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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 NTRS2015

Multipurpose Pressure Vessel Scanner and Photon Doppler Velocimetry

Critical flight hardware typically undergoes a series of nondestructive evaluation methods to screen for defects before it is integrated into the flight system. Conventionally, pressure vessels have been inspected for flaws using a technique known as fluorescent dye penetrant, which is biased to inspector interpretation. An alternate method known as eddy current is automated and can detect small cracks better than dye penetrant. A new multipurpose pressure vessel scanner has been developed to perform internal and external eddy current scanning, laser profilometry, and thickness mapping on pressure vessels. Before this system can be implemented throughout industry, a probability of detection (POD) study needs to be performed to validate the system’s eddy current crack/flaw capabilities. The POD sample set will consist of 6 flight-like metal pressure vessel liners with defects of known size. Preparation for the POD includes sample set fabrication, system operation, procedure development, and eddy current settings optimization. For this, collaborating with subject matter experts was required. This technical paper details the preparation activities leading up to the POD study currently scheduled for winter 2015/2016. Once validated, this system will be a proven innovation for increasing the safety and reliability of necessary flight hardware.Additionally, testing of frangible joint requires Photon Doppler Velocimetry (PDV) and Digital Image Correlation instrumentation. There is often noise associated with PDV data, which necessitates a frequency modulation (FM) signal-to-noise pre-test. Generally, FM radio works by varying the carrier frequency and mixing it with a fixed frequency source, creating a beat frequency which is represented by audio frequency that can be heard between about 20 to 20,000 Hz. Similarly, PDV reflects a shifted frequency (a phenomenon known as the Doppler Effect) from a moving source and mixes it with a fixed source frequency, which results in a beat frequency. However, for PDV, discerning the signal from the noise is difficult without a moving source to induce the modulation. A rotating wheel is currently being used as the moving source but its configuration is impractical and has cumbersome placement inside the current frangible joint test cell. As a way to combat this problem and verify a satisfactory signal-to-noise ratio, a reflective moving crystal piezo will be used to modulate a beat frequency, and an absorptive target will be used to block the signal in order to determine any back reflection coming from the probe and discern the true signal-to noise ratio. The piezo will be mounted and inserted onto the test table on an extendable telescopic antenna grounded by a magnetic base in the test zone. This piezo configuration will be more compatible within the test zone and allow for easy removal of the disk following acceptable signal verification and prior to frangible joint tests.Additionally, topics of what was learned and smaller tasks given at White Sands Test Facility (WSTF) will be discussed. All statements in this paper are newly gained knowledge of what I have learned, observed, and have done while at WSTF.

Ellis, Tayera↗
NASA NTRS2018

Dynamic Power Convertor Development for Radioisotope Power Systems at NASA Glenn Research Center

The Thermal Energy Conversion Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) is supporting the development of high-efficiency power convertors for use in Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS). Significant progress was made towards such a system that utilized Stirling conversion during the 2001 to 2015 timeframe. Flight development of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) was cancelled in 2013 by the Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA Headquarters primarily due to budget constraints, and the Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) technology contract was subsequently concluded in 2015. A new chapter of technology development has recently been initiated by the NASA RPS Program. This effort is considering all dynamic power convertor options, such as Stirling and Brayton cycles. Four convertor development contracts supporting this effort were awarded in 2017. The awarded contracts include two free-piston Stirling, one thermoacoustic Stirling, and one turbo-Brayton designs. The technology development contracts each consist of up to three phases: Design, Fabricate, and Test. As of May 2018, all contracts have completed the Design Phase, and each underwent a design review with an independent review board. Three of the contracts are planned to execute the Phase 2 option for fabrication. Convertors manifesting from these development efforts will then undergo independent validation and verification at NASA facilities, which will consist of convertor performance and RPS viability demonstrations. Example tests include launch vibration simulation, performance mapping over the environmental temperature range, and static acceleration exposure. In parallel with this renewed development effort, NASA GRC is still demonstrating free-piston Stirling convertor technology using assets from previous projects. The Stirling Research Laboratory (SRL) is still operating several convertors from previous development projects which have similarities and relevance to current contract designs. Four of which are flexure-bearing based, and another six are gas-bearing based. One of the flexure-bearing convertors has accumulated over 110,000 hours of operation, and holds the current record for maintenance-free heat-engine run-time. Another flexure-bearing convertor was recently manually shutdown after 105,620 hours of operation, then disassembled and inspected. This inspection produced a wealth of information about the effects of this amount of runtime on the technology's components. One of the engineering unit flexure-bearing convertors recently underwent launch simulation vibration test, a static acceleration exposure up to 20 g, and was then placed on extended operation. Amongst the gas-bearing convertors, the longest running unit has accumulated over 70,000 hours of operation. Four high-fidelity gas-bearing convertors from the ASRG project are still operating continuously, for which the longest runtime has reached 28,000 hours.

