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TPSAS-NF1676L-32124-DND

The NASA DEVELOP National Program seeks to simultaneously build capacity to use Earth observations in early career and transitioning professionals while building capacity with institutional partners to apply Earth observations in conducting operations, making decisions, or informing policy. This is done through 10-week feasibility projects, conducted by the DEVELOP teams in collaboration with decision makers. The program carries out 60-80 projects each year, engaging with over 120 partners from local, state, and federal governments to academic institutions and NGOs. To best understand project partner needs, projects begin with a thorough proposal development process in which partners share their current practices, needs, and capabilities. Throughout the project life cycle, the DEVELOP teams engage with the partners to ensure communication, feedback, and understanding. DEVELOP’s model of conducting rapid feasibility projects is an effective way to show decision maker show they can use NASA Earth science data in new ways to help them make informed decisions. Because the projects are conducted by a DEVELOP team in collaboration with end users, the partners are introduced to new data products and methodologies that they otherwise might not be able to explore within their own resource constraints. This presentation will discuss project examples, success stories, and best practices for engaging with decision makers on applied science projects.

Amanda Clayton↗

Marin County Wildland Fires: Examining Fuel Load and Land Cover Change to Inform Fire Prevention and Suppression Decisions in Marin County, CA

Heightened occurrence of severe wildfires in the Western United States is increasing the need to better understand regions of high potential wild fire severity and develop methodologies for identifying the best locations for fuels reduction and active wildfire suppression, especially in populated regions such as Marin County, California. Marin County, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, has had significant development in the wildland-urban interface and periods of highly wildfire-prone conditions. The NASA DEVELOP team collaborated with Fire Foundry, a Marin-based fire service work force development program, to develop new models to assist with fire management. Using data from Sentinel-2A, Planet Scope, ECOSTRESS, a county-wide LiDAR mapping effort, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the team developed several input data layers to three models evaluating wild fire severity. One model performed a suitability analysis with weights based on scientific literature, another utilized machine learning based on past fires in Marin and neighboring Sonoma County to predict the difference normalized burn ratio, and the third inputted data layers into the Flam Map tool, which outputs risk categories. The team compared model outputs and, using the best-fit model, performed fuzzy logic analysis to identify specific locations where a fire break could be constructed to interrupt the progress of an active fire. These tools were proven useful and will assist partners in preparing for and managing an active wildfire event.

Suhani Dalal↗

Marin County Wildland Fires: Examining Fuel Load and Land Cover Change to Inform Fire Prevention and Suppression Decisions in Marin County, CA

Heightened occurrence of severe wildfires in the Western United States is increasing the need to better understand regions of high potential wildfire severity and develop methodologies for identifying the best locations for fuels reduction and active wildfire suppression, especially in populated regions such as Marin County, California. Marin County, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, has had significant development in the wildland-urban interface and periods of highly wildfire-prone conditions. The NASA DEVELOP team collaborated with Fire Foundry (a Marin-based fire service workforce development program) and the Marin County Fire Department to develop models to assist with fire management. Using data from Sentinel-2A, PlanetScope, ECOSTRESS, a county-wide LiDAR mapping effort, Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper (ETM+), and Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), our team developed a number of input data layers for three different models to evaluate wildfire severity. One model performed a suitability analysis with weights based on scientific literature; another model utilized a U-Net Convolutional Neural Network trained on previous fires in Marin and neighboring Sonoma County to predict the difference normalized burn severity; and the third inputted data layers into the FlamMap tool that outputs risk categories. We compared model outputs and performed a weighted overlay analysis to identify specific locations where a fireline could be constructed to interrupt the progress of an active fire. These tools will assist partners in preparing for and managing active wildfire situations.

