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618 records · Page 22

Detailed examination of LDEF's frame and the A0178 thermal blankets by the meteoroid and debris special investigations group

A responsibility of the group is to define the hypervelocity particle environment encountered by LDEF during its stay in low Earth orbit. LDEF's 6061-T6 aluminum frame and the 'Teflon silver-inconel paint' thermal blankets represent large surface areas that were widely distributed around the spacecraft. The results are reported of high resolution scans of approx. 0.36 and approx. 0.31 sq m for the intercostals and thermal blankets, respectively. The findings are in qualitative agreement with existing model predictions that suggest high differential bombardment histories for surfaces pointing into specific directions relative to the velocity vector of a non-spinning platform in LEO. The production rate for craters greater than or = 50 microns in diameter in aluminum and penetration holes greater than or = 100 microns in diameter in thin foil materials differ by more than a factor of 10 between forward and rearward facing surfaces. These are substantial differences that must be considered during the design of future long duration space platforms in LEO.

Thomas H. See

ELECTRIC PROPULSION- A NEW TECHNOLOGY

Within the past 3 years, electric thrust devices have passed from the first exploratory feasibility experiments to the flight-engineered hardware phase. This rapid surge of development has been punctuated by equally rapid improvements in the performance figures of electrical thrust devices. The most spectacular advances were made in ion engine technology. Total energy expenditure per ion pair has gone from 35,000 ev in 1958 to about 600 ev at the present time leading to power utilization efficiencies of up to 80 per cent, depending upon the specific impulse. The percentage of the particles intercepting the accelerating and focusing electrodes has been reduced from more than 50 per cent in 1958 to less than 0.01 per cent at the present time. Great improvements in ion current per unit area have also been realized, leading to greater thrust "pressures."

ELECTRIC PROPULSION

Skylab Experiment M552: Exothermic Brazing

The M552 Skylab experiment reveals that brazing in space is feasible. It successfully demonstrated the ability to retain molten metal within a braze tube joint system. Surface energy was the dominant operative force system controlling liquid metal for this experiment. The zero gravity environment for brazing resulted in several differences; increased solubility, increased liquid spreading, more uniform menisci (liquid/vapor interface) and a reduction of braze alloy shrinkage defects. The residual radioactive intensity and location of the redistributed isotope was interpreted to provide a sequential history of braze alloy movement during the melt-flow-solidification stages of the process. Convection theory applied to M552 was validated but some results were not explainable by it, i.e., increased nickel transport and the radial mixing of the silver isotope on samples SLN-2 and SLN-4. All characteristics of thermal analysis appeared to react as expected but heat conduction rates increased because of increased extent, rate and uniformity of braze alloy spreading.

J R Williams

MEAD In-situ Sampling and Testing at Haughton Crater

The Mars Exploration through Analog-site Drilling (MEAD) project is designed to demonstrate the feasibility and scientific value of robotic drilling missions to Mars in the search for evidence of past or extant life. MEAD conducts high-fidelity field simulations integrating drilling, autonomous operations, and in-situ life-detection and mineralogical instruments. The project tests the Signs of Life Detector (SOLID), proposed for the 2019 Discovery Mars Icebreaker mission, and ARIA (Astronaut Raman Instrument for ISRU and Astrobiology), which provides mineral identification and detects trace organics and volatiles, including indicators of organic thermal maturity. Because current and planned Mars drilling missions operate largely “blind,” MEAD also evaluates the use of drill-induced vibrations recorded by deployed geophones to enable local subsurface mapping for improved targeting of drilling and sampling. In August 2025, MEAD completed its first-year field deployment to Haughton Crater in the Canadian High Arctic, an established Mars impact-crater terrestrial analog site, bringing a Honeybee Robotics TRIDENT drill with applied automation, alongside ARIA, SOLID, and FleetSpace geophones.