Oriti, Salvatore M.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Dynamic Power Convertor Development for Radioisotope Power Systems at NASA GRC

The Thermal Energy Conversion Branch at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) is supporting the development of high-efficiency power convertors in support of Radioisotope Power System (RPS) development. Significant progress was made towards such a system that utilized Stirling conversion machines during the 2001 to 2015 timeframe. Flight development of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) was cancelled in 2013 by the Department of Energy (DOE) and NASA Headquarters primarily due to budget constraints, and the Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) technology contract was subsequently concluded in 2015. A new chapter of technology development has recently been initiated by the NASA RPS Program. This new effort is considering all dynamic power convertor options, such as Stirling and Brayton cycles. Four convertor development contracts supporting this effort were awarded in 2017. The awarded contracts include two free-piston Stirling, one thermoacoustic Stirling, and one turbo-Brayton designs. The technology development contracts each consist of up to three phases: Design, Fabricate, and Test. As of May 2018, all contracts have completed the Design Phase, and each underwent a design review with an independent review board. Two of the contracts have been awarded the Phase 2 option for fabrication. Convertors manifesting from these development efforts will then undergo independent validation and verification at NASA facilities, which will consist of convertor performance and RPS viability demonstrations. Example tests include launch vibration simulation, performance mapping over the environmental temperature range, and static acceleration exposure. In parallel with this renewed development effort, NASA GRC is still demonstrating free-piston Stirling convertor technology using assets from previous projects. The Stirling Research Laboratory (SRL) is still operating 10 convertors from previous development projects. Four of which are flexure-bearing based, and the other six are gas-bearing based. One of the flexure-bearing convertors has accumulated over 110,000 hours of operation, and holds the current maintenance-free heat-engine run-time record. Another flexure-bearing convertor was recently manually shutdown after 105,620 hours of operation, then disassembled and inspected. This inspection produced a wealth of information about the effects of this amount of runtime on the technology's components. One of the engineering unit flexure-bearing convertors recently underwent launch simulation vibration test, a static acceleration exposure up to 20 g, and was then placed on extended operation. Amongst the gas-bearing convertors, the longest running unit has accumulated over 70,000 hours of operation. Four high-fidelity gas-bearing convertors from the ASRG project are still operating continuously, for which the longest runtime has reached 26,000 hours.

Oriti, Salvatore↗
NASA NTRS2018

Early Results from the RELAMPAGO Lightning Mapping Array

In austral spring of 2018, an 11station NASA lightning mapping array (LMA) will be installed in the Cordoba region of Argentina, in support of GOES16/ 17 Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) calibration and validation, as well as the Remote sensing of Electrification, Lightning, And Mesoscale/microscale Processes with Adaptive Ground Observations (RELAMPAGO) field campaign. This region of Argentina is well known for frequent, intense thunderstorms and severe weather. Lightning observations in storms that initiate, become severe, and grow upscale are expected to be obtained by GLM and the LMA during the LMA’s multimonth deployment. We hypothesize that, similar to the analogous U.S. High Plains, anomalously charged thunderstorms with frequent inverted lightning at low levels are common in this region, which may have implications for GLM detection efficiency. Deployment logistics and experimental approach will be explained, and some early results from the LMA (including comparison to GLM) will be presented.

