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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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NASA NTRS2017

NASA's Space Launch System: SmallSat Deployment to Deep Space

Leveraging the significant capability it offers for human exploration and flagship science missions, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) also provides a unique opportunity for lower-cost deep-space science in the form of small-satellite secondary payloads. Current plans call for such opportunities to begin with the rocket's first flight; a launch of the vehicle's Block 1 configuration, capable of delivering 70 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which will send the Orion crew vehicle around the moon and return it to Earth. On that flight, SLS will also deploy 13 CubeSat-class payloads to deep-space destinations. These secondary payloads will include not only NASA research, but also spacecraft from industry and international partners and academia. The payloads also represent a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to, studies of the moon, Earth, sun, and asteroids. While the SLS Program is making significant progress toward that first launch, preparations are already under way for the second, which will see the booster evolve to its more-capable Block 1B configuration, able to deliver 105t to LEO. That configuration will have the capability to carry large payloads co-manifested with the Orion spacecraft, or to utilize an 8.4-meter (m) fairing to carry payloads several times larger than are currently possible. The Block 1B vehicle will be the workhorse of the Proving Ground phase of NASA's deep-space exploration plans, developing and testing the systems and capabilities necessary for human missions into deep space and ultimately to Mars. Ultimately, the vehicle will evolve to its full Block 2 configuration, with a LEO capability of 130 metric tons. Both the Block 1B and Block 2 versions of the vehicle will be able to carry larger secondary payloads than the Block 1 configuration, creating even more opportunities for affordable scientific exploration of deep space. This paper will outline the progress being made toward flying smallsats on the first flight of SLS, and discuss future opportunities for smallsats on subsequent flights.

Robinson, Kimberly F.↗
NASA NTRS2017

NASA's Space Launch System: SmallSat Deployment to Deep Space

Leveraging the significant capability it offers for human exploration and flagship science missions, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) also provides a unique opportunity for lower-cost deep-space science in the form of small-satellite secondary payloads. Current plans call for such opportunities to begin with the rocket's first flight; a launch of the vehicle's Block 1 configuration, capable of delivering 70 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO), which will send the Orion crew vehicle around the moon and return it to Earth. On that flight, SLS will also deploy 13 CubeSat-class payloads to deep-space destinations. These secondary payloads will include not only NASA research, but also spacecraft from industry and international partners and academia. The payloads also represent a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to, studies of the moon, Earth, sun, and asteroids. While the SLS Program is making significant progress toward that first launch, preparations are already under way for the second, which will see the booster evolve to its more-capable Block 1B configuration, able to deliver 105t to LEO. That configuration will have the capability to carry large payloads co-manifested with the Orion spacecraft, or to utilize an 8.4-meter (m) fairing to carry payloads several times larger than are currently possible. The Block 1B vehicle will be the workhorse of the Proving Ground phase of NASA's deep-space exploration plans, developing and testing the systems and capabilities necessary for human missions into deep space and ultimately to Mars. Ultimately, the vehicle will evolve to its full Block 2 configuration, with a LEO capability of 130 metric tons. Both the Block 1B and Block 2 versions of the vehicle will be able to carry larger secondary payloads than the Block 1 configuration, creating even more opportunities for affordable scientific exploration of deep space. This paper will outline the progress being made toward flying smallsats on the first flight of SLS, and discuss future opportunities for smallsats on subsequent flights.

Robinson, Kimberly F.↗
NASA NTRS1985

TSS Satellite Overview

The responsibilities of NASA and PSN/CNR in the tethered satellite system cooperative program are listed and PSN/CNR-AIT system support and technologies studies are summarized. Results are given for investigations of active vs. passive satellite trade offs; analysis of alternative maneuvers; satellite attitude and position determination analysis failure modes analysis; moveable boom dynamic analysis; double tethered satellite system; and thermo/dynamic analysis for 100 km to 120 km altitude range. Objectives for the space plasma science mission and its applications are outlined and the TSS satellite configuration is highlighted. Programmatic aspects are included.

Manarini, G.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Large manned systems/environment interactions in Low Earth Orbit (LEO)

With the advent of the NASA Space Transportation System, regular flights of a large manned spacecraft, the Space Shuttle Orbiter, became a reality. From the earliest mission containing space science instruments as a payload on the third flight of the Orbiter (STS-3), it became apparent that the disturbance caused by the interaction of this orbiting system with the low Earth orbit (LEO) environment resulted in adverse conditions for the performance of scientific observations of the Orbiter natural environment and for certain high sensitivity optical observations. The interaction of the Space Shuttle Orbiter system can be divided into two parts, the structure-environment interaction, and the outgas cloud-environment interaction. These interaction are briefly discussed.

