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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 NTRS1983

Adaptation of a software development methodology to the implementation of a large-scale data acquisition and control system

A progress report is presented on a program to upgrade the existing NASA Deep Space Network in terms of a redesigned computer-controlled data acquisition system for channelling tracking, telemetry, and command data between a California-based control center and three signal processing centers in Australia, California, and Spain. The methodology for the improvements is oriented towards single subsystem development with consideration for a multi-system and multi-subsystem network of operational software. Details of the existing hardware configurations and data transmission links are provided. The program methodology includes data flow design, interface design and coordination, incremental capability availability, increased inter-subsystem developmental synthesis and testing, system and network level synthesis and testing, and system verification and validation. The software has been implemented thus far to a 65 percent completion level, and the methodology being used to effect the changes, which will permit enhanced tracking and communication with spacecraft, has been concluded to feature effective techniques.

Madrid, G. A.↗

NASA NTRS1988

Block Oriented Simulation System (BOSS)

Computer simulation is assuming greater importance as a flexible and expedient approach to modeling system and subsystem behavior. Simulation has played a key role in the growth of complex, multiple access space communications such as those used by the space shuttle and the TRW-built Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS). A powerful new simulator for use in designing and modeling the communication system of NASA's planned Space Station is being developed. Progress to date on the Block (Diagram) Oriented Simulation System (BOSS) is described.

Ratcliffe, Jaimie↗

DOE OSTI2026

Transformative Impacts of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy on Environmental and Biological Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

This manuscript will present an advancement of transformative research that has been conducted at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) over a 25-year period (2000–2025) on a variety of environmental and biological matrices. These investigations derived a fundamental understanding of how elemental detection and analysis of these matrices led to the knowledge and discovery of natural processes in plants and the environment. Each project led to the initiation of a new research area which unearthed awesome and novel breakthroughs. Highlights are listed below: 1. The preliminary research at ORNL centered on the detection of aerosols utilizing Laser-induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) technology. The Clean Air Act Amendment (CAAA) of 1990 highlighted the importance of identifying hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) due to their impact on environmental and human health, thereby underscoring the need to detect various toxic elements. Research in aerosol chemistry aimed to identify these harmful elements released by factories during periods of increased emissions in their manufacturing processes. LIBS emerged as the most effective method for real-time, in situ measurements of metal species in both gaseous and aerosol phases. 2. An understanding of the presence of total carbon in soils gives perspective on how to develop carbon sequestration strategies. The recognition that carbon sinks can evolve back to carbon sources to emit back to the atmosphere was an important consideration. Also, the concentration of carbon in soil indicates the health of land areas for growing crops successfully. 3. The direct detection of most of the elements in a wood sample in a single emission spectrum, without sample preparation, encouraged the research to use the LIBS technique for preservative treated wood coupled with use of multivariate statistical methodology. Additionally, it encouraged the researchers to try to differentiate natural woods from different parts of the country, and it was successfully demonstrated that LIBS coupled with MVA analysis could differentiate wood of different species from each other and of similar species grown in different environments based on their elemental spectra. This was a breakthrough since it revealed a systematic approach to connect elemental scarcity and abundance to either drought or typical rainfall conditions for the hardwood trees grown in specific areas. 4. Furthermore, the research progressed to reveal physiological and developmental processes contributing to biomass production such that the variation in leaf elemental composition increases our understanding of terrestrial nutrient cycles, as well as tracking the transfer of toxic elements from soils to living organisms. 5. Recently another breakthrough viz., ionomics initiated the correlation of elements to specific genes, uncovering the function that the element performed in the plant. More recently, this has been extended from plants to fungi as well as fungi growing in symbiotic relations with plants.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

NASA NTRS1973

The deep space network, volume 15

The DSN progress is reported in flight project support, TDA research and technology, network engineering, hardware and software implementation, and operations. Topics discussed include: DSN functions and facilities, planetary flight projects, tracking and ground-based navigation, communications, data processing, network control system, and deep space stations.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1996

Independent Validation of Specifications: A Coordination Headache

Large, complex projects face significant barriers to coordination and communication due to continuous, rapid changes during a project's life cycle. Such changes must be tracked, analyzed, and reconciled to ensure high quality in the end product, otherwise problems may get lost or ignored in the overall complexity. We report on 'work-in-progress' in the study of coordination problems between two independent, separate groups: software development and software analysis. We have begun to construct a taxonomy of coordination problems, which we illustrate with two scenarios. We briefly describe current attempts to introduce incremental improvements to coordination problems in such projects via World Wide Web tools. Based on actual project experiences, we plan to deploy such tools in a non-intrusive fashion to improve coordination and communication between software development groups.

