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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 NTRS1981

Electromagnetic deep-probing (100-1000 kms) of the Earth's interior from artificial satellites: Constraints on the regional emplacement of crustal resources

Efforts continue in the development of a computer program for looking at the coupling of finite dimensioned source fields with a laterally heterogeneous Earth. An algorithm for calculating a time-varying reference field using ground-based magnetic observatory data is also under development as part of the production of noise-free estimates of global electromagnetic response functions using Magsat data.

Hermance, J. F.↗

NASA NTRS1973

Computerized Preliminary Design at the Early Stages of Vehicle Definition

Criteria for acceptance of early design information, modern methods of providing it, and suggestions for defining adequate levels of resources to accomplish the objectives of the activity are described. Specific examples of the most difficult type of early design studies, those requiring significant undeveloped technology, are used to discuss these points. The examples include design studies and cost estimates of liquid hydrogen fueled aircraft, oblique winged aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles.

Gregory, T. J.↗

NASA NTRS2002

Contingency Planning for Planetary Rovers

There has been considerable work in AI on planning under uncertainty. But this work generally assumes an extremely simple model of action that does not consider continuous time and resources. These assumptions are not reasonable for a Mars rover, which must cope with uncertainty about the duration of tasks, the power required, the data storage necessary, along with its position and orientation. In this paper, we outline an approach to generating contingency plans when the sources of uncertainty involve continuous quantities such as time and resources. The approach involves first constructing a "seed" plan, and then incrementally adding contingent branches to this plan in order to improve utility. The challenge is to figure out the best places to insert contingency branches. This requires an estimate of how much utility could be gained by building a contingent branch at any given place in the seed plan. Computing this utility exactly is intractable, but we outline an approximation method that back propagates utility distributions through a graph structure similar to that of a plan graph.

Dearden, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2003

Incremental Contingency Planning

There has been considerable work in AI on planning under uncertainty. However, this work generally assumes an extremely simple model of action that does not consider continuous time and resources. These assumptions are not reasonable for a Mars rover, which must cope with uncertainty about the duration of tasks, the energy required, the data storage necessary, and its current position and orientation. In this paper, we outline an approach to generating contingency plans when the sources of uncertainty involve continuous quantities such as time and resources. The approach involves first constructing a "seed" plan, and then incrementally adding contingent branches to this plan in order to improve utility. The challenge is to figure out the best places to insert contingency branches. This requires an estimate of how much utility could be gained by building a contingent branch at any given place in the seed plan. Computing this utility exactly is intractable, but we outline an approximation method that back propagates utility distributions through a graph structure similar to that of a plan graph.

Dearden, Richard↗

NASA NTRS2003

Journal of Air Transportation, Volume 8, No. 2

The mission of the Journal of Air Transportation (JAT) is to provide the global community immediate key resource information in all areas of air transportation. This journal contains articles on the following:Fuel Consumption Modeling of a Transport Category Aircraft: A FlightOperationsQualityAssurance (F0QA) Analysis;Demand for Air Travel in the United States: Bottom-Up Econometric Estimation and Implications for Forecasts by Origin and Destination Pairs;Blind Flying on the Beam: Aeronautical Communication, Navigation and Surveillance: Its Origins and the Politics of Technology: Part I1 Political Oversight and Promotion;Blind Flying on the Beam: Aeronautical Communication, Navigation and Surveillance: Its Origins and the Politics of Technology: Part 111: Emerging Technologies;Ethics Education in University Aviation Management Programs in the US: Part Two B-Statistical Analysis of Current Practice;Integrating Human Factors into the Human-computer Interface: and How Best to Display Meteorological Information for Critical Aviation Decision-making and Performance.

Bowen, Brent↗

NASA NTRS2007

Improving Land-Surface Model Hydrology: Is an Explicit Aquifer Model Better than a Deeper Soil Profile?

