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At least 685 records · Page 38

Investigating Hydrometeorological Conditions Associated with Increasing Dust Events in Southwestern United States

A recent study (Tong et al. 2017) shows a rapid intensification of dust storm activity over the southwestern United States in the past decades. For example, the frequency of windblown dust storms has increased 240 percent from 1990s to 2000s. Increasing dust storms can worsen air quality in the region. The study also finds that the intensification of dust events has a close connection with a fast-rising infectious disease (valley fever) caused by inhaling soil-dwelling fungi (Coccidioides immitis and C. posadasii) in the southwestern United States. Hydrometeorological conditions play an important role in dust storm activity, including winds, precipitation, soil moisture, atmospheric boundary stability, land surface types, etc. In this presentation, we describe our preliminary results of linking the dust trends to variations of hydrometeorological conditions at regional and global scales, using a number of Earth observations, including products from NLDAS (North American Land Data Assimilation System), TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission), and MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications) datasets, from NASA Goddard Earth Sciences (GES) Data and Information Services Center (DISC). The GES DISC, one of the 12 NASA data centers, is home to multidisciplinary data archives such as precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric chemistry, atmospheric dynamics, etc. We demonstrate that multidisciplinary datasets and services at GES DISC can be used for interdisciplinary investigation to understand the interactions of Earth system components from an observational perspective.

satellite↗

Direct-to-Earth Communications with Mars Science Laboratory During Entry, Descent, and Landing

Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) undergoes extreme heating and acceleration during Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) on Mars. Unknown dynamics lead to large Doppler shifts, making communication challenging. During EDL, a special form of Multiple Frequency Shift Keying (MFSK) communication is used for Direct-To-Earth (DTE) communication. The X-band signal is received by the Deep Space Network (DSN) at the Canberra Deep Space Communication complex, then down-converted, digitized, and recorded by open-loop Radio Science Receivers (RSR), and decoded in real-time by the EDL Data Analysis (EDA) System. The EDA uses lock states with configurable Fast Fourier Transforms to acquire and track the signal. RSR configuration and channel allocation is shown. Testing prior to EDL is discussed including software simulations, test bed runs with MSL flight hardware, and the in-flight end-to-end test. EDA configuration parameters and signal dynamics during pre-entry, entry, and parachute deployment are analyzed. RSR and EDA performance during MSL EDL is evaluated, including performance using a single 70-meter DSN antenna and an array of two 34-meter DSN antennas as a back up to the 70-meter antenna.

Direct-to-Earth (DTE)↗

RHSEG and Subdue: Background and Preliminary Approach for Combining these Technologies for Enhanced Image Data Analysis, Mining and Knowledge Discovery

Under a project recently selected for funding by NASA's Science Mission Directorate under the Applied Information Systems Research (AISR) program, Tilton and Cook will design and implement the integration of the Subdue graph based knowledge discovery system, developed at the University of Texas Arlington and Washington State University, with image segmentation hierarchies produced by the RHSEG software, developed at NASA GSFC, and perform pilot demonstration studies of data analysis, mining and knowledge discovery on NASA data. Subdue represents a method for discovering substructures in structural databases. Subdue is devised for general-purpose automated discovery, concept learning, and hierarchical clustering, with or without domain knowledge. Subdue was developed by Cook and her colleague, Lawrence B. Holder. For Subdue to be effective in finding patterns in imagery data, the data must be abstracted up from the pixel domain. An appropriate abstraction of imagery data is a segmentation hierarchy: a set of several segmentations of the same image at different levels of detail in which the segmentations at coarser levels of detail can be produced from simple merges of regions at finer levels of detail. The RHSEG program, a recursive approximation to a Hierarchical Segmentation approach (HSEG), can produce segmentation hierarchies quickly and effectively for a wide variety of images. RHSEG and HSEG were developed at NASA GSFC by Tilton. In this presentation we provide background on the RHSEG and Subdue technologies and present a preliminary analysis on how RHSEG and Subdue may be combined to enhance image data analysis, mining and knowledge discovery.