Raitt, W. J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Space Science Reviews volume on Galileo Mission overview

The Galileo Mission, rather than a 'Jupiter mission' per se, is an integrated project encompassing multidisciplinary objectives regarding the whole of the Jovian system. This system is important in view of insights it affords into the conditions of the early solar nebula, as well as into the complex, interacting processes involved in planetary evolution. Jupiter itself is the focus of interest in virtue of representing a transitional object between the terrestrial planets and stars; its composition may be virtually unaltered from that of the original solar nebula. The Jovian system in its entirety presents basic questions regarding its satellite and ring system, which constitute a 'minisolar system'. The Galileo spacecraft consists of an Orbiter and an atmospheric entry Probe.

Johnson, T. V.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Marshall Space Flight Center Overview

This presentation gives an overview of Marshall Spaceflight Center (MSFC), including its history and activities. The six enterprises to carry out NASA's mission are: Space Science; Earth Science; Biological and Physical Research; Aerospace Technology; Education (our newest); and Space Flight. These are explained, as well as MSFC's contributions toward these NASA enterprises. The presentation also covers cooperation between MSFC and the Department of Defense (DoD).

Geveden, Rex D.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Efficient Jitter Analysis for Spacecraft

Typically in space missions, the science instruments require a specific degree of pointing accuracy as well as dynamical quietness. This dynamical quietness, which is needed to allow the instruments to make measurements (remote sensing applications) or perform other functions, is usually characterized in terms of jitter and stability specifications. In order to insure that the spacecraft meets the requirements of its instruments, several jitter analyses are performed throughout the design phase of the spacecraft and beyond as the models of the spacecraft, its components, and disturbances mature. Each such analysis involves the simulation of the spacecraft and instrument dynamical response to all known disturbance scenarios, followed by the computation of jitter values for each instrument based on the specified jitter time windows. The direct approach for computing jitter values by sweeping maxima and minima throughout the time history may be costly in the computational sense as the size and number of the time histories involved could be quite large. Keeping in mind that typical spacecraft simulation time histories may easily involve hundreds of thousands or millions of points, it is imperative that a jitter analysis algorithm be developed which is more efficient than the direct approach. This paper presents a vectorized algorithm for efficient computation of spacecraft jitter values. The algorithm identifies the extreme points in the time history, which are the points that may dominate the jitter values depending on the location of the jitter window along the time history. The span of influence of each extremum is then computed by the algorithm and used in an efficient and vectorized fashion to obtain the jitter values. The algorithm deals with the multiple jitter windows 2 sequentially, first computing jitter values for the smallest time window, then looping over the remaining time windows until all jitter values are computed. A numerical example is carried out to demonstrate the efficiency and feasibility of the proposed jitter analysis technique.

Maghami, Peiman G.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Endocrine relationships during human spaceflight

Human spaceflight is associated with a chronic loss of protein from muscle. The objective of this study was to determine whether changes in urinary hormone excretion could identify a hormonal role for this loss. Urine samples were collected from the crews of two Life Sciences Space Shuttle missions before and during spaceflight. Data are means +/- SE with the number of subjects in parentheses. The first value is the mean preflight measurement, and the second value is the mean inflight measurement. Adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) [27.7 +/- 4.4 (9) vs. 25.1 +/- 3.4 (9) ng/day], growth hormone [724 +/- 251 (9) vs. 710 +/- 206 (9) ng/day], insulin-like growth factor I [6.81 +/- 0.62 vs. 6.04 +/- 0.51 (8) nM/day], and C-peptide [44.9 +/- 8.3 (9) vs. 50.7 +/- 10.3 (9) micrograms/day] were unchanged with spaceflight. In contrast, free 3,5,3'-triiodothyronine [791 +/- 159 (9) vs. 371 +/- 41 (9) pg/day, P < 0.05], prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) [1, 064 +/- 391 (8) vs. 465 +/- 146 (8) ng/day, P < 0.05], and its metabolite PGE-M [1,015 +/- 98 (9) vs. 678 +/- 105 (9) ng/day, P < 0. 05] were decreased inflight. The urinary excretion of most hormones returned to their preflight levels during the postflight period, with the exception of ACTH [47.5 +/- 10.3 (9) ng/day], PGE2 [1,433 +/- 327 (8) ng/day], PGF2alpha, [2,786 +/- 313 (8) ng/day], and its metabolite PGF-M [4,814 +/- 402 (9) ng/day], which were all increased compared with the preflight measurement (P < 0.05). There was a trend for urinary cortisol to be elevated inflight [55.3 +/- 5. 9 (9) vs. 72.5 +/- 11.1 micrograms/day, P = 0.27] and postflight [82.7 +/- 8.6 (8) micrograms/day, P = 0.13]. The inflight human data support ground-based in vitro work showing that prostaglandins have a major role in modulating the changes in muscle protein content in response to tension or the lack thereof.