Remote sensing↗

Security Vulnerability Profiles of NASA Mission Software: Empirical Analysis of Security Related Bug Reports

NASA develops, runs, and maintains software systems for which security is of vital importance. Therefore, it is becoming an imperative to develop secure systems and extend the current software assurance capabilities to cover information assurance and cybersecurity concerns of NASA missions. The results presented in this report are based on the information provided in the issue tracking systems of one ground mission and one flight mission. The extracted data were used to create three datasets: Ground mission IVV issues, Flight mission IVV issues, and Flight mission Developers issues. In each dataset, we identified the software bugs that are security related and classified them in specific security classes. This information was then used to create the security vulnerability profiles (i.e., to determine how, why, where, and when the security vulnerabilities were introduced) and explore the existence of common trends. The main findings of our work include:- Code related security issues dominated both the Ground and Flight mission IVV security issues, with 95 and 92, respectively. Therefore, enforcing secure coding practices and verification and validation focused on coding errors would be cost effective ways to improve mission's security. (Flight mission Developers issues dataset did not contain data in the Issue Category.)- In both the Ground and Flight mission IVV issues datasets, the majority of security issues (i.e., 91 and 85, respectively) were introduced in the Implementation phase. In most cases, the phase in which the issues were found was the same as the phase in which they were introduced. The most security related issues of the Flight mission Developers issues dataset were found during Code Implementation, Build Integration, and Build Verification; the data on the phase in which these issues were introduced were not available for this dataset.- The location of security related issues, as the location of software issues in general, followed the Pareto principle. Specifically, for all three datasets, from 86 to 88 the security related issues were located in two to four subsystems.- The severity levels of most security issues were moderate, in all three datasets.- Out of 21 primary security classes, five dominated: Exception Management, Memory Access, Other, Risky Values, and Unused Entities. Together, these classes contributed from around 80 to 90 of all security issues in each dataset. This again proves the Pareto principle of uneven distribution of security issues, in this case across CWE classes, and supports the fact that addressing these dominant security classes provides the most cost efficient way to improve missions' security. The findings presented in this report uncovered the security vulnerability profiles and identified the common trends and dominant classes of security issues, which in turn can be used to select the most efficient secure design and coding best practices compiled by the part of the SARP project team associated with the NASA's Johnson Space Center. In addition, these findings provide valuable input to the NASA IVV initiative aimed at identification of the two 25 CWEs of ground and flight missions.

vulnerability↗

Southern Idaho Ecological Conservation: Investigating the Impact of Targeted Grazing to Improve Wetland Habitat in the Sterling Wildlife Management Area

Wetland ecosystems are vital for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. The Sterling Wildlife Management Area in Bingham County, Idaho, has management concerns about decadent and accumulated vegetation growth encroaching on wetland habitat, which presents challenges for wildlife, decreases biodiversity, and limits public access. Targeted grazing has been proposed as a sustainable alternative to chemical herbicides or burning. Land managers introduced targeted cattle grazing in January 2021 to reduce biomass. NASA DEVELOP partnered with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game to determine the impact of grazing using NASA Earth observations from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) in Google Earth Engine (GEE). Images were processed with TerrSet’s Land Change Modeler and ArcGIS Pro’s Change Detection Wizard to understand land changes following grazing. A Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) analysis was performed to assess impacts on vegetation productivity and compare variance in biomass before and after grazing. A Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) was used to compare changes in the wetland and its vegetation content to evaluate the suitability of the area for migratory birds post-grazing. Results showed a decrease in the vegetation index and an increase in the water index postgrazing. The DEVELOP team’s analysis suggests that grazing helps break down thick, senesced vegetation and increase soil moisture. Providing a workflow model will aid partners in continuing to monitor this management area and other management areas across the state.

change detection↗

Crime scene investigations using portable, non-destructive space exploration technology

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASAs) Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) have teamed up to explore the use of NASA developed technologies to help criminal justice agencies and professionals solve crimes. The objective of the program is to produce instruments and communication networks that have application within both NASA's space program and NIJ programs with state and local forensic laboratories. A working group of NASA scientists and law enforcement professionals has been established to develop and implement a feasibility demonstration program. Specifically, the group has focused its efforts on identifying gunpowder and primer residue, blood, and semen at crime scenes. Non-destructive elemental composition identification methods are carried out using portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) systems. These systems are similar to those being developed for planetary exploration programs. A breadboard model of a portable XRF system has been constructed for these tests using room temperature silicon and cadmium-zinc telluride (CZT) detectors. Preliminary tests have been completed with gunshot residue (GSR), blood-spatter and semen samples. Many of the element composition lines have been identified. Studies to determine the minimum detectable limits needed for the analyses of GSR, blood and semen in the crime scene environment have been initiated and preliminary results obtained. Furthermore, a database made up of the inorganic composition of GSR is being developed. Using data obtained from the open literature of the elemental composition of barium (Ba) and antimony (Sb) in handswipes of GSR, we believe that there may be a unique GSR signature based on the Sb to Ba ratio.

