP to generate an accurate and efficient SBOM. Here, the paper proposes a new methodology to help NPPs categorize software and use appropriate tools to generate SBOMs for their digital I&C systems.

SBOM↗
NASA NTRS2022

The Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) Mission

The Sun Radio Interferometer Space Experiment (SunRISE) will provide an entirely new view on particle acceleration and transport in the inner heliosphere by creating the first low radio frequency interferometer in space to localize heliospheric radio emissions. By imaging and determining the location of decametric-hectometric (DH, 0.1 MHz–23 MHz) solar radio bursts, SunRISE will provide key information on particle acceleration mechanisms associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the magnetic field topology from active regions into interplanetary space. The SunRISE Observatory will consist of six space vehicles in a passive formation, in orbits designed to keep them within approximately 10 km of each other, and flying in a supersynchronous geosynchronous Earth orbit (GEO). Each space vehicle consists of a Solar DH-GNSS payload and a 6U form factor spacecraft. The SunRISE Observatory together with significant ground-based processing, will enable imaging of the Sun in a portion of the spectrum that is blocked by the ionosphere and cannot be observed from Earth. Key aspects that enable this mission are that only position knowledge of the space vehicles is required, not active control, and that the architecture involves a modest amount of on-board processing coupled with significant ground-based processing for navigation, position determination, and science operations. Mission-enabling advances in software-defined radios, GPS navigation and timing, and small spacecraft technologies, developed and flown on the DARPA High Frequency Research (DHFR) and the Community Initiative for Continuing Earth Radio Occultation (CICERO) have made this mission affordable and low-risk. The SunRISE mission will exploit the multiple spacecraft per aperture (MSPA) capability of NASA’s Deep Space Network (DSN), for more efficient data transfers of larger data volumes, and utilize commercial access to space, in which the SunRISE space vehicles will be carried to their target orbit as secondary payloads in conjunction with a larger host spacecraft intended for GEO.

Neilson, Tim↗