Haughton Crater

Outgassing Characterization of Common Trash Items for Disposal By Nanoracks Airlock on the International Space Station

The arrival of the Nanoracks Airlock to the International Space Station (ISS) has provided the ISS program the capability to dispose of common trash items. The concept of operations involved the crew bagging up those items into a trash bag and then utilizing the robotic arm and the airlock to jettison the trash bag. Because of the unknown thermal vacuum stability of some of the items, a molecular contamination concern was raised by the ISS program as the trash is exposed to vacuum upon the evacuation of air from the airlock and the robotic arm moving the airlock to its jettison location. In order to characterize the representative outgassing rates for ISS trash, thermal vacuum testing was performed at White Sands Test Facility. Trash was sorted into a “lower” outgassing bag and a “mixed” bag. The “mixed” trash bag contained more items that were suspected to be not vacuum stable. Load cells were chosen as the primary means for measuring mass loss. A sharp decay in the outgassing rate was observed in the first 30 minutes followed by a slower decay. As expected, the “mixed” bag lost more mass. While Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCMs) are often utilized to measure long term outgassing rates and the sticking coefficients of contaminants at different operating temperatures for vacuum stable materials, these measurements proved difficult due to the amount and the inclusion of materials with suspect thermal vacuum stability. Because of high rates of material outgassing, the facility was unable to maintain the CQCM temperature setpoint of 80 K QCMs.. The QCMs operating at the warmer temperatures also saturated on occasion due to high levels of condensed matter. Though testing was able to confirm high risk of outgassing contamination for the program, true sticking coefficients could not be determined, available measurements are provided herein.

Alvin Y Huang

CLDP/ISS Glovebox Technical Interchange Meeting

This presentation is designed to provide a high-level overview of the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) and the Life Sciences Glovebox (LSG) facilities onboard the International Space Station. In addition, it provides metrics and lessons-learned information intended for the Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Development Program (CLDP) Partners.

glovebox

Trajectory Engineering with Modular Patched Conics for Entry Systems and TPS (TEMPEST)