Firearms↗

Safely Containing Frangible Materials used in Space Flight Equipment

Glass fragments in a habitable zero-g environment can be very hazardous to the crew, with a potential for causing eye injuries or inhalation mishaps. With the advent of the Space Shuttle Program, NASA had to manage many shatterable items in the habitable compartment, brought to the spacecraft by payload developers, NASA experiments, crew equipment and the vehicle's own avionics and other instrumentation. This effort has continued in the International Space Station Program, and will be a part of every future manned space effort.

Bernstein, Karen S.↗

Exploring the Solar System Activities Outline: Hands-On Planetary Science for Formal Education K-14 and Informal Settings

Activities by NASA scientists and teachers focus on integrating Planetary Science activities with existing Earth science, math, and language arts curriculum. The wealth of activities that highlight missions and research pertaining to the exploring the solar system allows educators to choose activities that fit a particular concept or theme within their curriculum. Most of the activities use simple, inexpensive techniques that help students understand the how and why of what scientists are learning about comets, asteroids, meteorites, moons and planets. With these NASA developed activities students experience recent mission information about our solar system such as Mars geology and the search for life using Mars meteorites and robotic data. The Johnson Space Center ARES Education team has compiled a variety of NASA solar system activities to produce an annotated thematic outline useful to classroom educators and informal educators as they teach space science. An important aspect of the outline annotation is that it highlights appropriate science content information and key science and math concepts so educators can easily identify activities that will enhance curriculum development. The outline contains URLs for the activities and NASA educator guides as well as links to NASA mission science and technology. In the informal setting educators can use solar system exploration activities to reinforce learning in association with thematic displays, planetarium programs, youth group gatherings, or community events. Within formal education at the primary level some of the activities are appropriately designed to excite interest and arouse curiosity. Middle school educators will find activities that enhance thematic science and encourage students to think about the scientific process of investigation. Some of the activities offered are appropriate for the upper levels of high school and early college in that they require students to use and analyze data.

Allen, J. S.↗

The Integrated Air Transportation System Evaluation Tool

Throughout U.S. history, our nation has generally enjoyed exceptional economic growth, driven in part by transportation advancements. Looking forward 25 years, when the national highway and skyway systems are saturated, the nation faces new challenges in creating transportation-driven economic growth and wealth. To meet the national requirement for an improved air traffic management system, NASA developed the goal of tripling throughput over the next 20 years, in all weather conditions while maintaining safety. Analysis of the throughput goal has primarily focused on major airline operations, primarily through the hub and spoke system.However, many suggested concepts to increase throughput may operate outside the hub and spoke system. Examples of such concepts include the Small Aircraft Transportation System, civil tiltrotor, and improved rotorcraft. Proper assessment of the potential contribution of these technologies to the domestic air transportation system requires a modeling capability that includes the country's numerous smaller airports, acting as a fundamental component of the National Air space System, and the demand for such concepts and technologies. Under this task for NASA, the Logistics Management Institute developed higher fidelity demand models that capture the interdependence of short-haul air travel with other transportation modes and explicitly consider the costs of commercial air and other transport modes. To accomplish this work, we generated forecasts of the distribution of general aviation based aircraft and GA itinerant operations at each of nearly 3.000 airport based on changes in economic conditions and demographic trends. We also built modules that estimate the demand for travel by different modes, particularly auto, commercial air, and GA. We examined GA demand from two perspectives: top-down and bottom-up, described in detail.

Wingrove, Earl R., III↗

Tools Lighten Designs, Maintain Structural Integrity

Collier Research Corporation of Hampton, Virginia, licensed software developed at Langley Research Center to reduce design weight through the use of composite materials. The first license of NASA-developed software, it has now been used in everything from designing next-generation cargo containers, to airframes, rocket engines, ship hulls, and train bodies. The company now has sales of the NASA-derived software topping $4 million a year and has recently received several Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts to apply its software to nearly all aspects of the new Orion crew capsule design.

