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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 NTRS2014

More Than A SketchUp

This 2014 summer internship assignment at John F. Kennedy Space Center (K.S.C) was conducted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Engineering and Technology (NE) group in support of the Control and Data Systems Division (NE-C) within the Test, Operations & Support Software Engineering Branch (NE-C2). The primary focus of this project was to assist Branch Chief Laurie B. Griffin, to support NASA's Small Payload Launch Integrated Testing Services (SPLITS) mission, by mastering the capabilities of 3-D modeling software called SketchUp. I used SketchUp to create a virtual environment for different laboratories of the NE-00 Division. My mission was to have these models uploaded into a K.S.C Partnerships Website and be used as a visual aid to viewers who browsed the site. The leads of this project were Kay L. Craig, Business and Industry Specialist (AD-A) and Steven E. Cain, (FA-C). I teamed with fellow intern Tait Sorenson of the Flight Structures and Thermal Protection Systems Branch (NE-M5) and met with many K.S.C lab managers willing to display their lab's structure and capabilities. The information collected during these lab tours was vital to the building of the K.S.C Partnerships Website. To accomplish this goal Sorenson and I later teamed with fellow Marketing intern Marlee Pereda-Ramos, of the Spaceport Planning Office In Center Planning And Development (AD-A) Along with Ramos, Tait and I toured an array of laboratories and got first hand exposure to their functions and capabilities.

Trimble Corporation↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA’s and ESA’s Tracking Networks, A Decade of Strategic Partnership for Solar System Exploration

Planetary missions travel vast distances in the Solar System for valuable scientific exploration. Spacecraft return data to Earth via radio links that suffer power losses inversely proportional to the square of the distance, which forms a tremendous engineering challenge compounded by relatively low onboard transmitter power, typically 20 Watts at X-band (~8 GHz). Deep space missions are enabled only because leading space agencies invested in developing very large communications antennas as well as provided a sophisticated suite of tracking, telemetry and command standard services. NASA’s Deep Space Network and ESA’s ESTRACK network are distributed geographically to provide global coverage and utilize stations ranging in size from 34 meters to 70 meters in diameter. Over time, the expanding number of missions, increased requirements for redundancy during critical events as well as the drive for improved navigation accuracy via long-baseline interferometric techniques, increased the networks’ loading and strongly motivated collaboration between the two agencies. Ten years ago, NASA and ESA established a cross-support agreement in addition to multiple on-going mission-specific agreements to meet this need. This strategic partnership was enabled by the development of international inter-operability technical standards and compatible spectrum usage. Over recent years, many critical events were supported via these agreements and some scientific breakthroughs were enabled. A multi-nation tracking contention period envisioned in the near future will also benefit from this partnership. Due to its success over the last decade, the DSN-ESTRACK partnership is serving as a model for other agencies with deep space communication facilities and similar interest. This paper reviews the benefits and lessons learned from collaborative deep space exploration, especially via communications networks, and discusses the potential implementation of similar NASA agreements with other space agencies.

Costrell, Jim↗
NASA NTRS2010

Space Weather Models, Tools and Services at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center

The Community Coordinated Modeling center (CCMC) is a multi-agency partnership to support the research and developmental work necessary to substantially increase space weather modeling capabilities and to facilitate advanced models deployment in forecasting operations. The CCMC conducts unbiased model testing and validation and evaluates model readiness for operational environment. Space weather models and coupled model chains hosted at the CCMC range from the solar corona to the Earth's upper atmosphere. CCMC has developed a number of real-time modeling systems, as well as a large number of modeling and data products tailored to address the space weather needs of NASA's robotic missions. The presentation will demonstrate the rapid progress towards development the system allowing using products derived from space weather models in applications associated with National Space Weather needs. The adaptable Integrated Space Weather Analysis (ISWA) System developed at CCMC for NASA-relevant space weather information combines forecasts based on advanced space weather models hosted at CCMC with concurrent space environment information. The system is also enabling post-impact analysis and flexible dissemination of space weather information.

