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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 NTRS2009

Orbiting Depot and Reusable Lander for Lunar Transportation

A document describes a conceptual transportation system that would support exploratory visits by humans to locations dispersed across the surface of the Moon and provide transport of humans and cargo to sustain one or more permanent Lunar outpost. The system architecture reflects requirements to (1) minimize the amount of vehicle hardware that must be expended while maintaining high performance margins and (2) take advantage of emerging capabilities to produce propellants on the Moon while also enabling efficient operation using propellants transported from Earth. The system would include reusable single- stage lander spacecraft and a depot in a low orbit around the Moon. Each lander would have descent, landing, and ascent capabilities. A crew-taxi version of the lander would carry a pressurized crew module; a cargo version could carry a variety of cargo containers. The depot would serve as a facility for storage and for refueling with propellants delivered from Earth or propellants produced on the Moon. The depot could receive propellants and cargo sent from Earth on a variety of spacecraft. The depot could provide power and orbit maintenance for crew vehicles from Earth and could serve as a safe haven for lunar crews pending transport back to Earth.

Petro, Andrew↗
NASA NTRS2012

Spaceflight Effects and Molecular Responses in the Mouse Eye: Observations after NASA Shuttle Mission STS-133

Background: Human space exploration implies a combination of stressors including microgravityinduced cephalad fluid shift and radiation exposure. Ocular changes in astronauts leading to visual impairment are of occupational health relevance. The effect of this complex environment on ocular morphology and function is poorly understood. Material and Methods: Mice were assigned to a Flight (FLT) group flown on shuttle mission STS133, Animal Enclosure Module (AEM), or vivarium (VIV) ground controls. Eyes were collected at 1, 5 and 7 days after landing, and were fixed for histological sectioning. The contralateral eye was used for gene expression profiling by qRT-PCR. Routine histology and immunohistochemistry using 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG), caspase-3, glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) and beta-amyloid were used to study the eyes. Results and Conclusions: 8-OHdG and caspase-3 immunoreactivity was increased in the retina in FLT samples at return from flight (R+1) compared to ground controls, and decreased at day 7 (R+7), suggesting an increase in oxidative stress and cell apoptosis. FLT mice showed evidence of retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) apoptosis possibly secondary to oxidative damage. Although attenuation of RPE has been related to retinal choroidal folds in astronauts, it is yet to be determined whether or not increased RPE apoptosis may contribute to the formation of choroidal folds or may increase the risk for other retinal pathologies, such as AMD. beta-amyloid was seen in the nerve fibers at the post-laminar region of the optic nerve in the flight samples (R+7). Deposition of beta-amyloid has a strong correlation with mechanical trauma. The coexpression of GFAP in astrocytes and oligodentrocytes in these same areas supports the possible mechanical origin probably secondary to intracranial pressure that is transmitted into the nerve, as a result of an increase in venous pressure associated to microgravity-induced cephalic fluid shift. However, there is the need to further investigate the nature of the changes through additional experimental work. Gene expression of oxidative and cellular stress response genes was unregulated in the retina of FLT samples upon landing followed by lower levels by R+7. These results suggest that reversible molecular damage occurs in the retina of mice exposed to spaceflight and that protective cellular and molecular pathways are induced in the retina in response to these changes.

ProsperoPonce, Claudia Maria↗
NASA NTRS2012

Spaceflight Effects and Molecular Responses in the Mouse Eye: Observations After Shuttle Mission STS-133

Microgravity-induced cephalad fluid shift and radiation exposure are some of the stressors seen in space exploration. Ocular changes leading to visual impairment in astronauts are of occupational health relevance. Therefore, we analyzed the effects of space flight in the eyes of mice. Six mice were assigned to Flight (FLT), Animal enclosure Module (AEM), or vivarium (VIV) group, respectively. Mice were sacrificed at 1, 5 or 7 days after landing from space. One eye was used for histological and immunohistoche-mistry analysis and the other eye for gene expression profiling. 8-OHdG and caspase-3 immunoreactivity were increased in the retina in FLT samples at return(R+1) compared to AEM/VIV groups, and decreased at day 7 (R+7). beta-amyloid was seen in the nerve fibers at the post-laminar region of the optic nerve in the flight samples (R+7). In addition, oxidative and cellular stress response genes were upregulated in the retina of FLT samples upon landing, and decreased by R+7. According to the results, a reversible molecular damage may occur in the retina of mice exposed to spaceflight followed by protective cellular response.

