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NASA NTRS2004

Building Hybrid Rover Models for NASA: Lessons Learned

Particle filters have recently become popular for diagnosis and monitoring of hybrid systems. In this paper we describe our experiences using particle filters on a real diagnosis problem, the NASA Ames Research Center's K-9 rover. As well as the challenge of modelling the dynamics of the system, there are two major issues in applying a particle filter to such a model. The first is the asynchronous nature of the system-observations from different subsystems arrive at different rates, and occasionally out of order, leading to large amounts of uncertainty in the state of the system. The second issue is data interpretation. The particle filter produces a probability distribution over the state of the system, from which summary statistics that can be used for control or higher-level diagnosis must be extracted. We describe our approaches to both these problems, as well as other modelling issues that arose in this domain.

Willeke, Thomas↗

NASA NTRS1994

Improved Bounds on Non-Luminous Matter in Solar Orbit

We improve, using a larger set of observations including Voyager 2 Neptune flyby data, previous bounds on the amount of dark matter (DM) trapped in a spherically symmetric distribution about the sun. We bound DM by noting that such a distribution would increase the effective mass of the sun as seen by the outer planets and by finding the uncertainty in that effective mass for Uranus and Neptune in fits to the JPL Developmental Ephermeris residuals, including optical data and those two planets' Voyager 2 flybys. We extend our previous procedure by fitting more parameters of the developmental ephemerides. Additionally, we present here the values for Pioneer 10 and 11 and Voyager 1 and 2 Jupiter ranging normal points (and incorporate these data as well).

dark matter Deep Space Network DSN Voyager Neptune↗

NASA NTRS2009

Aerothermodynamic Design of the Mars Science Laboratory Heatshield

Aerothermodynamic design environments are presented for the Mars Science Laboratory entry capsule heatshield. The design conditions are based on Navier-Stokes flowfield simulations on shallow (maximum total heat load) and steep (maximum heat flux, shear stress, and pressure) entry trajectories from a 2009 launch. Boundary layer transition is expected prior to peak heat flux, a first for Mars entry, and the heatshield environments were defined for a fully-turbulent heat pulse. The effects of distributed surface roughness on turbulent heat flux and shear stress peaks are included using empirical correlations. Additional biases and uncertainties are based on computational model comparisons with experimental data and sensitivity studies. The peak design conditions are 197 W/sq cm for heat flux, 471 Pa for shear stress, 0.371 Earth atm for pressure, and 5477 J/sq cm for total heat load. Time-varying conditions at fixed heatshield locations were generated for thermal protection system analysis and flight instrumentation development. Finally, the aerothermodynamic effects of delaying launch until 2011 are previewed.

Edquist, Karl T.↗

NASA NTRS2009

Global Atmospheric Heat Distributions Observed from Space

This study focuses on the observations of global atmospheric heat distributions using satellite measurements. Major heat components such as radiation energy, latent heat and sensible heat are considered. The uncertainties and error sources are assessed. Results show that the atmospheric heat is basically balanced, and the observed patterns of radiation and latent heat from precipitation are clearly related to general circulation.

Lin, Bing↗

NASA NTRS2015

Determining the Water Ice Content of Martian Regolith by Nonlinear Spectral Mixture Modeling

In the search for evidence of life, Icebreaker will drill in to the Martian ice-rich regolith to collect samples, which will then be analyzed by an array of instruments designed to identify biomarkers. In addition, drilling into the subsurface will provide the opportunity to assess the vertical distribution of ice to a depth of 1 meter. The purpose of this particular project was to understand the uncertainties involved in the use of the imaging system to constrain the water ice content in regolith samples.

Subtractive Kramers-Kronig analysis↗

NASA NTRS2017

Experimental Investigation of Mars Science Laboratory Entry Vehicle Aeroheating in AEDC Hypervelocity Tunnel 9

An experimental investigation of the aeroheating environment of the Mars Science Laboratory entry vehicle was conducted in the Arnold Engineering Development Complex Hypervelocity Wind Tunnel 9. Testing was performed on a 6-in. (0.1524 m) diameter model in the tunnel's Mach 8 and Mach 10 nozzles at free stream Reynolds numbers from 4.1×10*exp 6)/ft to 49×10(exp 6)/ft and from 1.2×10(exp 6)/ft to 19×10(exp 6)/ft, respectively, using pure nitrogen test gas. These conditions spanned the boundary layer flow regimes from completely laminar to fully turbulent flow over the entire forebody. A computational fluid dynamics study was conducted in support of the wind tunnel testing. Laminar and turbulent solutions were generated for all wind tunnel test conditions and comparisons of predicted heating distributions were performed with the data. These comparisons showed agreement for most cases to within the estimated +/-12% experimental uncertainty margin for fully-laminar or fully-turbulent conditions, while transitional heating data were bounded by laminar and turbulent predictions. These results helped to define uncertainty margins on the use of computational tools for vehicle design.