Land surface models (LSMs) are computer programs, similar to weather and climate prediction models, which simulate the storage and movement of water (including soil moisture, snow, evaporation, and runoff) after it falls to the ground as precipitation. It is not currently possible to measure all of the variables of interest everywhere on Earth with sufficient accuracy. Hence LSMs have been developed to integrate the available information, including satellite observations, using powerful computers, in order to track water storage and redistribution. The maps are used to improve weather forecasts, support water resources and agricultural applications, and study the Earth's water cycle and climate variability. Recently, the models have begun to simulate groundwater storage. In this paper, we compare several possible approaches, and examine the pitfalls associated with trying to estimate aquifer parameters (such as porosity) that are required by the models. We find that explicit representation of groundwater, as opposed to the addition of deeper soil layers, considerably decreases the sensitivity of modeled terrestrial water storage to aquifer parameter choices. We also show that approximate knowledge of parameter values is not sufficient to guarantee realistic model performance: because interaction among parameters is significant, they must be prescribed as a harmonious set.

Gulden, L. E.↗

NASA NTRS2020

Small Lunar Base Camp and in Situ Resource Utilization Oxygen Production Facility Power System Comparison

This report examines the power requirements for operating an in situ resource utilization (ISRU) oxygen production system on the lunar surface and a small six-person base camp. The baseline ISRU system produced 1.63 kg/h for a total day and night production rate of 1,154 kg. It was estimated that this plant would require 25.83 kW of power to operate. The base camp power includes auxiliary equipment as well as a communications system. The required power estimate for the base camp was 28.05 kW. This estimation was used to size a power system and determine its mass for meeting these requirements. Three types of power systems were considered: a solar photovoltaic (PV) array system using batteries for energy storage, a PV array system using a regenerative fuel cell (RFC) for energy storage, and a modular 10-kW electrical output power Kilopower reactor system. Three separate cases were examined: a stand-alone ISRU oxygen production system, a base camp, and a combined ISRU oxygen production system and base camp. For the PV array-based system, the RFC energy storage method had a mass advantage over a battery- based energy storage system. For higher power nighttime power operation for all three cases, the RFC system’s specific energy was just over 830 Wh/kg. For the lower power nighttime “keep-alive” level used as part of the Case 1 analysis, the specific energy for the RFC was 456 Wh/kg. Both of these levels are significantly above the specific energy of 200 Wh/kg for the battery. Because of this higher specific energy, the RFC-based system provided significant mass advantages over the battery-based energy storage system. The baseline reactor system utilized shielding and separation distance to meet the desired maximum radiation dose level of 5 rem/yr for personnel operating within the vicinity of the power loads, base camp, and oxygen production facility. There are methods that could potentially be utilized to reduce the shielding requirements and separation distance. Implementing these would reduce the overall system mass for the reactor. Also, optimizing the reactor output to a specific mission would provide benefits in mass at the expense of modularity. The results of the power system comparison between a solar PV array-based system and a Kilopower reactor-based system has shown that for missions required to operate throughout the lunar night at power levels comparable to those used during the day, the reactor-based system provides a significant mass advantage. However, for applications that can meet their mission requirements while only having to operate during the daytime with minimal power required to survive the nighttime, the PV array-based system provides a mass advantage.

Colozza, Anthony J.↗

NASA NTRS2022

NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement Mission: Leveraging Stakeholder Engagement & Applications Activities to Inform Decision-making

The application of satellite precipitation estimates from NASA’s Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission for decision-making has been a focus for the mission since launch. As a result, GPM data have enabled a range of applications that address societal needs, including water resource management, crop forecasting, ecological monitoring, disaster response, public health, aviation, weather forecasting, and climate modeling, among others. GPM applications activities have continued to focus on user engagement through in person trainings and interviews, workshops, webinars, and educational outreach activities. The goals of these efforts are to synthesize community data needs in order to effectively support and enable decision-making across agencies, academia and the global community. While these efforts have helped the GPM mission establish a large stakeholder community that encompasses federal and state partners, academic institutions, nd private and nonprofit companies, there remains difficulties associated with accessing, processing, and applying the data to support or enable applications. In this article, we present GPM applications strategies and approaches used to enhance the applications value of GPM data, and most importantly, demonstrate how these efforts have and can inform different decision-making contexts. This work also provides a discussion on key lessons learned from the user community and how this information can be utilized to help better support and shape applications approaches for future NASA Earth Science missions.

