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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 595 records · Page 33
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1992

Power system monitoring and source control of the Space Station Freedom dc-power system testbed

Unlike a terrestrial electric utility which can purchase power from a neighboring utility, the Space Station Freedom (SSF) has strictly limited energy resources; as a result, source control, system monitoring, system protection, and load management are essential to the safe and efficient operation of the SSF Electric Power System (EPS). These functions are being evaluated in the dc Power Management and Distribution (PMAD) Testbed which NASA LeRC has developed at the Power System Facility (PSF) located in Cleveland, Ohio. The testbed is an ideal platform to develop, integrate, and verify power system monitoring and control algorithms. State Estimation (SE) is a monitoring tool used extensively in terrestrial electric utilities to ensure safe power system operation. It uses redundant system information to calculate the actual state of the EPS, to isolate faulty sensors, to determine source operating points, to verify faults detected by subsidiary controllers, and to identify high impedance faults. Source control and monitoring safeguard the power generation and storage subsystems and ensure that the power system operates within safe limits while satisfying user demands with minimal interruptions. System monitoring functions, in coordination with hardware implemented schemes, provide for a complete fault protection system. The objective of this paper is to overview the development and integration of the state estimator and the source control algorithms.

Kimnach, Greg L.↗
NASA NTRS1964

Radio Noise Problems in Arctic Regions

Three main types of radio noise should be considered when establishing noise levels for communication purposes or in experiments utilizing radio techniques in Arctic regions. These are atmospheric and man-made noise, and precipitation static. National Bureau of Standards radio noise data obtained hourly at Arctic and Antarctic stations on eight .fixed frequencies between 51 kc and 20 Mc/s are analyzed to show the characteristics of the three types. The diurnal and seasonal variations of atmospheric radio noise at high latitudes are explainable in terms of changes in propagation factors and in the distribution of world thunderstorm activity. In both northern and southern Arctic regions atmospheric noise decreases during polar cap absorption (PCA), most markedly in the h.f. band. The probable magnitude of man-made noise in the h.f. band is estimated from data taken during PCA, when atmospheric noise is absent. At Thule man-made noise on 2.5 and 5 Mc/s appears to be 57 and 49 dB above kTB (where kTB is antenna thermal noise power), respectively, while at Byrd Station the values are about 20 and 12 dB respectively. Precipitation static is generated on exposed antennas during periods of blowing snow (blizzards). The noise power magnitude can be at least 50 dB above man-made and atmospheric levels, but the maximum enhancement cannot be ascertained because of missing data. In winter and spring months at Byrd Station radio data dependent upon exposed antennas may be lost 10-30 per cent of the time due to precipitation static alone.

Radio Noise↗
NASA NTRS1978

Mercury's helium exosphere after Mariner 10's third encounter

From a comparison of the Mariner 10 third encounter UV spectrometer data with intensities generated from a newly constructed model exosphere, a new value of 4.5 x 10 to the -4th power for the fraction of the solar wind He(++) flux to be intercepted and captured by Mercury's magnetosphere, if the observed He atmosphere is maintained by the solar wind, has been derived. If an internal source for He prevails, the corresponding upper bound for the global outgassing rate is estimated to be 4.5 x 10 to the 22nd power/s. These values differ from those given earlier because of the present use of a surface temperature distribution satisfying the heat equation over Mercury's entire surface which employs Mariner-10-determined mean surface thermal characteristics. The mean standoff distance of Mercury's magnetopause averaged over Mercury's orbit is also used. Agreement between the observed and calculated intensities is found to be good. Minor discrepancies on the nightside of the terminator are explicable in terms of differences between actual and computed temperatures and scale height structure changes.

