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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 NTRS1990

The NASA Telerobotics Research Program

An account is given to NASA efforts in the development of space telerobotics, which encompass mission analyses, core technology research, systems-integration testbed evaluations, ground-based demonstrations, and flight experiments. Space telerobotics applications encompass (1) The Space Shuttle Satellite Servicing System, (2) the Space Shuttle Orbiter's Remote Manipulator System, (3) the Space Station Freedom's Flight Telerobotics Servicer, Mobile Servicing Center, and Japanese Experiment Module, and (4) planetary rovers. A fundamental role is being played by NASA-Marshall, which possesses a Teleoperator and Robotics Evaluation Facility.

Stephenson, R. Rhoads↗
NASA NTRS1991

Lunar crane system

In many lunar construction scenarios, mechanical cranes in some form will be indispensible in moving large masses around with various degrees of fine positioning. While thorough experience exists in the use of terrestrial cranes new thinking is required about the design of cranes to be used in extraterrestrial construction. The primary driving force for this new thinking is the need to automate the crane system so that space cranes can be operated as telerobotic machines with a large number of automatic capabilities. This is true because in extraterrestrial construction human resources will need to be critically rationed. The design problems of mechanisms and control systems for a lunar crane must deal with at least two areas of performance. First, the automated crane must be capable of maneuvering a large mass, so that when the mass arrives at the target position there are only small vibrations. Secondly, any residue vibrations must be automatically damped out and a fine positioning must be achieved. For extraterrestrial use there are additional challenges to a crane design - for example, to design a crane system so that it can be transformed for other construction uses. This initial project in crane design does not address such additional issues, although they may be the subject of future CSC research. To date the Center has designed and analyzed many mechanisms. The fundamental problem of trade-offs between passively stabilizing the load and actively controlling the load by actuators was extensively studied. The capability of 3D dynamics modeling now exists for such studies. A scaled model of a lunar crane was set up and it has been most fruitful in providing basic understanding of lunar cranes. Due to an interesting scaling match-up, this scaled model exhibits the load vibration frequencies one would expect in the real lunar case. Using the analytical results achieved to date, a laboratory crane system is now being developed as a test bed for verifying a wide variety of mechanisms and control designs. Future development will be aimed at making the crane system a telerobotic test bed into which external sensors such as computer vision systems, and other small robotic devices such as CSC lunar rovers, will be integrated.

Mikulas, Martin M., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1998

EVA Roadmap: New Space Suit for the 21st Century

New spacesuit design considerations for the extra vehicular activity (EVA) of a manned Martian exploration mission are discussed. Considerations of the design includes:(1) regenerable CO2 removal, (2) a portable life support system (PLSS) which would include cryogenic oxygen produced from in-situ manufacture, (3) a power supply for the EVA, (4) the thermal control systems, (5) systems engineering, (5) space suit systems (materials, and mobility), (6) human considerations, such as improved biomedical sensors and astronaut comfort, (7) displays and controls, and robotic interfaces, such as rovers, and telerobotic commands.

Yowell, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2011

HERRO: A Science-Oriented Strategy for Crewed Missions Beyond LEO

This paper presents an exploration strategy for human missions beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and the Moon that combines the best features of human and robotic spaceflight. This "Human Exploration using Real-time Robotic Operations" (HERRO) strategy refrains from placing humans on the surfaces of the Moon and Mars in the near-term. Rather, it focuses on sending piloted spacecraft and crews into orbit around exploration targets of interest, such as Mars, and conducting astronaut exploration of the surfaces using telerobots and remotely controlled systems. By eliminating the significant communications delay with Earth due to the speed of light limit, teleoperation provides scientists real-time control of rovers and other sophisticated instruments, in effect giving them a "virtual presence" on planetary surfaces, and thus expanding the scientific return at these destinations. It also eliminates development of the numerous man-rated landers, ascent vehicles and surface systems that are required to land humans on planetary surfaces. The propulsive requirements to travel from LEO to many destinations with shallow gravity-wells in the inner solar system are quite similar. Thus, a single spacecraft design could perform a variety of missions, including orbit-based surface exploration of the Moon, Mars and Venus, and rendezvous with Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs), as well as Phobos and Deimos. Although HERRO bypasses many of the initial steps that have been historically associated with human space exploration, it opens the door to many new destinations that are candidates for future resource utilization and settlement. HERRO is a first step that takes humans to exciting destinations beyond LEO, while expanding the ability to conduct science within the inner solar system.

