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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 541 records · Page 30
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NASA NTRS2017

Exploring the Evolutionary Accident Hypothesis: Are Extant Protein Folds the Fittest or the Luckiest?

Considering the range of functions proteins perform, it is surprising they fold into a relatively small set of structures or "folds" that facilitate such function. One explanation is that only a minority were fit enough to emerge from Darwinian selection during the early evolution of life. Alternatively, perhaps only a fraction of all possible folds were trialed. Understanding proto-catalyst selection will aid understanding of the origins and early evolution of life. To investigate which explanation is correct, we study a protein evolved in vitro to bind ATP by Jack Szostak (Fig. 1). This protein adopts a fold which is absent from nature. We are testing whether this fold would have possessed the capability to evolve that would have been essential to survive natural selection on early Earth. Folds that couldn't improve their fitness and evolve to perform new functions would have been replaced by rivals that could. To determine whether the fold is evolvable, we are attempting to change the function of the protein by rationally redesigning to bind GTP. Two design strategies in the region of the nucleobase have been implemented to provide hydrogen bonding partners for the ligand i) an insertion ii) a MET to ASN mutation. Redesigns are being studied computationally at Ames Research Center including free energy of binding calculations. Binding affinities of promising redesigns are to be validated by experimental collaborators at ForteBio using Super Streptavidin Biosensors. If the fold is found to be non-evolvable, this may suggest that many structures were trialed, but the majority were pruned on the basis of their evolvability. Alternatively, if the fold is demonstrated to be evolvable, it would be difficult to explain its absence from nature without considering the possibility that the fold simply wasn't sampled on early Earth. This would not only further our understanding of the origins of life on Earth but also suggest a common phe-nomenon of proto-catalyst evolution.

Shannon, G.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO)

Introduction: NASA is preparing to land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon within the next decade, and ensuring the success of these missions will depend on our preparation on the ground in multiple ground-based lunar environment analogs. To achieve this, NASA has used full mission class analogs, of which NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) is the longest continuously running example. Discussion: NEEMO is NASA’s long-standing undersea high-fidelity spaceflight mission analog. It focuses on exploration science, EVA techniques and tools, and maturing ISS IVA flight hardware and operations concepts. NEEMO crews are composed of groups of US and International Partner (IP) astronauts, engineers and scientists who live, work and explore in a challenging environment analogous to the environment experienced currently on ISS and what is expected for future deep space exploration destinations. NEEMO missions are conducted at Aquarius Reef Base (ARB), which includes a shore base in Tavernier, FL, and the world's only undersea research station, the Aquarius habitat, which is located 5.4 miles (9 kilometers) off Key Largo in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. ARB is owned and operated by Florida International University (FIU). Aquarius was selected due to its remote and extreme location and its ability to provide the unique isolation and risk factors that spaceflight presents. NEEMO missions allow for evaluations of end-to-end EVA and Science exploration concepts of operations with a crew that is in situ in a true extreme environment. They also allow for evaluations of flight hardware and ops tools that are either pondered or destined for ISS or Gateway in the near future. NEEMO missions feature flight-like interactions between the crew and a Mission Control Center (MCC )and Science Team, which in turn allows evaluation of mission and science operations decision making and communications techniques. One reason NEEMO missions are of such high fidelity is that so many of the participants are experienced human space flight end operators. The majority of crewmembers are trained astronauts, and many of the MCC operators have credentials as current or former certified ISS MCC operators (e.g., CapCom, EVA Officer, etc.). Mission products are generated daily by the ground team and are modeled on ISS products (but modified as needed). A planning team manages the constantly evolving mission timelines in response to the ever-changing constraints and opportunities. During NEEMO missions, suited EVA crewmembers (using diving helmets) have clear voice communications with each other, the habitat, and the MCC and Science Team back on shore. Each EVA crewmember also sends helmet cam video to the habitat and MCC and Science Teams. Appropriate communications latencies are inserted for the destination being simulated as well. NEEMO missions are made possible by a broad collaboration of participants. Astronauts from all of the ISS partner agencies are eligible for crew assignment. Often the crew includes a NASA scientist, doctor or engineer with a particular skill to contribute. Sometimes crewmembers come from external entities–generally institutes or universities. Objectives come from a wide variety of sources as well, from within NASA, IPs, government agencies, academia, commercial companies and research institutes. A typical NEEMO mission is a collaboration between at least 5 NASA centers. To date, 23 NEEMO missions have been conducted since 2001, and NEEMO 24 is planned for 2022. Conclusion: NEEMO is a high-fidelity mission analog conducted in an extreme subsea environment. It features experienced end-operators in human spaceflight, from the astronaut crewmembers to key personnel staffing Mission Control. Acknowledgments: The authors wish to thank FIU and NASA’s HEO SEI/Strategic Analysis and Exploration Integration and Science Directorate organizations for the continued support that makes the NEEMO Project possible.

