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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 55 records · Page 3

International two-way satellite time transfers using INTELSAT space segment and small Earth stations

The satellite operated by the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (INTELSAT) provides new and unique capabilities for the coordinates of international time scales on a world wide basis using the two-way technique. A network of coordinated clocks using small earth stations collocated with the scales is possible. Antennas as small as 1.8 m at K-band and 3 m at C-band transmitting powers of less than 1 W will provide signals with time jitters of less than 1 ns existing spread spectrum modems. One way time broadcasting is also possible, under the INTELSAT INTELNET system, possibly using existing international data distribution (press and financial) systems that are already operating spread spectrum systems. The technical details of the satellite and requirements on satellite earth stations are given. The resources required for a regular operational international time transfer service are analyzed with respect to the existing international digital service offerings of the INTELSAT Business Service (IBS) and INTELNET. Coverage areas, typical link budgets, and a summary of previous domestic and international work using this technique are provided. Administrative procedures for gaining access to the space segment are outlined. Contact information for local INTELSAT signatories is listed.

Veenstra, Lester B.↗

NASA Team Collaboration Pilot: Enabling NASA's Virtual Teams

Most NASA projects and work activities are accomplished by teams of people. These teams are often geographically distributed - across NASA centers and NASA external partners, both domestic and international. NASA "virtual" teams are stressed by the challenge of getting team work done - across geographic boundaries and time zones. To get distributed work done, teams rely on established methods - travel, telephones, Video Teleconferencing (NASA VITS), and email. Time is our most critical resource - and team members are hindered by the overhead of travel and the difficulties of coordinating work across their virtual teams. Modern, Internet based team collaboration tools offer the potential to dramatically improve the ability of virtual teams to get distributed work done.

Prahst, Steve↗

Spectrum/orbit utilization program for geostationary satellites

Mutual interferences among geostationary satellite communication systems determine the permitted spacing between satellites and the limits on the capacity of the orbit/spectrum resources available. This paper describes the computer program for analyzing the mutual interferences among communication satellite systems. Capabilities of the program are described. Inputs, models used, program operations, and program outputs are given. To show application of the program, an example scenario is analyzed for fixed satellites providing domestic service to North America.

Miller, E. F.↗

Progress in Integrated Fluid/Structure/Controls Computations Using High Fidelity Equations

Aeroelasticity that involves strong coupling of fluids, structures and controls is an important element in designing an aircraft. Computational aeroelasticity using low fidelity methods such as the linear aerodynamic flow equations coupled with the modal structural equations are well advanced. Though these low fidelity approaches are computationally less intensive, they are not adequate for the analysis of aircraft which can experience complex flow/structure interactions. Supersonic transports can experience vortex induced aeroelastic oscillations whereas subsonic transports can experience transonic buffet associated structural oscillations. Both aircraft may experience a dip in the flutter speed at the transonic regime. For accurate aeroelastic computations at these complex fluid/structure interaction situations, high fidelity equations such as the Navier-Stokes for fluids and the finite-elements for structures are needed. Using these high fidelity methods, design quantities such as structural stresses can be directly computed. Computations using these high fidelity equations require state-of-the-art large computational resources. This paper will describe the transition from potential equations to Euler/Navier-Stokes equations for fluids and from modal equations to finite element equations for structures. Complexities associated with grids for moving control surfaces will be discussed. All contents of the paper will be limited to those already presented at domestic conferences within U.S. such as those sponsored by AIAA. It will not include any materials related to HPCCP computational work.

Guruswamy, Guru P.↗

The non-Federal oceanographic community: An overview

A portion of the broad domestic non-Federal oceanographic community that represents a potential market for satellite remote sensor derived oceanographic data and/or marine environmental information is presented. The overview consists of listings of individuals and/or organizations who have used, or are likely to use such data or information for scientific research, offshore engineering purposes, marine resources exploration and utilization, marine related operational applications, or coastal zone management.

Swetnick, M. A.↗

Solar energy

The book opens with a review of the patterns of energy use and resources in the United States, and an exploration of the potential of solar energy to supply some of this energy in the future. This is followed by background material on solar geometry, solar intensities, flat plate collectors, and economics. Detailed attention is then given to a variety of solar units and systems, including domestic hot water systems, space heating systems, solar-assisted heat pumps, intermediate temperature collectors, space heating/cooling systems, concentrating collectors for high temperatures, storage systems, and solar total energy systems. Finally, rights to solar access are discussed.