Lang, Timothy↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Hydrosphere State (Hydros) Satellite Mission: An Earth System Pathfinder for Global Mapping of Soil Moisture and Land Freeze/Thaw

The Hydrosphere State Mission (Hydros) is a pathfinder mission in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Earth System Science Pathfinder Program (ESSP). The objective of the mission is to provide exploratory global measurements of the earth's soil moisture at 10-km resolution with two- to three-days revisit and land-surface freeze/thaw conditions at 3-km resolution with one- to two-days revisit. The mission builds on the heritage of ground-based and airborne passive and active low-frequency microwave measurements that have demonstrated and validated the effectiveness of the measurements and associated algorithms for estimating the amount and phase (frozen or thawed) of surface soil moisture. The mission data will enable advances in weather and climate prediction and in mapping processes that link the water, energy, and carbon cycles. The Hydros instrument is a combined radar and radiometer system operating at 1.26 GHz (with VV, HH, and HV polarizations) and 1.41 GHz (with H, V, and U polarizations), respectively. The radar and the radiometer share the aperture of a 6-m antenna with a look-angle of 39 with respect to nadir. The lightweight deployable mesh antenna is rotated at 14.6 rpm to provide a constant look-angle scan across a swath width of 1000 km. The wide swath provides global coverage that meet the revisit requirements. The radiometer measurements allow retrieval of soil moisture in diverse (nonforested) landscapes with a resolution of 40 km. The radar measurements allow the retrieval of soil moisture at relatively high resolution (3 km). The mission includes combined radar/radiometer data products that will use the synergy of the two sensors to deliver enhanced-quality 10-km resolution soil moisture estimates. In this paper, the science requirements and their traceability to the instrument design are outlined. A review of the underlying measurement physics and key instrument performance parameters are also presented.

Entekhabi, D.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Mathematical Inversion of Lightning Data: Techniques and Applications

A survey of some interesting mathematical inversion studies dealing with radio, optical, and electrostatic measurements of lightning are presented. A discussion of why NASA is interested in lightning, what specific physical properties of lightning are retrieved, and what mathematical techniques are used to perform the retrievals are discussed. In particular, a relatively new multi-station VHF time-of-arrival (TOA) antenna network is now on-line in Northern Alabama and will be discussed. The network, called the Lightning Mapping Array (LMA), employs GPS timing and detects VHF radiation from discrete segments (effectively point emitters) that comprise the channel of lightning strokes within cloud and ground flashes. The LMA supports on-going ground-validation activities of the low Earth orbiting Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) satellite developed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. The LMA also provides detailed studies of the distribution and evolution of thunderstorms and lightning in the Tennessee Valley, and offers interesting comparisons with other meteorological/geophysical datasets. In order to take full advantage of these benefits, it is essential that the LMA channel mapping accuracy (in both space and time) be fully characterized and optimized. A new channel mapping retrieval algorithm is introduced for this purpose. To characterize the spatial distribution of retrieval errors, the algorithm has been applied to analyze literally tens of millions of computer-simulated lightning VHF point sources that have been placed at various ranges, azimuths, and altitudes relative to the LMA network. Statistical results are conveniently summarized in high-resolution, color-coded, error maps.