Hollis, Brian R.↗

NASA NTRS2017

Sensitivity of Impact Risk to Uncertainty in Asteroid Properties and Entry Parameters

A central challenge in evaluating the threat posed by asteroids striking Earth is the large amount of uncertainty in potential asteroid properties and entry parameters, which can vary the resulting ground damage and affected population by orders of magnitude. We are using our Probabilistic Asteroid Impact Risk (PAIR) model to investigate the sensitivity of asteroid impact damage to these uncertainties. To assess the risk sensitivity, we alternately fix or vary the different input parameters and compare the damage distributions produced. In this study, we consider local ground damage from blast waves or thermal radiation for impactors 50-500m in diameter. The ongoing goal of this work is to help guide future efforts in asteroid characterization and model refinement by determining which properties most significantly affect the potential risk.

Wheeler, Lorien↗

NASA NTRS2020

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↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Accelerating SNP Development with Radiation Source Approximations for Far-Field Environment Modeling

The successful development and deployment of space nuclear power and propulsion technology requires a high-fidelity, efficient means of modeling ex-core radiation fields. Monte Carlo particle transport codes provide enable the highest level of fidelity in radiation field modeling but are inefficient for modeling ex-core radiation without modification. This paper details the development of an approach to ex-core radiation field modeling that maintains the fidelity of a Monte Carlo transport approach without sacrificing computational efficiency. This approach is based on recent improvements to an existing Monte Carlo transport acceleration technique known as surface source banking. As the transport of many particles is required to ensure adequate uncertainty in far field transport, analytical reconstruction techniques are employed to represent surface source banks as sampleable series of distributions in particle phase from which an arbitrarily large number of particles can be generated and simulated. All steps of this approach are incorporated into an AMA model to test both the underlying mathematics of the analytical source reconstruction process, as well as the relevance of the technique as a whole towards SNP applications. These tests demonstrated that this approach is capable of accelerating far-field radiation modeling in SNP-relevant scenarios by factors of at least nine over purely eigenvalue-based scenarios without significantly sacrificing simulation accuracy.

Surface Source Banking↗

NASA NTRS1986

Cost Risk Analysis Based on Perception of the Engineering Process

In most cost estimating applications at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), it is desirable to present predicted cost as a range of possible costs rather than a single predicted cost. A cost risk analysis generates a range of cost for a project and assigns a probability level to each cost value in the range. Constructing a cost risk curve requires a good estimate of the expected cost of a project. It must also include a good estimate of expected variance of the cost. Many cost risk analyses are based upon an expert's knowledge of the cost of similar projects in the past. In a common scenario, a manager or engineer, asked to estimate the cost of a project in his area of expertise, will gather historical cost data from a similar completed project. The cost of the completed project is adjusted using the perceived technical and economic differences between the two projects. This allows errors from at least three sources. The historical cost data may be in error by some unknown amount. The managers' evaluation of the new project and its similarity to the old project may be in error. The factors used to adjust the cost of the old project may not correctly reflect the differences. Some risk analyses are based on untested hypotheses about the form of the statistical distribution that underlies the distribution of possible cost. The usual problem is not just to come up with an estimate of the cost of a project, but to predict the range of values into which the cost may fall and with what level of confidence the prediction is made. Risk analysis techniques that assume the shape of the underlying cost distribution and derive the risk curve from a single estimate plus and minus some amount usually fail to take into account the actual magnitude of the uncertainty in cost due to technical factors in the project itself. This paper addresses a cost risk method that is based on parametric estimates of the technical factors involved in the project being costed. The engineering process parameters are elicited from the engineer/expert on the project and are based on that expert's technical knowledge. These are converted by a parametric cost model into a cost estimate. The method discussed makes no assumptions about the distribution underlying the distribution of possible costs, and is not tied to the analysis of previous projects, except through the expert calibrations performed by the parametric cost analyst.