Schmidt, George R.↗
NASA NTRS1991

SSTAC/ARTS review of the draft Integrated Technology Plan (ITP). Volume 8: Aerothermodynamics Automation and Robotics (A/R) systems sensors, high-temperature superconductivity

Viewgraphs of briefings presented at the SSTAC/ARTS review of the draft Integrated Technology Plan (ITP) on aerothermodynamics, automation and robotics systems, sensors, and high-temperature superconductivity are included. Topics covered include: aerothermodynamics; aerobraking; aeroassist flight experiment; entry technology for probes and penetrators; automation and robotics; artificial intelligence; NASA telerobotics program; planetary rover program; science sensor technology; direct detector; submillimeter sensors; laser sensors; passive microwave sensing; active microwave sensing; sensor electronics; sensor optics; coolers and cryogenics; and high temperature superconductivity.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1994

Overview of Space Telerobotics

This chapter discusses the need for space teleoperators and robots, here generically called telerobots, and describes the basic elements of such systems as well as their current capabilities, limitations and need technical improvements.

space↗
NASA NTRS1998

Human Exploration of Mars: The Reference Mission of the NASA Mars Exploration Study Team

The Reference Mission was developed over a period of several years and was published in NASA Special Publication 6107 in July 1997. The purpose of the Reference Mission was to provide a workable model for the human exploration of Mars, which is described in enough detail that alternative strategies and implementations can be compared and evaluated. NASA is continuing to develop the Reference Mission and expects to update this report in the near future. It was the purpose of the Reference Mission to develop scenarios based on the needs of scientists and explorers who want to conduct research on Mars; however, more work on the surface-mission aspects of the Reference Mission is required and is getting under way. Some aspects of the Reference Mission that are important for the consideration of the surface mission definition include: (1) a split mission strategy, which arrives at the surface two years before the arrival of the first crew; (2) three missions to the outpost site over a 6-year period; (3) a plant capable of producing rocket propellant for lifting off Mars and caches of water, O, and inert gases for the life-support system; (4) a hybrid physico-chemical/bioregenerative life-support system, which emphasizes the bioregenerative system more in later parts of the scenario; (5) a nuclear reactor power supply, which provides enough power for all operations, including the operation of a bioregenerative life-support system as well as the propellant and consumable plant; (6) capability for at least two people to be outside the habitat each day of the surface stay; (7) telerobotic and human-operated transportation vehicles, including a pressurized rover capable of supporting trips of several days' duration from the habitat; (7) crew stay times of 500 days on the surface, with six-person crews; and (8) multiple functional redundancies to reduce risks to the crews on the surface. New concepts are being sought that would reduce the overall cost for this exploration program and reducing the risks that are indigenous to Mars exploration. Among those areas being explored are alternative space propulsion approaches, solar vs. nuclear power, and reductions in the size of crews.

Connolly, John↗
NASA NTRS1988

Machine vision for space telerobotics and planetary rovers

Machine vision allows a non-contact means of determining the three-dimensional shape of objects in the environment, enabling the control of contact forces when manipulation by a telerobot or traversal by a vehicle is desired. Telerobotic manipulation in Earth orbit requires a system that can recognize known objects in spite of harsh lighting conditions and highly specular or absorptive surfaces. Planetary surface traversal requires a system that can recognize the surface shape and properties of an unknown and arbitrary terrain. Research on these two rather disparate types of vision systems is described.