Curtis, S. A.↗
NASA NTRS1994

Removing cosmic-ray hits from multiorbit HST Wide Field Camera images

We present an optimized algorithm that removes cosmic rays ('CRs') from multiorbit Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Wide Field/Planetary Camera ('WF/PC') images. It computes the image noise in every iteration from the WF/PC CCD equation. This includes all known sources of random and systematic calibration errors. We test this algorithm on WF/PC stacks of 2-12 orbits as a function of the number of available orbits and the formal Poissonian sigma-clipping level. We find that the algorithm needs greater than or equal 4 WF/PC exposures to locate the minimal sky signal (which is noticeably affected by CRs), with an optimal clipping level at 2-2.5 x sigma(sub Poisson). We analyze the CR flux detected on multiorbit 'CR stacks,' which are constructed by subtracting the best CR filtered images from the unfiltered 8-12 orbit average. We use an automated object finder to determine the surface density of CRS as a function of the apparent magnitude (or ADU flux) they would have generated in the images had they not been removed. The power law slope of the CR 'counts' (gamma approximately = 0.6 for N(m) m(exp gamma)) is steeper than that of the faint galaxy counts down to V approximately = 28 mag. The CR counts show a drop off between 28 less than or approximately V less than or approximately 30 mag (the latter is our formal 2 sigma point source sensitivity without spherical aberration). This prevents the CR sky integral from diverging, and is likely due to a real cutoff in the CR energy distribution below approximately 11 ADU per orbit. The integral CR surface density is less than or approximately 10(exp 8)/sq. deg, and their sky signal is V approximately = 25.5-27.0 mag/sq. arcsec, or 3%-13% of our NEP sky background (V = 23.3 mag/sq. arcsec), and well above the EBL integral of the deepest galaxy counts (B(sub J) approximately = 28.0 mag/sq. arcsec). We conclude that faint CRs will always contribute to the sky signal in the deepest WF/PC images. Since WFPC2 has approximately 2.7x lower read noise and a thicker CCD, this will result in more CR detections than in WF/PC, potentially affecting approximately 10%-20% of the pixels in multiorbit WFPC2 data cubes.

Windhorst, Rogier A.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Flow and Noise Control in High Speed and High Reynolds Number Jets Using Plasma Actuators

The idea of manipulating flow to change its characteristics is over a century old. Manipulating instabilities of a jet to increase its mixing and to reduce its radiated noise started in the 1970s. While the effort has been successful in low-speed and low Reynolds number jets, available actuators capabilities in terms of their amplitude, bandwidth, and phasing have fallen short in control of high-speed and high Reynolds number jets of practical interest. Localized arc filament plasma actuators have recently been developed and extensively used at Gas Dynamics and Turbulence Laboratory (GDTL) for control of highspeed and high Reynolds number jets. While the technique has been quite successful and is very promising, all the work up to this point had been carried out using small high subsonic and low supersonic jets from a 2.54 cm diameter nozzle exit with a Reynolds number of about a million. The preliminary work reported in this paper is a first attempt to evaluate the scalability of the technique. The power supply/plasma generator was designed and built in-house at GDTL to operate 8 actuators simultaneously over a large frequency range (0 to 200 kHz) with independent control over phase and duty cycle of each actuator. This allowed forcing the small jet at GDTL with azimuthal modes m = 0, 1, 2, 3, plus or minus 1, plus or minus 2, and plus or minus 4 over a large range of frequencies. This power supply was taken to and used, with minor modifications, at the NASA Nozzle Acoustic Test Rig (NATR). At NATR, 32 actuators were distributed around the 7.5 in. nozzle (a linear increase with nozzle exit diameter would require 60 actuators). With this arrangement only 8 actuators could operate simultaneously, thus limiting the forcing of the jet at NATR to only three azimuthal modes m = plus or minus 1, 4, and 8. Very preliminary results at NATR indicate that the trends observed in the larger NASA facility in terms of the effects of actuation frequency and azimuthal modes are similar in both small GDTL and larger NASA jets. However, the actuation authority seems to fall short in the larger jet at higher Mach numbers, resulting in decreased amplitude response compared to the small jet, which is attributed at this point to the lack of sufficient number of actuators. The preliminary results seem also to suggest that amplitude of actuation tones is similar in both the small and larger jets.