Easterbrook, Steve↗

NASA NTRS2005

Launch Vehicle Communications

As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) planning for updated launch vehicle operations progresses, there is a need to consider improved methods. This study considers the use of phased array antennas mounted on launch vehicles and transmitting data to either NASA's Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) satellites or to the commercial Iridium, Intelsat, or Inmarsat communications satellites. Different data rate requirements are analyzed to determine size and weight of resulting antennas.

Welch, Bryan↗

NASA NTRS2006

The Ebb and Flow of Tidal Science, and the Impact of Satellite Altimetry

In the years immediately preceding the launches of Geosat and Topex/Poseidon, tidal science had lapsed into a period of uncertainty and discouragement, brought about by the failure of once-exciting new ideas that eventually proved overly optimistic. A long list of outstanding problems presented themselves, but progress had reached a "low water mark". What was lacking was a high-quality global dataset of tidal measurements, which satellite altimetry -- and especially Topex/Poseidon -- provided. With these data in hand, a "flood tide" of marked progress resulted. In this paper we review some of that progress. An important area of progress, with potentially important implications for other areas of physical oceanography, falls under the topic of "energy dissipation." With precise global constraints provided by altimetry -- combined with precise laser tracking of the altimeter, other geodetic satellites like Lageos, as well as the moon -- the planetary energy budgets of both Earth and ocean tides are now well determined. Moreover, the local energy balances, and thus local estimates of tidal dissipation, have now been mapped, although somewhat coarsely, throughout the ocean. This work has pointed to internal-tide generation in the deep ocean as the once missing sink of tidal energy, and has led to a plethora of new observational and theoretical studies of internal tides, and their role in vertical mixing of the deep ocean. The discovery that internal tides, or some part of them, can be directly mapped with an altimeter opens new lines of research on this topic. Low-mode internal tides have been found, at least in some regions, to propagate several thousand kilometers across open ocean. The study of such waves with altimetry gives us a global view heretofore unattainable, allowing strong observational constraints to be placed on possible ocean mixing processes, such as subharmonic instabilities.

Ray, Richard↗

DOE OSTI2023

The Joint Ninth Aerosol, Clouds, Precipitation and Climate (ACPC) initiative and TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER) Workshop

The joint ninth Aerosols-Clouds-Precipitation-and-Climate (ACPC; http://www.acpcinitiative.org) initiative and TRacking Aerosol Convection interactions ExpeRiment (TRACER; Jensen et al., 2022) workshop was convened from 16–19 May 2023 at Texas Southern University (TSU), Houston, TX, and online to discuss progress towards understanding the interactions among aerosols, clouds, precipitation, and climate.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2024

Latest Development to the Mass Tracking System (MTG)

This poster informs about the ongoing development project of the Mass Tracking System (MTG) taking place in Fuels Conditioning Complex at MFC. The information is about the MTG utilization, the possible complications in the future with the system and the solution for those complication. Furthermore, the poster reports about the progress and the future plans of the project after brief insight on how the MTG operates in the facility. Essentially, the project is separated in three different phases starting with the back-end development focusing on conversion and migration phases and finalizing with the front-end development of the website phase to provide FCF with versatile and efficient system.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS2013

