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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 NTRS2012

Restoration of APOLLO Data by the NSSDC and PDS Lunar Data Node

The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Packages (ALSEPs), suites of instruments deployed by the Apollo 12. 14, 15, 16 and 17 astronauts on the lunar surface, still represent the only in-situ measurements of the Moon's environment taken over long time periods, Much of these data are housed at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC) at Goddard Space Flight Center but are in forms that are not readily usable, such as microfilm, hardcopy, and magnetic tapes with older, obsolete formats. The Lunar Data Node (LDN) has been formed under the auspices of the Planetary Data System (PDS) Geosciences Node to put relevant, scientifically important Apollo data into accessible digital form for use by researchers and mission planners. The LDN has prioritized the restoration of these data based on their scientific and engineering value and the level of effort required. We will report on progress made and plans for future data restorations.

Williams, David R.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Update on Apollo Data Restoration by the NSSDC and the PDS Lunar Data Node

The Lunar Data Node (LDN) , under the auspices of the Geosciences Node of the Planetary Data System (PDS) and the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), is continuing its efforts to recover and restore Apollo science data. The data being restored are in large part archived with NSSDC on older media, but unarchived data are also being recovered from other sources. They are typically on 7- or 9-track magnetic tapes, often in obsolete formats, or held on microfilm, microfiche, or paper documents. The goal of the LDN is to restore these data from their current form, which is difficult for most researchers to access, into common digital formats with all necessary supporting data (metadata) and archive the data sets with PDS. Restoration involves reading the data from the original media, deciphering the data formats to produce readable digital data and converting the data into usable tabular formats. Each set of values in the table must then be understood in terms of the quantity measured and the units used. Information on instrument properties, operational history, and calibrations is gathered and added to the data set, along with pertinent references, contacts, and other ancillary documentation. The data set then undergoes a peer review and the final validated product is archived with PDS. Although much of this effort has concentrated on data archived at NSSDC in the 1970's, we have also recovered data and information that were never sent to NSSDC. These data, retrieved from various outside sources, include raw and reduced Gamma-Ray Spectrometer data from Apollos 15 and 16, information on the Apollo 17 Lunar Ejecta And Meteorites experiment, Dust Detector data from Apollos 11, 12, 14, and I5, raw telemetry tapes from the Apollo ALSEPs, and Weekly Status Reports for all the Apollo missions. These data are currently being read or organized, and supporting data is being gathered. We are still looking for the calibrated heat flow data from Apollos 15 and 17 for the period 1975-1977, any assistance or information on these data would be welcome. NSSDC has recently been tasked to release its hard-copy archive, comprising photography, microfilm, and microfiche. The details are still being discussed, but we are concentrating on recovering the valuable lunar data from these materials while they are still readily accessible. We have identified the most critical of these data and written a LASER proposal to fund their restoration. Included in this effort are data from the Apollo 15 and 16 Mass Spectrometers and the Apollo 17 Par-UV Spectrometer and ancillary information on the Apollo 17 Surface Electrical Properties Experiment.

Williams, David R.↗
NASA NTRS2013

Lunar Data Node: Apollo Data Restoration and Archiving Update

The Lunar Data Node (LDN) of the Planetary Data System (PDS) is responsible for the restoration and archiving of Apollo data. The LDN is located at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC), which holds much of the extant Apollo data on microfilm, microfiche, hard-copy documents, and magnetic tapes in older formats. The goal of the restoration effort is to convert the data into user-accessible PDS formats, create a full set of explanatory supporting data (metadata), archive the full data sets through PDS, and post the data online at the PDS Geosciences Node. This will both enable easy use of the data by current researchers and ensure that the data and metadata are securely preserved for future use. We are also attempting to locate and preserve Apollo data which were never archived at NSSDC. We will give a progress report on the data sets we have been restoring and future work.

