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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 NTRS2026

Investigation of Bipropellant Plume-Induced Contamination Effects on Coverglass Materials

Contamination and degradation of external spacecraft materials by unburned and partially combusted species from bipropellant thruster plumes has long been observed as a key component of the induced space environment. Space shuttle flight experiments and returned flight hardware from the International Space Station (ISS) have both experienced microscopic impact features induced by high-velocity thruster plume droplets. Analytical results have shown that droplet impingement angle relative to a receiving surface plays a key role in the surface damage. Although impacts with normal impingement angles contribute more severely to surface degradation than highly oblique angles, surface effects at higher impingement angles should not be dismissed. Thruster plume-induced materials degradation is a complex phenomenon that depends on a variety of parameters, including but not limited to material type, system temperature and pressure, plume composition, and thruster firing specifications such as number of pulses, pulse duration, and sample distance from the thruster. For space applications, attaining the vacuum pressure and temperature conditions necessary for flight-like plume expansion and exposure conditions is not a trivial task. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, DLR) is a facility uniquely capable of simulating such conditions. Test coupons were exposed to bipropellant thruster firings under high vacuum at the DLR facility. Percent area coverage (PAC) and droplet size distributions were evaluated for the uncoated and coated solar array coverglass materials over a range of impingement angles (0̊ to 75̊). A post-test imaging workflow was developed that aimed to quantify changes in sample surface morphology obtained from scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images using the Image Processing and Analysis in Java (ImageJ) tool; an opensource image processing software. The goal was to create a framework through which to evaluate the effect of bipropellant-induced PAC and droplet size distribution on solar array coverglass optical transmission losses. Understanding this relationship is important because optical transmission losses are known to lead to current reduction in solar power generation systems. In addition to the development of surface characterization workflows, valuable lessons learned as they pertain to future investigations and experiments will be discussed. The authors hope that sharing these lessons will facilitate more utilization of DLR’s unique capabilities as well as open the conversation for how best to address experimental characterization of flight-like plume expansion and its impacts on materials surface degradation effects.

Gateway↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

High EneRgy Observatory for Imaging X-rays (HEROIX) Mission Concept

The High EneRgy Observatory for Imaging X-rays (HEROIX) is a next-generation broadband X-ray space telescope concept under development as a Medium-Class Explorer mission. Building on more than three decades of replicated NiCo shell technology at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, HEROIX will deliver 5 arcsecond half-power-diameter imaging resolution in the hard X-ray band. The observatory will incorporate four co-aligned telescopes with advanced multilayer coatings, extending the bandpass into the hard X-ray regime and providing an integrated effective area of 380 cm² at 30 keV. A suite of focal plane detectors will enable imaging capability throughout its 1–80 keV bandpass. This combination of angular resolution and high-energy coverage will open new windows into non-thermal processes in extreme astrophysical environments. HEROIXwill deliver transformative science, advancing the astrophysics community’s understanding of supernova physics, the X-ray binary population of the Galactic Center, accretion-driven galaxy evolution, and the origin of the Cosmic X-ray Background.

Nick Thomas↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Material Properties and Modeling of Room Temperature Vulcanizing Silicone

Room Temperature Vulcanizing silicone (RTV) is a high-temperature adhesive that has successfully been used as a gap-filler between Thermal Protection System (TPS) tiles for heatshields on numerous missions. It is also used to bond instrumentation plugs such as temperature and pressure sensors into the heatshields. While RTV has been traditionally assumed to be a non-porous and non-ablating material, numerous experiments have shown that RTV pyrolyzes and becomes highly porous as it is heated. Heating RTV has also shown swelling, or intumescence, which can pose unique problems that lead to roughness induced boundary-layer transition, surface oxide formation and contamination of heat shield sensors. Therefore, it is crucial to understand and model the intumescence phenomenon of RTV. As data for RTV material properties is limited, the first step in modeling RTV is to collect material properties such as pyrolysis mass-loss, microstructure change, virgin and char porosity, etc. which was performed in our initial study. Additionally, thermomechanical properties such as Young’s modulus and Poisson ratio are required for modeling the intumescence of RTV, which were taken from literature and the coefficient of thermal expansion was collected using in-situ heating and Micro Computed Tomography (µ-CT) in previous studies. Finally, numerous other properties such as pyrolysis gas properties, virgin and char thermal conductivity and specific heat were compiled from previous experiments and literature into a material database that can be used for simulations. In Porous Material Analysis Toolbox based on OpenFOAM (PATO) [4], structural mechanics coupled with material response was used for simulating the intumescence of RTV as it is heated. However, since the permeability of the material is very low, the pyrolysis gas creates an internal pressure build-up as the material is being heated, significantly contributing to the deformation of the material. To correctly characterize this phenomenon, additional physics models were implemented into PATO's stress analysis solver, and results were compared with RTV dilatometry test data as a preliminary verification case. Future work will include experiments of RTV at the Plasmatron X facility and the in-situ heating cell with µ-CT, and improvement of simulation tools to more accurately model RTV intumescence.