Samimy, M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Software Displays Data on Active Regions of the Sun

The Solar Active Region Display System is a computer program that generates, in near real time, a graphical display of parameters indicative of the spatial and temporal variations of activity on the Sun. These parameters include histories and distributions of solar flares, active region growth, coronal mass ejections, size, and magnetic configuration. By presenting solar-activity data in graphical form, this program accelerates, facilitates, and partly automates what had previously been a time-consuming mental process of interpretation of solar-activity data presented in tabular and textual formats. Intended for original use in predicting space weather in order to minimize the exposure of astronauts to ionizing radiation, the program might also be useful on Earth for predicting solar-wind-induced ionospheric effects, electric currents, and potentials that could affect radio-communication systems, navigation systems, pipelines, and long electric-power lines. Raw data for the display are obtained automatically from the Space Environment Center (SEC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other data must be obtained from the NOAA SEC by verbal communication and entered manually. The Solar Active Region Display System automatically accounts for the latitude dependence of the rate of rotation of the Sun, by use of a mathematical model that is corrected with NOAA SEC active-region position data once every 24 hours. The display includes the date, time, and an image of the Sun in H light overlaid with latitude and longitude coordinate lines, dots that mark locations of active regions identified by NOAA, identifying numbers assigned by NOAA to such regions, and solar-region visual summary (SRVS) indicators associated with some of the active regions. Each SRVS indicator is a small pie chart containing five equal sectors, each of which is color-coded to provide a semiquantitative indication of the degree of hazard posed by one aspect of the activity at the indicated location. The five aspects in question are the history of solar flares, the history of coronal mass ejections, the growth or decay of activity, the overall size, and the magnetic configuration. Mouse-clicking on an active-region-marking dot, SRVS indicator, or NOAA region number causes the program to generate a solar-region summary table (SRT) for the active region in question. The SRT contains additional quantitative and qualitative data, beyond those contained in the SRVS: These data include the solar coordinates of the region, the area of the region and its change in area during the past 24 hours, the change in the number of sunspots in the region during the past 24 hours, the magnetic configuration, and the types, dates, and times of the most recent flare and coronal mass ejection.

Golightly, Mike↗
NASA NTRS2010

NASA's Advancements in Space-Based Spectrometry Lead to Improvements in Weather Prediction and Understanding of Climate Processes

AIRS (Atmospheric Infra-Red Sounder), was launched, in conjunction with AMSU-A (Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit-A) on the NASA polar orbiting research satellite EOS (Earth Observing System) Aqua satellite in May 2002 as a next generation atmospheric sounding system. Atmospheric sounders provide information primarily about the vertical distribution of atmospheric temperature and water vapor distribution. This is achieved by measuring outgoing radiation in discrete channels (spectral intervals) which are sensitive primarily to variations of these geophysical parameters. The primary objectives of AIRS/AMSU were to utilize such information in order to improve the skill of numerical weather prediction as well as to measure climate variability and trends. AIRS is a multi-detector array grating spectrometer with 2378 channels covering the spectral range 650/cm (15 microns) to 2660/cm (3.6 microns) with a resolving power (i/a i) of roughly 1200 where a i is the spectral channel bandpass. Atmospheric temperature profile can be determined from channel observations taken within the 15 micron (the long-wave CO2 absorption band) and within the 4.2 micron (the short-wave CO2 absorption band). Radiances in these (and all other) spectral intervals in the infrared are also sensitive to the presence of clouds in the instrument?s field of view (FOV), which are present about 95% of the time. AIRS was designed so as to allow for the ability to produce accurate Quality Controlled atmospheric soundings under most cloud conditions. This was achieved by having 1) extremely low channel noise values in the shortwave portion of the spectrum and 2) a very flat spatial response function within a channel?s FOV. IASI, the high spectral resolution IR interferometer flying on the European METOP satellite, does not contain either of these important characteristics. The AIRS instrument was also designed to be extremely stabile with regard to its spectral radiometric characteristics, which is critical with regard to the ability to measure accurate long term trends.

