Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “management efforts”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 415 records · Page 23
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

CropManage Application for Vineyard Irrigation Decision-Support

CropManage is a free web-application developed by U.C. Cooperative Extension to support evapotranspiration based irrigation scheduling and nutrient management for major specialty crops. Prescribed phenology curves are used to develop daily estimates of canopy cover within a given field, based on days since planting (annual crops) or budbreak (trees, vines). These curves are modulated by a MaxCan parameter representing seasonal maximum canopy cover. Crop development observations can be used to adjust for such factors as weather anomalies or non-standard agronomic practice, as needed. Canopy cover is converted to crop coefficient and combined with reference evapotranspiration to derive daily water consumption. Guidance on crop water requirement is then conveyed to users in terms of system runtime issued on-demand for a given date, largely based on total evapotranspiration since last irrigation event. In this study, CropManage was adapted to vineyards by adding modules accounting for early-season soil moisture depletion and cover crop presence. A crop stress parameter was added to accommodate deficit irrigation practice, allowing the user to specify percentage departure from full water requirement along with start/stop dates. An initial verification exercise was performed on three winegrape vineyards located in California’s Central Coast (2020), North Coast (2020) and Central Valley (2019). Daily crop evapotranspiration was monitored by eddy-covariance fluxtowers. MaxCan was measured by ground and satellite observation. Stress regime was specified by grower practice where available, otherwise stress levels were inferred from applied water records. Mean absolute error and mean bias error of modeled cumulative evapotranspiration were computed with respect to the eddy covariance measurements collected throughout the growing season. Results indicate the modified CropManage water management module performs reasonably well for winegrape. Additional effort is planned to modify the nutrient module for vineyard use.

CropManage↗
NASA NTRS2022

Planetary Protection Policy and Technology Developments for the Crewed Exploration of Mars

As part of planning for potential future crewed exploration of Mars, NASA is developing its planetary protection policy for crewed missions, building on concepts developed within the international space exploration community. COSPAR (The Committee on Space Research), together with participating space agencies, has over the last several years organized and held interdisciplinary meetings to consider next steps in addressing knowledge gaps for planetary protection for the first human missions to Mars. Beginning with these workshop discussions as a base, NASA has held follow-on planning activities to identify the necessary steps to be accomplished to close those knowledge gaps. Significant overlap was identified between the planetary protection needs, including; microbial monitoring requirements for crew health and medical systems; studies of the microbiome of the built environment; environmental control and life support system (ECLSS) venting and disinfection strategies; waste management, and; planetary surface operations. In many cases, efforts to mature exploration systems for Mars that are occurring in other technology domains can be leveraged with minor changes to address planetary protection gaps as well. In other cases, work planned for testing on ISS as an analog for Mars transit, or on the lunar surface as an analog for Mars surface operations, can be used to close gaps in current planetary protection capabilities. This presentation provides a status update on the findings of the COSPAR Meetings on this topic to date, together with NASA’s responses in terms of agency-level plans and activities.

James N Benardini↗
NASA NTRS2022

Ideas on the NASA Senior Review and Mission Extension Process

Extended mission budgets fund a significant part of our community, particularly young scientists who in a relatively short time are exposed to a broad range of experiences and opportunities available in space science and other STEM fields. In particular, mission-funded science offers a relatively stable funding stream that enables meaningful mentoring efforts and interactions, including apprenticeships ranging from project management, to mission operations, to data processing and analysis, to hardware and software development, to STEM-related education and outreach. It moreover provides professional contacts that fuel diversity in mission leadership and in the science and technical workforce at-large. Last but not least, it sustains the scientific productivity of NASA’s missions, which constitute major national investments meriting their full exploitation. Budgets cuts, however, are exercising pressure on the science and operations of the extended mission fleet despite being only a small portion of the overall Division budget. The history of Heliophysics has demonstrated that maintaining the operation of missions beyond their prime phase invariably leads to a much deeper knowledge of the original mission science goals, together with new applications often not foreseen during their original design. Their operation as part of the Heliophysics System Observatory (HSO)---a coordinated, 1eliophysics, multipoint observing system of the heliosphere, is a prime example. Some of the first activities undertaken by the Parker Solar Probe and Solar Orbiter missions required recreating the larger context of their new observations by using the diversity of HSO mission capabilities. The marginal cost of maintaining this valuable, working science resource, in the form of both continuing high quality data access and expertise, is small compared to the cost of the original missions or of new missions to achieve similar objectives, making the operation of extended missions, the best “science per dollar” investment in Heliophysics. We argue that reducing both extended mission operations and science budgets will have a ripple effect across the community, including reducing employment and training opportunities for young scientists, to lowering the quality/impact of the Heliophysics Systems Observatory. Instead, we suggest that the proposal process for mission extension should be re-examined. We offer several ideas for reducing costs of extended missions toward maintaining science output and streamlining the management process.