Wilcox, Brian H.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Image based range determination

Flight vehicles operating at low altitudes such as rotorcraft require range determination schemes for locating the terrain and obstacles. The development of a ranging scheme combining image sequences from vehicle mounted passive imaging sensors and the vehicle motion variables obtained from an on-board inertial navigation system is described. This approach can handle sequences from more than one imaging device. Derivation of the numerical algorithm and the performance results using a laboratory image sequence are given. Other applications of the proposed approach include ranging schemes for autonomous planetary rovers and telerobots.

Menon, P. K. A.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Simulation of Hazards and Poses for a Rocker-Bogie Rover

Provisions for specification of hazards faced by a robotic vehicle (rover) equipped with a rocker-bogie suspension, for prediction of collisions between the vehicle and the hazards, and for simulation of poses of the vehicle at selected positions on the terrain have been incorporated into software that simulates the movements of the vehicle on planned paths across the terrain. The software in question is that of the Web Interface for Telescience (WITS), selected aspects of which have been described in a number of prior NASA Tech Briefs articles. To recapitulate: The WITS is a system of computer software that enables scientists, located at geographically dispersed computer terminals connected to the World Wide Web, to command instrumented robotic vehicles (rovers) during exploration of Mars and perhaps eventually of other planets. The WITS also has potential for adaptation to terrestrial use in telerobotics and other applications that involve computer-based remote monitoring, supervision, control, and planning.

Backes, Paul↗
NASA NTRS2014

Human Mars Surface Science Operations

Human missions to the surface of Mars will have challenging science operations. This paper will explore some of those challenges, based on science operations considerations as part of more general operational concepts being developed by NASA's Human Spaceflight Architecture (HAT) Mars Destination Operations Team (DOT). The HAT Mars DOT has been developing comprehensive surface operations concepts with an initial emphasis on a multi-phased mission that includes a 500-day surface stay. This paper will address crew science activities, operational details and potential architectural and system implications in the areas of (a) traverse planning and execution, (b) sample acquisition and sample handling, (c) in-situ science analysis, and (d) planetary protection. Three cross-cutting themes will also be explored in this paper: (a) contamination control, (b) low-latency telerobotic science, and (c) crew autonomy. The present traverses under consideration are based on the report, Planning for the Scientific Exploration of Mars by Humans1, by the Mars Exploration Planning and Analysis Group (MEPAG) Human Exploration of Mars-Science Analysis Group (HEM-SAG). The traverses are ambitious and the role of science in those traverses is a key component that will be discussed in this paper. The process of obtaining, handling, and analyzing samples will be an important part of ensuring acceptable science return. Meeting planetary protection protocols will be a key challenge and this paper will explore operational strategies and system designs to meet the challenges of planetary protection, particularly with respect to the exploration of "special regions." A significant challenge for Mars surface science operations with crew is preserving science sample integrity in what will likely be an uncertain environment. Crewed mission surface assets -- such as habitats, spacesuits, and pressurized rovers -- could be a significant source of contamination due to venting, out-gassing and cleanliness levels associated with crew presence. Low-latency telerobotic science operations has the potential to address a number of contamination control and planetary protection issues and will be explored in this paper. Crew autonomy is another key cross-cutting challenge regarding Mars surface science operations, because the communications delay between earth and Mars could as high as 20 minutes one way, likely requiring the crew to perform many science tasks without direct timely intervention from ground support on earth. Striking the operational balance between crew autonomy and earth support will be a key challenge that this paper will address.

