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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 NTRS2006

Lunar e-Library: Putting Space History to Work

As NASA plans and implements the Vision for Space Exploration, managers, engineers, and scientists need historically important information that is readily available and easily accessed. The Lunar e-Library - a searchable collection of 1100 electronic (.PDF) documents - makes it easy to find critical technical data and lessons learned and put space history knowledge in action. The Lunar e-Library, a DVD knowledge database, was developed by NASA to shorten research time and put knowledge at users' fingertips. Funded by NASA's Space Environments and Effects (SEE) Program headquartered at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the MSFC Materials and Processes Laboratory, the goal of the Lunar e- Library effort was to identify key lessons learned from Apollo and other lunar programs and missions and to provide technical information from those programs in an easy-to-use format. The SEE Program began distributing the Lunar e-Library knowledge database in 2006. This paper describes the Lunar e-Library development process (including a description of the databases and resources used to acquire the documents) and the contents of the DVD product, demonstrates its usefulness with focused searches, and provides information on how to obtain this free resource.

McMahan, Tracy A.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Small Radioisotope Power System at NASA Glenn Research Center

In April 2009, NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) formed an integrated product team (IPT) to develop a Small Radioisotope Power System (SRPS) utilizing a single Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) with passive balancer for possible use by the International Lunar Network (ILN) program. The ILN program is studying the feasibility of implementing a multiple node seismometer network to investigate the internal lunar structure. A single ASC produces approximately 80 W(sub e) and could potentially supply sufficient power for that application. The IPT consists of Sunpower, Inc., to provide the single ASC with balancer, The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU/APL) to design an engineering model Single Convertor Controller (SCC) for an ASC with balancer, and NASA GRC to provide technical support to these tasks and to develop a simulated lunar lander test stand. A controller maintains stable operation of an ASC. It regulates the alternating current produced by the linear alternator of the convertor, provides a specified output voltage, and maintains operation at a steady piston amplitude and hot end temperature. JHU/APL also designed an ASC dynamic engine/alternator simulator to aid in the testing and troubleshooting of the SCC. This paper describes the requirements, design, and development of the SCC, including some of the key challenges and the solutions chosen to overcome those issues. In addition, it describes the plans to analyze the effectiveness of a passive balancer to minimize vibration from the ASC, characterize the effect of ASC vibration on a lunar lander, characterize the performance of the SCC, and integrate the single ASC, SCC, and lunar lander test stand to characterize performance of the overall system.

Dugala, Gina M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Design considerations and strategies for lunar-based observations

This paper addresses the design considerations and strategies for astrophysical observations as key elements of an international solar system exploration program. Emphasis is placed on the technical and programmatic challenges and opportunities associated with an evolving program of lunar-based astronomy. Both robotic and human tended facilities are discussed ranging from relatively small meter-class transit telescopes to large interferometer and filled-aperture systems.

Snoddy, William C.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Catalog of lunar and Mars science payloads

This catalog collects and describes science payloads considered for future robotic and human exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. The science disciplines included are geosciences, meteorology, space physics, astronomy and astrophysics, life sciences, in-situ resource utilization, and robotic science. Science payload data is helpful for mission scientists and engineers developing reference architectures and detailed descriptions of mission organizations. One early step in advanced planning is formulating the science questions for each mission and identifying the instrumentation required to address these questions. The next critical element is to establish and quantify the supporting infrastructure required to deliver, emplace, operate, and maintain the science experiments with human crews or robots. This requires a comprehensive collection of up-to-date science payload information--hence the birth of this catalog. Divided into lunar and Mars sections, the catalog describes the physical characteristics of science instruments in terms of mass, volume, power and data requirements, mode of deployment and operation, maintenance needs, and technological readiness. It includes descriptions of science payloads for specific missions that have been studied in the last two years: the Scout Program, the Artemis Program, the First Lunar Outpost, and the Mars Exploration Program.

Budden, Nancy Ann↗
NASA NTRS2024

Key Considerations When Developing Avionics for Safety-Critical Systems

Multiple human spaceflight programs are underway at NASA including Orion, Space Launch System, Gateway, Human Landing System, and EVA and Lunar Surface Mobility programs. Achieving success in these programs requires NASA to collaborate with a variety of commercial partners, including both new spaceflight companies and robotic spaceflight companies pursuing crewed spaceflight for the first time. It is not always clear to these organizations how to show their systems are safe for human spaceflight. This is particularly true for avionics systems, which are responsible for performing some of a crewed spacecraft’s most critical functions. NASA recently published guidance describing how to show the design of an avionic system meets safety requirements for crewed missions.