Kuznetsova, M. M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Validation of Space Weather Models at Community Coordinated Modeling Center

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) is a multi-agency partnership to support the research and developmental work necessary to substantially increase space weather modeling capabilities and to facilitate advanced models deployment in forecasting operations. Space weather models and coupled model chains hosted at the CCMC range from the solar corona to the Earth's upper atmosphere. CCMC has developed a number of real-time modeling systems, as well as a large number of modeling and data products tailored to address the space weather needs of NASA's robotic missions. The CCMC conducts unbiased model testing and validation and evaluates model readiness for operational environment. CCMC has been leading recent comprehensive modeling challenges under GEM, CEDAR and SHINE programs. The presentation will focus on experience in carrying out comprehensive and systematic validation of large sets of. space weather models

Kuznetsova, M. M.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Lunar COTS: Using the Moon's Resources to Enable An Economical and Sustainable Pathway to Mars and Beyond

To support NASAs goal of sending humans to Mars, a new plan was constructed to develop and demonstrate cislunar capabilities and services in partnership with commercial industry using the well-proven Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) Program acquisition model. The NASA COTS Program was a very successful program that developed and demonstrated cost-effective commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS). As a result of NASAs COTS program, two new launch vehicles and spacecraft were developed and have been successfully performing cargo transportation missions to the ISS since 2012. The COTS acquisition strategy utilized a new model than normally accepted in traditional procurement practices. This new model used Space Act Agreements where NASA entered into partnerships with industry to jointly share cost, development and operational risks to demonstrate new capabilities for mutual benefit. This model proved to be very beneficial to both NASA and its industry partners as NASA saved significantly in development and operational costs, as much as tenfold, while industry partners successfully expanded their market share of the global launch transportation business for significant economic benefit. Using the COTS acquisition model as a basis, a new plan, notionally referred to as Lunar Commercial Orbital Transfer Services (or Lunar COTS), has been developed to determine the potential benefits and challenges of a new Lunar COTS plan[1]. The proposed plan includes low-cost, commercial-enabled missions to prospect for resources, determine the economic viability of extracting those resources and assess the value proposition of using these resources in future exploration architectures such as Mars. These missions would be accomplished in partnership with industry to meet these exploration goals but will also have the capability to carry payloads to meet science goals as well.

Zuniga, Allison↗
NASA NTRS2016

Transitioning Enhanced Land Surface Initialization and Model Verification Capabilities to the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD)

Flooding, severe weather, and drought are key forecasting challenges for the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD), based in Nairobi, Kenya. Atmospheric processes leading to convection, excessive precipitation and/or prolonged drought can be strongly influenced by land cover, vegetation, and soil moisture content, especially during anomalous conditions and dry/wet seasonal transitions. It is thus important to represent accurately land surface state variables (green vegetation fraction, soil moisture, and soil temperature) in Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) models. The NASA SERVIR and the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) programs in Huntsville, AL have established a working partnership with KMD to enhance its regional modeling capabilities. SPoRT and SERVIR are providing experimental land surface initialization datasets and model verification capabilities for capacity building at KMD. To support its forecasting operations, KMD is running experimental configurations of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF; Skamarock et al. 2008) model on a 12-km/4-km nested regional domain over eastern Africa, incorporating the land surface datasets provided by NASA SPoRT and SERVIR. SPoRT, SERVIR, and KMD participated in two training sessions in March 2014 and June 2015 to foster the collaboration and use of unique land surface datasets and model verification capabilities. Enhanced regional modeling capabilities have the potential to improve guidance in support of daily operations and high-impact weather and climate outlooks over Eastern Africa. For enhanced land-surface initialization, the NASA Land Information System (LIS) is run over Eastern Africa at ~3-km resolution, providing real-time land surface initialization data in place of interpolated global model soil moisture and temperature data available at coarser resolutions. Additionally, real-time green vegetation fraction (GVF) composites from the Suomi-NPP VIIRS instrument is being incorporated into the KMD-WRF runs, using the product generated by NOAA/NESDIS. Model verification capabilities are also being transitioned to KMD using NCAR's Model *Corresponding author address: Jonathan Case, ENSCO, Inc., 320 Sparkman Dr., Room 3008, Huntsville, AL, 35805. Email: Jonathan.Case-1@nasa.gov Evaluation Tools (MET; Brown et al. 2009) software in conjunction with a SPoRT-developed scripting package, in order to quantify and compare errors in simulated temperature, moisture and precipitation in the experimental WRF model simulations. This extended abstract and accompanying presentation summarizes the efforts and training done to date to support this unique regional modeling initiative at KMD. To honor the memory of Dr. Peter J. Lamb and his extensive efforts in bolstering weather and climate science and capacity-building in Africa, we offer this contribution to the special Peter J. Lamb symposium. The remainder of this extended abstract is organized as follows. The collaborating international organizations involved in the project are presented in Section 2. Background information on the unique land surface input datasets is presented in Section 3. The hands-on training sessions from March 2014 and June 2015 are described in Section 4. Sample experimental WRF output and verification from the June 2015 training are given in Section 5. A summary is given in Section 6, followed by Acknowledgements and References.

