Results for “Artemis program” — Page 4

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Establishing Trust in NASA’s Artemis Campaign Computer-Human Interface (CHI) Implementation

The NASA Artemis program will return humans to the Moon. This time, with the help of commercial and international partners, the program's objective is a permanent moon base. The moon base infrastructure, including an orbiting moon station and moon surface assets, will be developed for astronauts to stay for the long haul to learn to live and work on another planet in preparation for an eventual Humans-to-Mars mission. As the roundtrip communication delays increase in deep space exploration, the crew will need more onboard systems autonomy and functionality to maintain and control the vehicle or habitat. These mission constraints will change the current Earth-based spacecraft to ground control support approach that will demand more safe, efficient, and effective Computer-Human Interface (CHI) control. For Artemis, CHI is defined as the elements that the crew interfaces with: audio, video, lighting, and crew controls subsystems. Understanding how CHI will need to evolve to support deep space missions will be critical for the Artemis program--especially crew controls, which is the focus of this paper. How does NASA ensure crew controls are reliable enough to control complex systems and prevent a catastrophic event due to human error--especially when the astronauts could be physiologically and/or psychologically impaired? NASA's approach to mitigating catastrophic hazards in human spaceflight system development such as crew controls, is through a holistic system engineering and Human System Integration methodology that focuses on incorporating NASA's Human-Rating Requirements-that ensures human performance characteristics to control/safely recover the crew from hazardous situations within the human interface design are considered. This paper discusses, at a high level, CHI for the Artemis program. Next, a discussion of what it means to human-rate a space system crew controls and how trust in the human-computer interface begins with the NASA human rating requirements. Finally, a discussion on how systems engineering and the human system integration process ensures that crew control implementation incorporates the NASA human-rating requirements.

artemis↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Establishing Trust in NASA’s Artemis Campaign Computer-Human Interface (CHI) Implementation

The NASA Artemis program will return humans to the Moon. This time, with the help of commercial and international partners, the program's objective is a permanent moon base. The moon base infrastructure, including an orbiting moon station and moon surface assets, will be developed for astronauts to stay for the long haul to learn to live and work on another planet in preparation for an eventual Humans-to-Mars mission. As the roundtrip communication delays increase in deep space exploration, the crew will need more onboard systems autonomy and functionality to maintain and control the vehicle or habitat. These mission constraints will change the current Earth-based spacecraft to ground control support approach that will demand more safe, efficient, and effective Computer-Human Interface (CHI) control. For Artemis, CHI is defined as the elements that the crew interfaces with: audio, video, lighting, and crew controls subsystems. Understanding how CHI will need to evolve to support deep space missions will be critical for the Artemis program--especially crew controls, which is the focus of this paper. How does NASA ensure crew controls are reliable enough to control complex systems and prevent a catastrophic event due to human error--especially when the astronauts could be physiologically and/or psychologically impaired? NASA's approach to mitigating catastrophic hazards in human spaceflight system development such as crew controls, is through a holistic system engineering and Human System Integration methodology that focuses on incorporating NASA's Human-Rating Requirements-that ensures human performance characteristics to control/safely recover the crew from hazardous situations within the human interface design are considered. This paper discusses, at a high level, CHI for the Artemis program. Next, a discussion of what it means to human-rate a space system crew controls and how trust in the human-computer interface begins with the NASA human rating requirements. Finally, a discussion on how systems engineering and the human system integration process ensures that crew control implementation incorporates the NASA human-rating requirements.

artemis↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Artemis I: Test Flight Buys Down Risk for Humanity's Return to the Moon

