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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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At least 487 records · Page 27

Continuous Improvement in Battery Testing at the NASA/JSC Energy System Test Area

The Energy Systems Test Area (ESTA) at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas conducts development and qualification tests to fulfill Energy System Division responsibilities relevant to ASA programs and projects. EST A has historically called upon a variety of fluid, mechanical, electrical, environmental, and data system capabilities spread amongst five full-service facilities to test human and human supported spacecraft in the areas of propulsion systems, fluid systems, pyrotechnics, power generation, and power distribution and control systems. Improvements at ESTA are being made in full earnest of offering NASA project offices an option to choose a thorough test regime that is balanced with cost and schedule constraints. In order to continue testing of enabling power-related technologies utilized by the Energy System Division, an especially proactive effort has been made to increase the cost effectiveness and schedule responsiveness for battery testing. This paper describes the continuous improvement in battery testing at the Energy Systems Test Area being made through consolidation, streamlining, and standardization.

Boyd, William↗

NASA GSFC Avionics Architectures and Future Directions

NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center (GSFC) employs standard avionics hardware and software architectures. Hardware architectures include GMSA (Goddard Modular Smallsat Architecture), MUSTANG (Modular Unified Space Technology Avionics for Next Generation), SpaceCube. The spaceflight software architecture is based on cFS (Core Flight System). Future driving requirements for avionics architectures include increase sensor data rates, increased onboard processing, autonomous applications, and distributed space missions. Architectural concepts that can meet these requirements include the use of the High Performance Spaceflight Computing (HPSC) Chiplet, employing hybrid computing architectures, and increasing network bandwidths.

architectures↗

Winter Arctic Sea Ice Thickness from ICESat-2 Freeboards

NASA’s ICESat-2 mission was launched in September 2018 with the primary goal of monitoring our rapidly changing polar regions. The sole instrument onboard, the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), is now providing routine, very high-resolution, surface elevation data across the globe, including the Arctic and Southern Oceans. In this study we demonstrate our new processing chain for converting the along-track ICESat-2 sea ice freeboard product (ATL10) into sea ice thickness, focusing our initial efforts on the Arctic Ocean. For this conversion we primarily make use of snow depth and density data from the NASA Eulerian Snow on Sea Ice Model (NESOSIM). The coarse resolution (~100 km) snow data are redistributed onto the high resolution (~30 - 100 m) ATL10 freeboards using relationships obtained from snow depth and freeboard data collected by NASA’s Operation IceBridge mission. We present regional sea ice thickness distributions and highlight their seasonal evolution through our first winter-season of data collection. We include ice thickness uncertainty estimates, while also acknowledging the limitations of these estimates. We generate a gridded monthly thickness product and compare this with various monthly sea ice thickness estimates obtained from ESA’s CryoSat-2 satellite mission, with ICE 33 Sat-2 showing consistently lower thicknesses. Finally, we compare our February/March 2019 thickness estimates to ICESat February/March (19th February – 21st March) 2008 ice thickness estimates using the same input assumptions, which show a ~0.40 m or ~21% thinning across an inner Arctic Ocean domain in this 11-year time period.

Alek A Petty↗

Langmuir Probe Measurements of Inductively Coupled CHF3/Ar and Ar/CHF3/O2 Plasmas

Plasma parameters, such as, electron number density (ne), electron temperature (Te), y electron energy distribution function (EEDF), mean electron energy (Ee), ion number density (ni), and plasma potential (Vp), have been measured by using Langmuir probe in low-pressure (10-50 mTorr) inductively coupled CHF3/Ar and CHF3/Ar/O2 plasmas generated in the GEC cell. The measurements were made at the center of the plasma, keeping the lower electrode grounded, for various CHF3/Ar and Ar/CHF3/O2 mixtures operating at 10-50 mTorr pressures and two input RF power levels, 200 and 300 W. EEDF data show a strong Druyvesteyn distribution with relatively lower number of low energy electrons as compared to a Maxwell distribution and a large electron population with energies higher than the plasma potential. The results further show that at low CHF3 concentrations (less than 50%) the electron number density remains nearly constant with increase in pressure. At higher CHF3 concentrations, however, it decreases with increase in pressure. Plasma potential and electron temperature increase with decrease in pressure and with increase in CHF3 concentration. An analysis of the above observations and mechanisms will be presented.