Safety-Critical Systems↗
NASA NTRS1993

Extended duration lunar lander

Selenium Technologies has been conducting preliminary design work on a manned lunar lander for use in NASA's First Lunar Outpost (FLO) program. The resulting lander is designed to carry a crew of four astronauts to a prepositioned habitat on the lunar surface, remain on the lunar surface for up to 45 days while the crew is living in the habitat, then return the crew to earth via direct reentry and land recovery. Should the need arise, the crew can manually guide the lander to a safe lunar landing site, and live in the lander for up to ten days on the surface. Also, an abort to earth is available during any segment of the mission. The main propulsion system consists of a cluster of four modified Pratt and Whitney RL10 rocket engines that use liquid methane (LCH4) and liquid oxygen (LOX). Four engines are used to provide redundancy and a satisfactory engine out capability. Differences between the new propulsion system and the original system include slightly smaller engine size and lower thrust per engine, although specific impulse remains the same despite the smaller size. Concerns over nozzle ground clearance and engine reliability, as well as more information from Pratt and Whitney, brought about this change. The power system consists of a combination of regenerative fuel cells and solar arrays. While the lander is in flight to or from the moon, or during the lunar night, fuel cells provide all electrical power. During the lunar day, solar arrays are deployed to provide electrical power for the lander as well as electrolyzers, which separate some water back into hydrogen and oxygen for later use by the fuel cells. Total storage requirements for oxygen, hydrogen, and water are 61 kg, 551 kg, and 360 kg, respectively. The lander is a stage-and-a-half design with descent propellant, cargo, and landing gear contained in the descent stage, and the main propulsion system, ascent propellant, and crew module contained in the ascent stage. The primary structure for both stages is a truss, to which all tanks and components are attached. The crew module is a conical shape similar to that of the Apollo Command Module, but significantly larger with a height and maximum diameter of six meters.

Babic, Nikola↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Attitude Profile Reference for the Earth Orbit Raising Phase of NASA Gateway’s Co-Manifested Vehicle

As part of NASAs lunar exploration Artemis program, the agency is designing a Gateway to orbit8near the moon and provide long term support of a sustained lunar presence at the moon’s south pole.9The first element launched for the Gateway is the Co-Manifested Vehicle (CMV), comprised of the10Power and Propulsion Element (PPE) and Habitation and Lunar Outpost (HALO). The PPE Mission11Design team of McGuire & et. al (2021) has developed a Design Reference Mission (DRM) trajectory12for CMV’s Earth Orbit Raising (EOR) mission phase, which provides the vehicle’s 3 degrees of freedom13(DoF) trajectory information during the approximately yearlong spiral out from low Earth orbit and14into the lunar near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO). In tandem, the PPE GN&C team is developing a15high-fidelity and fine temporal resolution 6DoF model of the CMV spacecrafts GN&C performance16for delivery to the Gateway team; this work acts to bridge the gap between Mission Designs 3DoF17reference and detailed GN&Cs attitude simulation.

Guidance Navigation and Control↗
NASA NTRS2023

Lunanet Position, Navigation, and Timing Services and Signals, Enabling the Future of Lunar Exploration

The International Space Exploration Coordination Group established in 2018 the 3rd edition of the Global Exploration Roadmap (ISECG, 2018) that aims to achieve Mars human surface activities and identifies the exploration of the Moon as a critical intermediate step. A supplement covering updates on surface exploration scenarios was released in 2020 (ISECG, 2020). The Artemis Accords (NASA Artemis, 2020), first signed in October 2020, now includes over two dozen nations, in an agreement on the principles for best practices, including interoperability. In September 2022 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) introduced the Moon to Mars Objectives highlighting recurring tenets of collaboration with international and industry partners and interoperability, along with infrastructure objectives for Position, Navigation, and Timing (PNT). The successful Artemis 1 mission paved the way to the ambitious plans to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon. Just a few months after Artemis 1 launch (NASA, 2022), iSpace HAKUTO-R Mission1 (iSpace, 2022) launched, being the first-ever mission launched by a commercial launch service provider aiming to land on the lunar surface. The NASA Artemis program plans initial crewed landings and surface traverses in 2025, supported by the Lunar Gateway. Regular launches will follow to build the lunar systems for a sustained presence as presented in the Artemis Plan (NASA Artemis Plan, 2020), (NASA, 2022). NASA’s contracts with commercial providers through the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program (CLPS, (NASA, n.d.)) will deliver science and technology demonstration missions to the Moon starting in November 2023. The European Space Agency (ESA) Argonaut (ESA Argonaut, 2022) program plans to have recurrent missions to bring payloads to the lunar surface, supporting lunar exploration. These are just a few examples of planned missions that will target Earth’s natural satellite in the next decade, with forecasts of tens of missions per year (NSR, 2022), (Euroconsult, 2020). The large number of missions and the complexity of landing and operating are expected to demand a change of paradigm from the current Earth-based communication and navigation services, that may be combined with onboard sensors. In recent years, several agencies have proposed to deploy cislunar communication and navigation services to support lunar missions (NASA LCRNS, 2022), (ESA Moonlight, 2022), (JAXA, 2022)). All these proposals seek to deploy service-providing satellites in lunar orbit to ease the user missions’ operations. The PNT services objective is to support all types of lunar users (e.g.: orbiters, landers, ascent vehicles, surface crew, rovers, and deployed science payloads). At the same time, NASA and ESA initiated an effort to define a common framework to ensure interoperability among different service providers: the LunaNet framework. The LunaNet Interoperability Specification (NASA and ESA, 2023) covers communication, PNT, and auxiliary services, by establishing a common set of requirements to ensure interoperability. This conference contribution will present the LunaNet PNT services, focusing on the Lunar Augmented Navigation Service (LANS) that would be provided by a system that resembles the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) concept on Earth: constellations of satellites broadcasting a radio navigation signal synchronized to a common reference clock, with augmentations to accommodate users’ needs in an environment away from Earth. This paper includes a description of the high-level LANS concept, and the basic principles defined to ensure interoperability. In addition, it will describe the common S-band PNT Augmented Forward Signal (AFS) and common messages to be adopted for compliance with the LunaNet framework, and the justification of the selected approach.