Susskind, Joel↗
NASA NTRS2002

The Maneuver Planning Process for the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) Mission

The Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) was successfully launched from Kennedy Space Center's Eastern Range on June 30, 2001. MAP will measure the cosmic microwave background as a follow up to NASA's Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission from the early 1990's. MAP will take advantage of its mission orbit about the Sun-Earth/Moon L2 Lagrangian point to produce results with higher resolution, sensitivity, and accuracy than COBE. A strategy comprising highly eccentric phasing loops with a lunar gravity assist was utilized to provide a zero-cost insertion into a lissajous orbit about L2. Maneuvers were executed at the phasing loop perigees to correct for launch vehicle errors and to target the lunar gravity assist so that a suitable orbit at L2 was achieved. This paper will discuss the maneuver planning process for designing, verifying, and executing MAP's maneuvers. A discussion of the tools and how they interacted will also be included. The maneuver planning process was iterative and crossed several disciplines, including trajectory design, attitude control, propulsion, power, thermal, communications, and ground planning. Several commercial, off-the-shelf (COTS) packages were used to design the maneuvers. STK/Astrogator was used as the trajectory design tool. All maneuvers were designed in Astrogator to ensure that the Moon was met at the correct time and orientation to provide the energy needed to achieve an orbit about L2. The Mathworks Matlab product was used to develop a tool for generating command quaternions. The command quaternion table (CQT) was used to drive the attitude during the perigee maneuvers. The MatrixX toolset, originally written by Integrated Systems, Inc., now distributed by Mathworks, was used to create HiFi, a high fidelity simulator of the MAP attitude control system. HiFi was used to test the CQT and to make sure that all attitude requirements were met during the maneuver. In addition, all ACS data plotting and output were generated in MatrixX. A final test used FlatSat, a real-time hardware-in-the-loop simulator, which used identical MAP flight code to simulate operations on the spacecraft. Simulations in FlatSat allowed the MAP team to verify maneuver commands, timing, and spacecraft configuration before the commands were sent up to the spacecraft for execution. The MAP maneuver team successfully pieced together all of these COTS tools for designing MAP's maneuvers and MAP is now collecting data at L2.

Mesarch, Michael A.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Shielding Characteristics Using an Ultrasonic Configurable Fan Artificial Noise Source to Generate Modes - Experimental Measurements and Analytical Predictions

An Ultrasonic Configurable Fan Artificial Noise Source (UCFANS) was designed, built, and tested in support of the NASA Langley Research Center's 14x22 wind tunnel test of the Hybrid Wing Body (HWB) full 3-D 5.8% scale model. The UCFANS is a 5.8% rapid prototype scale model of a high-bypass turbofan engine that can generate the tonal signature of proposed engines using artificial sources (no flow). The purpose of the program was to provide an estimate of the acoustic shielding benefits possible from mounting an engine on the upper surface of a wing; a flat plate model was used as the shielding surface. Simple analytical simulations were used to preview the radiation patterns - Fresnel knife-edge diffraction was coupled with a dense phased array of point sources to compute shielded and unshielded sound pressure distributions for potential test geometries and excitation modes. Contour plots of sound pressure levels, and integrated power levels, from nacelle alone and shielded configurations for both the experimental measurements and the analytical predictions are presented in this paper.

Artifical Noise↗
NASA NTRS1977

The distribution of ammonia and its photochemical products on Jupiter

Altitude profiles of ammonia and its photochemical products are generated in the light of measurements of the Jovian temperature structure, eddy transport coefficient, improved chemical scheme, and rate constants. Realistic limits are placed on the concentration of hydrazine which may participate in the recycling of ammonia on Jupiter. The maximum hydrazine-ice production rate is calculated to be about 1.3 mg/sq m per Jovian day. The distribution of nitrogen gas is presented with and without supersaturation of hydrazine. The nitrogen mixing ratio near the ammonia cloud top is estimated to be in the range between 10 to the -9th and 10 to the -11th power. An appreciable latitudinal variation in the ammonia concentration is expected.