Dean, Edwin B.↗

NASA NTRS2012

An Assessment of the Surface Longwave Direct Radiative Effect of Airborne Dust in Zhangye China During the Asian Monsoon Year Field Experiment (2008)

Tiny suspensions of solid particles or liquid droplets, called aerosols, hover in earth's atmosphere and can be found over just about anywhere including oceans, deserts, vegetated areas, and other global regions. Aerosols come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and compositions which depend on such factors as their origin and how long they have been in the atmosphere (i.e., their residence time). Some of the more common types of aerosols include mineral dust and sea salt which get lifted from the desert and ocean surfaces, respectively by mechanical forces such as strong winds. Depending on their size, aerosols will either fall out gravitationally, as in the case of larger particles, or will remain resident in the atmosphere where they can undergo further change through interactions with other aerosols and cloud particles. Not only do aerosols affect air quality where they pose a health risk, they can also perturb the distribution of radiation in the earth-atmosphere system which can inevitably lead to changes in our climate. One aerosol that has been in the forefront of many recent studies, particularly those examining its radiative effects, is mineral dust. The large spatial coverage of desert source regions and the fact that dust can radiatively interact with such a large part of the electromagnetic spectrum due to its range in particle size, makes it an important aerosol to study. Dust can directly scatter and absorb solar and infrared radiation which can subsequently alter the amount of radiation that would otherwise be present in the absence of dust at any level of the atmosphere like the surface. This is known as radiative forcing. At the surface dust can block incoming solar energy, however at infrared wavelengths, dust acts to partially compensate the solar losses. Evaluating the solar radiative effect of dust aerosols is relatively straightforward due in part to the relatively large signal-to-noise ratio in the measurements. At infrared wavelengths, on the other hand, the effect is rather difficult to ascertain since the measured dust signal level is on the same order as the instrumental uncertainties. Although the radiative impact of dust is much smaller in the infrared, it can still have a noticeable influence on the distribution of energy in the Earth-atmosphere system. This is mainly attributed to the strong light-absorptive properties commonly found in many earth minerals.

Hansell, Richard A.↗

NASA NTRS1994

Dust extinction and molecular gas in the dark cloud IC 5146

In this paper we describe a powerful method for mapping the distribution of dust through a molecular cloud using data obtained in large-scale, multiwavelength, infrared imaging surveys. This method combines direct measurements of near-infrared color excess and certain techniques of star counting to derive mean extinctions and map the dust column density distribution through a cloud at higher angular resolutions and greater optical depths than those achieved previously by optical star counting. We report the initial results of the application of this method to a dark cloud complex near the cluster IC 5146, where we have performed coordinated, near-infrared, JHK imaging and (13)CO, C(18)O, and CS millimeter-wave, molecular-line surveys of a large portion of the complex. More than 4000 stars were detected in our JHK survey of the cloud. Of these, all but about a dozen appear to be field stars not associated with the cloud. Star count maps at J band show a striking and detailed anticorrelation between the surface density of J-band sources and CO and CS molecular-line emission. We used the (H-K) colors and positions of nearly 1300 sources to directly measure and map the extinction and thus trace the dust column density through the cloud at an effective angular resolution of 1 min .5. We report an interesting correlation between the measured dispersion in our extinction determinations and the extinction. Modeling this relation indicates that effects of small-scale cloud structure dominate the uncertainties in our measurements. Moreover, we demonstrate that such observations can be used to place constraints on the nature of the spatial distribution of extinction on scales smaller than our resolution. In particular, we show that models in which the dust is distributed uniformly or in discrete high-extinction clumps on scales smaller than (1 min .5) are inconsistent with the observations. We have derived extinctions at the same positions and at the same angular resolution (1 min .7) as our molecular-line observations. This enabled a direct comparison of (13)CO, C(18)O, and CS integrated intensities and column densities with A(sub V) for more than 500 positions in the cloud, corresponding to a range in A(sub V) between 0 to 32 mag of extinction. We found the integrated intensities of (13)CO, C(18)O, and CS to be roughly linearly correlated with extinction over different ranges of extinction. However, for all three molecules we find the scatter in the observed relations to be larger than can be accounted for by instrumental error, suggesting that there are large intrinsic variations in the abundances or excitation of the molecules through the cloud. Mean abundances for all the molecules relative to hydrogen were directly derived from the data. The ratio of (13)CO to C(18)O abundances was found to be significantly higher than the terrestrial ratio in regions where extinction is less than 10 mag. In the same region, the dispersion in the abundance ratio is also found to be very large, suggesting that the abundances of one or both molecules are very unstable even at relatively large cloud optical depths. Beyond 10 mag of extinction the abundances of both species appear very stable with their ratio close to the terrestrial value.