Williams, David R.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Comparison of H+ and He+ Plasmapause Locations Based on Resurrected and Reevaluated OGO-5 Ion Composition Data Base

Orbiting Geophysical Observatory 5 (OGO 5) magnetospheric ion-composition data (H+, He+ and O+) from an ion spectrometer (Sharp, 1969) have been retrieved from old magnetic tapes archived at the National Space Science Data Center (NSSDC). The highly compressed binary format was converted into a user-friendly ASCII format and these data have been made available online. We have inspected reliability and consistency of this data set in state of the art current knowledge. Comparing with the climatological model IRI-2012 and the mathematical model FLIP a shift of absolute and relative ion densities with time was revealed. We have suggested a correction procedure of individual H+, He+ and O+ ion densities. Using the corrected data set, we investigated plasmapause locations based on density gradient in H+, and He+. Correlation coefficient of both locations was determined as approx. 0.886 and the typical difference (Delta)L approx. 0.1. The electron density at the He+ plasmapause location for all cases is >100/cu cm.

Plasmasphere↗
NASA NTRS2016

Restoration of Apollo Data by the Lunar Data Project/PDS Lunar Data Node: An Update

The Apollo 11, 12, and 14 through 17 missions orbited and landed on the Moon, carrying scientific instruments that returned data from all phases of the missions, included long-lived Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Packages (ALSEPs) deployed by the astronauts on the lunar surface. Much of these data were never archived, and some of the archived data were on media and in formats that are outmoded, or were deposited with little or no useful documentation to aid outside users. This is particularly true of the ALSEP data returned autonomously for many years after the Apollo missions ended. The purpose of the Lunar Data Project and the Planetary Data System (PDS) Lunar Data Node is to take data collections already archived at the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA) and prepare them for archiving through PDS, and to locate lunar data that were never archived, bring them into NSSDCA, and then archive them through PDS. Preparing these data for archiving involves reading the data from the original media, be it magnetic tape, microfilm, microfiche, or hard-copy document, converting the outmoded, often binary, formats when necessary, putting them into a standard digital form accepted by PDS, collecting the necessary ancillary data and documentation (metadata) to ensure that the data are usable and well-described, summarizing the metadata in documentation to be included in the data set, adding other information such as references, mission and instrument descriptions, contact information, and related documentation, and packaging the results in a PDS-compliant data set. The data set is then validated and reviewed by a group of external scientists as part of the PDS final archive process. We present a status report on some of the data sets that we are processing.

Lunar↗
NASA NTRS2017

Data Recovery Effort of Nimbus Era Observations by the NASA GES DISC

NASA launched seven Nimbus meteorological satellites in the 1960s and 70s. These satellites carried instruments for making observations of the Earth in the visible, infrared, ultraviolet, and microwave wavelengths. The original data archive consisted of a combination of magnetic tapes and various film media. As these media are well past their expected end of life, the valuable data they contain are now being migrated to the GES DISC modern online archive. The process involves recovering the digital data files from the tapes as well as scanning images of the data from film strips. This presentation will address the status and challenges of recovering the Nimbus data. The old data products were written on now obsolete hardware systems and outdated file formats. They lack any metadata standards and each product is often written in its own proprietary file structure. This requires creating metadata by reading the contents of the old data files. The job is tedious and laborious, as documentation may be incomplete, data files and tapes are sometimes corrupted, or were improperly copied at the time they were created.

Nimbus↗
NASA NTRS2017

Recovering Nimbus Era Observations at the NASA GES DISC

Between 1964 and 1978, NASA launched a series of seven Nimbus meteorological satellites which provided Earth observations for 30 years. These satellites, carrying a total of 33 instruments to observe the Earth at visible, infrared, ultraviolet, and microwave wavelengths, revolutionized weather forecasting, provided early observations of ocean color and atmospheric ozone, and prototyped location-based search and rescue capabilities. The Nimbus series paved the way for a number of currently operational systems such as the EOS (Earth Observation System) Terra, Aqua, and Aura platforms. The original data archive includes both magnetic tapes and film media. These media are well past their expected end of life, placing at risk valuable data that are critical to extending the history of Earth observations back in time. GES DISC (Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center) has been incorporating these data into a modern online archive by recovering the digital data files from the tapes, and scanning images of the data from film strips. The digital data products were written on obsolete hardware systems in outdated file formats, and in the absence of metadata standards at that time, were often written in proprietary file structures. Through a tedious and laborious process, oft-corrupted data are recovered, and incomplete metadata and documentation are reconstructed.

data recovery↗
NASA NTRS2020

Availability of previously lost data and metadata from the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP)