land surface modeling↗
NASA NTRS2014

Toward Improved Land Surface Initialization in Support of Regional WRF Forecasts at the Kenya Meteorological Service (KMS)

Flooding and drought are two key forecasting challenges for the Kenya Meteorological Service (KMS). Atmospheric processes leading to excessive precipitation and/or prolonged drought can be quite sensitive to the state of the land surface, which interacts with the planetary boundary layer (PBL) of the atmosphere providing a source of heat and moisture. The development and evolution of precipitation systems are affected by heat and moisture fluxes from the land surface, particularly within weakly-sheared environments such as in the tropics and sub-tropics. These heat and moisture fluxes during the day can be strongly influenced by land cover, vegetation, and soil moisture content. Therefore, it is important to represent the land surface state as accurately as possible in land surface and numerical weather prediction (NWP) models. Enhanced regional modeling capabilities have the potential to improve forecast guidance in support of daily operations and high-impact weather over eastern Africa. KMS currently runs a configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) NWP model in real time to support its daily forecasting operations, making use of the NOAA/National Weather Service (NWS) Science and Training Resource Center's Environmental Modeling System (EMS) to manage and produce the KMS-WRF runs on a regional grid over eastern Africa. Two organizations at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, SERVIR and the Shortterm Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center, have established a working partnership with KMS for enhancing its regional modeling capabilities through new datasets and tools. To accomplish this goal, SPoRT and SERVIR is providing enhanced, experimental land surface initialization datasets and model verification capabilities to KMS as part of this collaboration. To produce a land-surface initialization more consistent with the resolution of the KMS-WRF runs, the NASA Land Information System (LIS) is run at a comparable resolution to provide real-time, daily soil initialization data in place of data interpolated from the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) Global Forecast System (GFS) model soil moisture and temperature fields. Additionally, realtime green vegetation fraction (GVF) data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi- NPP) satellite will be incorporated into the KMS-WRF runs, once it becomes publicly available from the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service (NESDIS). Finally, model verification capabilities will be transitioned to KMS using the Model Evaluation Tools (MET; Brown et al. 2009) package in conjunction with a dynamic scripting package developed by SPoRT (Zavodsky et al. 2014), to help quantify possible improvements in simulated temperature, moisture and precipitation resulting from the experimental land surface initialization. Furthermore, the transition of these MET tools will enable KMS to monitor model forecast accuracy in near real time. This paper presents preliminary efforts to improve land surface model initialization over eastern Africa in support of operations at KMS. The remainder of this extended abstract is organized as follows: The collaborating organizations involved in the project are described in Section 2; background information on LIS and the configuration for eastern Africa is presented in Section 3; the WRF configuration used in this modeling experiment is described in Section 4; sample experimental WRF output with and without LIS initialization data are given in Section 5; a summary is given in Section 6 followed by acknowledgements and references.