Rapp, D.↗

Space law and space resources

Space industrialization is confronting space law with problems that are changing old and shaping new legal principles. The return to the Moon, the next logical step beyond the space station, will establish a permanent human presence there. Science and engineering, manufacturing and mining will involve the astronauts in the settlement of the solar system. These pioneers, from many nations, will need a legal, political, and social framework to structure their lives and interactions. International and even domestic space law are only the beginning of this framework. Dispute resolution and simple experience will be needed in order to develop, over time, a new social system for the new regime of space.

Goldman, Nathan C.↗

Exploring our Changing Planet through NASA’s Earth Information Center and Novel Methods for Earth Science Communication

In June 2023, NASA unveiled the Earth Information Center (EIC), an interagency initiative which invites the global community to explore how our planet is changing through interactive installations, captivating visualizations, and novel storytelling. Existing in both physical and virtual space, the EIC serves as a gateway to actionable information collected through an expanding fleet of Earth observing satellites and sensors. The EIC features data driven visualizations, near real-time information, immersive experiences, and curated stories that highlight the applications of publicly available data to address environmental challenges across nine thematic areas: agriculture, biodiversity, disasters, greenhouse gases, air quality, sea level rise, sustainable energy, water resources, and wildfires. Designed by an interdisciplinary team, EIC exhibits are developed to reach a wide base of end-users across multiple learning modalities. During the first year of operation, the inaugural location of the EIC at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, welcomed an estimated 24,000 visitors, hosted over 145 tours for domestic and international organizations, supported NASA’s Earth Day 2024 programming, and led six STEM programs for diverse student communities. With lessons learned from the first year of being open to the public and a variety of novel science communication tools in development, the EIC is expanding the mission’s reach by collaborating with museums and visitor centers. Through these collaborations, we aim to inform a broader demographic about the unprecedented changes observed in Earth’s climate and inspire communities to learn more about their one and only home, planet Earth.

Nicole Ramberg-Pihl↗

New sidelobe envelopes for small aperture earth stations

The advent of domestic satellite systems and technological improvements in both space and ground equipment makes the use of small aperture earth stations economically feasible and attractive for broadcast satellite applications. With increasing use of the orbit spectrum, there is some concern that broadcast satellite systems may not be able to obtain satisfactory allocations of this orbit-spectrum resource because of interference considerations. Specifically, interference calculations based on the present envelope result in comparatively large orbit spacings for broadcast satellites. Theoretical and experimental investigations of simple sidelobe suppression techniques, plus an analysis of experimental data on small aperture antennas, indicate that much better sidelobe performance can be obtained with a very small cost or performance penalty.

Janky, J. M.↗

Supply of reactants for Redox bulk energy storage systems

World resources, reserves, production, and costs of reactant materials, iron, chromium, titanium and bromine for proposed redox cell bulk energy storage systems are reviewed. Supplying required materials for multimegawatt hour systems appears to be feasible even at current production levels. Iron and chromium ores are the most abundant and lowest cost of four reactants. Chromium is not a domestic reserve, but redox system installations would represent a small fraction of U.S. imports. Vast quantities of bromine are available, but present production is low and therefore cost is high. Titanium is currently available at reasonable cost, with ample reserves available for the next fifty years.

Gahn, R. F.↗

User data dissemination concepts for earth resources: Executive summary

The impact of the future capabilities of earth-resources data sensors (both satellite and airborne) and their requirements on the data dissemination network were investigated and optimum ways of configuring this network were determined. The scope of this study was limited to the continental U.S.A. (including Alaska) and to the 1985-1995 time period. Some of the conclusions and recommendations reached were: (1) Data from satellites in sun-synchronous polar orbits (700-920 km) will generate most of the earth-resources data in the specified time period. (2) Data from aircraft and shuttle sorties cannot be readily integrated in a data-dissemination network unless already preprocessed in a digitized form to a standard geometric coordinate system. (3) Data transmission between readout stations and central preprocessing facilities, and between processing facilities and user facilities are most economically performed by domestic communication satellites. (4) The effect of the following factors should be studied: cloud cover, expanded coverage, pricing strategies, multidiscipline missions.