Tilton, James C.↗

International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI)

The International Heliophysical Year (IHY), an international program of scientific collaboration to understand the external drivers of planetary environments, has come to an end. The IHY was a major international event of great interest to the member States, which involved the deployment of new instrumentation, new observations from the ground and in space, and an education component. We propose to continue the highly successful collaboration between the heliophysics science community and the United Nations Basic Space Science (UNBSS) program. One of the major thrust of the IHY was to deploy arrays of small instruments such as magnetometers, radio antennas, GPS receivers, all-sky cameras, particle detectors, etc. around the world to provide global measurements of heliospheric phenomena. The United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI) played a major role in this effort. Scientific teams were organized through UNBSS, which consisted of a lead scientist who provided the instruments or fabrication plans for instruments in the array. As a result of the this program, scientists from UNBSS member states now participate in the instrument operation, data collection, analysis, and publication of scientific results, working at the forefront of science research. As part of this project, support for local scientists, facilities and data acquisition is provided by the host nation. In addition, support at the Government level is provided for local scientists to participate. Building on momentum of the IHY, we propose to continue the highly successful collaboration with the UNBSS program to continue the study of universal processes in the solar system that affect the interplanetary and terrestrial environments, and to continue to coordinate the deployment and operation of new and existing instrument arrays aimed at understanding the impacts of Space Weather on Earth and the near-Earth environment. Toward this end, we propose a new program, the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI).

Davila, Joseph M.↗

International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI)

The International Heliophysical Year (IHY), an international program of scientific collaboration to understand the external drivers of planetary environments, has come to an end. The IHY was a major international event of great interest to the member States, which involved the deployment of new instrumentation, new observations from the ground and in space, and an education component. We propose to continue the highly successful collaboration between the heliophysics science community and the United Nations Basic Space Science (UNBSS) program. One of the major thrust of the IHY was to deploy arrays of small instruments such as magnetometers, radio antennas, GPS receivers, all-sky cameras, particle detectors, etc. around the world to provide global measurements of heliospheric phenomena. The United Nations Basic Space Science Initiative (UNBSSI) played a major role in this effort. Scientific teams were organized through UNBSS, which consisted of a lead scientist who provided the instruments or fabrication plans for instruments in the array. As a result of the this program, scientists from UNBSS member states now participate in the instrument operation, data collection, analysis, and publication of scientific results, working at the forefront of science research. As part of this project, support for local scientists, facilities and data acquisition is provided by the host nation. In addition, support at the Government level is provided for local scientists to participate. Building on momentum of the IHY, we propose to continue the highly successful collaboration with the UNBSS program to continue the study of universal processes in the solar system that affect the interplanetary and terrestrial environments, and to continue to coordinate the deployment and operation of new and existing instrument arrays aimed at understanding the impacts of Space Weather on Earth and the near-Earth environment. Toward this end, we propose a new program, the International Space Weather Initiative (ISWI).

Davila, Joseph↗

MIRAGE: The data acquisition, analysis, and display system

Developed for the NASA Johnson Space Center and Life Sciences Directorate by GE Government Services, the Microcomputer Integrated Real-time Acquisition Ground Equipment (MIRAGE) system is a portable ground support system for Spacelab life sciences experiments. The MIRAGE system can acquire digital or analog data. Digital data may be NRZ-formatted telemetry packets of packets from a network interface. Analog signal are digitized and stored in experimental packet format. Data packets from any acquisition source are archived to a disk as they are received. Meta-parameters are generated from the data packet parameters by applying mathematical and logical operators. Parameters are displayed in text and graphical form or output to analog devices. Experiment data packets may be retransmitted through the network interface. Data stream definition, experiment parameter format, parameter displays, and other variables are configured using spreadsheet database. A database can be developed to support virtually any data packet format. The user interface provides menu- and icon-driven program control. The MIRAGE system can be integrated with other workstations to perform a variety of functions. The generic capabilities, adaptability and ease of use make the MIRAGE a cost-effective solution to many experimental data processing requirements.