Satellite precipitation↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Joint ESA-NASA Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP)

The scientific community is faced with a need for greatly improved data sharing, analysis, visualization and advanced collaboration based firmly on open science principles. Recent and upcoming launches of new satellite missions with more complex and voluminous data, as well as the ever more urgent need to better understand the global carbon budget and related ecological processes, provided the immediate rational for the ESA-NASA Multi-mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform (MAAP). This highly collaborative joint project of ESA and NASA established a framework between ESA and NASA to share data, science algorithms and compute resources in order to foster and accelerate scientific research conducted by ESA and NASA EO data users. Presented to the public in October 2021, the current version of MAAP provides a common cloud-based platform with computing capabilities co-located with the data, a collaborative coding and analysis environment, and a set of interoperable tools and algorithms developed to support the estimation and visualization of global above-ground biomass. Data from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) mission on the International Space Station and the Ice, Cloud, and Land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) have been instrumental in the first products of MAAP including the first comprehensive map of Boreal above-ground Biomass and a current Global Biomass Harmonization Activity, but the platform is also being specifically designed to support the forthcoming ESA Biomass mission and incorporate data from the upcoming NASA-ISRO SAR (NISAR) mission. While these missions and the corresponding research which includes airborne, field, and calibration/validation data collection and analyses, provide a wealth of data and information relating to global biomass estimation, they also present data storing, processing and sharing challenges. The NISAR mission alone will produce about 80TB/day. These large data volumes present a challenge that would otherwise place accessibility limits on the scientific community and impact scientific progress. Other challenges being addressed by MAAP include: 1) Enabling researchers to easily discover, process, visualize and analyze large volumes of data from both agencies; 2) Providing a wide variety of data in the same coordinate reference frame to enable comparison, analysis, data evaluation, and data generation; 3) Providing a version-controlled science algorithm development environment that supports tools, co-located data and processing resources; and 4) Addressing intellectual property and sharing challenges related to collaborative algorithm development and sharing of data and algorithms. MAAP products can be explored on the MAAP Dashboard at https://earthdata.nasa.gov/maap-biomass or the joint platform entrance at scimaap.net. MAAP also can be accessed through individual NASA (https://maap-project.org) and ESA (https://esa-maap.org/) landing pages.

cloud computing↗

NASA NTRS2010

Creating Methane from Plastics: Recycling at a Lunar Outpost

The high cost of re-supply from Earth demands resources to be utilized to the fullest extent for exploration missions. Recycling is a key technology that maximizes the available resources by converting waste products into useful commodities. One example of this is to convert crew member waste such as plastic packaging, food scraps, and human waste, into fuel. The ability to refuel on the lunar surface would reduce the vehicle mass during launch and provide excess payload capability. The goal of this project is to determine the feasibility of recycling waste into methane on the lunar outpost by performing engineering assessments and lab demonstrations of the technology. The first goal of the project was to determine how recycling could influence lunar exploration. Table I shows an estimation of the typical dried waste stream generated each day for a crew of four. Packaging waste accounts for nearly 86% of the dry waste stream and is a significant source of carbon on the lunar surface. This is important because methane (CH4) can be used as fuel and no other source of carbon is available on the lunar surface. With the initial assessment indicating there is sufficient resources in the waste stream to provide refueling capabilities, the project was designed to examine the conversion of plastics into methane.