M L Reagan↗
NASA NTRS2022

Rainfall-induced Landslide Inventories for Lower Mekong Based on Planet Imagery and a Semi-Automatic Mapping Method

Fatal landslides occur every year during the rainy season (June–November) in the Lower Mekong Region (LMR). There is an urgent need to develop a landslide early warning system in the LMR. In collaboration with the Asian Disasters Preparedness Center and NASA’s SERVIR Programme, we are regionalizing the global Landslide Hazard Assessment System for Situational Awareness model for the LMR (LHASA-Mekong). A robust set of landslide inventories are needed to effectively train the machine learning-based LHASA-Mekong model. In this study, the Semi-Automatic Landslide Detection (SALaD) system was modified by incorporating a change detection module (SALaD-CD) to produce rainfall event-based landslide inventories using pre- and post-imagery from RapidEye and PlanetScope for various locations in the LMR that were identified based on media and government reports. These rainfall-induced landslides are published as initiation points for ease of use. In total, we created 22 inventories: 2 in Laos, 4 in Myanmar, 1 in Thailand and 15 in Vietnam. These inventories are being used to train the LHASA-Mekong model and quantify the effects of Land use/Land cover change on landslide susceptibility. These open data will be a valuable resource for advancing landslide studies in this region.

Pukar Amatya↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Community for Polar Early Career Researchers Engaging With the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee

The Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC) is tasked with implementation of the Arctic Research Plan (ARP) by coordinating representatives from federal and state agencies, academic, industry, and Indigenous partners with interests in Arctic research. IARPC is organized into several collaboration teams and discipline-specific communities of practice that interface on the IARPC Collaborations website. The Early Career Community of Practice (ECCoP) is one such community that was established to promote the research of early career researchers (ECR) and increase ECR engagement with the ARP, program managers, collaboration teams, and communities of practice. The ECCoP has grown to develop regular newsletters promoting recent ECR research publications ad sharing training, job, funding, and collaboration opportunities relevant to community members at all life stages that self-identify as ECRs. Within IARPC, the ECCoP continues to promote ECR participation in monthly community of practice meetings and webinars and to report on ECR efforts that contribute to deliverables of the ARP Biennial Implementation Plan. Recent activity of the ECCoP includes developing an annual survey of the ECR cohort on IARPC to follow change in demographics over time and to identify community needs to improve diversity and inclusion in the polar research space and to address gaps in training needs for ECRs.

Katy Smith↗
NASA NTRS1997

The Employee Assistance Program Collaborates on the Development of an Internal Web Page for the GSFC Workforce

The Employee Assistance Program (EAP) continuously seeks more effective methods of promoting the wellness message of the Occupational Health Program. This year the opportunity presented itself to assist in the development of an internal Web page which could be accessed by GSFC employees from their desktop stations. The contributors to this effort were the Career Counselor, the EAP Counselor, and the GSFC Workforce Project Coordinator. The goal was to create a central location from which employees could obtain relevant information related to the changing needs of the Goddard mission. Another aspect of this effort was an attempt to integrate as much information as possible on the issues related to change and its impact on the workforce in a central location. The method selected was the use of hyperlinks to other Federal and private Web pages. The EAP of course, focused on materials relevant to mental health, balancing work and family, and stress management.