Case, Johnathan L.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Architecture Modeling on the Europa Project

In 2015 NASA chartered a partnership between the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to begin planning a mission to study the Jovian moon Europa. The project has adopted a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach to its architecting process since its early formulation, developing certain modeling practices and tools as needed, with the expectation that this process would result in a more consistent and verifiable architecture than with a more traditional document-based approach. A sound architecture is essential to provide the rationale for requirements on the system design, and to define the trade space of acceptable design points within which technical and programmatic concerns as well as project objectives can be addressed. This paper provides an overview of the framework used by the Europa project to describe the mission architecture and discusses how a system model was instrumental in providing a single-source-of-truth for this description. Several key modeling patterns to represent the architecture are presented, along with audit methods to ensure the consistency and the correctness of the model. Finally, the benefits and challenges of using a model-based approach to generate traditional requirements documents and other gate products are assessed.

Dubos, Gregory F.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Recent Developments of Thermal Protection Materials to Enable Lower Cost Space Missions

Introduction: Starting with the Commercial Crew Program, a new paradigm has emerged at NASA. Rather than designing rockets and spacecrafts for every mission optimized to achieve science, NASA has begun to use a service-based model and utilizing public-private partnership in developing the vehicles that can bring broader benefits as well as lower the cost for NASA missions. Commercial companies own and operate those vehicles. This allows NASA to not design missions from the bottom up, and has cost, risk, and schedule savings implications. On the other side, the constraints require meeting the requirements in terms of mass, volume, power, etc. By leveraging NASA developed technologies, commercial companies can quickly demonstrate the commercial mission concept, and, through technology transfer, adopt needed technology to address supply chain problems. A downside is that the technology has to be sufficiently mature to be transferred by NASA, which means that it requires significant investment, expertise, and time to develop. Space entities are focused on rapid development with an emphasis on manufacturing and integration innovation with reduced cost and schedule and quick entrance into the market. Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) are mission critical, but their development takes years, and involve access to arc jets or unique test facilities. Therefore, their development is both risky and investment heavy. NASA ARC developed several new TPS materials over the last decade (C-PICA, HEEET, 3MDCP, 3DMAT, ADEPT woven TPS) and brought them to high TPS maturity, making them enablers for commercials space missions from LEO, Lunar Sample Return, Mars, and Venus missions. LEO missions are relevant to future Mars missions due to the comparable entry conditions. External Partners' Missions: C-PICA is a recent improvement on NASA’s heritage PICA lightweight TPS ablator. C-PICA is now considered an enabling technology for New Frontiers and other NASA missions. C-PICA was infused into several missions from external partners. Varda Space Industries’ Winnebago-1 spacecraft successfully returned to Earth from LEO on Feb. 21st, 2024, using a C-PICA heatshield. Inversion Space’s Ray vehicle will test both ARC’s C-PICA and SIRCA TPS materials on a LEO return mission later in 2024. The Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment (KREPE) is another example of a low-cost flight experiment to demonstrate the use of small entry capsules to gather data with three instrumented Kentucky Re-entry and Universal Payload System (KRUPS) capsules. NASA Arc provided C-PICA and Soft-PICA for two of the next KRUPS capsules scheduled to re-enter Earth from the ISS later in 2024. Finally, Rocket Lab’s low-cost mission to Venus, scheduled to launch in December 2024, will search for habitable conditions in Venus’ cloud layer, making use of NASA ARC provided HEEET insulation layer heat shield, and SIRCA backshell TPS materials. Future NASA Missions: NASA’s ability to help commercial missions can lead to future low-cost missions for several reasons: Competition encourages lower cost; technology maturation is now done at an integrated system level; and a common design architecture between commercial and scientific applications requires no specialized engineering design. From an engineering perspective, both of these commercial LEO capsules aforementioned are capable of a Mars entry; the commercial payload mut be replaced with as science payload. Finally, several NASA mission concepts, that could be candidates for future SIMPLEx program calls, such as VATMOS-SR and Nephele, both proposing to target the Venusian atmosphere, would make use of the HEEET insulation layer TPS for part of their heat shield.