On the Reprocessing and Reanalysis of Observations for Climate

The long observational record is critical to our understanding of the Earths climate, but most observing systems were not developed with a climate objective in mind. As a result, tremendous efforts have gone into assessing and reprocessing the data records to improve their usefulness in climate studies. The purpose of this paper is to both review recent progress in reprocessing and reanalyzing observations, and to summarize the challenges that must be overcome in order to improve our understanding of climate and variability. Reprocessing improves data quality through more scrutiny and improved retrieval techniques for individual observing systems, while reanalysis merges many disparate observations with models through data assimilation, yet both aim to provide an climatology of Earth processes. Many challenges remain, such as tracking the improvement of processing algorithms and limited spatial coverage. Reanalyses have fostered significant research, yet reliable global trends in many physical fields are not yet attainable, despite significant advances in data assimilation and numerical modeling. Oceanic reanalyses have made significant advances in recent years, but will only be discussed here in terms of progress toward integrated Earth system analyses. Climate data sets are generally adequate for process studies and large-scale climate variability. Communication of the strengths, limitations and uncertainties of reprocessed observations and reanalysis data, not only among the community of developers, but also with the extended research community, including the new generations of researchers and the decision makers is crucial for further advancement of the observational data records. It must be emphasized that careful investigation of the data and processing methods are required to use the observations appropriately.

Uncertainty↗

DOE OSTI2018

Advanced Vehicle Testing and Evaluation Final Technical Report Encompassing Project Activities From October 1, 2011 to April 30, 2018

The Advanced Vehicle Testing and Evaluation (AVTE) project incorporated the conduct of advanced technology vehicle and infrastructure testing in the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Vehicle Testing Activity (AVTA). It was the only activity tasked by DOE to conduct independent field evaluations of vehicle technologies that use advanced technology systems and subsystems in vehicles that reduce petroleum consumption. The results are available through reports published on the AVTA website at http://avt.inl.gov/. The AVTE project provided insight into advanced vehicle technology's long-term performance, durability, maintenance, and lifecycle costs that cannot be found elsewhere. The site is a resource for DOE stakeholders and the public to gain knowledge on advanced technology vehicle progress and innovation. Vehicles tested included light and heavy-duty vehicles with conventional, hybrid, plug-in hybrid, and all-electric propulsion systems. Vehicles were tested on closed tracks and chassis dynamometers, as well as operated on public roads, in fleet operations, and over prescribed routes. All testing was controlled by procedures developed specifically to support such testing. Testing and evaluations were conducted in the following phases: Development and refinement of test procedures, which established testing procedures; Baseline performance testing, which established a performance baseline; Accelerated reliability testing, which determined vehicle reliability; Fleet testing, used to evaluate vehicle economics in fleet operation, and End of test performance evaluation. Test results from all aspects of testing were posted by Idaho National Laboratory (INL) to their website. This final report documents work conducted for the entirety of contract DE-EE0005501 by Intertek Testing Services NA, Inc. (Intertek). The contract was performed from October 1, 2011 through April 30, 2018, and includes 18 amendments to the original award with the most recent Amendment 18 dated March 28, 2018. The final budget for the AVTE project totaled 20,220,873 dollars. As a cooperative agreement, Intertek was obligated to provide cost share of 4,044,175 dollars, leaving 16,176,698 dollars as the Federal share of the agreement. Actual total expenditure for the AVTE project was 20,286,850 dollars. The full 16,176,698 dollars Federal share was expended and 4,110,152 dollars of cost share was provided by Intertek. This resulted in an over-share of 65,977 dollars. There were 106 light-duty on-road vehicles vehicles tested in both fleet and accelerated reliability testing. One additional vehicle was rented to obtain performance testing only. Three heavy-duty truck and trailer combinations were tested as part of the semi-autonomous driving with heavy-duty vehicles in a platoon. Overall project scope and direction was determined between Intertek, DOE, and technical teams from Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), and National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). The project was administered by the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL).

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2020

Requirements Description of the REBUS Software for the Versatile Test Reactor

This report presents the modeling and simulation capabilities of Argonne National Laboratory’s fuel cycle analysis code, the REactor BUrnup System (REBUS), that will be relied on for the VTR project. These capabilities will then be used to establish the set of REBUS verification tasks necessary to verify REBUS for usage on the VTR project. A similar path was followed for the DIF3D software where its’ requirements and verification tasks were established. REBUS has been maintained by Argonne since the early 1960s to support its reactor design mission. That software transitioned from the original REBUS to REBUS-2 in the mid 1970s and to REBUS-3 in the mid 1980s. Since then REBUS has gone through many revisions to the current REBUS-11. Note that this version numbering is consistent with the progression of DIF3D, the base flux solver that REBUS is built upon. The name REBUS refers to a pictorial based puzzle as the original developers were inspired by having to track thousands of unique fuel assemblies as they are inserted into the reactor, depleted, shuffled, discharged, and reprocessed.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

NASA NTRS1977

Reliability measurement during software development

During the development of data base software for a multi-sensor tracking system, reliability was measured. The failure ratio and failure rate were found to be consistent measures. Trend lines were established from these measurements that provided good visualization of the progress on the job as a whole as well as on individual modules. Over one-half of the observed failures were due to factors associated with the individual run submission rather than with the code proper. Possible application of these findings for line management, project managers, functional management, and regulatory agencies is discussed. Steps for simplifying the measurement process and for use of these data in predicting operational software reliability are outlined.