Davies, R.↗

Mapping Inundation from Hurricane Florence (2018) with L-Band Synthetic Aperture Radar, Commercial Imagery, and Ancillary Data via Machine Learning Classification

During and after flooding events, mapping the extent of floodwaters aids in the distribution of resources, recovery efforts, and damage assessment practices. Development of a land cover classification system focused on mapping inundation after major hurricane events using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data could allow for the production of near-real-time inundation mapping, enabling government and emergency response entities to get a preliminary idea of a developing situation. Complimentary optical and SAR images from domestic and foreign entities are brought together through activations of the International Charter: Space and Major Disasters to support response efforts, from true-color, near-infrared, and thermal remote sensing data obtained by NASA, NOAA, and international satellites to the collection of high-resolution true color aerial photography by NOAA and the National Geodetic Survey. In response to Hurricane Florence of 2018, NASA JPL collected numerous swaths of quad-pol L-band SAR data with the Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) instrument observing the record-setting river stages across North and South Carolina. The resulting fully-polarized SAR images allow for mapping of inundation extent at a high spatial resolution with a unique advantage over optical imaging stemming from the sensor’s ability to penetrate cloud cover and dense vegetation. In this study, true-color NOAA aerial and commercial satellite imagery are used in conjunction with four UAVSAR data swaths centered on the Lumberton and Cape Fear River basins in southeastern North Carolina to develop a Random Forest classification model focused on mapping open water and floodwater otherwise obscured by vegetation or lingering cloud cover. Ancillary building footprint, transportation route, and population data will also be incorporated into the classification scheme to estimate the societal impacts of flooding based on the proximity of features to detected inundation. Preliminary results from the Hurricane Florence case study will be discussed in addition to the limitations of available validation data for assessment of the classifier’s accuracy.

Alexander M Melancon↗

Pharmacy in Space: A Session on NASA Technologies

In 1993, Vice-president Gore was charged with creation of a correctional plan for the poor findings from an efficiency study of governmental agencies. That correctional analysis was then used to support efforts to balance the budget in ways anticipated to improve the value returned per tax payer dollar spent. The final result was a broad initiative collectively termed "reinventing the government", which included major restructuring within NASA as well, termed "reinventing NASA This included substantial elimination of middle management and downsizing such that about 2 million government workers employed in 1992 has shrunk now to about 1.2 million government workers who are employed in ways that at least somewhat decrease bureaucratic and programmatic inefficiencies. Today, "reinvented NASA" has an awareness of contractual commitment to the public. NASA now operates within a so-called "strategic plan" that requires awareness and response to domestic needs. This is important to this audience because it means that NASA is committed to exploring interactions that you may wish to initiate. That is, you are urged to explore with NASA on topics of educational support, collaborative research, or commercial partnerships in drug development and application, as the pertinent examples here, in ways that can include involvement of central NASA resources and missions.

Richmond, Robert C.↗

NASA gateway requirements analysis

NASA devotes approximately 40 percent of its budget to R&D. Twelve NASA Research Centers and their contractors conduct this R&D, which ranges across many disciplines and is fueled by information about previous endeavors. Locating the right information is crucial. While NASA researchers use peer contacts as their primary source of scientific and technical information (STI), on-line bibliographic data bases - both Government-owned and commercial - are also frequently consulted. Once identified, the STI must be delivered in a usable format. This report assesses the appropriateness of developing an intelligent gateway interface for the NASA R&D community as a means of obtaining improved access to relevant STI resources outside of NASA's Remote Console (RECON) on-line bibliographic database. A study was conducted to determine (1) the information requirements of the R&D community, (2) the information sources to meet those requirements, and (3) ways of facilitating access to those information sources. Findings indicate that NASA researchers need more comprehensive STI coverage of disciplines not now represented in the RECON database. This augmented subject coverage should preferably be provided by both domestic and foreign STI sources. It was also found that NASA researchers frequently request rapid delivery of STI, in its original format. Finally, it was found that researchers need a better system for alerting them to recent developments in their areas of interest. A gateway that provides access to domestic and international information sources can also solve several shortcomings in the present STI delivery system. NASA should further test the practicality of a gateway as a mechanism for improved STI access.