TPS materials↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Recent Developments of Thermal Protection Materials to Enable Lower Cost Space Missions

Introduction: Starting with the Commercial Crew Program, a new paradigm has emerged at NASA. Rather than designing rockets and spacecrafts for every mission optimized to achieve science, NASA has begun to use a service-based model and utilizing public-private partnership in developing the vehicles that can bring broader benefits as well as lower the cost for NASA missions. Commercial companies own and operate those vehicles. This allows NASA to not design missions from the bottom up, and has cost, risk, and schedule savings implications. On the other side, the constraints require meeting the requirements in terms of mass, volume, power, etc. By leveraging NASA developed technologies, commercial companies can quickly demonstrate the commercial mission concept, and, through technology transfer, adopt needed technology to address supply chain problems. A downside is that the technology has to be sufficiently mature to be transferred by NASA, which means that it requires significant investment, expertise, and time to develop. Space entities are focused on rapid development with an emphasis on manufacturing and integration innovation with reduced cost and schedule and quick entrance into the market. Thermal Protection Systems (TPS) are mission critical, but their development takes years, and involve access to arc jets or unique test facilities. Therefore, their development is both risky and investment heavy. NASA ARC developed several new TPS materials over the last decade (C-PICA, HEEET, 3MDCP, 3DMAT, ADEPT woven TPS) and brought them to high TPS maturity, making them enablers for commercials space missions from LEO, Lunar Sample Return, Mars, and Venus missions. LEO missions are relevant to future Mars missions due to the comparable entry conditions. External Partners' Missions: C-PICA is a recent improvement on NASA’s heritage PICA lightweight TPS ablator. C-PICA is now considered an enabling technology for New Frontiers and other NASA missions. C-PICA was infused into several missions from external partners. Varda Space Industries’ Winnebago-1 spacecraft successfully returned to Earth from LEO on Feb. 21st, 2024, using a C-PICA heatshield. Inversion Space’s Ray vehicle will test both ARC’s C-PICA and SIRCA TPS materials on a LEO return mission later in 2024. The Kentucky Re-Entry Probe Experiment (KREPE) is another example of a low-cost flight experiment to demonstrate the use of small entry capsules to gather data with three instrumented Kentucky Re-entry and Universal Payload System (KRUPS) capsules. NASA Arc provided C-PICA and Soft-PICA for two of the next KRUPS capsules scheduled to re-enter Earth from the ISS later in 2024. Finally, Rocket Lab’s low-cost mission to Venus, scheduled to launch in December 2024, will search for habitable conditions in Venus’ cloud layer, making use of NASA ARC provided HEEET insulation layer heat shield, and SIRCA backshell TPS materials. Future NASA Missions: NASA’s ability to help commercial missions can lead to future low-cost missions for several reasons: Competition encourages lower cost; technology maturation is now done at an integrated system level; and a common design architecture between commercial and scientific applications requires no specialized engineering design. From an engineering perspective, both of these commercial LEO capsules aforementioned are capable of a Mars entry; the commercial payload mut be replaced with as science payload. Finally, several NASA mission concepts, that could be candidates for future SIMPLEx program calls, such as VATMOS-SR and Nephele, both proposing to target the Venusian atmosphere, would make use of the HEEET insulation layer TPS for part of their heat shield.