PATO↗
NASA NTRS2026

The Habitable Worlds Observatory Technology Development Plan

The Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) is NASA’s next large space telescope, selected by the 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics to search for and characterize habitable exoplanets while enabling a broad range of transformative astrophysics. In August 2024, the HWO Technology Maturation Project Office (TMPO) was formed to begin exploring the HWO science, technology, and mission architectures toward a Mission Concept Review (MCR) at the end of the decade. A primary deliverable of this effort is this technology development plan that identifies critical technologies that enable the mission, defines a process for assessing the readiness of those technologies, and outlines a strategy for developing those technologies to a Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 5 before the MCR. This document covers technologies organized along three “tracks”: Coronagraph System technologies, Ultra-stable Telescope System technologies, and High-sensitivity Ultraviolet and Visible Instrumentation technologies. Additional emerging and enhancing technologies are also discussed.

technology development↗
NASA NTRS1993

A SIMULINK Environment for Flight Dynamics and Control Analysis - Application to the DHC-2 'Beaver', Part 1. Implementation of a Model Library in SIMULINK

The design of advanced Automatic Aircraft Control Systems (AACS's) can be improved upon considerably if the designer can access all models and tools required for control system design and analysis through a graphical user-interface, from within one software environment. This MSc-thesis presents the first step in the development of such an environment, which is currently being done at the Section for Stability and Control of Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. The environment is implemented within the commercially available software package MATLAB/SIMULINK. The report consists of two parts. Part I gives a detailed description of the AACS design environment. The heart of this environment is formed by the SIMULINK implementation of a nonlinear aircraft model in block-diagram format. The model has been worked out for the old laboratory aircraft of the Faculty, the De Havilland DHC-2 'Beaver', but due to its modular structure, it can easily be adapted for other aircraft. Part I also describes MATLAB programs which can be applied for finding steady-state trimmed-flight conditions and for linearization of the aircraft model, and it shows how the built-in simulation routines of SIMULINK have been used for open-loop analysis of the aircraft dynamics. Apart from the implementation of the models and tools, a thorough treatment of the theoretical backgrounds is presented. Part II of this report presents a part of an autopilot design process for the 'Beaver' aircraft, which clearly demonstrates the power and flexibility of the AACS design environment from part I. Evaluations of all longitudinal and lateral control laws by means of nonlinear simulations are treated in detail. The AACS design environment from part I proved to be a very useful tool for designing the control laws of the 'Beaver' autopilot within a very tight time-schedule. The autopilot design process itself will be used as a guideline for future AACS research at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. Flight tests of the 'Beaver' autopilot, done after evaluating the control laws in the SIMULINK package, proved to be quite successful. In the future, the AACS design package will evolve into a standardized, integrated design environment which can be applied to virtually any type of aircraft. The AACS design cycle will be shortened further by developing tools for automatically porting control laws from the MATLAB/SIMULINK environment to a piloted real-time flight simulator and the Flight Control Computers of the aircraft.