Sharma, S. P.↗

Global Aerosol Remote Sensing from MODIS

The physical characteristics, composition, abundance, spatial distribution and dynamics of global aerosols are still very poorly known, and new data from satellite sensors have long been awaited to improve current understanding and to give a boost to the effort in future climate predictions. The derivation of aerosol parameters from the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectro-radiometer (MODIS) sensors aboard the Earth Observing System (EOS) Terra and Aqua polar-orbiting satellites ushers in a new era in aerosol remote sensing from space. Terra and Aqua were launched on December 18, 1999 and May 4, 2002 respectively, with daytime equator crossing times of approximately 10:30 am and 1:30 pm respectively. Several aerosol parameters are retrieved at 10-km spatial resolution (level 2) from MODIS daytime data. The MODIS aerosol algorithm employs different approaches to retrieve parameters over land and ocean surfaces, because of the inherent differences in the solar spectral radiance interaction with these surfaces. The parameters retrieved include: aerosol optical thickness (AOT) at 0.47, 0.55 and 0.66 micron wavelengths over land, and at 0.47, 0.55, 0.66, 0.87, 1.2, 1.6, and 2.1 micron over ocean; Angstrom exponent over land and ocean; and effective radii, and the proportion of AOT contributed by the small mode aerosols over ocean. To ensure the quality of these parameters, a substantial part of the Terra-MODIS aerosol products were validated globally and regionally, based on cross correlation with corresponding parameters derived from ground-based measurements from AERONET (AErosol RObotic NETwork) sun photometers. Similar validation efforts are planned for the Aqua-MODIS aerosol products. The MODIS level 2 aerosol products are operationally aggregated to generate global daily, eight-day (weekly), and monthly products at one-degree spatial resolution (level 3). MODIS aerosol data are used for the detailed study of local, regional, and global aerosol concentration, distribution, and temporal dynamics, as well as for radiative forcing calculations. We show several examples of these results and comparisons with model output.

Ichoku, Charles↗

Can Distributed Volunteers Accomplish Massive Data Analysis Tasks?

The science community is accustomed to interacting with the public for two main purposes: outreach to adults (since they are the patrons upon whose good will future funding will depend), and education for children (since they are the reservoir from which the next generation's talent must be drawn). We suggest that a third relationship can now be fruitful, one that has been little used until now - with the notable exception of the astronomy community. Astronomy has a long history of relying on non-professionals for some observations. Important contributions have been made by amateur astronomers in several areas of research including monitoring dust storms on Mars, timing asteroid occultations, and discovering comets. Note that three distinct contributions are being made by amateur astronomers: they supply their own instrumentation, provide access to observing sites around the Globe, and contribute their innate powers of perception.

Kanefsky, Bob↗

A Framework for Sense and Follow Convoys for Collective Autonomous Mobility

Convoys are collections of vehicles that share similar velocity profiles. In the sense-and follow convoy construct, a vehicle can follow a member of an existing convoy resulting in convoy chaining. We prove conditions under which this can occur such that the resulting convoy chain is bounded and the velocities of all members converge to the leader velocity through locally distributed control algorithms. To assess the approach, we utilize a six degree-of-freedom rigid body vehicle dynamics model for each agent. A dynamic inversion based control law is used to track the desired trajectory generated by the convoy algorithms. To simulate the system, we utilize Unity, a cross-platform game engine, where 3-dimensional terrain, building, and vehicle data can be visualized. Numerous simulations are presented to illustrate the concept.

convoys↗

Generation of the Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle Aerodynamic Data Book and Comparison To Flight

A 3.5-year effort to characterize the aerodynamic behavior of the Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle (AIX FTV) is described in this paper. The AIX FTV was designed to be representative of the Ares I Crew Launch Vehicle (CLV). While there are several differences in the outer mold line from the current revision of the CLV, the overall length, mass distribution, and flight systems of the two vehicles are very similar. This paper briefly touches on each of the aerodynamic databases developed in the program, describing the methodology employed, experimental and computational contributions to the generation of the databases, and how well the databases and underlying computations compare to actual flight test results.

Bauer, Steven X.↗

Landsat Signature Development Program

The Landsat Signature Development Program, LSDP, is designed to produce an unsupervised classification of a scene from a Landsat tape. This classification is based on the clustering tendencies of the multispectral scanner data processed from the scene. The program will generate a character map that, by identifying each of the general classes of surface features extracted from the scene data with a specific line printer symbol, indicates the approximate locations and distributions of these general classes within the scene. Also provided with the character map are a number of tables each of which describes either some aspect of the spectral properties of the resultant classes, some inter-class relationship, the incidence of picture elements assigned to the various classes in the character map classification of the scene, or some significant intermediate stage in the development of the final classes.

Hall, R. N.↗

Statistical fatigue of graphite/epoxy angle-ply laminates in shear

A three-parameter fatigue and residual strength degradation model has been proposed to predict statistically the fatigue behavior of composite laminae under axial shear loadings. The fatigue behavior includes the fatigue life and the fatigue damage expressed in terms of the residual strength degradation. An experimental test program using graphite/epoxy /+ or - 45 deg/2s laminates has been conducted to generate statistically meaningful data in order to examine the validity of the theoretical model. It is shown that the correlation between the theoretical predictions and the test results on the statistical distributions of the fatigue life and the residual strength is excellent. Test results on the shear modulus degradation are also presented and discussed in detail in order to provide insight for the establishment of a shear modulus degradation model.