Rosser, Robert S.↗

ASCR Workshop Position Paper: Challenges and Opportunities in High Energy Physics

High energy particle physics and cosmology concern themselves with estimating fundamental parameters of nature, such as the masses and interactions of fundamental particles like the Higgs boson and the rate of expansion of the universe. In doing so, they analyze exabyte-scale datasets, some of the largest in all of science, and face many challenges in subsequent data analysis. These challenges are shared between the two disciplines, but we focus on particle physics to highlight one specific domain. In particle physics, the standard method for estimating parameters involves performing Monte Carlo (MC) integration as a function of both parameters of interest and nuisance parameters using an expensive simulator, counting the number of observed collision events (i.i.d. samples) from an experiment in the corresponding integration domains, and forming a Poisson likelihood function. This likelihood function is then used in a Frequentist manner to construct a maximum likelihood point estimate (MLE) and confidence set for the parameters. To sufficiently populate the high-dimensional integration domains, simulators consume billions of CPU-hours annually and produce hundreds of petabytes of intermediate output data. Several techniques have been developed to: optimize definitions of the integration domains so as to be maximally sensitive to a particular subset of parameters, efficiently estimate the integrals, and build robust surrogate models by interpolating between integral evaluations at different parameter points. One can view this whole endeavor as classical Simulation-Based Inference (SBI).

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Report of the Terrestrial Bodies Science Working Group. Volume 1: Executive summary

Current knowledge of Mercury, Venus, Mars, the Moon, asteroids, comets, and the Galilean satellites were reviewed along with related NASA programs and available mission concepts. Exploration plans for the 1980 to 1990 period are outlined and recommendations made. Topics discussed include: scientific objectives and goals, exploration strategy and recommended mission plans, supporting research and technology, Earth-based and Earth-orbital investigations, data analysis and synthesis, analysis of extraterrestrial materials, broadening the science support base, and international cooperation.

Source record↗

Dynamics Explorer spacecraft and ground operations systems

The Dynamics Explorer program of NASA is designed to study the coupling of energy, electric currents, electric fields, and plasmas between the atmosphere, ionosphere, and the magnetosphere. The program is composed of two well instrumented polar orbiting satellites and ground operations and data handling systems which have been designed to acquire, process, and make readily available to the scientists of the program the data sets necessary for analysis to accomplish the science objectives. These systems are described with emphasis placed on the relationship of the two instrumented spacecraft and the ground systems to their roles in meeting the program requirements. In addition, the characteristics of the orbits selected are specified.

Hoffman, R. A.↗

PI Microgravity Services Role for International Space Station Operations

During the ISS era, the NASA Lewis Research Center's Principal Investigator Microgravity Services (PIMS) project will provide to principal investigators (PIs) microgravity environment information and characterization of the accelerations to which their experiments were exposed during on orbit operations. PIMS supports PIs by providing them with microgravity environment information for experiment vehicles, carriers, and locations within the vehicle. This is done to assist the PI with their effort to evaluate the effect of acceleration on their experiments. Furthermore, PIMS responsibilities are to support the investigators in the area of acceleration data analysis and interpretation, and provide the Microgravity science community with a microgravity environment characterization of selected experiment carriers and vehicles. Also, PIMS provides expertise in the areas of microgravity experiment requirements, vibration isolation, and the implementation of requirements for different spacecraft to the microgravity community and other NASA programs.

DeLombard, Richard↗

Galileo Net Flux Radiometer Data Analysis

This report describes analysis of the Galileo Net Flux Radiometer (NFR), an instrument mounted on the Galileo probe, a spacecraft designed for entry into and direct measurements of Jupiter's atmosphere. The grant period nearly four months after Jupiter atmospheric entry on 7 December 1995, and at which time the probe data were fully recovered and quick look analysis completed. This grant supported the detailed data analysis, resulting in a preliminary paper in Science in May 1996 and a final paper in the journal of Geophysical Research in September 1998, with conference papers presented within this period.