Captain, Janine↗

NASA NTRS2002

An Investigation of the Influence of Urban Areas on Rainfall Using the TRMM Satellite and a Cloud-Mesoscale Model

A recent paper by Shepherd and Pierce (in press at Journal of Applied Meteorology) used rainfall data from the Precipitation Radar on NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission's (TRMM) satellite to identify warm season rainfall anomalies downwind of major urban areas. Data (PR) were employed to identify warm season rainfall (1998-2000) patterns around Atlanta, Montgomery, Nashville, San Antonio, Waco, and Dallas. Results reveal an average increase of approx. 28% in monthly rainfall rates within 30-60 kilometers downwind of the metropolis with a modest increase of 5.6% over the metropolis. Portions of the downwind area exhibit increases as high as 51%. The percentage changes are relative to an upwind control area. It was also found that maximum rainfall rates in the downwind impact area exceeded the mean value in the upwind control area by 48%-116%. The maximum value was generally found at an average distance of 39 km from the edge of the urban center or 64 km from the center of the city. Results are consistent with METROMEX studies of St. Louis almost two decades ago and with more recent studies near Atlanta. A convective-mesoscale model with extensive land-surface processes is currently being employed to (a) determine if an urban heat island (UHI) thermal perturbation can induce a dynamic response to affect rainfall processes and (b) quantify the impact of the following three factors on the evolution of rainfall: (1) urban surface roughness, (2) magnitude of the UHI temperature anomaly, and (3) physical size of the UHI temperature anomaly. The sensitivity experiments are achieved by inserting a slab of land with urban properties (e.g. roughness length, albedo, thermal character) within a rural surface environment and varying the appropriate lower boundary condition parameters. The study will discuss the feasibility of utilizing satellite-based rainfall estimates for examining rainfall modification by urban areas on global scales and over longer time periods. The talk also introduces very preliminary results from the modeling component of the study. Such research has implications for weather forecasting, urban planning, water resource management, and understanding human impact on the environment and climate.

Shepherd, J. Marshall↗

NASA NTRS2010

Low and High Frequency Models of Response Statistics of a Cylindrical Orthogrid Vehicle Panel to Acoustic Excitation

This presentation further develops the orthogrid vehicle panel work. Employed Hybrid Module capabilities to assess both low/mid frequency and high frequency models in the VA One simulation environment. The response estimates from three modeling approaches are compared to ground test measurements. Detailed Finite Element Model of the Test Article -Expect to capture both the global panel modes and the local pocket mode response, but at a considerable analysis expense (time & resources). A Composite Layered Construction equivalent global stiffness approximation using SEA -Expect to capture response of the global panel modes only. An SEA approximation using the Periodic Subsystem Formulation. A finite element model of a single periodic cell is used to derive the vibroacoustic properties of the entire periodic structure (modal density, radiation efficiency, etc. Expect to capture response at various locations on the panel (on the skin and on the ribs) with less analysis expense

Smith, Andrew↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Forecasting with the GEOS-CF System and Other NASA Resources to Support Air Quality Management

Air quality (AQ) is a major and growing concern for public health around the world. Economic development, population growth, and climate change are all expected to exacerbate already poor AQ in many regions. Furthermore, AQ is often only sparsely monitored with reference-grade in-situ instruments. NASA resources and products have the potential to help in addressing this AQ data gap. The GEOS-CF (Goddard Earth Observing System – Composition Forecasting) global atmospheric composition modeling system is run each day at a global scale to provide recent estimates and five-day forecasts at hourly temporal resolution of atmospheric constituents relevant to AQ. NASA satellite missions (along with those of other space agencies) provide remotely-sensed estimates of atmospheric composition relevant to AQ. This paper gives a brief overview of these capabilities, and outlines the efforts underway to combine model forecasts, satellite retrievals, and surface-based measurements to provide more comprehensive and accurate estimates and forecasts of local AQ which will be broadly applicable and accessible globally.