Marian T Humphrey↗
DOE OSTI2025

Mitigating imaging systematics for DESI 2024 emission Line Galaxies and beyond

Emission Line Galaxies (ELGs) are one of the main tracers that the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) uses to probe the universe. However, they are afflicted by strong spurious correlations between target density and observing conditions known as imaging systematics. In this paper, we present the imaging systematics mitigation applied to the DESI Data Release 1 (DR1) large-scale structure catalogs used in the DESI 2024 cosmological analyses. We also explore extensions of the fiducial treatment. This includes a combined approach, through forward image simulations (Obiwan) in conjunction with neural network-based regression, to obtain an angular selection function that mitigates the imaging systematics observed in the DESI DR1 ELGs target density. We further derive a line of sight selection function from the forward model that removes the strong redshift dependence between imaging systematics and low redshift ELGs. Combining both angular and redshift-dependent systematics, we construct a three-dimensional selection function and assess the impact of all selection functions on clustering statistics. We quantify differences between these extended treatments and the fiducial treatment in terms of the measured 2-point statistics. We find that the results are generally consistent with the fiducial treatment and conclude that the differences are far less than the imaging systematics uncertainty included in DESI 2024 full-shape measurements. We extend our investigation to the ELGs at 0.6 < z < 0.8, i.e., beyond the redshift range (0.8 < z < 1.6) adopted for the DESI clustering catalog, and demonstrate that determining the full three-dimensional selection function is necessary in this redshift range. Our tests showed that all changes are consistent with statistical noise for BAO analyses indicating they are robust to even severe imaging systematics. Specific tests for the full-shape analysis will be presented in a companion paper.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Explanation of the seasonal variation of cosmic multiple muon events observed with the NOvA Near Detector

The flux of cosmic ray muons at the Earth’s surface exhibits seasonal variations due to changes in the temperature of the atmosphere affecting the production and decay of mesons in the upper atmosphere. Using 1473 live days of data collected by the NuMI Off-axis 𝜈 𝑒 Appearance (NOvA) Near Detector during 2018–2022, we studied the seasonal pattern in the multiple-muon event rate. The data confirm an anticorrelation between the multiple-muon event rate and effective atmospheric temperature, consistent across all the years of data. Previous analyses from MINOS and NOvA saw a similar anticorrelation but did not include an explanation. We find that this anticorrelation is driven by altitude–geometry effects as the average muon production height changes with the season. This has been studied with a CORSIKA cosmic ray simulation package by varying atmospheric parameters, and provides an explanation to a longstanding discrepancy between the seasonal phases of single and multiple-muon events.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
NASA NTRS1999

Effects of Cabin Upsets on Adsorption Columns for Air Revitalization

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) utilizes adsorption technology as part of contaminant removal systems designed for long term missions. A variety of trace contaminants can be effectively removed from gas streams by adsorption onto activated carbon. An activated carbon adsorption column meets NASA's requirements of a lightweight and efficient means of controlling trace contaminant levels aboard spacecraft and space stations. The activated carbon bed is part of the Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) which is utilized to purify the cabin atmosphere. TCCS designs oversize the adsorption columns to account for irregular fluctuations in cabin atmospheric conditions. Variations in the cabin atmosphere include changes in contaminant concentrations, temperature, and relative humidity. Excessively large deviations from typical conditions can result from unusual crew activity, equipment malfunctions, or even fires. The research carried out under this award focussed in detail on the effects of cabin upsets on the performance of activated carbon adsorption columns. Both experiments and modeling were performed with an emphasis on the roll of a change in relative humidity on adsorption of trace contaminants. A flow through fixed-bed apparatus was constructed at the NASA Ames Research Center, and experiments were performed there by W. Scot Appel under the direction of Dr. John E. Finn. Modeling work was performed at the University of Virginia and at Vanderbilt University by W. Scot Appel under the direction of M. Douglas LeVan. All three participants collaborated in all of the various phases of the research. The most comprehensive document describing the research is the Ph.D. dissertation of W. Scot Appel. Results have been published in several papers and presented in talks at technical conferences. All documents have been transmitted to Dr. John E. Finn.

LeVan, M. Douglas↗
NASA NTRS2000

The Tropical Rainfall Measuring (TRMM) - What Have We Learned and What Does the Future Hold?