Aircraft Modelling↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

First N 2 Profile for Venus’ Deep Lower Atmosphere

We present the first N 2 profile for Venus’ deep lower atmosphere (<15 km) and a constrained isotopic composition for cloud N 2 [1]. This work directly addresses unresolved questions for Venus using legacy observations. Prior to this work, there were no reported measurements for N 2 abundances at <15 km and the isotopic composition remained unconstrained [2]. The N 2 parameters are critical to understanding the evolution and thermal properties of the atmosphere [3-7]. Our N 2 results were obtained by re-analysis of data acquired in 1978 by the Pioneer Venus Large Probe Neutral Mass Spectrometer (LNMS) [8]. The archived mass spectra from 64.2 to 0.2 km were treated using the analytical procedures specifically developed for the LNMS [9-11]. Judicious peak fitting permitted disambiguation of (A) N 2 + and CO + at 28 u and (B) 14 N 15 N+, 13 CO + , and C 2 H 5 + at 29 u. Quality controls included comparing the (A) LNMS CO + /CO 2 + ratios to the NIST database and literature and (B) fitted counts for CO + to the expected counts of CO + calculated from C 18 O + and 13 CO + using the LNMS 16 O/ 18 O and 12 C/ 13 C ratios (obtained from CO 2 ). Our results show that N 2 is uniformly mixed across the deep lower atmosphere between ~0.2 and 15 km (2.49 ± 0.10 v%). In contrast, N 2 is non-uniformly mixed across the sub-cloud atmosphere and clouds (~15–59 km), where N 2 abundances increase by ~ 2-fold between ~15 km (2.45 ± 0.32 v%) and ~59-51 km (5.21 ± 0.18 v%). Using the cloud data, we also obtained a constrained 15 N/ 14 N ratio (2.93×10 -3 ± 0.13×10 -3 ) and δ 15 N value (-204 ± 35‰). Thus, the LNMS results [1] suggest that (A) the atmosphere is unstable at <15 km, (B) N 2 is not well-mixed >15 km, and (C) the cloud δ 15 N falls between Earth and the solar wind [12, 13]. Comparisons of the N 2 abundances and isotopic compositions for nitrogen, carbon, and oxygen to other Venus measurements will be discussed.

deep lower atmosphere↗
NASA NTRS2026

Barium Fluoride as a Standard Reference Material for Infrared Refractometry

This work proposes a standard reference material (SRM) for measurements of refractive index in the infrared spectral region (1–12 μm). The purpose of this material is to enable cross-method comparison of refractive index data obtained through minimum deviation, ellipsometry, interferometry, and prism coupling techniques. This will allow vendors and metrology laboratories, regardless of which technique they employ, to certify that their measurements meet required levels of accuracy, precision, and repeatability. Drawing on foundational work by Tilton at the National Bureau of Standards, a figure of merit for candidate SRM materials is outlined, and three materials are selected for further evaluation. Ultimately, barium fluoride is proposed as the most suitable SRM for the infrared spectral region, based on its broad transmission range, chemical and mechanical stability, low temperature dependence of refractive index, and well-characterized dispersion behavior.

Andrew Howe↗
NASA NTRS2015

Comparison of Cryogenic Flow Boiling in Liquid Nitrogen and Liquid Hydrogen Chilldown Experiments

This paper presents a comparison between experimental results from recent liquid hydrogen (LH 2 ) transfer line chilldown experiments at high Reynolds (Re) numbers versus liquid nitrogen (LN 2 ) experiments conducted at low Re numbers. Parasitic heat leak, inner wall temperatures, inner wall heat fluxes, and heat transfer coefficients are computed to compare between the two systems. Analysis of temperature traces and flow visualization indicates that the chilldown process evolves much more rapidly at higher Re numbers due to a quick transition from vapor flow to annular liquid flow and near immediate liquid contact along the pipe walls. The lower kinematic viscosity and surface tension of LH 2 , along with reduced parasitic heat leak and higher Re numbers relative to the LN 2 experiments, causes chilldown to proceed almost immediately into the nucleate boiling regime, in comparison to low Re flows where >75% of the chilldown is spent in vapor film boiling.

Cryogenic Heat Transfer Coefficient↗
NASA NTRS2026

Artemis Suit Material Effects of Calendaring Woven Fabrics on Dust Resistance

This paper presents one element of an ongoing NASA technology-infusion effort to design, fabricate, and test a new outer shell fabric for a lunar Extravehicular Activity (EVA) space suit, a critical component of sustained lunar exploration. A primary challenge for suit textiles is preventing lunar dust, which is highly abrasive, electrostatically charged, and capable of infiltrating even tightly woven fabrics from penetrating the Environment Protection Garment (EPG) and compromising suit durability and astronaut safety. To enhance dust-blocking performance, the Artemis Suit Materials Team investigated calendaring, a continuous roll to roll mechanical finishing process in which fabric passes through heated rollers under high pressure to compress and flatten the weave, thereby reducing pore size and modifying surface texture without significantly affecting other properties. Targeted testing of calendared Teflon™ T-162 and Ortho Fabric samples provides new insight into how calendaring influences dust resistance, informing future material development and advancing EVA suit technology for long-duration lunar missions.