The Artemis program successfully demonstrated its foundational deep space human transportation system during the Artemis I test flight in late 2022. This bold mission put the Artemis program on a course to accomplish increasingly complex missions to return humans to the Moon and to prepare for Mars and other destinations. The Artemis I uncrewed mission tested the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft using the ground processing, launch and recovery services provided by the Exploration Ground Systems (EGS) program at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The Artemis team accomplished key mission priorities that deliberately bought down risk for upcoming crewed missions as part of a build-up flight test strategy. The Artemis I mission priorities were 1) demonstrate Orion heatshield at lunar re-entry conditions; 2) operate systems in flight environment; and 3) retrieve the spacecraft. The successful performance and demonstration of these primary mission objectives from lift-off thru orbital insertion, translunar injection, outbound transit towards the Moon, entry into lunar orbit, coast in the lunar Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO), exit from lunar orbit, transit back to Earth, atmospheric re-entry, descent, splashdown and recovery successfully showed that NASA has a foundational deep space transportation capability in place for human class missions. In addition to the primary mission objectives, a set of scientific payloads, approved Flight Test Objectives (FTOs) and Development Flight Test Objectives (DFTOs) were incorporated into the nominal mission plan and were designated as secondary, or priority 4, and were considered “bonus objectives” in terms of crewed flight risk buydown. During the mission, the team found itself in a position where it was comfortable achieving even more content than originally planned. As a result, DFTOs were added during the mission to further buy down risk to later crewed test flights. This paper presents an overview of the Artemis I test flight, including mission priorities and key test objectives, the launch campaign and as-flown mission profile, test objectives accomplished over the course of the 25.5- day mission, and implications to the crewed Artemis II and later test flight missions.

Artemis↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Preliminary Medical Risk Estimates and Clinical Capability Needs for Artemis IV

BACKGROUND Human exploration spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars present unprecedented challenges for in- mission medical care. Compared with the ISS, the greater distance from Earth will mean increased mission durations, communication delays, limited to no resupply opportunities, and significant limitations on the evacuation of ill or injured crew. Spacecraft mass, volume, and power will be curtailed while higher demands will be placed on the crew’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. In this higher risk environment, it is important to: a) quantitatively estimate human system risk attributable to medical conditions, a process known as Probabilistic Risk Analysis, and b) use these estimates to inform medical system design. IMPACT (Informing Mission Planning via Analysis of Complex Tradespaces) is a PRA and medical trade space analysis tool developed by NASA to advance exploration mission medical system design. IMPACT v1.0 improves upon and will soon replace NASA’s existing tool, the Integrated Medical Model, with: a novel evidence base baselined to exploration environments; an expanded list of 119 medical conditions; a significant increase in the number of medical resources that can be utilized and in the flexibility of their use; and the modelling of time lost performing mission-specific tasks due to medical conditions. METHODOLOGY: This abstract will present IMPACT estimates of medical system risk and clinical capability needs for the Artemis IV mission. Artemis IV is currently scheduled for 2026 and will visit the Gateway space station in lunar orbit prior to the second lunar landing of the Artemis program. The baseline Artemis IV mission that was modeled was 28 days in duration with phases including Orion outbound, 4 days on the Gateway space station in lunar orbit, 2 crew on the surface of the Moon for approximately one week, an additional 5 days on Gateway, and then return to Earth. This baseline was compared to two alternative 34-day design reference missions (DRMs) that shifted the lunar sortie earlier or later in the mission profile. Assumptions included 2 female and 2 male crew and a notional medical system mass of 25 kg. Medical system risk estimates include loss of crew life (LOCL), consideration of medical evacuation (known as return to definitive care – RTDC), and an estimate of crew time lost due to medical conditions (Task Time Lost – TTL). The presentation will also describe the medical conditions that are the greatest drivers of risk as well as the clinical capabilities and resources that have the largest effect on risk. RESULTS: All three DRMs had very low probability of LOCL from medical conditions, primarily due to short duration. RTDC was also similar across the DRMs. In contrast, TTL was higher in the early lunar sortie DRM due to earlier occurrence of EVA-related medical conditions. Taken as a whole, there was no clinically significant difference in medical risk across the three missions. Results for clinical capabilities and an example medical equipment list will be discussed but were similar across DRMs.