TPS materials↗
NASA NTRS2014

Toward Improved Land Surface Initialization in Support of Regional WRF Forecasts at the Kenya Meteorological Department

Flooding and drought are two key forecasting challenges for the Kenya Meteorological Department (KMD). Atmospheric processes leading to excessive precipitation and/or prolonged drought can be quite sensitive to the state of the land surface, which interacts with the boundary layer of the atmosphere providing a source of heat and moisture. The development and evolution of precipitation systems are affected by heat and moisture fluxes from the land surface within weakly-sheared environments, such as in the tropics and sub-tropics. These heat and moisture fluxes during the day can be strongly influenced by land cover, vegetation, and soil moisture content. Therefore, it is important to represent the land surface state as accurately as possible in numerical weather prediction models. Enhanced regional modeling capabilities have the potential to improve forecast guidance in support of daily operations and high-end events over east Africa. KMD currently runs a configuration of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model in real time to support its daily forecasting operations, invoking the Nonhydrostatic Mesoscale Model (NMM) dynamical core. They make use of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration / National Weather Service Science and Training Resource Center's Environmental Modeling System (EMS) to manage and produce the WRF-NMM model runs on a 7-km regional grid over eastern Africa. Two organizations at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, SERVIR and the Short-term Prediction Research and Transition (SPoRT) Center, have established a working partnership with KMD for enhancing its regional modeling capabilities. To accomplish this goal, SPoRT and SERVIR will provide experimental land surface initialization datasets and model verification capabilities to KMD. To produce a land-surface initialization more consistent with the resolution of the KMD-WRF runs, the NASA Land Information System (LIS) will be run at a comparable resolution to provide real-time, daily soil initialization data in place of interpolated Global Forecast System soil moisture and temperature data. Additionally, real-time green vegetation fraction data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite will be incorporated into the KMD-WRF runs, once it becomes publicly available from the National Environmental Satellite Data and Information Service. Finally, model verification capabilities will be transitioned to KMD using the Model Evaluation Tools (MET) package, in order to quantify possible improvements in simulated temperature, moisture and precipitation resulting from the experimental land surface initialization. The transition of these MET tools will enable KMD to monitor model forecast accuracy in near real time. This presentation will highlight preliminary verification results of WRF runs over east Africa using the LIS land surface initialization.

Case. Jonathan↗
NASA NTRS2015

Lunar COTS: An Economical and Sustainable Approach to Reaching Mars

The NASA COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services) Program was a very successful program that developed and demonstrated cost-effective development and acquisition of commercial cargo transportation services to the International Space Station (ISS). The COTS acquisition strategy utilized a newer model than normally accepted in traditional procurement practices. This new model used Space Act Agreements where NASA entered into partnerships with industry to jointly share cost, development and operational risks to demonstrate new capabilities for mutual benefit. This model proved to be very beneficial to both NASA and its industry partners as NASA saved significantly in development and operational costs while industry partners successfully expanded their market share of the global launch transportation business. The authors, who contributed to the development of the COTS model, would like to extend this model to a lunar commercial services program that will push development of technologies and capabilities that will serve a Mars architecture and lead to an economical and sustainable pathway to transporting humans to Mars. Over the past few decades, several architectures for the Moon and Mars have been proposed and studied but ultimately halted or not even started due to the projected costs significantly exceeding NASA's budgets. Therefore a new strategy is needed that will fit within NASA's projected budgets and takes advantage of the US commercial industry along with its creative and entrepreneurial attributes. The authors propose a new COTS-like program to enter into partnerships with industry to demonstrate cost-effective, cis-lunar commercial services, such as lunar transportation, lunar ISRU operations, and cis-lunar propellant depots that can enable an economical and sustainable Mars architecture. Similar to the original COTS program, the goals of the proposed program, being notionally referred to as Lunar Commercial Orbital Transfer Services (LCOTS) program will be to: 1) reduce development and operational costs by sharing costs with industry; 2) create new markets in cis-lunar space to further reduce operational costs; and 3) enable NASA to develop an affordable and economical exploration Mars architecture. The paper will describe a plan for a proposed LCOTS program, its potential impact to an eventual Mars architecture and its many benefits to NASA, commercial space industry and the US economy.