Prospero-Ponce, Claudia↗
DOE OSTI2025

DEMographic MicrOSimulation (DEMOS) v2.0

DEMOS is an agent-based simulation framework used to evolve population demographic characteristics or lifecycle events such as education, marital status etc. DEMOS modules are designed to capture the interdependencies of short-term and long-term lifecycle events often influential in downstream transportation and land use modeling. An important facet of DEMOS is that it is dynamic, meaning it captures the impact of an agent's demographic characteristics in year 't' on their demographic status in year 't+1'. This has important consequences on medium- and long-term downstream modeling in different domains, such as transportation where decisions such as household vehicle transactions (i.e., buying, selling, or replacing a vehicle) depend current or past household vehicle holdings as well as household transitions. Other downstream modeling that can be enabled by DEMOS include building technology adoption or retrofit decisions, and more. DEMOS modules include: individual age progression year by year, individual mortality events, household restructuring events including marriage match-making; household birth events; individual education participation; individual labor force participation; child leaving household; household in-migration and out-migration for the region; household residence location choice and household mandatory destination choice (work and school). This version of DEMOS is tailored to be integrated with the land use simulation software UrbanSim.

Caicedo, Juan [UrbanSim, Inc.]↗
NASA NTRS2001

Importance of the Annual Cycles of SST and Solar Irradiance for Circulation and Rainfall: A Climate Model Simulation Study

Annual cycle of climate and precipitation is related to annual cycle of sunshine and sea-surface temperatures. Understanding its behavior is important for the welfare of humans worldwide. For example, failure of Asian monsoons can cause widespread famine and grave economic disaster in the subtropical regions. For centuries meteorologists have struggled to understand the importance of the summer sunshine and associated heating and the annual cycle of sea-surface temperatures (SSTs) on rainfall in the subtropics. Because the solar income is pretty steady from year to year, while SSTs depict large interannual variability as consequence of the variability of ocean dynamics, the influence of SSTs on the monsoons are better understood through observational and modeling studies whereas the relationship of annual rainfall to sunshine remains elusive. However, using NASA's state of the art climate model(s) that can generate realistic climate in a computer simulation, one can answer such questions. We asked the question: if there was no annual cycle of the sunshine (and its associated land-heating) or the SST and its associated influence on global circulation, what will happen to the annual cycle of monsoon rains? By comparing the simulation of a 4-year integration of a baseline Control case with two parallel anomaly experiments: 1) with annual mean solar and 2) with annual mean sea-surface temperatures, we were able to draw the following conclusions: (1) Tropical convergence zone and rainfall which moves with the Sun into the northern and southern hemispheres, specifically over the Indian, African, South American and Australian regions, is strongly modulated by the annual cycles of SSTs as well as solar forcings. The influence of the annual cycle of solar heating over land, however, is much stronger than the corresponding SST influence for almost all regions, particularly the subtropics; (2) The seasonal circulation patterns over the vast land-masses of the Northern Hemisphere at mid and high latitudes also get strongly influenced by the annual cycles of solar heating. The SST influence is largely limited to the oceanic regions of these latitudes; (3) The annual mode of precipitation over Amazonia has an equatorial regime revealing a maxima in the month of March associated with SST, and another maxima in the month of January associated with the solar annual cycles, respectively. The baseline simulation, which has both annual cycles, depicts both annual modes and its rainfall is virtually equal to the sum of those two modes; (4) Rainfall over Sahelian-Africa is significantly reduced (increased) in simulations lacking (invoking) solar irradiation with (without) the annual cycle. In fact, the dominant influence of solar irradiation emerges in almost all monsoonal-land regions: India, Southeast Asia, as well as Australia. The only exception is the Continental United States, where solar annual cycle shows only a relatively minor influence on the annual mode of rainfall.