D Hilmers↗

NASA NTRS2024

Preliminary Medical Risk Estimates and Clinical Capability Needs for Late Artemis Missions

BACKGROUND Human exploration spaceflight missions to the Moon and Mars present unprecedented challenges for in- mission medical care. Compared with the ISS, the greater distance from Earth will mean increased mission durations, communication delays, limited to no resupply opportunities, and significant limitations on the evacuation of ill or injured crew. Spacecraft mass, volume, and power will be curtailed while higher demands will be placed on the crew’s knowledge, skills, and abilities. In this higher risk environment, it is important to: a) quantitatively estimate human system risk attributable to medical conditions, a process known as Probabilistic Risk Analysis, and b) use these estimates to inform medical system design. IMPACT (Informing Mission Planning via Analysis of Complex Tradespaces) is a PRA and medical trade space analysis tool developed by NASA to advance exploration mission medical system design. IMPACT v1.0 improves upon and will soon replace NASA’s existing tool, the Integrated Medical Model, with: a novel evidence base baselined to exploration environments; an expanded list of 119 medical conditions; a significant increase in the number of medical resources that can be utilized and in the flexibility of their use; and the modelling of time lost performing mission-specific tasks due to medical conditions. METHODOLOGY: This abstract will present IMPACT estimates of medical system risk and clinical capability needs for the Artemis IV mission. Artemis IV is currently scheduled for 2026 and will visit the Gateway space station in lunar orbit prior to the second lunar landing of the Artemis program. The baseline Artemis IV mission that was modeled was 28 days in duration with phases including Orion outbound, 4 days on the Gateway space station in lunar orbit, 2 crew on the surface of the Moon for approximately one week, an additional 5 days on Gateway, and then return to Earth. This baseline was compared to two alternative 34-day design reference missions (DRMs) that shifted the lunar sortie earlier or later in the mission profile. Assumptions included 2 female and 2 male crew and a notional medical system mass of 25 kg. Medical system risk estimates include loss of crew life (LOCL), consideration of medical evacuation (known as return to definitive care – RTDC), and an estimate of crew time lost due to medical conditions (Task Time Lost – TTL). The presentation will also describe the medical conditions that are the greatest drivers of risk as well as the clinical capabilities and resources that have the largest effect on risk. RESULTS: All three DRMs had very low probability of LOCL from medical conditions, primarily due to short duration. RTDC was also similar across the DRMs. In contrast, TTL was higher in the early lunar sortie DRM due to earlier occurrence of EVA-related medical conditions. Taken as a whole, there was no clinically significant difference in medical risk across the three missions. Results for clinical capabilities and an example medical equipment list will be discussed but were similar across DRMs.

D. Hilmers↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES)

After an almost 50-year absence, NASA along with a group of international and commercial partners will return humans to the surface of the Moon as part of the Artemis program. As with the preceding Apollo program, modeling and simulation (M&S) will be an enabling technology for achieving the Artemis mission objectives. Fortunately, M&S has advanced considerably in the past half century, permitting much more detailed and encompassing integrated representations of the Artemis systems. One modeling area of critical importance to simulating the Artemis elements and mission activities is the accurate and efficient modeling of the operational lunar environment. This is particularly challenging since the Artemis program is considering exploration sites in the area of the Lunar South Pole (LSP), far away from any previous surface exploration sites. Fortunately, we now have considerably more and better data from recent lunar sensing missions. A planetary science team and a human exploration simulation team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center are developing a suite of products called the Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES). DLES is intended to provide some of the necessary lunar environmental data products. This paper describes the fundamental need for DLES, the science data sets that are going into DLES, some of the processes used to integrate this data into DLES products, the basic products that constitute DLES, and some examples of DLES in use.

DLES↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES)

After an almost 50-year absence, NASA along with a group of international and commercial partners will return humans to the surface of the Moon as part of the Artemis program. As with the preceding Apollo program, modeling and simulation (M&S) will be an enabling technology for achieving the Artemis mission objectives. Fortunately, M&S has advanced considerably in the past half century, permitting much more detailed and encompassing integrated representations of the Artemis systems. One modeling area of critical importance to simulating the Artemis elements and mission activities is the accurate and efficient modeling of the operational lunar environment. This is particularly challenging since the Artemis program is considering exploration sites in the area of the Lunar South Pole (LSP), far away from any previous surface exploration sites. Fortunately, we now have considerably more and better data from recent lunar sensing missions. A planetary science team and a human exploration simulation team at NASA’s Johnson Space Center are developing a suite of products called the Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES). DLES is intended to provide some of the necessary lunar environmental data products. This paper describes the fundamental need for DLES, the science data sets that are going into DLES, some of the processes used to integrate this data into DLES products, the basic products that constitute DLES, and some examples of DLES in use.