Lunar ISRU↗
NASA NTRS2018

FUELEAP Model-Based System Safety Analysis

NASA researchers, in a partnership with Boeing, are investigating a fuel-cell powered variant of the X-57 “Maxwell” Mod-II electric propulsion aircraft, which is itself derived from a stock Tecnam P2006T. The “Fostering Ultra-Efficient Low-Emitting Aviation Power” (FUELEAP) project will replace the X-57 power subsystem with a hybrid Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) system to increase the potential range of the electric-propulsion aircraft while dramatically improving efficiency and emissions over stock internal-combustion engines. Our FUELEAP safety analysis faces two primary challenges. First, the Part 23 certificated Tecnam P2006T is undergoing significant modifications to host the hybrid electric-propulsion system, and the challenge is to assure that the safety inherent in the stock aircraft (and subsequently in X-57 Mod-II) is not compromised by changes in avionics, aircraft structural loading, weight and balance, or other considerations. Secondly, because the SOFC power system has little (if any) relevant in-service precedent, our challenge is to assure that we identify and mitigate all reasonably plausible hazards introduced by unique FUELEAP equipage. We are investigating and utilizing Model-Based Safety Analysis (MBSA) methods to help us address these FUELEAP safety challenges. We captured aircraft-level system hazard conditions using instances of a SysML hazard block via aircraft-level Functional Hazard Analysis (FHA). Then, using SysML models of the FUELEAP architecture, we related the hazard conditions to initiating system events and possible mitigations, such as design architecture modifications or operational constraints. We are continuing to define our approach to MBSA by developing a component-by-component inventory of local failure modes and tracing their possible contribution to hazard conditions. Finally, we are applying an argument-based approach to FUELEAP assurance. Through a FUELEAP “safety case,” we are providing an explicit argument for FUELEAP safety by associating assurance evidence with overarching safety claims through a structured argument.

Woodham, Kurt P.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Computer Models Simulate Fine Particle Dispersion

Through a NASA Seed Fund partnership with DEM Solutions Inc., of Lebanon, New Hampshire, scientists at Kennedy Space Center refined existing software to study the electrostatic phenomena of granular and bulk materials as they apply to planetary surfaces. The software, EDEM, allows users to import particles and obtain accurate representations of their shapes for modeling purposes, such as simulating bulk solids behavior, and was enhanced to be able to more accurately model fine, abrasive, cohesive particles. These new EDEM capabilities can be applied in many industries unrelated to space exploration and have been adopted by several prominent U.S. companies, including John Deere, Pfizer, and Procter & Gamble.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2011

A New Business Model for Problem Solving-Infusing Open Collaboration and Innovation Health and Human Services

This slide presentation reviews the Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) new business model for problem solving, with emphasis on open collaboration and innovation. The topics that are discussed are: an overview of the work of the Space Life Sciences Directorate and the strategic initiatives that arrived at the new business model. A new business model was required to infuse open collaboration/innovation tools into existing models for research, development and operations (research announcements, procurements, SBIR/STTR etc). This new model involves use of several open innovation partnerships: InnoCentive, Yet2.com, TopCoder and NASA@work. There is also a new organizational structure developed to facilitate the joint collaboration with other NASA centers, international partners, other U.S. Governmental organizations, Academia, Corporate, and Non-Profit organizations: the NASA Human Health and Performance Center (NHHPC).