Brief Presenter Biography (35 word limit): Bohdan Wesely is an Aerospace Engineer in the Entry Systems and Technology Division at Ames. He has worked on a variety of projects for NASA including integrated TPS (thermal protection system) flight hardware deliveries and testing services for commercial partners. Introduction: TEMPEST is a new trajectory analysis framework that is designed to fill the gap between dedicated flight mechanics tools and aerothermal and TPS sizing tools. The project started as an SJSU master’s thesis and has since evolved into a general conceptual design tool capable of studying a wide variety of entry problems. Development is ongoing in the Entry Systems and Technology Division at NASA ARC. Why TEMPEST: Space missions involving entry into a planetary atmosphere involve a series of unique requirements across multiple disciplines. Whether it is traditional entry descent and landing (EDL), or aerocapture, the vehicle must navigate to its target landing location or orbit state, and the TPS must protect the payload during entry. The design process typically involves iterative handoffs between various flight mechanics, flow solver, and material response level tools. During the early conceptual phase, a wide variety of feasible trajectories are simulated in a Monte Carlo scenario which broadly satisfy the mission or landing requirements. Next, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC), and other flow solver analyses are performed at various key trajectory points to generate an aero-database, heating and TPS design requirements also emerge at this stage. At this point, with updated aerodynamics from the various flow solvers, trajectories can be re-run, this in turn can change the required freestream conditions for the CFD tools, and as a project progresses, these analyses converge, and uncertainty is reduced. However, there is always a “hand-off” occurring between two inherently coupled phenomena. Analysis Description: One of the goals with TEMPEST is to use a variety of first principles estimation methods coupled with an atmosphere model to predict vehicle aerothermodynamics across the entire flight regime while propagating a 3 or 6 degree of freedom (DoF) trajectory. Aerodynamics methods include modified Newtonian, Maxwell and Cercignani- Lampis-Lord (CLL) for continuum, transitional, and free molecular flow regimes. Aerothermodynamics include boundary layer and reference enthalpy methods, and Mutation++ for non-equilibrium chemistry modeling. TEMPEST is also capable of stitching multiple trajectory segments together to study mission scenarios like multi-pass aerocapture and aero-gravity assists. Most of the program is implemented in MATLAB using modern system objects, it relies on several C++ shared libraries for supporting tools like Gmsh, the Global Reference Atmospheric Model (GRAM), and Mutation++. The various first principles aerothermal estimation methods are discretized across either a structured axisymmetric panel mesh or an unstructured tri-mesh generated from an open-source tool such as Gmsh, this allows solutions on the same mesh to be compared across tools such as CB-Aero. CFD Coupling. A physics-aware, gaussian process CFD anchoring scheme is proposed to adjust the various first principles methods as a CFD database is populated. One goal for this anchoring module is to inform the project where CFD should be run. Full knowledge of the entire trajectory, atmosphere, and aerothermodynamics allows for easier identification of high sensitivity areas and uncertainty quantification. While the first principles effects are well known and proven accurate in existing tools such as CB- Aero and Cart3D, a physics aware CFD anchoring scheme increases tool credibility across a project lifecycle. Material Response Modeling. Correct TPS sizing is critical for optimizing mass for science payloads and ensuring mission success. The process typically involves a thermal analysis along the trajectory with surface heating environments as a boundary condition. Several design constraints are maximum bondline temperature and maximum recession with various margining techniques. The material response tool FIAT, developed out of NASA Ames, is currently being integrated into the TEMPEST environment. TPS recession, shape change, mass loss, and mass property alteration are all factors that can perturb an entry trajectory. For missions like Mars 2020, recession was minimal and was safely handled separately as a post process. For missions such as Jupiter Galileo with a high TPS mass fraction or asteroid entries, recession plays a major role. The proposed fully coupled scheme is to use an epoch-based approach where the trajectory integration is halted after a recession threshold, the energy balance and FIAT are solved at each panel, the mesh, aerodynamics, and mass properties are updated, and the trajectory continues. Several computational tradeoffs have been made during the development of TEMPEST to limit the cost of a single trajectory and preserve its utility as a conceptual, rapid iteration tool. Conclusion: Development of TEMPEST is ongoing and the project is still in its infancy. This talk aims to showcase its unique capabilities to support future NASA entry systems missions.

Bohdan O Wesely

Electric Propulsion for Manned Missions

Electric propulsion is of interest for manned interplanetary missions, primarily because it offers the potential of delivering and returning relatively large payload fractions from the planets. This can be achieved because of the high specific impulse obtainable when the propellant is accelerated by electrical means rather than thermally, as in chemical and nuclear rockets.

Robert J Denington

International Space Station Lithium-Ion Battery Start-Up and Cycling

The International Space Station (ISS) primary Electric Power System (EPS) was originally designed to use Nickel-Hydrogen (Ni-H2) batteries to store electrical energy. The electricity for the ISS is generated by its solar arrays, which charge batteries during insolation for subsequent discharge during eclipse. The Ni-H2 batteries were designed to operate at a 35 depth of discharge (DOD) maximum during normal operation in a Low Earth Orbit. In 2010, the ISS Program began the development of Lithium-Ion (Li-Ion) batteries to replace Ni-H2 batteries approaching the end of their useful life and concurrently funded a Li-Ion ORU (Orbital Replacement Unit) and cell life testing project. The first set of 6 Li-ion battery replacements was launched in December 2016 and deployed in January 2017. This paper will discuss the Li-ion battery on-orbit cycling and the status of the Li-Ion cell and ORU life cycle testing.

International Space Station

Advanced Liquid Propulsion Systems

The Advanced Liquid Propulsion Systems program is investigating selected problems generated by spacecraft operational requirements for propulsion systems capable of high inherent reliability, long-term storage in the space environment, multiple start in free fall (zero gravity), and engine throttling. The solutions proposed to satisfy these requirements are coordinated for practical application in a system.