Bobskill, Marianne R.↗
NASA NTRS2014

NASA VERVE: Interactive 3D Visualization Within Eclipse

At NASA, we develop myriad Eclipse RCP applications to provide situational awareness for remote systems. The Intelligent Robotics Group at NASA Ames Research Center has developed VERVE - a high-performance, robot user interface that provides scientists, robot operators, and mission planners with powerful, interactive 3D displays of remote environments.VERVE includes a 3D Eclipse view with an embedded Java Ardor3D scenario, including SWT and mouse controls which interact with the Ardor3D camera and objects in the scene. VERVE also includes Eclipse views for exploring and editing objects in the Ardor3D scene graph, and a HUD (Heads Up Display) framework allows Growl-style notifications and other textual information to be overlayed onto the 3D scene. We use VERVE to listen to telemetry from robots and display the robots and associated scientific data along the terrain they are exploring; VERVE can be used for any interactive 3D display of data.VERVE is now open source. VERVE derives from the prior Viz system, which was developed for Mars Polar Lander (2001) and used for the Mars Exploration Rover (2003) and the Phoenix Lander (2008). It has been used for ongoing research with IRG's K10 and KRex rovers in various locations. VERVE was used on the International Space Station during two experiments in 2013 - Surface Telerobotics, in which astronauts controlled robots on Earth from the ISS, and SPHERES, where astronauts control a free flying robot on board the ISS.We will show in detail how to code with VERVE, how to interact between SWT controls to the Ardor3D scenario, and share example code.

3D Visualization↗
NASA NTRS2012

A Lunar L2-Farside Exploration and Science Mission Concept with the ORion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle and a Teleoperated Lander/Rover

A novel concept is presented in this paper for a human mission to the lunar L2 (Lagrange) point that would be a proving ground for future exploration missions to deep space while also overseeing scientifically important investigations. In an L2 halo orbit above the lunar farside, the astronauts would travel 15% farther from Earth than did the Apollo astronauts and spend almost three times longer in deep space. Such missions would validate the Orion MPCV's life support systems, would demonstrate the high-speed re-entry capability needed for return from deep space, and would measure astronauts' radiation dose from cosmic rays and solar flares to verify that Orion would provide sufficient protection, as it is designed to do. On this proposed mission, the astronauts would teleoperate landers and rovers on the unexplored lunar farside, which would obtain samples from the geologically interesting farside and deploy a low radio frequency telescope. Sampling the South Pole-Aitkin basin (one of the oldest impact basins in the solar system) is a key science objective of the 2011 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. Observations of the Universe's first stars/galaxies at low radio frequencies are a priority of the 2010 Astronomy & Astrophysics Decadal Survey. Such telerobotic oversight would also demonstrate capability for human and robotic cooperation on future, more complex deep space missions.

Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV)↗
NASA NTRS2003

A Proposed Robotic Astronomy Mission to the Lunar South Polar Regions

This paper outlines a possible mission to emplace a robotic infrared / submillimeter wave interferometer array near the lunar south pole. This region has now been investigated by the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions, and by Earth-based radar, and its topography and thermal environment are fairly well-known. The area would be exceptionally suitable for infrared / submillimeter astronomy because of the continually low temperatures, approaching that of liquid nitrogen (77K) in some places. A submillimeter spaceborne interferometer mission, Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of the Cosmic Structure (SPECS) has been proposed by John Mather and others, covering the 40 - 500 micron region with 3 formation flying telescopes. The present paper proposes a lunar adaptation of the SPECS concept, LSPECS. This adaptation would involve landing 4 telescopes on the area north of Shackleton crater at zero degrees longitude. This is in nearly year round darkness but is continually radar visible from Earth. The landed payload of LSPECS would include a telerobotic rover, 4 three meter submm telescopes, a solar power array to be emplaced on the continually sunlit north rim of Shackleton crater, and an S-band antenna for data relay to Earth. Passive cooling without the use of expendable cryogenics. might be possible, trading long exposure time for instrument temperatures above that of liquid helium. The LSPECS would permit long-term study of an extremely wide range of cosmic and solar system phenomena in the southern celestial hemisphere. For complete sky coverage, a similar installation near the north pole would be required. The LSPECS site would also be suitable other types of observation, such as optical interferometry or centimeter wavelength radio astronomy. The lunar south pole is also of great interest because of its extensive ice deposits, which may represent cometary infall with pre-biotic compounds.