Atreya, S. K.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Experiment and theoretical study of the propagation of high power microwave pulse in air breakdown environment

In the study of the propagation of high power microwave pulse, one of the main concerns is how to minimize the energy loss of the pulse before reaching the destination. In the very high power region, one has to prevent the cutoff reflection caused by the excessive ionization in the background air. A frequency auto-conversion process which can lead to reflectionless propagation of powerful EM pulses in self-generated plasmas is studied. The theory shows that under the proper conditions the carrier frequency, omega, of the pulse will indeed shift upward with the growth of plasma frequency, omega(sub pe). Thus, the plasma during breakdown will always remain transparent to the pulse (i.e., omega greater than omega(sub pe)). A chamber experiment to demonstrate the frequency auto-conversion during the pulse propagation through the self-generated plasma is then conducted in a chamber. The detected frequency shift is compared with the theoretical result calculated y using the measured electron density distribution along the propagation path of the pulse. Good agreement between the theory and the experiment results is obtained.

Kuo, S. P.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Filamentary and hierarchical pictures - Kinetic energy criterion

We present a new criterion for formation of second-generation filaments. The criterion called the kinetic energy ratio, KR, is based on comparison of peculiar velocities at different scales. We suggest that the clumpiness of the distribution in some cases might be less important than the 'coldness' or 'hotness' of the flow for formation of coherent structures. The kinetic energy ratio is analogous to the Mach number except for one essential difference. If at some scale KR is greater than 1, as estimated at the linear stage, then when fluctuations of this scale reach nonlinearity, the objects they produce must be anisotropic ('filamentary'). In the case of power-law initial spectra the kinetic ratio criterion suggests that the border line is the power-spectrum with the slope n = -1.

Klypin, Anatoly A.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Non-Intrusive Laser-Induced Imaging for Speciation and Patternation in High Pressure Gas Turbine Combustors

The next generation of was turbine combustors for aerospace applications will be required to meet increasingly stringent constraints on fuel efficiency, noise abatement, and emissions. The power plants being designed to meet these constraints will operate at extreme conditions of temperature and pressure, thereby generating unique challenges to the previously employed diagnostic methodologies. Current efforts at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) utilize optically accessible, high pressure flametubes and sector combustor rigs to probe, via advanced nonintrusive laser techniques, the complex flowfields encountered in advanced combustor designs. The fuel-air mixing process is of particular concern for lowering NO(x) emissions generated in lean, premixed engine concepts. Using planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) we have obtained real-time, detailed imaging of the fuel spray distribution for a number of fuel injector over a wide range of operational conditions that closely match those expected in the proposed propulsion systems. Using a novel combination of planar imaging, of fuel fluorescence and computational analysis that allows an examination of the flowfield from any perspective, we have produced spatially and temporally resolved fuel-air distribution maps. These maps provide detailed insight into the fuel injection at actual conditions never before possible, thereby greatly enhancing the evaluation of fuel injector performance and combustion phenomena.

Locke, Randy J.↗
NASA NTRS2004

A Geomagnetic Estimate of Mean Paleointensity

To test a statistical hypothesis about Earth's magnetic field against paleomagnetism, the present field is used to estimate time averaged paleointensity. The estimate used the modern magnetic multipole spectrum R(n), which gives the mean square induction represented by spherical harmonics of degree n averaged over the sphere of radius a = 6371.2 km. The hypothesis asserts that low degree multi-pole powers of the coresource field are distributed as chi-squared with 2n+1 degrees of freedom and expectation values, where c is the 3480 km radius of the Earth's core. (This is compatible with a usually mainly geocentric axial dipolar field). Amplitude K is estimated by fitting theoretical to observational spectra through degree 12. The resulting calibrated expectation spectrum is summed through degree 12 to estimate expected square intensity F(exp 2). The sum also estimates F(exp 2) averaged over geologic time, in so far as the present magnetic spectrum is a fair sample of that generated in the past by core geodynamic processes. Additional information is included in the original extended abstract.

Voorhies, Coerte V.↗
NASA NTRS1972

Space station ventilation study

A ventilation system design and selection method which is applicable to any manned vehicle were developed. The method was used to generate design options for the NASA 33-foot diameter space station, all of which meet the ventilation system design requirements. System characteristics such as weight, volume, and power were normalized to dollar costs for each option. Total system costs for the various options ranged from a worst case $8 million to a group of four which were all approximately $2 million. A system design was then chosen from the $2 million group and is presented in detail. A ventilation system layout was designed for the MSFC space station mockup which provided comfortable, efficient ventilation of the mockup. A conditioned air distribution system design for the 14-foot diameter modular space station, using the same techniques, is also presented. The tradeoff study resulted in the selection of a system which costs $1.9 million, as compared to the alternate configuration which would have cost $2.6 million.