Koshak, William↗
NASA NTRS1997

An Approach to Building a Traceability Tool for Software Development

It is difficult in a large, complex computer program to ensure that it meets the specified requirements. As the program evolves over time, a11 program constraints originally elicited during the requirements phase must be maintained. In addition, during the life cycle of the program, requirements typically change and the program must consistently reflect those changes. Imagine the following scenario. Company X wants to develop a system to automate its assembly line. With such a large system, there are many different stakeholders, e.g., managers, experts such as industrial and mechanical engineers, and end-users. Requirements would be elicited from all of the stake holders involved in the system with each stakeholder contributing their point of view to the requirements. For example, some of the requirements provided by an industrial engineer may concern the movement of parts through the assembly line. A point of view provided by the electrical engineer may be reflected in constraints concerning maximum power usage. End-users may be concerned with comfort and safety issues, whereas managers are concerned with the efficiency of the operation. With so many points of view affecting the requirements, it is difficult to manage them, communicate information to relevant stakeholders. and it is likely that conflicts in the requirements will arise. In the coding process, the implementors will make additional assumptions and interpretations on the design and the requirements of the system. During any stage of development, stakeholders may request that a requirement be added or changed. In such a dynamic environment, it is difficult to guarantee that the system will preserve the current set of requirements. Tracing, the mapping between objects in the artifacts of the system being developed, addresses this issue. Artifacts encompass documents such as the system definition, interview transcripts, memoranda, the software requirements specification, user's manuals, the functional specifications, design reports, and system code. Tracing helps 1) validate system features against, the requirement specification, 2) identify error sources and, most importantly, 3) manage change. With so many people involved in the development of the system, it becomes necessary to identify the reasons behind the design requirements or the implementation decisions. This paper is concerned with an approach that maps documents to constraints that capture properties of and relationships between the objects being modeled by the program. Section 2 provides the reader with a background on traceability tools. Section 3 gives a brief description of the context monitoring system on which the approach suggested in this paper is based. Section 4 presents an overview of our approach to providing traceability. The last section presents our future direction of research.

Delgado, Nelly↗
NASA NTRS2016

Forward Modeling of Ceres' Gravity Field for Planetary Protection Assessment

The Dawn spacecraft arrived at the dwarf planet Ceres in early 2015 after a two and a half-year cruise in deep space after departing Vesta. The nominal plan for Dawn included successively lower science orbits, the last of which is called the Low Altitude Mapping Orbit that also serves as the disposal orbit after the end of mission. Prior to Dawn’s arrival at Ceres, it was identified that Dawn would have to meet planetary protection requirements at Ceres by remaining on a stable orbit for 20 years past the end of the mission. With little a priori knowledge on Ceres’ interior we analyzed what gravitational perturbations influence the long-term dynamical evolution of Dawn around Ceres and validated that the gravitational model of Ceres with the then-current best estimate of the density distribution model does not exceed the permissible bounds. The forward modeling of gravity fields from various shape models and density distribution was deemed valid to satisfy the planetary protection guidelines. This analysis was further confirmed after a new shape model based on the actual optical images was created. The gravity field as measured in the High Altitude Mapping Orbit also fits within the bounds of gravitational field studied pre-arrival at Ceres to substantiate our methodology used to satisfy the planetary protection requirement.

Takahashi, Yu↗
DOE OSTI2025

Validation of 3D cryoEM single-particle reconstruction correctness and handedness with Ewald's sphere correction

The correct description of quantum scattering places the observed scattering contributions on the Ewald's sphere and its Friedel mate copy. In electron microscopy, due to the large radius of the Ewald's sphere, these scattering contributions are typically merged during data analysis. We present an approach that separates and factorizes those contributions into real and imaginary components of the image. When an inverted solution is calculated, the map derived from the real component of the image generates an inverted solution, while the map derived from the imaginary component of the image generates an inverted and sign-flipped solution. Therefore, the sign of correlation between reconstructions derived from the real and imaginary components provides the automatic determination of handedness and additional validation for the quality of 3D reconstructions. The factorization and its implementation are robust enough to be routinely used in single-particle reconstructions, even at resolutions below the limit where the curvature of the Ewald's sphere affects the overall signal-to-noise ratio.

Chemistry↗
NASA NTRS1977

Temperature dependence of Fe/++/ crystal field spectra - Implications to mineralogical mapping of planetary surfaces

Results are reported of Fe(++) crystal field spectral measurements for olivines and pyroxenes up to 400 C. The results are correlated with crystal structure data at elevated temperatures, and the validity of remote-sensed identifications of minerals on hot surfaces of the moon and Mercury is assessed. Two techniques were used to obtain spectra of minerals at elevated temperatures using a spectrophotometer. One employed a diamond cell assembly or a specially designed sample holder to measure polarized absorption spectra of heated single crystals. For the other technique, a sample holder was designed to attach to a diffuse reflectance accessory to produce reflectance spectra of heated powdered samples. Polarized absorption spectra of forsterite at 20-400 C are shown in a graph. Other graphs show the temperature dependence of Fe(++) crystal field bands in olivines, the diffuse reflectance spectra of olivine at 40-400 C, the polarization absorption spectra of orthopyroxene at 30-400 C, the diffuse reflectance spectra of pigeonite at 40-400 C, and unpolarized absorption spectra of lunar pyroxene from Apollo 15 rock 15058.