Duncan, Denise R.↗

Orbit-spectrum sharing between the fixed-satellite and broadcasting-satellite services at 12 GHz

This paper identifies and evaluates strategies for sharing the geostationary orbit in the band 11.7 to 12.2 GHz between domestic systems in the fixed-satellite and broadcasting-satellite services. The effectiveness of two distinct types of sharing strategies, referred to as spectrum division and orbit division, is determined for various deployments of selected baseline systems representing the two services and for various combinations of sharing tactics such as frequency interleaving, crossed-polarization operation, and crossed-beam operation. Effectiveness is measured by the 'utilization factor', defined as the number of channels provided by the baseline systems when using an assigned share of the orbit-spectrum resource, relative to what they could provide if given the entire resource. Computer simulation is used to verify the intra- and interservice interference compatibility of the assumed deployments. It is concluded that total utilization factors close to 100 percent can be achieved with both spectrum-division and properly-chosen orbit-division strategies.

Reinhart, E. E.↗

Economic aspects of spectrum management

Problems associated with the allocation of the radio frequency spectrum are addressed. It is observed that the current method very likely does not allocate the resource to those most valuing its use. Ecomonic criteria by which the effectiveness of resource allocation schemes can be judged are set forth and some thoughts on traditional objections to implementation of market characteristics into frequency allocation are offered. The problem of dividing orbit and spectrum between two satellite services sharing the same band but having significantly different system characteristics is discussed. The problem is compounded by the likelihood that one service will commence operation much sooner than the other. Some alternative schemes are offered that, within proper international constraints, could achieve a desired flexibility in the division of orbit and frequency between the two services domestically over the next several years.

Stibolt, R. D.↗

Spectrum-orbit utilization - An overview

This paper discusses the problems associated with the efficient utilization of the natural resources of frequency spectrum and geo-stationary orbital arc. The nature of these resources is explained and their quantities are estimated. The present and projected future demand for them is given, and the problem areas are identified and discussed. Special emphasis is placed on mutual interference, launch limitations, propagation effects, and operational restrictions. The technical factors bearing on these problems, such as antenna patterns, modulation methods, emission restrictions, equipment characteristics, and system requirements, are discussed in detail. Some important trade-offs are presented, and special techniques that can be used to increase spectrum-orbit utilization are described. Particular emphasis is given throughout to U.S. domestic satellite communication systems.

Sawitz, P. H.↗

Estimating groundwater use and demand in arid Kenya through assimilation of satellite data and in-situ sensors with machine learning toward drought early action

Groundwater is an important source of water for people, livestock, and agriculture during drought in the Horn of Africa. In this work, areas of high groundwater use and demand in drought-prone Kenya were identified and forecasted prior to the dry season. Estimates of groundwater use were extended from a sentinel network of 69 in-situ sensored mechanical boreholes to the region with satellite data and a machine learning model. The sensors contributed 756 site-month observations from June 2017 to September 2021 for model building and validation at a density of approximately one sensor per 3700 sq.km. An ensemble of 19 parameterized algorithms was informed by features including satellite-derived precipitation, surface water availability, vegetation indices, hydrologic land surface modeling, and site characteristics to dichotomize high groundwater pump utilization. Three operational definitions of high demand on groundwater infrastructure were considered: 1) mechanical runtime of pumps greater than a quarter of a day (6+ hr) and daily per capita volume extractions indicative of 2) domestic water needs (35+ L), and 3) intermediate needs including livestock (75+ L). Gridded interpolation of localized groundwater use and demand was provided from 2017 to 2020 and forecasted for the 2021 dry season, June–September 2021. Cross-validated skill for contemporary estimates of daily pump runtime and daily volume extraction to meet domestic and intermediate water needs was 68%, 69%, and 75%, respectively. Forecasts were externally validated with an accuracy of at least 56%, 70%, or 72% for each groundwater use definition. The groundwater maps are accessible to stakeholders including the Kenya National Drought Management Authority (NDMA) and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET). These maps represent the first operational spatially-explicit sub-seasonal to seasonal (S2S) estimates of groundwater use and demand in the literature. Knowledge of historical and forecasted groundwater use is anticipated to improve decision-making and resource allocation for a range of early warning early action applications.

Katie Fankhauser↗