Dust↗
NASA NTRS2026

Artemis Suit Material Effects of Calendaring Woven Fabrics on Dust Resistance

This paper presents one element of an ongoing NASA technology-infusion effort to design, fabricate, and test a new outer shell fabric for a lunar Extravehicular Activity (EVA) space suit, a critical component of sustained lunar exploration. A primary challenge for suit textiles is preventing lunar dust, which is highly abrasive, electrostatically charged, and capable of infiltrating even tightly woven fabrics from penetrating the Environment Protection Garment (EPG) and compromising suit durability and astronaut safety. To enhance dust-blocking performance, the Artemis Suit Materials Team investigated calendaring, a continuous roll to roll mechanical finishing process in which fabric passes through heated rollers under high pressure to compress and flatten the weave, thereby reducing pore size and modifying surface texture without significantly affecting other properties. Targeted testing of calendared Teflon™ T-162 and Ortho Fabric samples provides new insight into how calendaring influences dust resistance, informing future material development and advancing EVA suit technology for long-duration lunar missions.

Dust↗
NASA NTRS1993

The Castor 120 (TM) Motor: Development and Qualification Testing Results

This paper discusses Thiokol Corporation's static test results for the development and qualification program of the Castor 120(TM) motor. The demonstration program began with a 25,000-pound motor to demonstrate the new technologies and processes that would be used on the larger Castor 120(TM) motor. The Castor 120(TM) motor was designed to be applicable as a first stage, second stage, or strap-on motor. Static test results from the Castor 25 and two Castor 120(TM) motors are discussed in this paper. The results verified the feasibility of tailoring the propellant grain configuration and nozzle throat diameter to meet various customer requirements. The first and second motors were conditioned successfully at ambient temperature and 28 F, respectively, to demonstrate that the design could handle a wide range of environmental launch conditions. Furthermore, the second Castor 120(TM) motor demonstrated a systems tunnel and forward skirt extension to verify flight-ready stage hardware. It is anticipated that the first flight motor will be ready by the fall of 1994.

Jack G Hilden↗
NASA NTRS2026

Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) Phase 1 3-Stage Compressor Rig Final Report - Unlimited Rights

The HyTEC Phase 1 3-Stage Compressor Rig project was conducted to mature and validate front-stage aerodynamic technologies in support of HyTEC Phase 2 and GEA’s Compact Core compressor. Building on the prior ERA Phase 2 Baseline Rig, GEA and NASA collaborated on the design and testing of the HyTEC rig, incorporating advanced technologies such as increased radius ratio, higher aerodynamic loading, and advanced casing treatment. The HyTEC test campaign leveraged similar design and instrumentation philosophy, test execution approach, and the same facility (NASA W-7) to enable clear comparison with the legacy ERA rig results. The HyTEC rig was designed to deliver benefits in efficiency, tip loading, operability, and aeromechanics, with success measured against defined TPMs that were anchored to the ERA baseline rig data.

Axial Compressors↗
NASA NTRS2026

Contamination Control and Assessment Strategy for Martian Moons Exploration (MMX)

Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) is a sample return mission from the Martian moon Phobos. The MMX spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2026 and return to Earth in 2031. The primary science objective of MMX is to reveal the origin of the Martian moons, thereby advancing the understanding of planetary system formation and material transport in the solar system, as well as to observe processes affecting the circumplanetary and surface environments of Mars. The returned sample will be transported to the curation facility at ISAS/JAXA, and the subsequent curation and sample analysis activity will be conducted. As a sample return mission, MMX requires strict contamination control to prevent the intrusion of terrestrial materials.

H Sugahara↗
NASA NTRS2010

High-Precision Shape Control of In-Space Deployable Large Membrane/Thin-Shell Reflectors

This innovation has been developed to improve the resolutions of future spacebased active and passive microwave antennas for earth-science remote sensing missions by maintaining surface figure precisions of large membrane/thin-shell reflectors during orbiting. The intention is for these sensing instruments to be deployable at orbit altitudes one or two orders of magnitude higher than Low Earth Orbit (LEO), but still being able to acquire measurements at spatial resolution and sensitivity similar to those of LEO. Because active and passive microwave remote sensors are able to penetrate through clouds to acquire vertical profile measurements of geophysical parameters, it is desirable to elevate them to the higher orbits to obtain orbital geometries that offer large spatial coverage and more frequent observations. This capability is essential for monitoring and for detailed understanding of the life cycles of natural hazards, such as hurricanes, tropical storms, flash floods, and tsunamis. Major components of this high-precision antenna-surface-control system include a membrane/thin shell reflector, a metrology sensor, a controller, actuators, and corresponding power amplifier and signal conditioning electronics (see figure). Actuators are attached to the back of the reflector to produce contraction/ expansion forces to adjust the shape of the thin-material reflector. The wavefront-sensing metrology system continuously measures the surface figure of the reflector, converts the surface figure to digital data and feeds the data to the controller. The controller determines the control parameters and generates commands to the actuator system. The flexible, piezoelectric polymer actuators are thus activated, providing the control forces needed to correct any distortions that exist in the reflector surface. Piezoelectric polymer actuators are very thin and flexible. They can be implemented on the back of the membrane/thin-shell reflector without introducing significant amounts of mass or stiffness to the reflector. They can be rolled up or folded to accommodate the packaging needed for launch. An analytical model of the system, which includes the membrane reflector, actuator, and controller has been developed to investigate the functionality of this control system on a 35-meter-diameter membrane reflector. The performance of this system under external disturbances such as in space thermal loads and W-error due to inflation has been investigated. A subscale breadboard has been developed, and the functionality of this control concept has been demonstrated by this breadboard.