Hecht, H.↗

NASA NTRS2016

Space Photovoltaic Concentrator Using Robust Fresnel Lenses, 4-Junction Cells, Graphene Radiators, and Articulating Receivers

At the 42nd PVSC, our team presented recent advances in our space photovoltaic concentrator technology. These advances include more robust Fresnel lenses for optical concentration, more thermally conductive graphene radiators for waste heat rejection, improved color-mixing lens technology to minimize chromatic aberration losses with 4-junction solar cells, and an articulating photovoltaic receiver enabling single-axis sun-tracking, while maintaining a sharp focal line despite large beta angles of incidence. In the past year, under a NASA Phase II SBIR program, our team has made much additional progress in the development of this new space photovoltaic concentrator technology, as described in this paper.

photovoltaic↗

DOE OSTI2019

Current and Future Performance of the CMS Simulation

The CMS full simulation using Geant4 has delivered billions of simulated events for analysis during Runs 1 and 2 of the LHC. However, the HL-LHC dataset will be an order of magnitude larger, with a similar increase in occupancy per event. In addition, the upgraded CMS detector will be considerably more complex, with an extended silicon tracker and a high granularity calorimeter in the endcap region. Increases in conventional computing resources are subject to both technological and budgetary limitations, so novel approaches are needed to improve software efficiency and to take advantage of new architectures and heterogeneous resources. Several projects are in development to address these needs, including the vectorized geometry library Vec-Geom and the GeantV transport engine, which uses track-level parallelization. The current computing performance of the CMS simulation will be presented as a baseline, along with an overview of the various optimizations already available for Geant4. Finally, the progress and outlook for integrating VecGeom and GeantV in the CMS software framework will be discussed.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Single phonon detection for dark matter via quantum evaporation and sensing of He 3

Dark matter is five times more abundant than ordinary visible matter in our Universe. While laboratory searches hunting for dark matter have traditionally focused on the electroweak scale, theories of low mass hidden sectors motivate new detection techniques. Extending these searches to lower mass ranges, well below 1 GeV / c 2 , poses new challenges as rare interactions with standard model matter transfer progressively less energy to electrons and nuclei in detectors. Here, we propose an approach based on phonon-assisted quantum evaporation combined with quantum sensors for detection of desorption events via tracking of spin coherence. The intent of our proposed dark matter sensors is to extend the parameter space to energy transfers in rare interactions to as low as a few meV for detection of dark matter particles in the keV / c 2 mass range. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

NASA NTRS1999

Advances in Understanding Decadal Climate Variability

Recently, a joint Brazil-France-U.S. program, known as PIRATA (Pilot Research moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic), was proposed to begin the deployment of moored measurement platforms in the tropical Atlantic in order to enhance the existing observational data base and subsequent understanding of the processes by which the ocean and atmosphere couple in key regions of the tropical Atlantic Ocean. Empirical studies have suggested that there are strong relationships between tropical Atlantic upper ocean variability, SST, ocean-atmosphere coupling and regional climate variability. During the early 1980's a coordinated set of surface wind, subsurface thermal structure, and subsurface current observations were obtained as part of the U.S.-France SEQUAL-FOCAL process experiment designed to observe the seasonal response of the tropical Atlantic Ocean to surface forcing. Since that time, however, the observational data base for the tropical Atlantic Ocean has disintegrated to a few ship-tracks measuring ocean temperatures and a small collection of tide gauge stations measuring sea level. A more comprehensive set of observations, modeling and empirical studies is now in order to make progress on understanding the regional climate variability. The proposed PIRATA program will use mooring platforms similar to the tropical Pacific Ocean TAO array to measure surface fluxes of momentum and heat and the corresponding changes in the upper ocean thermal structure. It is anticipated that the oceanic data from this monitoring array will also be used in a predictive mode for initialization studies of regional coupled climate models. Of particular interest are zonal and meridional modes of ocean-atmosphere variability within the tropical Atlantic basin that have significant impacts on the regional climate of the bordering continents.