Sud, Yogesh C.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Phenological Versus Meteorological Controls on Land-atmosphere Water and Carbon Fluxes

Phenological dynamics and their related processes strongly constrain land-atmosphere interactions, but their relative importance vis-à-vis meteorological forcing within general circulation models (GCMs) is still uncertain. Using an off-line land surface model, we evaluate leaf area and meteorological controls on gross primary productivity, evapotranspiration, transpiration, and runoff at four North American sites, representing different vegetation types and background climates. Our results demonstrate that compared to meteorological controls, variation in leaf area has a dominant control on gross primary productivity, a comparable but smaller influence on transpiration, a weak influence on total evapotranspiration, and a negligible impact on runoff. Climate regime and characteristic variations in leaf area have important modulating effects on these relative controls, which vary depending on the fluxes and timescales of interest. We find that leaf area in energylimited evaporative regimes tends to exhibit greater control on annual gross primary productivity than in moisture-limited regimes, except when vegetation exhibits little interannual variation in leaf area. For transpiration, leaf area control is somewhat less in energylimited regimes and greater in moisture-limited regimes for maximum pentad and annual fluxes. These modulating effects of climate and leaf area were less clear for other fluxes and at other timescales. Our findings are relevant to land-atmosphere coupling in GCMs, especially considering that leaf area variations are a fundamental element of land use and land cover change simulations.

Puma, Michael J.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Millimeter-Wave Localizers for Aircraft-to-Aircraft Approach Navigation

Aerial refueling technology for both manned and unmanned aircraft is critical for operations where extended aircraft flight time is required. Existing refueling assets are typically manned aircraft, which couple to a second aircraft through the use of a refueling boom. Alignment and mating of the two aircraft continues to rely on human control with use of high-resolution cameras. With the recent advances in unmanned aircraft, it would be highly advantageous to remove/reduce human control from the refueling process, simplifying the amount of remote mission management and enabling new operational scenarios. Existing aerial refueling uses a camera, making it non-autonomous and prone to human error. Existing commercial localizer technology has proven robust and reliable, but not suited for aircraft-to-aircraft approaches like in aerial refueling scenarios since the resolution is too coarse (approximately one meter). A localizer approach system for aircraft-to-aircraft docking can be constructed using the same modulation with a millimeterwave carrier to provide high resolution. One technology used to remotely align commercial aircraft on approach to a runway are ILS (instrument landing systems). ILS have been in service within the U.S. for almost 50 years. In a commercial ILS, two partially overlapping beams of UHF (109 to 126 MHz) are broadcast from an antenna array so that their overlapping region defines the centerline of the runway. This is called a localizer system and is responsible for horizontal alignment of the approach. One beam is modulated with a 150-Hz tone, while the other with a 90-Hz tone. Through comparison of the modulation depths of both tones, an autopilot system aligns the approaching aircraft with the runway centerline. A similar system called a glide-slope (GS) exists in the 320-to-330MHz band for vertical alignment of the approach. While this technology has been proven reliable for millions of commercial flights annually, its UHF nature limits its ability to operate beyond the 1-to-2-meter precisions associated with commercial runway width. A prototype ILS-type system operates at millimeter-wave frequencies to provide automatic and robust approach control for aerial refueling. The system allows for the coupling process to remain completely autonomous, as a boom operator is no longer required. Operating beyond 100 GHz provides enough resolution and a narrow enough beamwidth that an approach corridor of centimeter scales can be maintained. Two modules were used to accomplish this task. The first module is a localizer/glide-slope module that can be fitted on a refueling aircraft. This module provides the navigation beams for aligning the approaching aircraft. The second module is navigational receiver fitted onto the approaching aircraft to be re fueled that can detect the approach beams. Since unmanned aircraft have a limited payload size and limited electrical power, the receiver portion was implemented in CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) technology based on a super-regenerative receiver (SRR) architecture. The SRR achieves mW-level power consumption and chip sizes less than l mm2. While super-regenerative techniques have small bandwidths that limit use in communication systems, their advantages of high sensitivity, low complexity, and low power make them ideal in this situation where modulating tones of less than 1 kHz are used.