GEOS-CF↗

NASA NTRS2024

Forecasting with the GESO-CF System and Other NASA Resources to Support Air Quality Management

Air quality (AQ) is a major and growing concern for public health around the world. Economic development, population growth, and climate change are all expected to exacerbate already poor AQ in many regions. Further-more, AQ is often only sparsely monitored with reference-grade in-situ instruments. NASA resources and products have the potential to help in addressing this AQ data gap. The GEOS-CF (Goddard Earth Observing System –Composition Forecasting) global atmospheric composition modeling system is run each day at a global scale to provide recent estimates and five-day forecasts at hourly temporal resolution of atmospheric constituents relevant to AQ. NASA satellite missions (along with those of other space agencies) provide remotely-sensed estimates of atmospheric composition relevant to AQ. This paper gives a brief over-view of these capabilities, and outlines the efforts underway to combine model forecasts, satellite retrievals, and surface-based measurements to provide more comprehensive and accurate estimates and forecasts of local AQ which will be broadly applicable and accessible globally.

Forecasting↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Dissemination of Global Flood Severity and Surface Water Mapping using Remote Sensing Data to Global Stakeholders

Flooding is a natural event that occurs frequently with high severity worldwide, responsible for significant societal and economic impacts. Disaster managers face significant challenges managing essential information for preparedness, response, and recovery efforts. The development of an open access, global flood alerting system for effective identification of flood impacted areas, classification of potential impacts, and the formulation of effective emergency response measures requires the incorporation of a wide variety of flood models and remote sensing data sources from multiple platforms. NASA is currently funding projects focused on flood forecasting, post-event flood mapping, flood depth estimation and pre-event flood severity estimation using Earth observation (EO) datasets and derived flood products. A new initiative in the Disasters Program is underway to disseminate flood products from different hydrologic models and sensors to global stakeholders via Pacific Disaster Center’s DisasterAWARE®, NASA’s Disasters Mapping Portal and potentially other mechanisms. This initiative focuses on improving response capacity and use of EO products in near real-time by a broader community for resource planning in case of extreme events. As part of this initiative, we have deployed Model of Models (MoM) – an open-source ensemble approach, that integrates outputs from hydrologic models and EO data from optical imagery to assess flood severity daily at sub-watershed level globally. The MoM output is integrated with the incident event system of DisasterAWARE to generate flood severity risk and flood impact boundaries, which are disseminated via the DisasterAWARE platform to different stakeholders globally for decision-making and response efforts. The next step will focus on using MoM outputs to estimate flood depth and extent mapping using high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery, impact assessment using optical imagery and population datasets, and damage estimation using critical infrastructure datasets, which would be disseminated via DisasterAWARE to decision-makers, emergency managers and first responders around the world.

flood↗

NASA NTRS1976

The thermal efficiency and cost of producing hydrogen and other synthetic aircraft fuels from coal

A comparison is made of the cost and thermal efficiency of producing liquid hydrogen, liquid methane and synthetic aviation kerosene from coal. These results are combined with estimates of the cost and energy losses associated with transporting, storing, and transferring the fuels to aircraft. The results of hydrogen-fueled and kerosene-fueled aircraft performance studies are utilized to compare the economic viability and efficiency of coal resource utilization of synthetic aviation fuels.

Witcofski, R. D.↗

NASA NTRS1977

The thermal efficiency and cost of producing hydrogen and other synthetic aircraft fuels from coal

Witcofski, R. D.↗

NASA NTRS1978

The goldstone energy project

The Golstone Energy Project was established in 1974 to investigate ways in which the Goldstone Deep Space Complex in California could be made partly or completely energy-sufficient, especially through the use of solar- and wind-derived energy resources. Ways in which energy could be conserved at the Complex were also studied. Findings included data on both wind and solar energy. Obstacles to demonstrating energy self-sufficiency are: (1) operation and maintenance costs of solar energy systems are estimated to be much higher than conventional energy systems, (2) initial capital costs of present-day technology solar collectors are high and are compounded by low collector efficiency, and (3) no significant market force exists to create the necessary industry to reduce costs through mass production and broad open-market competition.

Bartos, K. P.↗