Sung, C.-M.↗
NASA NTRS2016

A31N-03: Lower-Tropospheric CO2 from Near-Infrared ACOS-GOSAT Observations

We present two new products from near-infrared GOSAT observations: lower tropospheric (LMT, from 0-2.5 km) and upper tropospheric/stratospheric (U, above 2.5 km) carbon dioxide partial columns. We compare these new products to aircraft profiles and remote surface flask measurements and find that the seasonal and year-to-year variations in the new partial columns significantly improve over the ACOS-GOSAT initial guess/a priori, with distinct patterns in the LMT and U seasonal cycles which match validation data. For land monthly averages, we find errors of 1.9, 0.7, and 0.8 ppm for retrieved GOSAT LMT, U, and XCO2; for ocean monthly averages, we find errors of 0.7, 0.5, and 0.5 ppm for retrieved GOSAT LMT, U, and XCO2. In the southern hemisphere biomass burning season, the new partial columns show similar patterns to MODIS fire maps and MOPITT multispectral CO for both vertical levels, despite a flat ACOS-GOSAT prior, and CO/CO2 emission factor consistent with published values. The difference of LMT and U, useful for evaluation of model transport error, has also been validated with monthly average error of 0.8 (1.4) ppm for ocean (land). The new LMT partial column is more locally influenced than the U partial column, meaning that local fluxes can now be separated from CO2 transported from far away.

Kulawik, Susan S.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Overcoming time and complexity limitations in molecular dynamics investigations of equilibrium melting

Abstract A hybrid Monte-Carlo molecular-dynamics method for determining solidus and liquidus compositions in multicomponent systems is presented that overcomes both the time limitations in conventional molecular dynamics that prevent the evolution of distinct solid and liquid compositions via diffusion and the complexity challenge that prevents use of thermodynamic assessment in systems of many components. This hybrid method is validated in the Cu–Ni system against an independent assessment of solidus and liquidus compositions based on the regular solution model. Strategies for efficient mapping of different phase diagrams, based on the thermodynamic parameter T 0 , the temperature at which two phases of the composition X 0 have equal free energies, are presented and then demonstrated for the copper-nickel fully miscible system and the gold–silicon eutectic system. A calculation of the solidus and liquidus sampled during the equilibrium melting of equiatomic CrMnFeCoNi is performed, indicating that this method has potential to be extended to the study of many component alloys.

Au-Si↗
NASA NTRS1993

Mars Observer: Applications to atmospheric transport

The Pressure Modulator Infrared Radiometer (PMIRR) is an atmospheric sounder designed to observe temporal and spatial variations of water vapor and of dust suspended in the Mars atmosphere, to characterize the planetary-scale thermal structure and circulation of the atmosphere, and to quantify the polar radiative balance. These measurements are fundamental to understanding the seasonal cycles of dust, of water, and of CO2 on Mars and, in particular, to determining the role of atmospheric transport. Using measurements in eight narrow-band infrared spectral regions and one broadband visible channel, the PMIRR investigation teams at JPL and Oxford University will derive vertical profiles of atmospheric temperature, extinction due to suspended dust, and water vapor concentration, as well as locations of CO2 and H2O ice clouds. These data will be used in a variety of ways to address issues of atmospheric dynamics and transport. Three topics will be emphasized here: (1) the expected precision of the retrieved profiles of temperature, dust extinction, and water vapor, including plans for validating the profiles; (2) the observation strategy, designed to best use PMIRR's two-axis scan mirror, as deployed in the Mars Observer mapping orbit; and (3) approaches to mapping the atmospheric fields globally and the derivation of key meteorological fields related to estimating atmospheric transport.