DLES↗

NASA NTRS2024

A Distributed Simulation Framework Applied to Artemis Analysis, Studies, Integration, and Test

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) established the Artemis Program, a series of missions to return humans to the Moon and explore further than before. To execute the Artemis missions, NASA is collaborating with commercial and international partners to create the necessary infrastructure and logistics plan that will establish a long term presence on the Moon ahead of exploring Mars. NASA and its partners are developing a collection of space and surface systems to support crewed missions to the lunar surface that will provide the mobility, habitation, logistics, and exploration support necessary for Artemis mission successes which includes robust scientific investigations. This paper details the design, capabilities, and uses of the Artemis Distributed Simulation (ADS) being developed by the NASA Exploration Systems Simulations (NExSyS) Team to support Artemis architecture studies. ADS utilizes international interoperability standards to connect a collection of independent vehicle and service simulations; these include but are not limited to elements such as rovers, landers, and habitation elements along with services like communications, environment, visualization, and data logging. ADS’s distributed nature allows for the complex aggregation of constituent Artemis elements; this includes efficient scenario modification with the addition or removal of individual simulations representing Artemis elements or services. This capability provides support for the rapid performance of various Artemis mission trade studies exploring alternate configurations. Currently, ADS uses NASA developed simulations for development and testing; however, through the use of international simulation interoperability standards, ADS provides an integration framework to incorporate dissimilar authoritative vendor simulations as Artemis systems mature and vendor simulations become available. Vendor simulations will be able to join ADS and interact with other Artemis elements and vehicles while limiting the exposure of proprietary data. This paper describes the expansion of an existing distributed simulation infrastructure to accommodate a collaborative and dynamic framework for the Artemis Program. This work includes updated federation designs, integration into existing NASA facilities, advancements in visualizations, and advancements in human driven inputs. This paper will also outline recently completed and ongoing support and collaboration with NASA studies and testing, namely results from energetics and Human-In-The-Loop (HITL) studies. The paper concludes with a plan for future developments and facility integration to enable enhanced studies in preparation for a return of humans to the lunar surface.

Artemis↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES)

It has been almost 50 years since humans last set foot on the Moon. With NASA’s Artemis program, the United States and its international and commercial partners are embarking on a new endeavor to explore the lunar surface. Before we return, we will have simulated every aspect of these future missions. Many of these models and simulations (M&S) will rely on well-known and commonly-used technologies, some of which trace their origins back to the Apollo program. However, M&S has advanced significantly, as have the underlying computational capabilities. As a result, we are able to model many more aspects of the Artemis vehicles and support systems with significantly improved detail and confidence. Accurately and efficiently modeling the lunar environment will be critical to simulating the Artemis elements and mission activities. This includes characterizing and modeling lunar topography, smaller craters, exposed surface rocks, lunar regolith, surface lighting, and ambient thermal environment. These are all necessary for understanding fundamental behaviors and performance of vehicles and support systems in the lunar environment and are often determining factors in the selection of exploration sites and defining mission profiles. The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Sciences (ARES) team in the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the NASA Exploration Systems Simulations (NExSyS) team in the Simulation and Graphics Branch at JSC are developing and maintaining the Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES) data, documentation, and software packages. This data is being fed directly into a diverse collection of graphics and simulation environments, where it is used to construct the closest known truth for numerous potential Lunar South Pole landing sites. DLES is available to projects across NASA and particularly the Artemis program to support coordinated digital representations of the lunar environment. This paper describes the fundamental need for DLES, the science data sets that are going into DLES, some of the processes used to integrate this data into DLES products, the basic products that constitute DLES, and some examples of DLES in use.