A. Vourlidas↗
NASA NTRS1972

Remote sensing in Michigan for land resource management

This project to demonstrate the application of earth resource survey technology to current problems in Michigan was undertaken jointly by the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan and Michigan State University. Remote sensing techniques were employed to advantage in providing management information for the Pointe Mouillee State Game Area and preparing an impact assessment in advance of the projected construction of the M-14 freeway from Ann Arbor to Plymouth, Michigan. The project also assisted the state government in its current effort to develop and implement a state-wide land management plan.

Sattinger, I. J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

VME rollback hardware for time warp multiprocessor systems

The purpose of the research effort is to develop and demonstrate innovative hardware to implement specific rollback and timing functions required for efficient queue management and precision timekeeping in multiprocessor discrete event simulations. The previously completed phase 1 effort demonstrated the technical feasibility of building hardware modules which eliminate the state saving overhead of the Time Warp paradigm used in distributed simulations on multiprocessor systems. The current phase 2 effort will build multiple pre-production rollback hardware modules integrated with a network of Sun workstations, and the integrated system will be tested by executing a Time Warp simulation. The rollback hardware will be designed to interface with the greatest number of multiprocessor systems possible. The authors believe that the rollback hardware will provide for significant speedup of large scale discrete event simulation problems and allow multiprocessors using Time Warp to dramatically increase performance.

Robb, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Reusable launch vehicle development research

NASA has generated a program approach for a SSTO reusable launch vehicle technology (RLV) development which includes a follow-on to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization's (BMDO) successful DC-X program, the DC-XA (Advanced). Also, a separate sub-scale flight demonstrator, designated the X-33, will be built and flight tested along with numerous ground based technologies programs. For this to be a successful effort, a balance between technical, schedule, and budgetary risks must be attained. The adoption of BMDO's 'fast track' management practices will be a key element in the eventual success of NASA's effort.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1991

Propulsion at the Marshall Space Flight Center - A brief history

The history of propulsion development at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center is summarized, beginning with the development of the propulsion system for the Redstone missile. This course of propulsion development continues through the Jupiter IRBM, the Saturn family of launch vehicles and the engines that powered them, the Centaur upper stage and RL-10 engine, the Reactor In-Flight Test stage and the NERVA nuclear engine. The Space Shuttle Main Engine and Solid Rocket Boosters are covered, as are spacecraft propulsion systems, including the reaction control systems for the High Energy Astronomy Observatory and the Space Station. The paper includes a description of several technology efforts such as those in high pressure turbomachinery, aerospike engines, and the AS203 cyrogenic fluid management flight experiment. These and other propulsion projects are documented, and the scope of activities in support of these efforts at Marshall delineated.