Colombo, G. V.↗
NASA NTRS2004

New Generation Power System for Space Applications

The Deep Space Avionics (DSA) Project is developing a new generation of power system building blocks. Using application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and power switching modules a scalable power system can be constructed for use on multiple deep space missions including future missions to Mars, comets, Jupiter and its moons. The key developments of the DSA power system effort are five power ASICs and a mod ule for power switching. These components enable a modular and scalab le design approach, which can result in a wide variety of power syste m architectures to meet diverse mission requirements and environments . Each component is radiation hardened to one megarad) total dose. The power switching module can be used for power distribution to regular spacecraft loads, to propulsion valves and actuation of pyrotechnic devices. The number of switching elements per load, pyrotechnic firin gs and valve drivers can be scaled depending on mission needs. Teleme try data is available from the switch module via an I2C data bus. The DSA power system components enable power management and distribution for a variety of power buses and power system architectures employing different types of energy storage and power sources. This paper will describe each power ASIC#s key performance characteristics as well a s recent prototype test results. The power switching module test results will be discussed and will demonstrate its versatility as a multip urpose switch. Finally, the combination of these components will illu strate some of the possible power system architectures achievable fro m small single string systems to large fully redundant systems.

power switching↗
NASA NTRS2005

International Space Station Electric Power System Performance Code-SPACE

The System Power Analysis for Capability Evaluation (SPACE) software analyzes and predicts the minute-by-minute state of the International Space Station (ISS) electrical power system (EPS) for upcoming missions as well as EPS power generation capacity as a function of ISS configuration and orbital conditions. In order to complete the Certification of Flight Readiness (CoFR) process in which the mission is certified for flight each ISS System must thoroughly assess every proposed mission to verify that the system will support the planned mission operations; SPACE is the sole tool used to conduct these assessments for the power system capability. SPACE is an integrated power system model that incorporates a variety of modules tied together with integration routines and graphical output. The modules include orbit mechanics, solar array pointing/shadowing/thermal and electrical, battery performance, and power management and distribution performance. These modules are tightly integrated within a flexible architecture featuring data-file-driven configurations, source- or load-driven operation, and event scripting. SPACE also predicts the amount of power available for a given system configuration, spacecraft orientation, solar-array-pointing conditions, orbit, and the like. In the source-driven mode, the model must assure that energy balance is achieved, meaning that energy removed from the batteries must be restored (or balanced) each and every orbit. This entails an optimization scheme to ensure that energy balance is maintained without violating any other constraints.

Hojnicki, Jeffrey↗
NASA NTRS1974

Time-dependent polar distribution of outgassing from a spacecraft

A technique has been developed to obtain a characterization of the self-generated environment of a spacecraft and its variation with time, angular position, and distance. The density, pressure, outgassing flux, total weight loss, and other important parameters were obtained from data provided by two mass measuring crystal microbalances, mounted back to back, at distance of 1 m from the spacecraft equivalent surface. A major outgassing source existed at an angular position of 300 deg to 340 deg, near the rocket motor, while the weakest source was at the antennas. The strongest source appeared to be caused by a material diffusion process which produced a directional density at 1 m distance of about 1.6 x 10 to the 11th power molecules/cu cm after 1 hr in vacuum and decayed to 1.6 x 10 to the 9th power molecules/cu cm after 200 hr. The total average outgassing flux at the same distance and during the same time span changed from 1.2 x 10 to the minus 7th power to 1.4 x to the minus 10th power g/sq cm/s. These values are three times as large at the spacecraft surface. Total weight loss was 537 g after 10 hr and about 833 g after 200 hr. Self-contamination of the spacecraft was equivalent to that in orbit at about 300-km altitude.

Scialdone, J. J.↗