Tang, Adrian J.↗
NASA NTRS2007

NASA CEV Reference Entry GN&C System and Analysis

As part of its overall objectives, the Orion spacecraft will be required to perform entry and Earth landing functions for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Lunar missions. Both of these entry scenarios will begin with separation of the Service Module (SM), making them unique from other Orion mission phases in that only the Command Module (CM) portion of the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will be involved, requiring a CM specific Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) system. Also common to these mission scenarios will be the need for GN&C to safely return crew (or cargo) to earth within the dynamic thermal and structural constraints of entry and within acceptable accelerations on the crew, utilizing the limited aerodynamic performance of the CM capsule. The lunar return mission could additionally require an initial atmospheric entry designed to support a precision skip and second entry, all to maximize downrange performance and ensure landing in the United States. This paper describes the Entry GN&C reference design, developed by the NASA-led team, that supports these entry scenarios and that was used to validate the Orion System requirements. Description of the reference design will include an overview of the GN&C functions, avionics, and effectors and will relate these to the specific design drivers of the entry scenarios, as well as the desire for commonality in vehicle systems to support the different missions. The discussion will also include the requirement for an Emergency Entry capability beyond that of the nominal performance of the multi-string GNC system, intended to return the crew to the earth in a survivable but unguided manner. Finally, various analyses will be discussed, including those completed to support validation efforts of the current CEV requirements, along with those on-going and planned with the intention to further refine the requirements and to support design development work in conjunction with the prime contractor. Some of these ongoing analyses will include work to size effectors (jets) and fuel budgets, to refine skip entry concepts, to characterize navigation performance and uncertainties, to provide for SM disposal offshore and to identify requirements to support target site selection.

Munday, S.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Diagnosing the Nature of Land-Atmosphere Coupling: A Case Study of Dry/Wet Extremes

Land-atmosphere (L-A) interactions play a critical role in determining the diurnal evolution of land surface and planetary boundary layer (PBL) temperature and moisture states and fluxes. In turn, these interactions regulate the strength of the connection between surface moisture and precipitation in a coupled system. To address deficiencies in numerical weather prediction and climate models due to improper treatment of L-A interactions, recent studies have focused on development of diagnostics to quantify the strength and accuracy of the land-PBL coupling at the process-level. In this study, a diagnosis of the nature and impacts oflocalland-atmosphere coupling (LoCo) during dry and wet extreme conditions is presented using a combination of models and observations during the summers of2006-7 in the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Specifically, the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model has been coupled to NASA's Land Information System (LIS), which provides a flexible and high-resolution representation and initialization of land surface physics and states. A range of diagnostics exploring the links and feedbacks between soil moisture and precipitation are examined for the dry/wet regimes of this region, along with the behavior and accuracy of different land-PBL scheme couplings under these conditions. In addition, we examine the impact of improved specification ofland surface states, anomalies, and fluxes that are obtained through the use of a hew optimization and uncertainty module in LIS, on the L-A coupling in WRF forecasts. Results demonstrate how LoCo diagnostics can be applied to coupled model components in the context of their integrated impacts on the process-chain connecting the land surface to the PBL and support of hydrological anomalies.

Santanello, Joseph A., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Modular space station phase B extension: Shuttle interface requirements

The interface requirements cover both the ground and orbital phases of operation from the launch of the first MSS module until the initial modular station has been manned and in routine operation. As a point of reference, the two-stage, fully reusable space shuttle was selected. The space shuttle is briefly described from the standpoint of its features most important to the interface requirements with the MSS. The environment induced upon the MSS elements when transported to and from orbit by the shuttle orbiter also is included. The mission operation includes the space shuttle launch facilities, the ground flow of the MSS modules, and the orbital operations of rendezvous, MSS buildup, resupply of the manned station, and orbiter descent and landing. The shuttle's once-around abort case is described as it affects the MSS interface requirements. The interfaces between the orbiter and the MSS resulting from the ground and orbital operations, are also described.