PROPULSION SYSTEM

Improvements to RANS Modeling for Aeroheating Predictions on Blunt Bodies

Accurate predictions of aeroheating are critical for designing thermal protection systems for planetary entry vehicles. For larger vehicles, turbulence in the boundary layer can substantially increase convective heating. This turbulence must be accurately modeled to ensure the thermal protection system is sufficient. The majority of hypersonic turbulence model development and validation focuses on boundary layers developing over flat-plates or sharp cones; these cases are substantially different than the boundary layer that develops over the heatshield of a blunt body traveling at hypersonic speeds. Planetary missions often use blunt body geometries, such as the 70-degree sphere-cone favored by Mars missions or the 45-degree sphere-cone planned for the upcoming DAVINCI mission. Due to smaller vehicle size and the lower velocities in the stagnation region, planetary entry vehicles have relatively low Reynolds numbers. Surface curvature and high enthalpy gradients create additional challenges. These difficulties must be addressed to obtain high accuracy needed for the ambitious planetary missions in the upcoming decade. This work focuses on both assessing and improving Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models for blunt-body geometries typical of planetary entry vehicles, with a focus on one-equation and two-equation formulations.

Mars2020

Model Spread in Tropical Low Cloud Feedback Tied to Overturning Circulation Response to Warming

Among models participating in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), here we show that the magnitude of the tropical low cloud feedback, which contributes considerably to uncertainty in estimates of climate sensitivity, is intimately linked to tropical deep convection and its effects on the tropical atmospheric overturning circulation. First, a reduction in tropical ascent area and an increased frequency of heavy precipitation result in high cloud reduction and upper-tropospheric drying, which increases longwave cooling and reduces subsidence weakening, favoring low cloud reduction (Radiation-Subsidence Pathway). Second, increased longwave cooling decreases tropospheric stability, which also reduces subsidence weakening and low cloudiness (Stability-Subsidence Pathway). In summary, greater high cloud reduction and upper-tropospheric drying (negative longwave feedback) lead to a more positive cloud feedback among CMIP6 models by contributing to a greater reduction in low cloudiness (positive shortwave feedback). Varying strengths of the two pathways contribute considerably to the intermodel spread in climate sensitivity.

Atmospheric dynamics

Behavior of Ullage Bubbles During Blowdown in Low-g Experiment (BUBBLE): Overview of a Cryogenic Tank Depressurization Test

Behavior of Ullage Bubbles during Blowdown in Low-g Experiment (BUBBLE) is a cryogenic tank depressurization drop tower experiment currently being designed at NASA Glenn Research Center. There is a need for liquid level rise data while venting a cryogenic propellant tank below the liquid saturation pressure in a reduced gravity environment. When a cryogenic tank is vented to a vapor pressure below the liquid saturation pressure, bubbles become entrained in the liquid causing the bulk liquid-vapor interface to rise. In reduced gravity, bubble rise velocity is diminished leading to a larger liquid level rise compared to a 1g environment. The purpose of the experiment is to gain further understanding of tank depressurization fluid physics and obtain high-fidelity data for model validation in 1g and reduced gravity environments. On-orbit cryogenic propellant tanks operating at high fill levels must efficiently manage venting operations to avoid the risk of liquid entrainment in the vent line, which could lead to asymmetric control thruster loads, freezing and clogging, and loss of liquid propellant. Validated models could be used to design settling and venting profiles to reduce risk and increase efficiency for cryogenic storage and transfer operations.

tank venting

RTE: A Computer Code for Rocket Thermal Evaluation

The numerical model for a rocket thermal analysis code (RTE) is discussed. RTE is a comprehensive thermal analysis code for thermal analysis of regeneratively cooled rocket engines. The input to the code consists of the composition of fuel/oxidant mixture and flow rates, chamber pressure, coolant temperature and pressure. dimensions of the engine, materials and the number of nodes in different parts of the engine. The code allows for temperature variation in axial, radial and circumferential directions. By implementing an iterative scheme, it provides nodal temperature distribution, rates of heat transfer, hot gas and coolant thermal and transport properties. The fuel/oxidant mixture ratio can be varied along the thrust chamber. This feature allows the user to incorporate a non-equilibrium model or an energy release model for the hot-gas-side. The user has the option of bypassing the hot-gas-side calculations and directly inputting the gas-side fluxes. This feature is used to link RTE to a boundary layer module for the hot-gas-side heat flux calculations.