Davis, Jeffrey R.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Modeling the Worst-Case-Scenario of Soil Drydown for Agricultural Drought Monitoring in Kansas Using NASA Earth Observations and In-situ Parameters

Climatologists in Kansas have observed rapid shifts from wet to dry conditions and rapid intensification of drought conditions for the state in recent years. As a leading state in agricultural production, drought events can lead to decreased crop yields and impact the state’s economy. The exponential decay of soil moisture content is a major consequence of drought and can exacerbate these impacts on agricultural production. This study examined the rate of soil moisture drydown in Kansas to understand and monitor the worst-case-scenario of short-term soil water shortage. Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) L-band Radiometer rootzone soil moisture imagery from March 2015 to June 2019 was used to estimate the minimum and maximum soil moisture capacity throughout the state. In situ soil moisture parameters, such as the exponential decay constant, were approximated from the Kansas Mesonet system. These variables were inputs into an exponential decay model that forecasted gridded rootzone soil moisture in a scenario that assumed no precipitation for a user-identified period of time. The forecasts were output on the order of weeks to capture the rapid shifts in soil moisture content. Another model was used to identify areas in Kansas currently below a given percentage of the relative soil moisture saturation, measured as a function of minimum, maximum, and current soil moisture. This model forecasted the number of days until each cell in the soil moisture grid reached the input percentage of relative soil moisture saturation. The gridded model outputs and workflow were developed in partnership with the Kansas Water Office and Kansas Office of the State Climatologist at Kansas State University, as a part of their drought monitoring efforts.

NASA DEVELOP↗
NASA NTRS2022

JPSS-2 VIIRS Day-Night Band Pre-launch Radiometric Calibration and Performance

The first two flight models of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument continue to operate onboard the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (S-NPP) and NOAA-20 spacecrafts. The third flight model is set to be launched as one of a complement of instruments onboard the Joint Polar–orbiting Satellite System-2 (JPSS-2) satellite. In addition to its 14 reflective solar bands and 7 thermal emissive bands, VIIRS has a unique Day-Night Band (DNB). The DNB is a panchromatic imager based on CCD detectors, covering a spectral range of about 500 – 900 nm. The DNB is made up of three gain stages, allowing the sensor to operate over a large dynamic range (3×10(−9) - 0.02 W⁄cm(2)/sr). As part of VIIRS pre-launch ground testing, the DNB has been characterized to determine its functionality and performance under a space-like environment. The results are compared against the design specification and to previous VIIRS flight models when applicable. This paper presents a comprehensive summary of the VIIRS DNB prelaunch testing and the results of radiometric and spectral assessments. The expected impact to on-orbit operations and calibrated data products are also discussed.

Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)↗
NASA NTRS2010

Statistical and Probabilistic Extensions to Ground Operations' Discrete Event Simulation Modeling

NASA's human exploration initiatives will invest in technologies, public/private partnerships, and infrastructure, paving the way for the expansion of human civilization into the solar system and beyond. As it is has been for the past half century, the Kennedy Space Center will be the embarkation point for humankind's journey into the cosmos. Functioning as a next generation space launch complex, Kennedy's launch pads, integration facilities, processing areas, launch and recovery ranges will bustle with the activities of the world's space transportation providers. In developing this complex, KSC teams work through the potential operational scenarios: conducting trade studies, planning and budgeting for expensive and limited resources, and simulating alternative operational schemes. Numerous tools, among them discrete event simulation (DES), were matured during the Constellation Program to conduct such analyses with the purpose of optimizing the launch complex for maximum efficiency, safety, and flexibility while minimizing life cycle costs. Discrete event simulation is a computer-based modeling technique for complex and dynamic systems where the state of the system changes at discrete points in time and whose inputs may include random variables. DES is used to assess timelines and throughput, and to support operability studies and contingency analyses. It is applicable to any space launch campaign and informs decision-makers of the effects of varying numbers of expensive resources and the impact of off nominal scenarios on measures of performance. In order to develop representative DES models, methods were adopted, exploited, or created to extend traditional uses of DES. The Delphi method was adopted and utilized for task duration estimation. DES software was exploited for probabilistic event variation. A roll-up process was used, which was developed to reuse models and model elements in other less - detailed models. The DES team continues to innovate and expand DES capabilities to address KSC's planning needs.

Trocine, Linda↗