Fourteen types of geophysical instruments deployed at the Apollo 12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 sites by the astronauts for long-term observation were collectively called the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). These instruments were active from the times of their deployment (November 1969–December 1972) to September 1977. At the conclusion of the experiments, the raw instrument data received from the Moon prior to March 1976 were left unarchived. Portions of the data processed by the principal investigators (PIs) of these experiments had been archived at the NASA Space Science Data Coordinated Archive (NSSDCA) in various formats. The unarchived data, residing then on open-reel magnetic tapes, became lost in the decades since, along with much of the metadata (the supporting documents for these data). We have recently recovered 440 of the previously lost tapes, containing raw ALSEP instrument data from April through June of 1975. Here we describe the data extracted from these tapes and summarize the data products generated for archiving at the NASA Planetary Data System (PDS) and NSSDCA, along with their historical narrative. In addition, we have reformatted many of the datasets delivered to NSSDCA by the PIs in the 1970s for archiving at the PDS. Finally, we have compiled an online searchable repository of ALSEP-related documents by optically scanning tens of thousands of pages of them kept at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Texas.

S. Nagihara↗
NASA NTRS1967

Computer program generates averaged value data tapes

Computer program generates a magnetic output tape containing time and averaged data values of a specified number of major frames over a specified time interval. A decommutation system is used to acquire the raw data, which is then reformatted and averaged.

Watkins, F. L.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Superconducting Nb3Ge for high-field magnets

Superconducting Nb3Ge tape conductors 5 to 10 m long were fabricated by chemical vapor deposition. Such tapes could be used in high-field magnet applications. Average tape properties set the upper performance limit of a magnet at 17 teslas (4.2 K). Highest critical-current densities obtained in thin and layered films set the upper performance limit at 20 teslas (4.2 K).

Braginski, A. I.↗
NASA NTRS1972

High-data-rate, spacecraft tape recorders.

Description of magnetic head designs, tape transport features, encoding techniques, bit error rates, and data rate capabilities of tape recorders used on board satellites for temporary storage of sensor data. Helical- and transverse-scan rotary head mechanisms used for wideband video signals from imaging systems are explained along with associated electronic circuitry. Decoding and decision procedures employed in multiple-track recorders are outlined, and deskewing electronics are discussed.

Thompson, C. R.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Niobium-germanium superconducting tapes for high-field magnet applications

A process of fabricating superconducting Nb3Ge tapes by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) has been developed and tapes up to 10 meters long fabricated. The typical properties achieved were: critical temperature T sub c = 20 K, upper critical field H sub c2 = 29 tesla at 4.2 K, and J sub c = 3 to 4 x 10 to the 8th power A m(-2) at 4.2 K, 18 tesla. The relative depression of T sub c and H sub c2 compared with the best thin film samples sputtered on sapphire was due to the presence of Nb5Ge3 second-phase particles used as flux pinning centers and to strains induced by thermal mixmatch with Hastelloy B tape substrates. A peculiar field dependence of flux pinning force that was observed in both CVD and sputtered Nb3Ge indicated a premature pin-breaking mechanism or a phase inhomogeneity. Directions of further optimization work were defined.

Braginski, A. I.↗
NASA NTRS1982

Technical and investigative support for high density digital satellite recording systems

Methods and results of examinations and tests conducted on magnetic recording tapes under consideration for a high density digital (HDDR) satellite recording system are described. The examinations and tests investigate the performance of tapes with respect to their physical, magnetic and electrical characteristics. The objective of the tests, the likely significance of typical results, and the importance of the characteristics under investigation to the application are included. Theoretical discussions of measurement methods are provided where appropriate. Methods and results are discussed; the results of some sections are tabulated together to facilitate their comparison. The conclusion of each test section relates the test results to their possible significance and attempts to correlate the results of that section with the results of other tests. Some of the sections analyze sources of error inherent in the measurement methods or relate the value of the information obtained to the objectives of the test or the overall purpose of the project.

Schultz, R. A.↗
NASA NTRS1964

Low-cost tape system measures velocity of acceleration

By affixing perforated magnetic recording tape to the falling end of a body, acceleration and velocity were measured. The measurement was made by allowing the tape to pass between a light source and a photoelectric sensor. Data was obtained from a readout device.

Hartenstein, R.↗