Houfei Fang↗
NASA NTRS1998

Summary of Research Report

Ten papers, published in various publications, on buckling, and the effects of imperfections on various structures are presented. These papers are: (1) Buckling mode localization in elastic plates due to misplacement in the stiffner location; (2) On vibrational imperfection sensitivity on Augusti's model structure in the vicinity of a non-linear static state; (3) Imperfection sensitivity due to elastic moduli in the Roorda Koiter frame; (4) Buckling mode localization in a multi-span periodic structure with a disorder in a single span; (5) Prediction of natural frequency and buckling load variability due to uncertainty in material properties by convex modeling; (6) Derivation of multi-dimensional ellipsoidal convex model for experimental data; (7) Passive control of buckling deformation via Anderson localization phenomenon; (8)Effect of the thickness and initial im perfection on buckling on composite cylindrical shells: asymptotic analysis and numerical results by BOSOR4 and PANDA2; (9) Worst case estimation of homology design by convex analysis; (10) Buckling of structures with uncertain imperfections - Personal perspective.

Isaac Elishakoff↗
NASA NTRS1993

Failure Modes of Reduced-Order Orbit Determination Filters and Their Remedies

Ways in which failure can occur in reduced-order, orbit determination filter, error covariance calculations are discussed. In the context of this article, reduced-order filters denote nonoptimal filters which include fixed levels of uncertainty in some parameters of the measurement models or in the spacecraft dynamical model which are not explicitly estimated in the filter equations. Failure is defined as an increase in the orbit determination covariance with the addition of data or as an unreasonable growth in the covariance with time, i.e., nonasymptotic behavior of the covariance. Some simple, known cases of failure are discussed along with their traditional remedies. In addition, more modern remedies are discussed which are currently under development at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The article first describes the known problems of reduced-order filters when they are employed for orbit determination, and their traditional remedies. Then, having defined these, the relevancy and desirability of the more modern remedies are made apparent.

D J Scheeres↗
NASA NTRS1999

Solid Inflammability Boundary at Low Speed (SIBAL)

This research program is concerned with the effect of low-speed, concurrent flow on the spreading and extinction processes of flames over solid fuels. The primary objective is to verify the theoretically predicted extinction boundary, using oxygen percentage and flow velocity as coordinates. In particular, we are interested in the low-speed quenching limits and the existence of the critical oxygen flammability limit. Detailed flame spread characteristics, including flame spread rate, flame size, and flame structure are sought. Since the predicted flame behavior depends on the inclusion of flame and surface radiation, the measured results will also be used to assess the importance of radiative heat transfer by direct comparison to a comprehensive numerical model. This project passed the Science Concept Review (SCR) in 1996. As a result, the experiment continues on the flight definition path, and is currently scheduled to be performed in the Space Station Combustion Integrated Rack (CIR). We present an overview of recent and ongoing work, including selected experimental and theoretical topics.

James S T'ien↗
NASA NTRS1990

Discharge Transient Coupling in Large Space Power Systems

Experiments have shown that plasma environments can induce discharges in solar arrays. These plasmas simulate the environments found in low earth orbits where current plans call for operation of very large power systems. The discharges could be large enough to couple into the power system and possibly disrupt operations. Here, the general concepts of the discharge mechanism and the techniques of coupling are discussed. Data from both ground and flight experiments are reviewed to obtain an expected basis for the interactions. These concepts were applied to the Space Station solar array and distribution system as an example of the large space power system. The effect of discharges was found to be a function of the discharge site. For most sites in the array discharges would not seriously impact performance. One location at the negative end of the array was identified as a position where discharges could couple to charge stored in system capacitors. This latter case could impact performance.

N John Stevens↗