LunaNet↗
NASA NTRS1990

Press abstracts of the 21st Lunar and Planetary Science Conference

The Program Committee for the Twenty-fisrt Lunar and Planetary Science Conference has chosen these contributions as having the greatest potential interest for the general public. The papers in this collection were written for general presentation, avoiding jargon and unnecessarily complex terms. More technical abstracts will be found in Lunar and Planetary Science XXI. Representative titles are: Ancient Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Interactions on Mars: Global Model and Geological Evidence; Oxygen Isotopic Compositions of Ordinary Chondrites and Their Chondrules; Exposure Ages and Collisional History of L-Chondrite Parent Bodies; Models of Solar-Powered Geysers on Triton; and Search for Life: A Science Rationale for a Permanent Base on Mars.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2009

Power Goals for NASA's Exploration Program

Exciting Future Programs ahead for NASA. Power is needed for all Exploration vehicles and for the missions. For long term missions as in Lunar and Mars programs, safe, high energy/ultra high energy batteries are required. Safety is top priority for human-rated missions. Two-fault tolerance to catastrophic failures is required for human-rated safety To meet power safety goals -inherent cell safety may be required; it can lessen complexity of external protective electronics and prevents dependency on hardware that may also have limitations. Inherent cell safety will eliminate the need to carry out screening of all cells (X-rays, vibration, etc.)

Jeevarajan, Judith A.↗
NASA NTRS2024

NASA Engineering and Safety Center Lunar Rover Design Concepts Assessments

Mass is a significant risk to programs and projects as they transition from formulation to implementation, especially in larger human space systems where delivery mass or volume can be a constrained commodity. • Concepts developed without an adequate systems-engineering basis, including design and operations experience, may miss significant functionality and subsequent mass required for integration or operations. • Further uncertainty can be associated with not fully understanding design best practices and standards that drive mass, such as design for minimum risk or fault tolerance.1 • Finally, the appropriate systems engineering mass properties management rigor and technical discipline insight are required to set the mass baseline, including appropriate mass growth allowance (MGA) to ensure program success. Mass is a key quantity that should be constantly monitored by the systems engineer and the program/project management stakeholder to ensure mission compatibility throughout the project life cycle. In addition, mass is a key programmatic performance metric monitored by the NASA Chief Financial Officer for current and future program cost estimating. NASA Exploration Systems sought an assessment of reasonableness with respect to different potential rover concepts that balances mass needs and human-class cargo lander capabilities. Appropriate systems engineering mass properties management rigor and technical discipline insight were used, and are required to set the mass baseline, including appropriate MGA to ensure program success. Two independent Lunar rover concepts were evaluated, with a goal to understand concept credibility and the Lunar rover designs potential extensibility for Mars surface operations. A notional generic rover concept is shown in Figure 1.

Systems Engineering↗
NASA NTRS1994

Lunar rover technology demonstrations with Dante and Ratler

Carnegie Mellon University has undertaken a research, development, and demonstration program to enable a robotic lunar mission. The two-year mission scenario is to traverse 1,000 kilometers, revisiting the historic sites of Apollo 11, Surveyor 5, Ranger 8, Apollo 17, and Lunokhod 2, and to return continuous live video amounting to more than 11 terabytes of data. Our vision blends autonomously safeguarded user driving with autonomous operation augmented with rich visual feedback, in order to enable facile interaction and exploration. The resulting experience is intended to attract mass participation and evoke strong public interest in lunar exploration. The encompassing program that forwards this work is the Lunar Rover Initiative (LRI). Two concrete technology demonstration projects currently advancing the Lunar Rover Initiative are: (1) The Dante/Mt. Spurr project, which, at the time of this writing, is sending the walking robot Dante to explore the Mt. Spurr volcano, in rough terrain that is a realistic planetary analogue. This project will generate insights into robot system robustness in harsh environments, and into remote operation by novices; and (2) The Lunar Rover Demonstration project, which is developing and evaluating key technologies for navigation, teleoperation, and user interfaces in terrestrial demonstrations. The project timetable calls for a number of terrestrial traverses incorporating teleoperation and autonomy including natural terrain this year, 10 km in 1995. and 100 km in 1996. This paper will discuss the goals of the Lunar Rover Initiative and then focus on the present state of the Dante/Mt. Spurr and Lunar Rover Demonstration projects.

Krotkov, Eric↗