Zurek, Richard W.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Quantifying Errors in TRMM-Based Multi-Sensor QPE Products Over Land in Preparation for GPM

Determining uncertainties in satellite-based multi-sensor quantitative precipitation estimates over land of fundamental importance to both data producers and hydro climatological applications. ,Evaluating TRMM-era products also lays the groundwork and sets the direction for algorithm and applications development for future missions including GPM. QPE uncertainties result mostly from the interplay of systematic errors and random errors. In this work, we will synthesize our recent results quantifying the error characteristics of satellite-based precipitation estimates. Both systematic errors and total uncertainties have been analyzed for six different TRMM-era precipitation products (3B42, 3B42RT, CMORPH, PERSIANN, NRL and GSMap). For systematic errors, we devised an error decomposition scheme to separate errors in precipitation estimates into three independent components, hit biases, missed precipitation and false precipitation. This decomposition scheme reveals hydroclimatologically-relevant error features and provides a better link to the error sources than conventional analysis, because in the latter these error components tend to cancel one another when aggregated or averaged in space or time. For the random errors, we calculated the measurement spread from the ensemble of these six quasi-independent products, and thus produced a global map of measurement uncertainties. The map yields a global view of the error characteristics and their regional and seasonal variations, reveals many undocumented error features over areas with no validation data available, and provides better guidance to global assimilation of satellite-based precipitation data. Insights gained from these results and how they could help with GPM will be highlighted.

Peters-Lidard, Christa D.↗
NASA NTRS2020

An Integrated Model of Models for Global Flood Alerting

A dramatic increase in frequency of minor to major flooding since 2000 has caused significant damage to infrastructure and economic losses across the world. To mitigate and recover from these losses, actions have been taken to build resilient communities and infrastructures. Situational awareness in near real-time is essential to ensure community resilience and enhance response and recovery efforts. Several hydrologic and hydraulic flood models are available at various spatial and temporal resolutions at regional to global scale. Given the global coverage of two operational flood models - GloFAS (Global Flood Awareness System) and GFMS (Global Flood Monitoring System), the first component of this project first focuses on integrating the outputs from these two models to classify flood severity and send alerts based on potential for impacts similar to the USGS PAGER (used for severity alerting and impact analysis for earthquakes). The second component of the project focuses on using flood outputs derived from earth observation data to validate, update and add additional exposure and impact products to flood alerts. The flood impacts and severity information will be disseminated as alerts and maps through the DisasterAWARE platform, operated by the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), that provides global multi-hazard alerting and Situational Awareness information to the emergency management community and public. In this presentation, the following objectives will be covered: (i) the effective integration of the flood models, (ii) accuracy of the flood model outputs (flood extent and depth) for specific flood events both in the United States and globally in comparison with each other and earth observation data.

Glasscoe, Margaret↗
NASA NTRS1997

Mapping Surface Cover Parameters Using Aggregation Rules and Remotely Sensed Cover Classes

A coupled model, which combines the Biosphere-Atmosphere Transfer Scheme (BATS) with an advanced atmospheric boundary-layer model, was used to validate hypothetical aggregation rules for BATS-specific surface cover parameters. The model was initialized and tested with observations from the Anglo-Brazilian Amazonian Climate Observational Study and used to simulate surface fluxes for rain forest and pasture mixes at a site near Manaus in Brazil. The aggregation rules are shown to estimate parameters which give area-average surface fluxes similar to those calculated with explicit representation of forest and pasture patches for a range of meteorological and surface conditions relevant to this site, but the agreement deteriorates somewhat when there are large patch-to-patch differences in soil moisture. The aggregation rules, validated as above, were then applied to remotely sensed 1 km land cover data set to obtain grid-average values of BATS vegetation parameters for 2.8 deg x 2.8 deg and 1 deg x 1 deg grids within the conterminous United States. There are significant differences in key vegetation parameters (aerodynamic roughness length, albedo, leaf area index, and stomatal resistance) when aggregate parameters are compared to parameters for the single, dominant cover within the grid. However, the surface energy fluxes calculated by stand-alone BATS with the 2-year forcing, data from the International Satellite Land Surface Climatology Project (ISLSCP) CDROM were reasonably similar using aggregate-vegetation parameters and dominant-cover parameters, but there were some significant differences, particularly in the western USA.