Rainfall is important in the hydrological cycle and to the lives and welfare of humans. In addition to being a life-giving resource, rainfall processes also plays a crucial role in the dynamics of the global atmospheric circulation. Three-fourths of the energy that drives the atmospheric wind circulation comes from the latent heat released by tropical precipitation. It varies greatly in space and time. The rain-producing cloud systems may last several hours or days. Their dimensions range from 10 km to several hundred km. This makes it difficult to incorporate rainfall directly large-scale weather and climate models. Until the end of 1997, precipitation in the global tropics was not known to within a factor of two. Regarding "global warming", the various large-scale models differed among themselves in the predicted magnitude of the warming and in the expected regional effects of these temperature and moisture changes. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has yielded important interim results related to rainfall observations, data assimilation and model forecast skills when rainfall data is assimilated. This talk will summarize where the TRMM science team is with regards to answering some of these important scientific challenges, as well as discuss the future Global Precipitation Mission which will provide 3 hourly rainfall coverage and offers some unique collaborative potential for NOAA and NASA.

Kummerow, C.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Digital Model-Based Engineering: Expectations, Prerequisites, and Challenges of Infusion

Digital model-based engineering (DMbE) is the use of digital artifacts, digital environments, and digital tools in the performance of engineering functions. DMbE is intended to allow an organization to progress from documentation-based engineering methods to digital methods that may provide greater flexibility, agility, and efficiency. The term 'DMbE' was developed as part of an effort by the Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) Infusion Task team to identify what government organizations might expect in the course of moving to or infusing MBSE into their organizations. The Task team was established by the Interagency Working Group on Engineering Complex Systems, an informal collaboration among government systems engineering organizations. This Technical Memorandum (TM) discusses the work of the MBSE Infusion Task team to date. The Task team identified prerequisites, expectations, initial challenges, and recommendations for areas of study to pursue, as well as examples of efforts already in progress. The team identified the following five expectations associated with DMbE infusion, discussed further in this TM: (1) Informed decision making through increased transparency, and greater insight. (2) Enhanced communication. (3) Increased understanding for greater flexibility/adaptability in design. (4) Increased confidence that the capability will perform as expected. (5) Increased efficiency. The team identified the following seven challenges an organization might encounter when looking to infuse DMbE: (1) Assessing value added to the organization. Not all DMbE practices will be applicable to every situation in every organization, and not all implementations will have positive results. (2) Overcoming organizational and cultural hurdles. (3) Adopting contractual practices and technical data management. (4) Redefining configuration management. The DMbE environment changes the range of configuration information to be managed to include performance and design models, database objects, as well as more traditional book-form objects and formats. (5) Developing information technology (IT) infrastructure. Approaches to implementing critical, enabling IT infrastructure capabilities must be flexible, reconfigurable, and updatable. (6) Ensuring security of the single source of truth (7) Potential overreliance on quantitative data over qualitative data. Executable/ computational models and simulations generally incorporate and generate quantitative vice qualitative data. The Task team also developed several recommendations for government, academia, and industry, as discussed in this TM. The Task team recommends continuing beyond this initial work to further develop the means of implementing DMbE and to look for opportunities to collaborate and share best practices.

Hale, J. P.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Aerospace Human Factors

The following contains the final report on the activities related to the Cooperative Agreement between the human factors research group at NASA Ames Research Center and the Psychology Department at San Jose State University. The participating NASA Ames division has been, as the organization has changed, the Aerospace Human Factors Research Division (ASHFRD and Code FL), the Flight Management and Human Factors Research Division (Code AF), and the Human Factors Research and Technology Division (Code IH). The inclusive dates for the report are November 1, 1984 to January 31, 1999. Throughout the years, approximately 170 persons worked on the cooperative agreements in one capacity or another. The Cooperative Agreement provided for research personnel to collaborate with senior scientists in ongoing NASA ARC research. Finally, many post-MA/MS and post-doctoral personnel contributed to the projects. It is worth noting that 10 former cooperative agreement personnel were hired into civil service positions directly from the agreements.