Flight Experiment↗
NASA NTRS1998

Synaptic changes in rat maculae in space and medical imaging: the link

Two different space life sciences missions (SLS-1 and SLS-2) have demonstrated that the synapses of the hair cells of rat vestibular maculae increase significantly in microgravity. The results also indicate that macular synapses are sensitive to stress. These findings argue that vestibular maculae exhibit neuroplasticity to macroenvironmental and microenvironmental changes. This capability should be clinically relevant to rehabilitative training and/or pharmacological treatments for vestibular disease. The results of this ultrastructural research also demonstrated that type I and type II hair cells are integrated into the same neuronal circuitry. The findings were the basis for development of three-dimensional reconstruction software to learn details of macular wiring. This software, produced for scientific research, has now been adapted to reconstruct the face and skull directly from computerized tomography scans. In collaboration with craniofacial reconstructive surgeons at Stanford University Medical Center, an effort is under way to produce a virtual environment workbench for complex craniofacial surgery. When completed, the workbench will help surgeons train for and simulate surgery. The methods are patient specific. This research illustrates the value of basic research in leading to unanticipated medical applications.

Flight Experiment↗
NASA NTRS2000

Enabling Spacecraft Formation Flying through Position Determination, Control and Enhanced Automation Technologies

Formation Flying is revolutionizing the way the space community conducts science missions around the Earth and in deep space. This technological revolution will provide new, innovative ways for the community to gather scientific information, share that information between space vehicles and the ground, and expedite the human exploration of space. Once fully matured, formation flying will result in numerous sciencecraft acting as virtual platforms and sensor webs, gathering significantly more and better science data than call be collected today. To achieve this goal, key technologies must be developed including those that address the following basic questions posed by the spacecraft: Where am I? Where is the rest of the fleet? Where do I need to be? What do I have to do (and what am I able to do) to get there? The answers to these questions and the means to implement those answers will depend oil the specific mission needs and formation configuration. However, certain critical technologies are common to most formations. These technologies include high-precision position and relative-position knowledge including Global Positioning System (GPS) mid celestial navigation; high degrees of spacecraft autonomy inter-spacecraft communication capabilities; targeting and control including distributed control algorithms, and high precision control thrusters and actuators. This paper provides an overview of a selection of the current activities NASA/DoD/Industry/Academia are working to develop Formation Flying technologies as quickly as possible, the hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve our formation flying vision, and the team's approach to transfer this technology to space. It will also describe several of the formation flying testbeds, such as Orion and University Nanosatellites, that are being developed to demonstrate and validate many of these innovative sensing and formation control technologies.

Bristow, John↗
NASA NTRS2016

The Virtual Space Telescope: A New Class of Science Missions

Many science investigations proposed by GSFC require two spacecraft alignment across a long distance to form a virtual space telescope. Forming a Virtual Space telescope requires advances in Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) enabling the distribution of monolithic telescopes across multiple space platforms. The capability to align multiple spacecraft to an intertial target is at a low maturity state and we present a roadmap to advance the system-level capability to be flight ready in preparation of various science applications. An engineering proof of concept, called the CANYVAL-X CubeSat MIssion is presented. CANYVAL-X's advancement will decrease risk for a potential starshade mission that would fly with WFIRST.

CubeSat↗
NASA NTRS2005

System Design and Performance of the Two-Gyro Science Mode For the Hubble Space Telescope

For fifteen years, the science mission of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) required using at least three of the six on-board rate gyros for attitude control. Failed gyros were eventually replaced through Space Shuttle Servicing Missions. The tragic loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia has resulted in the cancellation of all planned Shuttle based missions to HST. While a robotic servicing mission is currently being planned instead, controlling with alternate sensors to replace failed gyros can extend the HST science gathering until a servicing mission can be performed, and also extend science at HST's end of life. Additionally, sufficient performance may allow a permanent transition to operations with less than 3 gyros (by intentionally turning off working gyros saving them for later use) allowing for an even greater science mission extension. To meet this need, a Two Gyro Science (TGS) mode has been designed and implemented using magnetometers (Magnetic Sensing System - MSS), Fixed Head Star Trackers (FHSTs), and Fine Guidance Sensors (FGSs) to control vehicle rate about the missing gyro input axis. The development of the TGS capability is the largest re-design of HST operations undertaken, since it affects several major spacecraft subsystems, the most heavily being the Pointing Control System (PCS) and Flight Software (FSW). Additionally, and equally important, are the extensive modifications and enhancements of the Planning and Scheduling system which must now be capable of scheduling science observations while taking into account several new constraints imposed by the TGS operational modes (such as FHST availability and magnetic field geometry) that will impact science gathering efficiency and target availability. This paper discusses the systems engineering design, development, and performance of the TGS mode, now in its final stages of completion.

Prior, Michael↗