Lowman, Paul D., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2003

LSPECS: A Proposed Robotic Astronomy Mission to the Lunar South Polar Regions

This paper outlines a possible mission to emplace a robotic infrared/submillimeter wave interferometer array near the lunar south pole. This region has now been investigated by the Clementine and Lunar Prospector missions, and by Earth-based radar, and its topography and thermal environment are fairly well-known. The area would be exceptionally suitable for infrared/submillimeter astronomy because of the continually low temperatures, approaching that of liquid nitrogen (77K) in some places. The presence of ice has been inferred independently from Clementine and Lunar Prospector, providing another incentive for a south polar mission. A submillimeter spaceborne interferometer mission, Submillimeter Probe of the Evolution of the Cosmic Structure (SPECS) has been proposed by John Mather and others, covering the 40 - 500 micron region with 3 formation flying telescopes. The present paper proposes a lunar adaptation of the SPECS concept, LSPECS. This adaptation would involve landing 4 telescopes on the area north of Shackleton crater at zero degrees longitude. This is in nearly year round darkness but is continually radar visible from Earth. The landed payload of LSPECS would include a telerobotic rover, 4 three meter submm telescopes, a solar power array to be emplaced on the continually sunlit north rim of Shackleton crater, and an S-band antenna for data relay to Earth. Operation without the use of expendable cryogenics for cooling might be possible, trading long exposure time for instrument temperatures above that of liquid helium. The LSPECS would permit long-term study of an extremely wide range of cosmic and solar system phenomena in the southern celestial hemisphere. For complete sky coverage, a similar installation near the north pole would be required. The LSPECS site would also be suitable other types of observation, such as optical interferometry or centimeter wavelength radio astronomy. The lunar south pole is also of great interest because of its extensive ice deposits, which may represent cometary infall with pre-biotic compounds.

Lowman, Paul D., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2004

An Ontology for Requesting Distant Robotic Action: A Case Study in Naming and Action Identification for Planning on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission

This paper focuses on the development and use of the abbreviated names as well as an emergent ontology associated with making requests for action of a distant robotic rover during the 2003-2004 NASA Mars Exploration Rover (MER) mission, run by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The infancy of the domain of Martian telerobotic science, in which specialists request work from a rover moving through the landscape, as well as the need to consider the interdisciplinary teams involved in the work required an empirical approach. The formulation of this ontology is grounded in human behavior and work practice. The purpose of this paper is to identify general issues for an ontology of action (specifically for requests for action), while maintaining sensitivity to the users, tools and the work system within a specific technical domain. We found that this ontology of action must take into account a dynamic environment, changing in response to the movement of the rover, changes on the rover itself, as well as be responsive to the purposeful intent of the science requestors. Analysis of MER mission events demonstrates that the work practice and even robotic tool usage changes over time. Therefore, an ontology must adapt and represent both incremental change and revolutionary change, and the ontology can never be more than a partial agreement on the conceptualizations involved. Although examined in a rather unique technical domain, the general issues pertain to the control of any complex, distributed work system as well as the archival record of its accomplishments.

Wales, Roxana C.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Rover requirements for the planet surface segment of the space exploration initiative

Annotated requirements for rovers to be used for the First Lunar Outpost (FLO) of the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) and for Mars missions are presented. The requirements are presented in the form of functions as opposed to performance. SEI surface systems will be required to execute many roving vehicle functions ranging from transporting humans to recovery and transporting raw materials to a processing plant. Some of the roving vehicles will be highly automated. These automation functions may include the following: teleoperated site survey and certification; teleoperation for repair; autonomous operations for resource location and mining; autonomous navigation and terrain traverse; and telerobotic scientific investigations. These requirements are complex, contradictory, and will be costly if they are not carefully analyzed and properly allocated to conceptual elements. Of greatest importance will be the iterative analysis of requirements and synergistic utilization of vehicle elements.

Roberts, Barney B.↗