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NASA NTRS1972

Photographic summary

The photographic objectives of the Apollo 15 mission were designed to support a wide variety of scientific and operational experiments, to provide high-resolution panoramic photographs and precisely oriented metric photographs of the lunar surface, and to document operational tasks on the lunar surface and in flight. Detailed premission planning integrated the photographic tasks with the other mission objectives to produce a balanced mission that has returned more data than any previous space voyage. The return of photographic data was enhanced by new equipment, the high latitude of the landing site, and greater time in lunar orbit. New camera systems that were mounted in the scientific instrument module (SIM) bay of the service module provided a major photographic capability that was not available on any previous lunar mission, manned or unmanned.

Dietrich, J. W.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Selenia: A habitability study for the development of a third generation lunar base

When Apollo astronauts landed on the Moon, the first generation of lunar bases was established. They consisted essentially of a lunar module and related hardware capable of housing two astronauts for not more than several days. Second generation lunar bases are being developed, and further infrastructure, such as space station, orbital transfer, and reusable lander vehicles will be necessary, as prolonged stay on the Moon is required for exploration, research, and construction for the establishment of a permanent human settlement there. Human life in these habitats could be sustained for months, dependent on a continual flow of life-support supplies from Earth. Third-generation lunar bases will come into being as self sufficiency of human settlements becomes feasible. Regeneration of water, oxygen production, and development of indigenous construction materials from lunar resources will be necessary. Greenhouses will grow food supplies in engineered biospheres. Assured protection from solar flares and cosmic radiation must be provided, as well as provision for survival under meteor showers, or the threat of meteorite impact. All these seem to be possible within the second decade of the next century. Thus, the builders of Selenia, the first of the third-generation lunar bases are born today. During the last two years students from the School of Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico have studied the problems that relate to habitability for prolonged stay in extraterrestrial space. An orbital personnel transport to Mars developed originally by the Aerospace Engineering Department of the University of Michigan was investigated and habitability criteria for evaluation of human space habitats were proposed. An important finding from that study was that the necessary rotational diameter of the vessel has to be on the order of two kilometers to ensure comfort for humans under the artificial gravity conditions necessary to maintain physiological well being of passengers, beyond the level of mere survival.

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NASA NTRS2001

STS-98 Post Flight Presentation

The crewmembers of STS-98, Commander Kenneth Cockrell, Pilot Mark Polansky, and Mission Specialists Bob Curbeam, Tom Jones, and Marsha Ivins, narrate this video as footage of from the ceremonial breakfast, crew suitup, and launch of Atlantis are seen. Various on-orbit activities are shown, including the opening of the payload bay doors, the rendezvous and docking of Atlantis with the International Space Station (ISS), the spacewalks, the installation of the Destiny Laboratory Module, and the crew playing in microgravity. The video ends with Atlantis undocking from the ISS and the landing of the orbiter.

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NASA NTRS2011

NASA Tech Briefs, October 2011

Topics covered include: Laser Truss Sensor for Segmented Telescope Phasing; Qualifications of Bonding Process of Temperature Sensors to Deep-Space Missions; Optical Sensors for Monitoring Gamma and Neutron Radiation; Compliant Tactile Sensors; Cytometer on a Chip; Measuring Input Thresholds on an Existing Board; Scanning and Defocusing Properties of Microstrip Reflectarray Antennas; Cable Tester Box; Programmable Oscillator; Fault-Tolerant, Radiation-Hard DSP; Sub-Shot Noise Power Source for Microelectronics; Asynchronous Message Service Reference Implementation; Zero-Copy Objects System; Delay and Disruption Tolerant Networking MACHETE Model; Contact Graph Routing; Parallel Eclipse Project Checkout; Technique for Configuring an Actively Cooled Thermal Shield in a Flight System; Use of Additives to Improve Performance of Methyl Butyrate-Based Lithium-Ion Electrolytes; Li-Ion Cells Employing Electrolytes with Methyl Propionate and Ethyl Butyrate Co-Solvents; Improved Devices for Collecting Sweat for Chemical Analysis; Tissue Photolithography; Method for Impeding Degradation of Porous Silicon Structures; External Cooling Coupled to Reduced Extremity Pressure Device; A Zero-Gravity Cup for Drinking Beverages in Microgravity; Co-Flow Hollow Cathode Technology; Programmable Aperture with MEMS Microshutter Arrays; Polished Panel Optical Receiver for Simultaneous RF/Optical Telemetry with Large DSN Antennas; Adaptive System Modeling for Spacecraft Simulation; Lidar-Based Navigation Algorithm for Safe Lunar Landing; Tracking Object Existence From an Autonomous Patrol Vehicle; Rad-Hard, Miniaturized, Scalable, High-Voltage Switching Module for Power Applications; and Architecture for a 1-GHz Digital RADAR.