Source record↗

Pulsed Phase Lock Loop Device for Monitoring Intracranial Pressure During Space Flight

We have developed an ultrasonic device to monitor ICP waveforms non-invasively from cranial diameter oscillations using a NASA-developed pulsed phase lock loop (PPLL) technique. The purpose of this study was to attempt to validate the PPLL device for reliable recordings of ICP waveforms and analysis of ICP dynamics in vivo. METHODS: PPLL outputs were recorded in patients during invasive ICP monitoring at UCSD Medical Center (n=10). RESULTS: An averaged linear regression coefficient between ICP and PPLL waveform data during one cardiac cycle in all patients is 0.88 +/- 0.02 (mean +/- SE). Coherence function analysis indicated that ICP and PPLL waveforms have high correlation in the lst, 2nd, and 3rd harmonic waves associated with a cardiac cycle. CONCLUSIONS: PPLL outputs represent ICP waveforms in both frequency and time domains. PPLL technology enables in vivo evaluation of ICP dynamics non-invasively, and can acquire continuous ICP waveforms during spaceflight because of compactness and non-invasive nature.

Ueno, Toshiaki↗

Investigating the Impacts of Land Use Change on Urban Heat and Vulnerability in Cali, Columbia

The urban heat island effect (UHI) is an environmental phenomenon where cities experience higher temperatures than rural areas due to increased pavement and decreased cooling from vegetation. Approximately 76% of people in Colombia live in urban areas, and the city of Santiago de Cali is facing UHI challenges exacerbated by land use change. Wetlands and forests formerly surrounded the city but were replaced by development and agriculture. The Colombian municipal government agency Departamento Administrativo de Gestión del Medio Ambiente and the community organization Fundacion Dinamizadores Ambientales partnered with NASA DEVELOP to evaluate communities in Cali most vulnerable to urban heat. This project illustrated the utility of using NASA Earth observations to evaluate the relationship between land use, temperature, and social factors in Cali, Colombia between 2013 and 2023. The team used Landsat 7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+), Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), and Landsat 9 OLI-2/TIRS-2 to generate land surface temperature (LST), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and albedo maps in Google Earth Engine. Heavy cloud cover limited the accuracy of the LST but incorporating up to three satellites for a median image reduced potential errors. Through further analysis in ArcGIS Pro, the team classified land use change using a deep learning model and found that LST was significantly higher in urban areas than in wetlands or forests. Using R studio, the team ran a principal component analysis to determine which social factors had the strongest correlation with LST. The team found that health care and green space access were negatively correlated, and Afro-Colombian ethnicity was positively correlated with LST. With awareness of the most impacted and vulnerable regions, the partner organizations can work to prioritize green space establishment in those areas to reduce the impacts of urban heat. Addressing the urban heat island effect will reduce environmental justice concerns within the city and improve overall health, air, and water quality for those who live there.

Brenna Bruffey↗

Physiological and genetic characterization of plant growth and gravitropism in LED light sources

Among the many problems of growing plants in completely controlled environments, such as those anticipated for the space station and the CELSS program, is the need to provide light that is both adequate for photosynthesis and of proper quality for normal growth and development. NASA scientists and engineers have recently become interested in the possibility of utilizing densely packed, solid state, light emitting diodes (LED's) as a source for this light. Unlike more conventional incandescent or electrical discharge lamps, these sources are highly monochromatic and lack energy in spectral regions thought to be important for normal plant development. In addition, a recent observation by NASA scientist has suggested that infra-red LED's, that are routinely used as photographic safelights for plants grown in darkness, may interact with the ability of plants to detect gravity. In order to establish how plants respond to light from these LED light sources we carried out a series of experiments with known pigment mutants of the model mustard plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, growing in either a gravity field or on a clinostat to simulate a micro-gravity environment. Results indicate that only red light from the 665 nm LED's disrupts the ability of normal wildtype seedlings to detect a gravity stimulus. There was no consistent effect found for the far-red (735 nm) LED's or either of the infrared (880 nm or 935 nm) LED sources but both showed some effect in one or more of the genotypes tested. Of these five members of the phytochrome multigene family in Arabidopsis, only the phytochrome B pigment mutant (hy3) lacked the ability to detect gravity under all conditions. There was no effect of either micro-gravity (clinostat) or the infra-red LED's on the light induced inhibition of hypocotyl elongation. Measurements of the pigment phytochrome in oats also showed no photoconversion by 15 min irradiations with the infra-red LED's. We conclude that phytochrome B is required for the perception of gravity and that only red light is able to disrupt this perception. The infra-red LED's also do not appear to interact with gravity perception in Arabidopsis, but caution should be exercised if infra-red LED's are to be used as photographic safelights for these types of experiments.