Lunar↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Volcanic Field Sites for Artemis Testing and Training

The Artemis Program will reestablish human presence on the Moon and lead to a new era of scientific discovery and exploration. Led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Artemis Program is a collaboration of space agencies and companies around the world. An integrated effort between various disciplines of science, engineering, and mission operations is currently developing methods, facilities, and analog field locations to train astronauts and test hardware and concepts of operations. These efforts aim to best prepare for the next steps of human exploration on the lunar surface and beyond. Numerous terrestrial volcanic field sites were evaluated and selected for their unique roles in helping to prepare for the lunar surface mission phases. This effort heavily leveraged the comprehensive academic research conducted at these field sites, as well as the tremendous Apollo heritage. The currently selected volcanic field sites include the San Francisco Volcanic Field in Northern Arizona, the Potrillo Volcanic Field in southern New Mexico, the highlands of Iceland, and the Southwestern Nevada Volcanic Field. Within each of these volcanic field sites numerous specific testing and training locations are being further developed utilizing the analogous terrain and unique features in these regions. Recent Artemis testing and training events have been conducted at a number of these volcanic field sites by both a dedicated Artemis Geology Training Team and a Joint Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) Testing Team. This presentation will highlight the selected sites as well as the objectives and accomplishments of some of the recent field-testing events and training courses. Additionally, we continually strive to pursue additional sites, locations, data sets, collaborations, and partnerships in this endeavor and welcome knowledge transfer and community input.

Trevor Graff↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Surface Systems and Interface Standardization

Space exploration on planetary surfaces will require the use of various surface systems which will likely need to interface with one another. These systems must communicate and share data, as well as distribute power and transfer fluids for sustainable surface operations. Such systems can range from landers, surface habitats, mobility systems, cargo, and In-Situ Resource Utilizations (ISRUs). Previous and current programs have developed space interoperability standards that help aid in reducing potential risks of interface integration. One example of this is the International Deep Space Interoperability Standards (IDSIS) which focuses on deep space exploration. A goal of the Artemis program is to develop a sustained human presence on the lunar surface that would be a training ground for future Mars exploration. Therefore, it will be beneficial to identify interface standards between the surface assets which will help mitigate risk and reduce complexity in the harsh environments of space exploration. A key contribution to sustainability is commonality between hardware and software interfaces. Generic interfaces for data, power, and fluids will reduce risk, promote interoperability, and define standard interfaces across surface exploration projects and programs. Standardized interfaces would be advantageous for improving efficiency and reducing overall complexity, which are critical considerations for future space exploration. Furthermore, it will provide cost reductions to the Artemis programs over their life cycle (in Operations & Maintenance (O&M) and Logistics). Unique proprietary interfaces if considered or allowed would not only increase complexity but also add cost to the programs. Of course, understanding what will work and not work effectively in these unique environments such as the lunar surface is important. These unique environments require much needed intelligent design, prototyping, comprehensive testing, and field experience, utilizing consensus on common interface solutions.

Jaime Gomez↗

NASA NTRS2020

Artemis Curation: Preparing for Sample Return from the Lunar South Pole

Space Policy Directive-1 mandates that “the United States will lead the return of humans to the Moon for long-term exploration and utilization, followed by human missions to Mars and other destinations.” In addition, the Vice President stated that “It is the stated policy of this administration and the United States of America to return American astronauts to the Moon within the next five years,” that is, by 2024. These efforts, under the umbrella of the recently formed Artemis Program, include such historic goals as the flight of the first woman to the Moon and the exploration of the lunar south-polar region. Among the top priorities of the Artemis Program is the return of a suite of geologic samples, providing new and significant opportunities for progressing lunar science and human exploration. In particular, successful sample return is necessary for understanding the history of volatiles in the Solar System and the evolution of the Earth-Moon system, fully constraining the hazards of the lunar polar environment for astronauts, and providing the necessary data for constraining the abundance and distribution of resources for in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Here we summarize the ef-forts of the Astromaterials Acquisition and Curation Office (hereafter referred to as the Curation Office) to ensure the success of Artemis sample return (per NASA Policy Directive (NPD) 7100.10E).