Jones, L. W.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Electrical, Electronic, and Electromechanical (EEE) parts management and control requirements for NASA space flight programs

This document establishes electrical, electronic, and electromechanical (EEE) parts management and control requirements for contractors providing and maintaining space flight and mission-essential or critical ground support equipment for NASA space flight programs. Although the text is worded 'the contractor shall,' the requirements are also to be used by NASA Headquarters and field installations for developing program/project parts management and control requirements for in-house and contracted efforts. This document places increased emphasis on parts programs to ensure that reliability and quality are considered through adequate consideration of the selection, control, and application of parts. It is the intent of this document to identify disciplines that can be implemented to obtain reliable parts which meet mission needs. The parts management and control requirements described in this document are to be selectively applied, based on equipment class and mission needs. Individual equipment needs should be evaluated to determine the extent to which each requirement should be implemented on a procurement. Utilization of this document does not preclude the usage of other documents. The entire process of developing and implementing requirements is referred to as 'tailoring' the program for a specific project. Some factors that should be considered in this tailoring process include program phase, equipment category and criticality, equipment complexity, and mission requirements. Parts management and control requirements advocated by this document directly support the concept of 'reliability by design' and are an integral part of system reliability and maintainability. Achieving the required availability and mission success objectives during operation depends on the attention given reliability and maintainability in the design phase. Consequently, it is intended that the requirements described in this document are consistent with those of NASA publications, 'Reliability Program Requirements for Aeronautical and Space System Contractors,' NHB 5300.4(1A-l); 'Maintainability Program Requirements for Space Systems,' NHB 5300.4(1E); and 'Quality Program Provisions for Aeronautical and Space System Contractors,' NHB 5300.4(1B).

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1987

Thermal analysis for the Cryogenic Fluid Management Flight Experiment (CFMFE)

The purpose was to identify recent thermal analysis efforts and to review that part of the analysis that addresses the prediction of fluid and container temperature gradients during low gravity storage in space. It was concluded that both small and large tanks require hundreds of hours to reach even 60 PSIA. In about 1000 hours, the small tank is close to equilibrium; the large tank requires many thousands of hours to reach equilibrium.

Smolak, George R.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Model-based reasoning for power system management using KATE and the SSM/PMAD

The overall goal of this research effort has been the development of a software system which automates tasks related to monitoring and controlling electrical power distribution in spacecraft electrical power systems. The resulting software system is called the Intelligent Power Controller (IPC). The specific tasks performed by the IPC include continuous monitoring of the flow of power from a source to a set of loads, fast detection of anomalous behavior indicating a fault to one of the components of the distribution systems, generation of diagnosis (explanation) of anomalous behavior, isolation of faulty object from remainder of system, and maintenance of flow of power to critical loads and systems (e.g. life-support) despite fault conditions being present (recovery). The IPC system has evolved out of KATE (Knowledge-based Autonomous Test Engineer), developed at NASA-KSC. KATE consists of a set of software tools for developing and applying structure and behavior models to monitoring, diagnostic, and control applications.

Morris, Robert A.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Montana Water Resources II: Enhancing a Moisture Index for Drought and Flood Monitoring in the Missouri River Basin

The Missouri River Basin is a major global breadbasket, containing large amounts of agricultural land. Recent devastating weather events have motivated regional organizations to dedicate efforts to drought and flood monitoring and early warning systems. The DEVELOP team partnered with the following organizations: Montana Climate Office, NOAA National Weather Service (NWS) Missouri Basin River Forecast Center, NOAA Regional Climate Services of the Central Region, NOAA Physical Sciences Laboratory, and the US Army Corps of Engineers' Missouri River Basin Water Management Division. The team collaborated with the partners in their efforts to monitor flood and drought by enhancing a composite moisture index (CMI) for the Missouri River Basin. The CMI leverages NASA Earth observations to derive snow cover data from the Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) mission and snow water equivalent and snowdepth datasets from the NOAA NWS National Operational Hydrologic Remote Sensing Center’s Snow Data Assimilation System (SNODAS). Building upon this framework, the team added groundwater storage data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) and GRACE Follow-On missions, soil moisture data from Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP), and United States Geological Survey in situ streamflow data to the CMI. To test the tool’s validity, the team compared the CMI results to historically extreme dry and extreme wet years, March 2017 and March 2019, respectively. The CMI accurately reflects both 2017 and 2019 climate conditions in the Missouri River Basin. The refined CMI enhances the understanding of antecedent soil moisture conditions and improves flood and drought forecasting in the Missouri River Basin before the growing season.