Sromovsky, Lawrence A.↗

Galileo Net Flux Radiometer Data Analysis

This report describes analysis of the Galileo Net Flux Radiometer (NFR), an instrument mounted on the Galileo probe, a spacecraft designed for entry into and direct measurements of Jupiter's atmosphere. The grant period for NAG2-1028 began on 1 April 1996, nearly four months after Jupiter atmospheric entry on 7 December 1995, and at which time the probe data were fully recovered and quick look analysis completed. This grant supported the detailed data analysis, resulting in a preliminary paper in Science in May 1996 and a final paper in the journal of Geophysical Research in .September 1998, with conference papers presented within this period.

Sromovsky, Lawrence A.↗

SN1987A: The Birth of a Supernova Remnant

This grant was intended to support the development of theoretical models needed to interpret and understand the observations by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray telescope of the rapidly developing remnant of Supernova 1987A. In addition, we carried out a few investigations of related topics. The project was spectacularly successful. The models that we developed provide the definitive framework for predicting and interpreting this phenomenon. Following is a list of publications based on our work. Some of these papers include results of both theoretical modeling supported by this project and also analysis of data supported by the Space Telescope Science Institute and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. We first list papers published in refereed journals, then conference proceedings and book chapters, and also an educational web site.

McCray, Richard↗

Verification of the Solar Dynamics Observatory High Gain Antenna Pointing Algorithm Using Flight Data

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), launched in 2010, is a NASA-designed spacecraft built to study the Sun. SDO has tight pointing requirements and instruments that are sensitive to spacecraft jitter. Two High Gain Antennas (HGAs) are used to continuously send science data to a dedicated ground station. Preflight analysis showed that jitter resulting from motion of the HGAs was a cause for concern. Three jitter mitigation techniques were developed and implemented to overcome effects of jitter from different sources. These mitigation techniques include: the random step delay, stagger stepping, and the No Step Request (NSR). During the commissioning phase of the mission, a jitter test was performed onboard the spacecraft, in which various sources of jitter were examined to determine their level of effect on the instruments. During the HGA portion of the test, the jitter amplitudes from the single step of a gimbal were examined, as well as the amplitudes due to the execution of various gimbal rates. The jitter levels were compared with the gimbal jitter allocations for each instrument. The decision was made to consider implementing two of the jitter mitigating techniques on board the spacecraft: stagger stepping and the NSR. Flight data with and without jitter mitigation enabled was examined, and it is shown in this paper that HGA tracking is not negatively impacted with the addition of the jitter mitigation techniques. Additionally, the individual gimbal steps were examined, and it was confirmed that the stagger stepping and NSRs worked as designed. An Image Quality Test was performed to determine the amount of cumulative jitter from the reaction wheels, HGAs, and instruments during various combinations of typical operations. The HGA-induced jitter on the instruments is well within the jitter requirement when the stagger step and NSR mitigation options are enabled.

Bourkland, Kristin L.↗

A Science-Driven Mission Concept to An Exoplanet

A concept for a science-driven robotic mission to an exoplanet was developed by a team of scientists and engineers from NASA and academia. The concept and scope were based on key mission and science requirements designed to address the question: “What makes a flight mission to an exoplanet compelling, in terms of science return, compared to what we will be able to learn in the next few decades with large near-Earth telescopes or other remote sensing techniques such as a telescope at the Solar Gravity Lens Focus?” By thinking systematically through mission and science goals and objectives, key requirements were developed that would drive technology developments in all necessary aspects, not just on propulsion. Unique science measurements would be performed en route to the exoplanet, including exploring the environment in the outer regions of our solar system, the Oort Cloud, the local interstellar medium, and the astrospheric environment around the host star. One of the key mission science objectives, and one that addresses why a mission to an exoplanet is compelling, was to confirm and characterize life. This objective is fundamental and drives the need for a precursor exoplanet characterization program to search for Earth-centric biosignatures and also drives key aspects of the mission concept. The team concluded that a direct confirmation of life would require in situ observations and measurements which cannot be performed on a fast (~10% of the speed of light) flyby; thus, the mission would require a method to slow down, orbit, or send a probe to the exoplanet’s surface. This capability drives a trade between interstellar travel velocity, trip duration, and propulsion architecture, as well as a high level of onboard autonomy, including adaptive science data collection, on-board data processing, and analysis. This paper describes our mission concept, the key requirements, and open trades.