Deitzer, Gerald F.↗

An Overview of NASA's Contributions to Energy Technology

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is well known for its many contributions to advancing technology for the aviation and space industries. It may be surprising to some that it has also made a major impact in advancing energy technologies. This paper presents a historic overview of some of the energy programs that NASA was involved in, as well as presenting some current energy-related work that is relevant to both aerospace and non-aerospace needs. In the past, NASA developed prototype electric cars, low-emission gas turbines, wind turbines, and solar-powered villages, to name a few of the major energy projects. The fundamental expertise in fluid mechanics, heat transfer, thermodynamics, mechanical and electrical engineering, and other related fields, found in NASA s workforce, can easily be applied to develop creative solutions to energy problems in space, aviation, or terrestrial systems.

Lyons, Valerie J.↗

Test Program for Stirling Radioisotope Generator Hardware at NASA Glenn Research Center

Stirling-based energy conversion technology has demonstrated the potential of high efficiency and low mass power systems for future space missions. This capability is beneficial, if not essential, to making certain deep space missions possible. Significant progress was made developing the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), a 140-W radioisotope power system. A variety of flight-like hardware, including Stirling convertors, controllers, and housings, was designed and built under the ASRG flight development project. To support future Stirling-based power system development NASA has proposals that, if funded, will allow this hardware to go on test at the NASA Glenn Research Center. While future flight hardware may not be identical to the hardware developed under the ASRG flight development project, many components will likely be similar, and system architectures may have heritage to ASRG. Thus, the importance of testing the ASRG hardware to the development of future Stirling-based power systems cannot be understated. This proposed testing will include performance testing, extended operation to establish an extensive reliability database, and characterization testing to quantify subsystem and system performance and better understand system interfaces. This paper details this proposed test program for Stirling radioisotope generator hardware at NASA Glenn. It explains the rationale behind the proposed tests and how these tests will meet the stated objectives.

Energy Conversion↗

Test Program for Stirling Radioisotope Generator Hardware at NASA Glenn Research Center

Stirling-based energy conversion technology has demonstrated the potential of high efficiency and low mass power systems for future space missions. This capability is beneficial, if not essential, to making certain deep space missions possible. Significant progress was made developing the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG), a 140-watt radioisotope power system. A variety of flight-like hardware, including Stirling convertors, controllers, and housings, was designed and built under the ASRG flight development project. To support future Stirling-based power system development NASA has proposals that, if funded, will allow this hardware to go on test at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC). While future flight hardware may not be identical to the hardware developed under the ASRG flight development project, many components will likely be similar, and system architectures may have heritage to ASRG. Thus the importance of testing the ASRG hardware to the development of future Stirling-based power systems cannot be understated. This proposed testing will include performance testing, extended operation to establish an extensive reliability database, and characterization testing to quantify subsystem and system performance and better understand system interfaces. This paper details this proposed test program for Stirling radioisotope generator hardware at NASA GRC. It explains the rationale behind the proposed tests and how these tests will meet the stated objectives.

Energy Conversion↗

An Improved Treatment of External Boundary for Three-Dimensional Flow Computations

We present an innovative numerical approach for setting highly accurate nonlocal boundary conditions at the external computational boundaries when calculating three-dimensional compressible viscous flows over finite bodies. The approach is based on application of the difference potentials method by V. S. Ryaben'kii and extends our previous technique developed for the two-dimensional case. The new boundary conditions methodology has been successfully combined with the NASA-developed code TLNS3D and used for the analysis of wing-shaped configurations in subsonic and transonic flow regimes. As demonstrated by the computational experiments, the improved external boundary conditions allow one to greatly reduce the size of the computational domain while still maintaining high accuracy of the numerical solution. Moreover, they may provide for a noticeable speedup of convergence of the multigrid iterations.

Tsynkov, Semyon V.↗