Chloe Schneider↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Using NASA Earth Observations to Identify Wildfire Impacts on Hydrologic Functions and Recovery in the Gila National Forest

Wildfires can dramatically influence both abiotic and biotic components of a landscape, including soil stability and chemistry; vegetation health, density, and composition; and water flow and quality. In addition to the immediate hazards posed by wildfires, subsequent hazards such as flooding and debris flow can impact the area. In New Mexico’s Gila National Forest, wildfire events have occurred with increasing frequency and severity over recent years, notably including the Whitewater Baldy Complex Fire (2012) and Silver Fire (2013), which burned over 290,000 acres and 138,698 acres, respectively, according to the Burned Area Emergency Response Team Executive Summary reports. Following a significant wildfire, land and resource management decisions are made, including when and where to focus vegetation and stream restoration efforts. This research is the result of a collaboration between the NASA DEVELOP National Program and the US Forest Service, which aimed to utilize NASA Earth observations to help inform those critical land management decisions. The project had two main objectives: 1) assess the efficacy of post-fire vegetation restoration efforts and 2) analyze the impact of burn events on the hydrology at the watershed-scale. To accomplish this first goal, data from Landsat 5 Thematic Mapper (TM), Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) were used to study the vegetation health over time of treated and non-treated burn areas. To accomplish the latter, various aspects of stream behavior were examined in relation to burn events, including the runoff coefficient and “flashiness” of streams based on USGS stream gauge data and Integrated Multi-satelllite Retrievals for GPM (IMERG) precipitation data. This will allow land managers to better understand the complex ecological relationship between the cascading effects after wildfire and the greater forest ecosystem.

Madeline Allen↗
NASA NTRS1994

Common modeling system for digital simulation

The Joint Modeling and Simulation System is a tri-service investigation into a common modeling framework for the development digital models. The basis for the success of this framework is an X-window-based, open systems architecture, object-based/oriented methodology, standard interface approach to digital model construction, configuration, execution, and post processing. For years Department of Defense (DOD) agencies have produced various weapon systems/technologies and typically digital representations of the systems/technologies. These digital representations (models) have also been developed for other reasons such as studies and analysis, Cost Effectiveness Analysis (COEA) tradeoffs, etc. Unfortunately, there have been no Modeling and Simulation (M&S) standards, guidelines, or efforts towards commonality in DOD M&S. The typical scenario is an organization hires a contractor to build hardware and in doing so an digital model may be constructed. Until recently, this model was not even obtained by the organization. Even if it was procured, it was on a unique platform, in a unique language, with unique interfaces, and, with the result being UNIQUE maintenance required. Additionally, the constructors of the model expended more effort in writing the 'infrastructure' of the model/simulation (e.g. user interface, database/database management system, data journalizing/archiving, graphical presentations, environment characteristics, other components in the simulation, etc.) than in producing the model of the desired system. Other side effects include: duplication of efforts; varying assumptions; lack of credibility/validation; and decentralization in policy and execution. J-MASS provides the infrastructure, standards, toolset, and architecture to permit M&S developers and analysts to concentrate on the their area of interest.

Painter, Rick↗
NASA NTRS2008

Managing Large Scale Project Analysis Teams through a Web Accessible Database

Large scale space programs analyze thousands of requirements while mitigating safety, performance, schedule, and cost risks. These efforts involve a variety of roles with interdependent use cases and goals. For example, study managers and facilitators identify ground-rules and assumptions for a collection of studies required for a program or project milestone. Task leaders derive product requirements from the ground rules and assumptions and describe activities to produce needed analytical products. Disciplined specialists produce the specified products and load results into a file management system. Organizational and project managers provide the personnel and funds to conduct the tasks. Each role has responsibilities to establish information linkages and provide status reports to management. Projects conduct design and analysis cycles to refine designs to meet the requirements and implement risk mitigation plans. At the program level, integrated design and analysis cycles studies are conducted to eliminate every 'to-be-determined' and develop plans to mitigate every risk. At the agency level, strategic studies analyze different approaches to exploration architectures and campaigns. This paper describes a web-accessible database developed by NASA to coordinate and manage tasks at three organizational levels. Other topics in this paper cover integration technologies and techniques for process modeling and enterprise architectures.