Jordan, Kevin↗
NASA NTRS2015

SPARC's Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate Activity (SSiRC)

The stratospheric aerosol layer is a key component in the climate system. It affects the radiative balance of the atmosphere directly through interactions with solar and terrestrial radiation, and indirectly through its effect on stratospheric ozone. Because the stratospheric aerosol layer is prescribed in many climate models and Chemistry-Climate Models (CCMs), model simulations of future atmospheric conditions and climate generally do not account for the interaction between the aerosol-sulfur cycle and changes in the climate system. The present understanding of how the stratospheric aerosol layer may be affected by future climate change and how the stratospheric aerosol layer may drive climate change is, therefore, very limited. The purposes of SSiRC (Stratospheric Sulfur and its Role in Climate) include: (i) providing a coordinating structure for the various individual activities already underway in different research centers; (ii) encouraging and supporting new instrumentation and measurements of sulfur containing compounds, such as COS, DMS, and non-volcanic SO2 in the UT/LS globally; and (iii) initiating new model/data inter-comparisons. SSiRC is developing collaborations with a number of other SPARC activities including CCMI and ACAM. This presentation will highlight the scientific goals of this project and on-going activities and propose potential interactions between SSiRC and ACAM.

Thomason, Larry↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The CubeSat Communication Platform (CCP) – Mission Overview and ConOps

This paper presents the CubeSat Communications Platform (CCP) mission concept, architecture, and development. The CCP is a CubeSat demonstration mission, being developed at the University of Alaska Fairbanks to improve satellite communication capabilities. The CCP payloads include a Software Defined Radio (SDR) with Variable Coded Modulation (VCM) protocols, and an S-band phased array antenna. The mission will test the performance of the VCM protocols versus conventional fixed modulation and coding schemes, relative to the percentage of the Shannon Channel Capacity that each scheme achieves over entire satellite passes. The mission will also test the performance of the phased array antenna, with regard to beamforming and interrogator scanning accuracy. The CCP Mission is collaborating with NASA's Near Space Network (NSN) to demonstrate DVB-S2 VCM and achievable maximum data rate in NASA S-band 5 MHz channel. NSN currently supports missions that communicate with fixed channel codes, modulations, and symbol rates, resulting in a constant data rate that does not adapt to the dynamic link margin. VCM adapts to the dynamics of the link to increase information throughput by changing modulation and coding when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is high. The CCP will be the first mission to demonstrate VCM with NSN ground stations.

phased antenna array↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Helmet-Mounted Display Technology for Eva Training in NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Lab

Currently, during extravehicular activity (EVA) on the International Space Station (ISS), astronauts are in constant communication with mission control; however, this paradigm will significantly change during future NASA exploration missions due to limited and time-delayed communications. As exploration missions will thereby require an increase in crew autonomy, it is hypothesized that heads-up display (HUD) technology can supplement communications with mission control. Before introducing novel display technology to EVA operations, it must first be demonstrated and evaluated in an EVA training environment. The UC Davis Center for Spaceflight Research, in collaboration with NASA Johnson Space Center’s Human Physiology, Performance, Protection, and Operations (H-3PO) Lab has developed a low-cost and rapid development helmet-mounted display (HMD) for EVA training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL). The first two phases of HMD testing (Phase I and II) at the NBL focused on technology and capability development and demonstration. Crew member feedback was obtained that evaluated aspects of HMD including its user satisfaction, visibility, readability, and usefulness. Overall, feedback indicated HMD was readable, un-obtrusive, and the available display modes had potential to be useful and enhance EVA training. HMD display modes currently available include: real-time biofeedback (metabolic rate), phase elapsed time (PET), ability to set timers, task procedural aids (e.g. Pistol Grip Tool settings) and custom messages. The goal for Phase III, which is currently underway, is to evaluate the effects that access to bioinformatics through HMD has on astronaut training and performance at the NBL. For this phase of testing, crewmembers will be asked to perform a go/no-go task while wearing HMD throughout the NBL run to characterize crew member state of situational awareness with respect to HMD. This information could be used to inform how best to display relatively important or supplemental, but not critical, data in the future.