Mohammad H N Naraghi

Multifaceted Considerations for Fission Surface Power Radiation Shielding Design

The purpose of the Fission Surface Power (FSP) nuclear system is to provide energy on the Moon and Mars for supporting their exploration and colonization. The FSP design and deployment can leverage the past research and development work in areas, such as reactor design, but such crucial components as radiation shielding and instrumentation still need material and manufacturing studies, modeling, and testing. The shielding components are needed for the protection of humans, electronics, and sensitive components. They are essential system components, but they are often the heaviest components of the system for which each kilogram matters. Different material combinations and layouts are possible. The studies presented were focused on the evaluation of several options. The initial analysis included their performance assessment, initial temperature distribution evaluation and manufacturability considerations. Several feasible shield design options were identified and discussed in this paper, as well.

Fission Surface Power

Characterization Testing of a 20 Kelvin Cryocooler for Space Applications

Future NASA space exploration missions will require long-duration storage and liquefaction of cryogenic liquids, enabled by active cooling provided by cryocoolers. Recent gap analyses of Lunar and Mars transportation systems have identified 20 K-class cryocoolers as a critical enabling technology for chemical and nuclear thermal propulsion architectures using liquid hydrogen propellant. To address this technology gap, NASA has undergone the development of a high-efficiency, high-capacity 20 K cryocooler via an SBIR partnership with Creare. While the January 2025 testing demonstrated functionality and compliance with contractual requirements, the objective of the NASA-led characterization effort was to generate a dataset for supporting future mission designs across a broader operating envelope, including off-nominal conditions. The cryocooler demonstrated strong performance, achieving a peak coefficient of performance of 17.68% relative to Carnot efficiency and a maximum lift capacity of 24.4 W at 21 K. Overall, the results confirm that the 20 W 20 K cryocooler provides a flexible range of capabilities to enable zero boil-off storage of liquid hydrogen for future Lunar and Mars missions. The data collected provide a strong foundation for model validation and future system design efforts.

Cryocooler

Characterization Testing of a 20 Kelvin Cryocooler for Space Applications

Future NASA space exploration missions will require long-duration storage and liquefaction of cryogenic liquids, enabled by active cooling provided by cryocoolers. Recent gap analyses of Lunar and Mars transportation systems have identified 20 K-class cryocoolers as a critical enabling technology for chemical and nuclear thermal propulsion architectures using liquid hydrogen propellant. To address this technology gap, NASA has undergone the development of a high-efficiency, high-capacity 20 K cryocooler via an SBIR partnership with Creare. While the January 2025 testing demonstrated functionality and compliance with contractual requirements, the objective of the NASA-led characterization effort was to generate a dataset for supporting future mission designs across a broader operating envelope, including off-nominal conditions. The cryocooler demonstrated strong performance, achieving a peak coefficient of performance of 17.68% relative to Carnot efficiency and a maximum lift capacity of 24.4 W at 21 K. Overall, the results confirm that the 20 W 20 K cryocooler provides a flexible range of capabilities to enable zero boil-off storage of liquid hydrogen for future Lunar and Mars missions. The data collected provide a strong foundation for model validation and future system design efforts.

Zero boil-off

An advanced Ni-Cd battery cell design

The evolution of an advanced Ni-Cd space battery cell design continues to prove very promising. High oxygen/hydrogen gas recombination rates (currently up to a C/5 charge rate) and increased electrolyte activation level tolerance (currently up to 5.6 grams Ah of positive capacity) were demonstrated by test. A superior performance, extended life battery cell offering advantages should soon be available for mission applications

Miller, L.