Busalacchi, Antonio J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Smooth Pursuit Saccade Amplitude Modulation During Exposure to Microgravity

Russian investigators have reported changes in pursuit tracking of a vertically moving point stimulus during space flight. Early in microgravity, changes were manifested by decreased eye movement amplitude (undershooting) and the appearance of correction saccades. As the flight progressed, pursuit of the moving point stimulus deteriorated while associated saccadic movements were unchanged. Immediately postflight there was an improved execution of active head movements indicating that the deficiencies in pursuit function noted in microgravity may be of central origin. In contrast, tests of two cosmonauts showed that horizontal and vertical smooth pursuit were unchanged inflight. However, results of corresponding saccadic tasks showed a tendency toward the overshooting of a horizontal target early inflight with high accuracy developing later inflight, accompanied by an increased saccade velocity and a trend toward decreased saccade latency. Based on these equivocal results, we have further investigated the effects of space flight on the smooth pursuit mechanism during and after short duration flight, and postflight on returning MIR crewmembers. Sinusoidal target movement was presented horizontally at frequencies of 0.33 and 1.0 Hz. Subjects were asked to perform two trials for each stimulus combination: (1) moving eyes-only (EO) and (2) moving eyes and head (EH) with the target motion. Peak amplitude was 30 deg for 0.33 Hz trials and 15 deg for the 1.0 Hz trials. The relationship between saccade amplitude and peak velocity were plotted as a main sequence for each phase of flight, and linear regression analysis allowed us to determine the slope of each main sequence plot. The linear slopes were then combined for each flight phase for each individual subject. The main sequence for both EO and EH trials at both the 0.33 and 1.0 Hz frequencies during flight for the short duration flyers showed a reduction in saccade velocity and amplitude when compared to the preflight main sequence . This difference in the regression slopes between flight phase, head/eye condition (EO or EH), and pursuit target frequency was observed across all subjects (statistically significant at the p<0.02, df= 2). It is interesting to note that postflight for the short duration flyers there was an immediate recovery to the preflight main sequence across all trials. There were no significant differences observed between the preflight slopes for either head movement condition (EO vs. EH). When the immediate postflight (R+O) regression slopes were compared with the preflight slopes, there was a tendency (not significant) for both saccade amplitude and peak velocity to increase during the postflight testing. This tendency had vanished by R+ 1. Of particular interest was the redistribution of saccades during the latter stages of the flight and immediately postflight in the EO condition. At the 1.0 Hz frequency the saccades tended to be clustered near the lowest target velocity. It was also interesting to note that gaze performance (eye in skull + head in space) was consistently better during the EH condition; a finding also observed by our Russian colleagues. As the results of the long duration flight become available we expect that they will not only show that postflight effects will be similar to those observed during the short duration flights, but will also last for a greater period of time following flight. It is not clear what mechanism is responsible for the decreased peak saccadic velocity during flight unless the change is related to the control of retinal slip. For example, it is possible that saccades will tend to initially undershoot their targets by a small percentage and these saccades are then followed, if vision is available, by a small augmenting corrective saccade. It has been postulated that the functional significance of this undershooting tendency is to maintain the spatial representation of the target on the same side of the fovea (as opposedo racing across the fovea) and hence in the same cerebral hemisphere that initiated the primary saccade thus minimizing delays caused by an intra-hemispheric transfer of information . One could also speculate that with saccade velocities greater than normal, additional corrective saccades would be required to bring the target back on the fovea. A less plausible explanation of our findings could be fatigue. Yet it seems unlikely that our subjects would show lower velocities on all inflight test days while showing increased saccade velocities immediately following space flight where fatigue is usually the greatest. Finally, the redistribution effect noted late inflight is likely caused by adaptive changes. Overall, corrective saccades appeared to be used in maintaining gaze on target; reducing retinal slip and assisting space travelers in maintaining clear vision throughout the different phases of the space flight.

Reschke, M. F.↗