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NASA NTRS2007

Corrosion Protection for Space and Beyond

Florida is home to NASA's Launch Operations Center. Since its establishment in July 1962, the spaceport has served as the departure gate for every American manned mission and hundreds of advanced scientific spacecraft under the Launch Services Program. The center was renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center in late 1963 to honor the president who put America on the path to the moon. Today, NASA is on the edge of a bold new chaIlenge: the ConsteIlation Program. ConsteIlation is a NASA program to create a new generation of spacecraft for human spaceflight, consisting primarily of the Ares I and Ares V launch vehicles, the Orion crew capsule, the Earth Departure stage and the Lunar access module. These spacecraft will be capable of performing a variety of missions, from Space Station resupply to lunar landings. The ambitious new endeavor caIls for NASA to return human explorers to the moon and then venture even farther, to Mars and beyond. As the nation's premier spaceport, Kennedy Space Center (KSC) will playa critical role in this new chapter in exploration, particularly in the conversion of the launch facilities to accommodate the new launch vehicles. To prepare for this endeavor, the launch site and facilities for the next generation of crew and cargo vehicles must be redesigned, assembled and tested. One critical factor that is being carefuIly considered during the renovation is protecting the new facilities and structures from corrosion and deterioration.

Calle, Luz Marina↗
NASA NTRS2018

Orion Ground Test Article Water Impact Tests: Photogrammetric Evaluation of Impact Conditions

The Ground Test Article (GTA) is an early production version of the Orion Crew Module (CM). The structural design of the Orion CM is being developed based on LS-DYNA water landing simulations. As part of the process of confirming the accuracy of LS-DYNA water landing simulations, the GTA water impact test series was conducted at NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) to gather data for comparison with simulations. The simulation of the GTA water impact tests requires the accurate determination of the impact conditions. To accomplish this, the GTA was outfitted with an array of photogrammetry targets. The photogrammetry system utilizes images from two cameras with a specialized tracking software to determine time histories for the 3-D coordinates of each target. The impact conditions can then be determined from the target location data.

Vassilakos, Gregory J.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Downscaling and Validation of SMAP Radiometer Soil Moisture in CONUS

The SMAP (Soil Moisture Active/Passive) satellite provides global soil moisture (SM) estimates that can be used for scientific research and applications (such as the hydrological cycle, agriculture, ecology, and land atmosphere interactions). Currently, SMAP provides the enhanced radiometer-only SM product (L2SMP) at 9 km grid resolution. However, this spatial resolution is still not enough to satisfy the needs of some studies that require a finer spatial resolution SM product, particularly in agricultural and watershed applications. This study applied a downscaling algorithm to the SMAP 9 km SM product to produce a 1 km resolution over the CONUS (Contiguous United States). The downscaling algorithm is based on the relationship between temperature change and SM modulated by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of a given time period. This relationship was modeled using variables derived from NLDAS (North America Land Data Assimilation System) and NASA's LTDR (Land Long Term Data Record) between 1981-2018. The algorithm was implemented uses the 1 km MODIS Aqua LST (Land Surface Temperature) product. The downscaled SMAP 1 km SM was validated using in situ SM measurements from the ISMN (International Soil Moisture Network). The validation metrics show an improved overall accuracy of the downscaled SM.

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