O'Neil, Daniel A.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Constellation X-Ray Mission and Support

This Fourth Annual Report summarizes work performed by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) under Cooperative Agreement NCC5-368. The Agreement is entitled Constellation X-ray Mission Study and SAO continues to perform work under the overall direction of Dr. Harvey Tananbaum, the SAO Principal Investigator for the program. Mr. Robert Rasche is the SAO Program Manager and is responsible for day-to-day program management at SAO and coordination with GSFC. The report summarizes the main areas of SAO activity. Most of the work has been done jointly with personnel from GSFC and Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). We describe SAO participation in these efforts. As is appropriate to a Cooperative Agreement, SAO continued to work with GSFC in an integrated team mode. SAO was involved in the overall mission management, technology development, scientific direction, and mission definition. While formal overall management responsibility resides with GSFC, scientific lead and subordinate responsibilities continue to be shared by GSFC and SAO. The work performed by SAO is consistent with the SAO proposal 'Constellation X-ray Mission Study and Optics Development' dated September 1997, which was the basis for establishing the Cooperative Agreement under which SAO is currently funded. Over time, the scope of the effort has expanded somewhat to accommodate the needs of the project. Work, except for meeting support and high priority program tasks, has been at a level of effort. Priorities and work progress have been closely coordinated with the Constellation-X Project Formulation Manager at GSFC. Funding limitations constrained the work accomplished during this period. Nonetheless, a significant amount of work was accomplished. Under the Agreement, SAO performed work in seven major areas of activity. These areas related to: Constellation X-ray Mission Facility Definition Team and Study Management; Science Support; Spectroscopy X-ray Telescope (SXT); Systems Engineering; Travel in Support of the Work Effort; In-house Management and Coordination.

Grady, Jean↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Development of NASA's Fault Management Handbook

Disciplined approach to Fault Management (FM) has not always been emphasized by projects, contributing to major schedule and cost overruns. Progress is being made on a number of fronts outside of Handbook effort: (1) Processes, Practices and Tools being developed at some Centers and Institutions (2) Management recognition . Constellation FM roles, Discovery/New Frontiers mission reviews (3) Potential Technology solutions . New approaches could avoid many current pitfalls (3a) New FM architectures, including model ]based approach integrated with NASA fs MBSE efforts (3b) NASA fs Office of the Chief Technologist: FM identified in seven of NASA fs 14 Space Technology Roadmaps . opportunity to coalesce and establish thrust area to progressively develop new FM techniques FM Handbook will help ensure that future missions do not encounter same FM ]related problems as previous missions Version 1 of the FM Handbook is a good start.

Fault Management↗
NASA NTRS2010

Momentum Management Tool for Low-Thrust Missions

A momentum management tool was designed for the Dawn low-thrust interplanetary spacecraft en route to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres, in an effort to better understand the early creation of the solar system. Momentum must be managed to ensure the spacecraft has enough control authority to perform necessary turns and hold a fixed inertial attitude against external torques. Along with torques from solar pressure and gravity-gradients, ion-propulsion engines produce a torque about the thrust axis that must be countered by the four reaction wheel assemblies (RWA). MomProf is a ground operations tool built to address these concerns. The momentum management tool was developed during initial checkout and early cruise, and has been refined to accommodate a wide range of momentum-management issues. With every activity or sequence, wheel speeds and momentum state must be checked to avoid undesirable conditions and use of consumables. MomProf was developed to operate in the MATLAB environment. All data are loaded into MATLAB as a structure to provide consistent access to all inputs by individual functions within the tool. Used in its most basic application, the Dawn momentum tool uses the basic principle of angular momentum conservation, computing momentum in the body frame, and RWA wheel speeds, for all given orientations in the input file. MomProf was designed specifically to be able to handle the changing external torques and frequent de - saturations. Incorporating significant external torques adds complexity since there are various external torques that act under different operational modes.

Swenka, Edward R.↗