Bennett, Gary↗

Evolved Gas Analyses of Sedimentary Rocks from the Glen Torridon Clay-Bearing Unit, Gale Crater, Mars: Results From the Mars Science Laboratory Sample Analysis at Mars Instrument Suite

Evolved gas analysis (EGA) data from the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument suite indicated Fe-rich smectite, carbonate, oxidized organics, Fe/Mg sulfate, and chloride in sedimentary rocks from the Glen Torridon (GT) region of Gale crater that displayed phyllosilicate spectral signatures from orbit. SAM evolved H2O data indicated that the primary phyllosilicate in all GT samples was an Fe-rich dioctahedral smectite (e.g., nontronite) with lesser amounts of a phyllosilicate such as mixed layer talc-serpentine or greenalite-minnesotaite. CO(2) data supported the identification of siderite in several samples, and CO(2) and CO data was also consistent with trace oxidized organic compounds such as oxalate salts. SO(2) data indicated trace and/or amorphous Fe sulfates in all samples and one sample may contain Fe sulfides. SO(2) data points to significant Mg sulfates in two samples, and lesser amounts in several other samples. A lack of evolved O(2) indicated the absence of oxychlorine salts and Mn3+/Mn4+ oxides. The lack of, or very minor, evolved NO revealed absent or very trace nitrate/nitrite salts. HCl data suggested chloride salts in GT samples. Constraints from EGA data on mineralogy and chemistry indicated that the environmental history of GT involved alteration with fluids of variable redox potential, chemistry and pH under a range of fluid-to-rock ratio conditions. Several of the fluid episodes could have provided habitable environmental conditions and carbon would have been available to any past microbes though the lack of significant N could have been a limiting factor for microbial habitability in the GT region.

A. C. McAdam↗

Uncovering Unique Molecular Adaptations in the Arabidopsis Thaliana Cvi-0 Ecotype

This research proposal aims to investigate the unique molecular adaptations exhibited by Arabidopsis Thaliana, specifically focusing on the Cape Verde Islands (Cvi-0) ecotype, in response to microgravity conditions. The study examines data from NASA’s Open Science Data Repository and applies a multifaceted RNAseq analysis pipeline using tools in the UseGalaxy.org open platform. Through transcriptomic analysis, differential gene expression patterns were identified in Cvi-0, revealing an absence of heat shock protein (HSP) upregulation and an upregulation of Rubisco Activase (RCA) and chloroplast-related pathways. To test the hypothesis that these adaptations may contribute to Cvi-0’s increased adaptability in microgravity, a three-fold experimental design is proposed. Four experimental groups will be cultivated under simulated microgravity and ground control conditions, including Cvi-0, Col-0, and genetically modified Col-0 with silenced HSP genes, and genetically modified Col-0 with upregulated RCA gene. Growth parameters will be measured to assess plant resilience, and RNA sequencing will provide transcriptomic data for pathway analysis. Anticipated outcomes include improved markers of plant health (mass, growth, etc.) of Cvi-0 in simulated microgravity and enhanced resilience in genetically altered Col-0 variants, providing insights into potential mechanisms of adaptation. This research would bear significance for space agriculture, nutrition for extended space missions, and sustainable terrestrial crop enhancement. Moreover, the insights gained could reshape crop engineering on Earth, enhancing robustness to climate induced stresses and bolstering global food security. The proposal’s trajectory blends scientific curiosity with practical applicability, forging a path towards sustainable food production and improving human exploration beyond our planet.

GL4HS↗