Yang, J. N.↗

The Deep Space Network: An instrument for radio science research

Doppler and ranging data routinely generated at the Deep Space Stations of the California Institute of Technology-Jet Propulsion Laboratory Deep Space Network serve as an excellent source of radio science information. Important radio science experiments based on Deep Space Network generated radio metric data have included confirmation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity, measurement of the masses and gravitational harmonics of the planets out to Saturn, and measurement of electron density distribution and turbulence in the solar corona. In response to an increased level of radio science requirements, the Deep Space Network chose in 1976 to implement a new radio science system, which was completed in late 1978. Key features include (1) highly phase stable open loop receivers, (2) reduction of recorded data bandwidth through use of programmed local oscillators, and (3) real time digitization and recording on computer compatible tape.

Renzetti, N. A.↗

The westward thermospheric jet-stream of the evening auroral oval

Ground-based and satellite measurements of the thermospheric wind in jet-streams during the evening auroral oval are analyzed, in order to study the geophysical mechanisms of thermospheric wind generation. Numerical simulations using a global, three-dimensional, time-dependent model of thermospheric dynamics were compared with the satellite data, and the results are discussed in detail. The wind distribution during the storm is shown in a series of color plates.

Rees, D.↗

Error propagation in a digital avionic processor: A simulation-based study

An experimental analysis to study error propagation from the gate to the chip level is described. The target system is the CPU in the Bendix BDX-930, an avionic miniprocessor. Error activity data for the study was collected via a gate-level simulation. A family of distributions to characterize the error propagation, both within the chip and at the pins, was then generated. Based on these distributions, measures of error propagation and severity were defined. The analysis quantifies the dependency of the measured error propagation on the location of the fault and the type of instruction/microinstruction executed.

Lomelino, D.↗

Distribution of nitrogen and defects in SiO(x)N(y)/Si structures formed by the thermal nitridation of SiO2/Si

Previously reported nitrogen distributions in SiO2 films on Si which have been thermally nitrided at 1000 C have been explained by a kinetic model of the nitridation process which rests upon the effects of interfacial strain. A critical test of this kinetic model is the validity of the predictions regarding nitrogen distributions obtained at other nitridation temperatures. In this work, nitrogen distributions determined via X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy are reported for samples nitrided at 800 and 1150 C, and are shown to be consistent with the kinetic model. In addition, the intensity of a fluorine marker is found to correlate with the nitrogen distribution, and is postulated to be related to kinetically generated defects in the dielectric film, consistent with the strain-dependent energy of formation of defects proposed recently to explain electrical data.

Vasquez, R. P.↗

Mechanical alloying, characterization and consolidation of Ti-Al-Ni alloys

Mechanical alloying is being investigated as a processing route for the production of aluminide intermetallics. This program involves powder production and characterization, consolidation and thermal treatments and determination of microstructure-property relationships. An attritor mill is being used to produce powder in lots up to 1000 grams and the processing parameters are being systematically varied to establish the optimum milling conditions. The mill is being instrumented to generate data related to the processing to provide a basis for theoretical modeling. Powder is being characterized using thermal analysis, optical and electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction. Particle size distributions and powder density are being determined. Consolidation of the powder is being approached in several different ways including, cold isostatic pressing, sintering, extrusion and hot pressing. The results of the program so far will be presented and future directions discussed.

Nash, P.↗

World Ocean Circulation Experiment

The oceans are an equal partner with the atmosphere in the global climate system. The World Ocean Circulation Experiment is presently being implemented to improve ocean models that are useful for climate prediction both by encouraging more model development but more importantly by providing quality data sets that can be used to force or to validate such models. WOCE is the first oceanographic experiment that plans to generate and to use multiparameter global ocean data sets. In order for WOCE to succeed, oceanographers must establish and learn to use more effective methods of assembling, quality controlling, manipulating and distributing oceanographic data.

Clarke, R. Allyn↗

The Paperless Solution

REI Systems, Inc. developed a software solution that uses the Internet to eliminate the paperwork typically required to document and manage complex business processes. The data management solution, called Electronic Handbooks (EHBs), is presently used for the entire SBIR program processes at NASA. The EHB-based system is ideal for programs and projects whose users are geographically distributed and are involved in complex management processes and procedures. EHBs provide flexible access control and increased communications while maintaining security for systems of all sizes. Through Internet Protocol- based access, user authentication and user-based access restrictions, role-based access control, and encryption/decryption, EHBs provide the level of security required for confidential data transfer. EHBs contain electronic forms and menus, which can be used in real time to execute the described processes. EHBs use standard word processors that generate ASCII HTML code to set up electronic forms that are viewed within a web browser. EHBs require no end-user software distribution, significantly reducing operating costs. Each interactive handbook simulates a hard-copy version containing chapters with descriptions of participants' roles in the online process.

Source record↗

CICT Computing, Information, and Communications Technology Program

The CICT Program is part of the NASA Aerospace Technology Enterprise's fundamental technology thrust to develop tools. processes, and technologies that enable new aerospace system capabilities and missions. The CICT Program's four key objectives are: Provide seamless access to NASA resources- including ground-, air-, and space-based distributed information technology resources-so that NASA scientists and engineers can more easily control missions, make new scientific discoveries, and design the next-generation space vehicles, provide high-data delivery from these assets directly to users for missions, develop goal-oriented human-centered systems, and research, develop and evaluate revolutionary technology.

Larry Laufenberg↗