Lada, Charles J.↗

NASA NTRS2003

Radar Reflectivity Simulated by a 2-D Spectra Bin Model: Sensitivity of Cloud-aerosol Interaction

The Goddard Cumulus Ensemble (GCE) model with bin spectra microphysics is used to simulate mesoscale convective systems.The model uses explicit bins to represent size spectra of cloud nuclei, water drops, ice crystals, snow and graupel. Each hydrometeorite category is described by 33 mass bins. The simulations provide a unique data set of simulated raindrop size distribution in a realistic dynamic frame. Calculations of radar parameters using simulated drop size distribution serve as an evaluation of numerical model performance. In addition, the GCE bin spectra modes is a very useful tool to study uncertainties related to radar observations; all the environmental parameters are precisely known. In this presentation, we concentrate on the discussion of Z-R (ZDR-R) relation in the simulated systems. Due to computational limitations, the spectra bin model has been run in two dimensions with 31 stretched vertical layers and 1026 horizontal grid points (1 km resolution). Two different cases, one in midlatitude continent, the other in tropical ocean, have been simulated. The continental case is a strong convection which lasted for two hours. The oceanic case is a persistent system with more than 10 hours' life span. It is shown that the simulated Z-R (ZDR-R) relations generally agree with observations using radar and rain gauge data. The spatial and temporal variations of Z-R relation in different locations are also analyzed. Impact of aerosols on cloud formation and raindrop size distribution was studied. Both clean (low CCN) and dirty (high CCN) cases are simulated. The Z-R relation is shown to vary considerable in the initial CCN concentrations.

Li, Kiaowen↗

NASA NTRS1977

On the alignment of plasma anisotropies and the magnetic field direction in the solar wind

One year's Imp 6 solar wind plasma and magnetic field data are examined to determine whether anisotropies in particle velocity distributions are aligned with the measured interplanetary magnetic field vector. Alignment of components in the analysis plane was generally found to be excellent whenever plasma parameter magnitudes were larger than determination uncertainties, although some spread exists (typical rms approximately equal to 10 deg). By assuming cylindrical symmetry about the simultaneously measured magnetic field vector during the 1-year interval under study, three-dimensional values of selected solar wind plasma thermal parameters were constructed from the two-dimensional plasma measurements, and the statistical properties of their distributions have been tabulated.

Asbridge, J. R.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A study of the diffuse galactic gamma radiation

The observed diffuse galactic gamma radiation is compared to that predicted from galactic cosmic ray interactions with galactic matter and photons, assuming that on a broad scale the galactic cosmic rays in the plane are correlated with matter density. Recent considerations of the galactic diffuse matter distribution, particularly the molecular hydrogen, the galactic photon density, and a revised cosmic ray galactic scale height, are included. The predictions are compared to the observational gamma ray longitude distributions, the latitude distribution, and energy spectrum, including the COS-B satellite results, and the COS-B background estimate. Considering the uncertainties, the agreement between the theoretical predictions and the gamma ray data seems generally reasonable, suggesting that the general concepts are likely to be correct. Both the results determined here alone and in conjunction with other work calculating source functions assuming only cosmic ray matter contributions indicate no necessity for a significant point source contribution to the diffuse gamma radiation in the energy range being considered (E(gamma)10 MeV).

Fichtel, C. E.↗

NASA NTRS1984

A study of the diffuse galactic gamma radiation

Fichtel, C. E.↗

NASA NTRS1985

Multiscale modeling to evaluate proposed space-based Doppler lidar sampling strategies

A proposal has been made to place a pulsed Doppler lidar on a space platform (Huffaker, et al., 1980; Emmitt, 1982) in a low earth orbit (200 to 800 km) to measure the atmospheric winds with a spatial resolution commensurate with the current continental rawinsonde network density - i.e., 300 to 500 km resolution. In the case of the space-based doppler lidar, the full range of space scales applies. Single shot pulses with dimensions of 10 x 1000 meters are used to sample areas 100,000 x 100,000 meters to resolved mass flow structure with wavelength of 1 million meters. Simulation studies, therefore, require an equally broad range of atmospheric models. A general circulation model is appropriate to answer questions regarding the impact of a global wind measuring system upon synoptic forecasts. Since the nominal resolution of the spacebased system is expected to be a few 100's of kilometers, then a numerical model with mesoscale dynamics is required. The meaning of an average Doppler shift within a laser pulse volume must be evaluated with models of turbulent/convective scale motions and aerosol gradients. Examples of how models on all these scales have been applied in an ongoing simulation study are presented. In particular, the uncertainties in a mesoscale wind estimate are separated into those arising from pulse scale variances and those due to sample distribution within a prescribed resolution volume. Trade-offs between accuracy and representativeness are discussed in terms of the model results.

Emmitt, G. D.↗

NASA NTRS1987

General comparison of ozone vertical profiles obtained by various techniques during the 1983 MAP/GLOBUS campaign

As part of the 1983 MAP/GLOBUS campaign, atmospheric ozone profile measurements were made using a large variety of different techniques both from balloon platforms and the ground. It is shown that, for most techniques, the measured height distributions agree to within + or - 5 percent with the exception of the remote visible absorption method. This + or - 5 percent uncertainty is of the order of the individual intersystem accuracy. It is suggested that since the differences with the visible absorption method are in magnitude rather than in form, the absorption cross-section data could be the possible cause for the discrepancy.

Matthews, W. A.↗