Arain, Altaf M.↗
NASA NTRS2015

The Role of the NASA Global Hawk Link Module as an Information Nexus For Atmospheric Mapping Missions

The Link Module described in this paper was developed for the NASA Uninhabited Aerial System (UAS) Global Hawk Pacific Mission (GloPAC) Airborne Science Campaign; four flights of 30 hour duration, supporting the Aura Validation Experiment (AVE). It was used again during the Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment, a NASA Earth Science field experiment to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into major hurricanes. In these missions, the Link Module negotiated all communication over the high bandwidth Ku satellite link, archived all the science data from onboard experiments in a spatially enabled database, routed command and control of the instruments from the Global Hawk Operations Center, and re-transmitted select data sets directly to experimenters control and analysis systems. The availability of aggregated information from collections of sensors, and remote control capabilities, in real-time, is revolutionizing the way Airborne Science is being conducted. The Link Module NG now being flown in support of the NASA Earth Venture missions, the Hurricane and Severe Storm Sentinel (HS3) mission, and Airborne Tropical Tropopause Experiment (A TTREX) mission, has advanced data fusion technologies that are further advancing the Scientific productivity, flexibility and robustness of these systems. On-the-fly traffic shaping has been developed to allow the high definition video, used for critical flight control segments, to dynamically allocate variable bandwidth on demand. Historically, the Link Module evolved from the instrument and communication interface controller used by NASA's Pathfinder and Pathfinder plus solar powered UAS's in the late 1990' s. It later was expanded for use in the AIRDAS four channel scanner flown on the NASA Altus UAS, and then again to a module in the AMS twelve channel multispectral scanner flying on the NASA (Predator-b) Ikhana UAS. The current system is the answer to the challenges imposed by extremely long duration UASs, with on-board multi-instrument (>= 12) Sensor Webs.

Hurricanes↗
NASA NTRS2002

A Lightning Channel Retrieval Algorithm for the North Alabama Lightning Mapping Array (LMA)

A new multi-station VHF time-of-arrival (TOA) antenna network is, at the time of this writing, coming on-line in Northern Alabama. The network, called the Lightning Mapping Array (LMA), employs GPS timing and detects VHF radiation from discrete segments (effectively point emitters) that comprise the channel of lightning strokes within cloud and ground flashes. The network will support on-going ground validation activities of the low Earth orbiting Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) satellite developed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama. It will also provide for many interesting and detailed studies of the distribution and evolution of thunderstorms and lightning in the Tennessee Valley, and will offer many interesting comparisons with other meteorological/geophysical wets associated with lightning and thunderstorms. In order to take full advantage of these benefits, it is essential that the LMA channel mapping accuracy (in both space and time) be fully characterized and optimized. In this study, a new revised channel mapping retrieval algorithm is introduced. The algorithm is an extension of earlier work provided in Koshak and Solakiewicz (1996) in the analysis of the NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC) Lightning Detection and Ranging (LDAR) system. As in the 1996 study, direct algebraic solutions are obtained by inverting a simple linear system of equations, thereby making computer searches through a multi-dimensional parameter domain of a Chi-Squared function unnecessary. However, the new algorithm is developed completely in spherical Earth-centered coordinates (longitude, latitude, altitude), rather than in the (x, y, z) cartesian coordinates employed in the 1996 study. Hence, no mathematical transformations from (x, y, z) into spherical coordinates are required (such transformations involve more numerical error propagation, more computer program coding, and slightly more CPU computing time). The new algorithm also has a more realistic definition of source altitude that accounts for Earth oblateness (this can become important for sources that are hundreds of kilometers away from the network). In addition, the new algorithm is being applied to analyze computer simulated LMA datasets in order to obtain detailed location/time retrieval error maps for sources in and around the LMA network. These maps will provide a more comprehensive analysis of retrieval errors for LMA than the 1996 study did of LDAR retrieval errors. Finally, we note that the new algorithm can be applied to LDAR, and essentially any other multi-station TWA network that depends on direct line-of-site antenna excitation.

Koshak, William↗