Heads up display↗
DOE OSTI2024

WIP: Collaborating to Introduce Second-Life Battery Technology Research in an Informal STEM Learning Environment

This work in progress, innovative practice, paper outlines an interdisciplinary collaborative model utilized by a team of educational researchers, and engineers to design a series of community-centered, place-based learning activities suitable for a middle or high school informal STEM learning environment. Based on the potential applications and benefits of Second-Life Electric Vehicle Batteries, the activities connect cutting-edge STEM research with multidimensional real-world challenges within their communities related to climate change, renewable energy integration and storage, intelligent transportation systems, and optimized energy management, that empowers students to think critically about the role they can play in shaping a more resilient, environmentally sustainable community.

Whiteside, Hope↗
NASA NTRS1999

Ocean-Atmosphere Interaction in Climate Changes

The diagram, which attests the El Nino teleconnection observed by the NASA Scatterometer (NSCAT) in 1997, is an example of the results of our research in air-sea interaction - the core component of our three-part contribution to the Climate Variability Program. We have established an interplay among scientific research, which turns spacebased data into knowledge, a push in instrument technology, which improves observations of climate variability, and an information system, which produces and disseminates new data to support our scientific research. Timothy Liu led the proposal for advanced technology, in response to the NASA Post-2002 Request for Information. The sensor was identified as a possible mission for continuous ocean surface wind measurement at higher spatial resolution, and with the unique capability to measure ocean surface salinity. He is participating in the Instrument Incubator Program to improve the antenna technology, and is initiating a study to integrate the concept on Japanese missions. He and his collaborators have set up a system to produce and disseminate high level (gridded) ocean surface wind/stress data from NSCAT and European missions. The data system is being expanded to produce real-time gridded ocean surface winds from Quikscat, and precipitation and evaporation from the Tropical Rain Measuring Mission. It will form the basis for a spacebased data analysis system which will include momentum, heat and water fluxes. The study on 1997 El Nino teleconnection illustrates our interdisciplinary and multisensor approach to study climate variability. The diagram shows that the collapse of trade wind and the westerly wind anomalies in the central equatorial Pacific led to the equatorial ocean warming. The equatorial wind anomalies are connected to the anomalous cyclonic wind pattern in the northeast Pacific. The anomalous warming along the west coast of the United States is the result of the movement of the pre-existing warm sea surface temperature anomalies with the cyclonic wind anomalies toward the coast. The results led to a new study which identifies decadal ocean variations in the Northeast Pacific. Three studies of oceanic responses to wind forcing caused by the seasonal change of monsoons, the passage of a typhoon, and the 1997 El Nino, were successfully conducted. Besides wind forcing, we continue to examine new techniques for estimating thermal and hydrologic fluxes, through the inverse ocean mixed-layer model, through divergence of atmospheric water transport, and by direct retrieval from radiances observed by microwave radiometers. Greenhouse warming has been linked to water vapor measured by two spaceborne sensors in two studies. In the first study, strong baroclinicity and deep convection were found to transport water vapor to the upper atmosphere and increase greenhouse trapping over the storm tracks of the North Pacific and Atlantic. In another study, the annual cycle of greenhouse warming were related to sea surface temperature (SST) and integrated water vapor, and the latitudinal dependence of the magnitudes and phases of the annual cycles were compared.

Liu, W. Timothy↗
DOE OSTI2024

NEAMS Reactor Physics Project Management and Coordination Activities

The following report summarizes the coordination activities and collaboration efforts by research staff at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, and Argonne National Laboratory for the development of Shift and Griffin computer codes under the US Department of Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation program.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Detection of high-frequency gravitational waves using SRF cavities

Today, apart from some isolated R\&D efforts, there are no GW experiments, yet which explore a large part of the vast frequency range above the LIGO/Virgo band. It is planned to establish an experiment at DESY and Fermilab to search for high-frequency GWs in the frequency range of 10\,kHz to 100\,MHz. The basic idea is to use superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) cavities to detect tiny harmonic deformations induced by GWs which change the boundary conditions of the oscillating electromagnetic field. This paper summarizes the challenging environmental boundary requirements, and the R\&D to operate a cavity using a LLRF system which pushes beyond state-of-the-art accuracy and resolutions and a seismic noise mitigated cryostat at 1.8\,K. The focus of this paper is the warm and cold commissioning of a prototype cavity, built 20 years ago during the MAGO collaboration, and its first measurement in our collaborative research project.

Giaccone, Bianca [Fermilab]↗