Mitchell, J. L.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Design Analysis for Lunar Safe Haven Concepts

NASA’s plan to return humans to the lunar surface faces many challenges, especially in the sustained phases of the Artemis program. In combination with a habitat, a Lunar Safe Haven (LSH) would provide additional protection to crew, electronics, and equipment from the hazards of the space environment such as radiation, thermal extremes, micrometeoroids, and lunar dust. Influenced by the NASA Artemis program goals, the Lunar Safe Haven Study defined the high-level requirements, outlined the trade space for a LSH concept, and evaluated a set of concepts using a decision analysis structure. This paper will provide additional detail for two concepts that were designed and evaluated during the LSH study, the logic behind the choices, and some of the main driving design parameters.

lunar↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Analysis of Alternative Architectures for Cargo Lunar Landers

NASA’s Human Landing System (HLS) program has been working with commercial partners to develop human-class lunar landers to return the first American woman and next American man to the lunar surface in the mid 2020’s. In an effort to expand human presence beyond low Earth orbit, NASA’s Artemis program aims to facilitate a sustainable, long-term human presence in cis-lunar space. A component of this will require significant infrastructure to be delivered to the lunar surface. Delivering this infrastructure will require a significant lander capability that has yet to be developed. A thorough understanding of cargo lunar lander architectures is required such that select alternatives can be identified that best support the Artemis program’s objective of sustainability. The goal of this study is to aid NASA and its partners in the understanding of the cargo lunar lander trades space, as well as identify potential robust alternatives. The results will support NASA as it moves forward with key activities such as requirements formulation, agency strategic planning, and potential cargo lunar lander procurements. The study builds off of recent work performed by the Human Landing System program’s Architecture and Systems Analysis group to encompass a broad trade space of cargo lunar lander architecture alternatives. The current trade space as depicted by the morphological matrix and mission graph in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, respectively, includes key alternative options that have become highly relevant due to current HLS activities and include on-orbit refueling, active cryogenic fluid management, Earth orbit aggregation, and global lunar access. The authors believe that there is also a statistically relevant impact of lander-payload configuration on the primary structure of the vehicle that could greatly impact alternative selection. Because of this, several conceptual lander-payload configurations will be evaluated to determine the level of impact. The current set of conceptual configurations are shown in Fig. 3 and Fig. 4. To aid the conceptual evaluation of these configurations, a catalogue of notional payloads has been developed that represent a wide range of masses and volumes that are expected to be delivered in support of a sustained human lunar presence, including pressurized and unpressurized rovers, surface habitats, power systems, and other support infrastructure. In order to execute this study in a timely fashion, a similar approach to that utilized in a similar 2019 study focused on 2024 human lunar sorties will be employed [1]. The team utilized a novel architecture synthesis framework currently being developed by NASA/MSFC to evaluate over 600,000 lunar lander architectures over a two month time frame [2]. From this large data set, varying ground rules and assumptions were applied as filters to explore the trade space to identify alternatives which exhibited robustness, as measured by launch vehicle payload margin, to absorb the natural growth that occurs during design maturation. The set of Earth-Moon system Delta-Vs assumed from the 2019 study, shown in Fig. 5, will be repurposed to accelerate model formulation for this effort. Additionally, current efforts in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Aerospace System Design Lab will be integrated to provide probabilistic modeling of the cargo lunar lander architectures to aid in identifying robust design alternatives [3]. The approach will help minimize potential impacts due to large levels of uncertainty inherent to pre phase-A conceptual design. By leveraging these past and present studies and partnerships, a highly detailed set of data can be generated in a short time period to aid NASA in the coming years to support the goal of a sustained human lunar presence.

Architectures↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Plume Impingement Studies in Space Environments for NASA Deep Space Logistics

NASA’s Artemis program is preparing to return Americans to the moon, in preparation for future deep space missions to Mars and beyond. The Lunar Gateway – a space station to be placed in orbit around the moon – serves as a critical component of the Artemis program, and will be the launchpad for future astronauts to visit the lunar surface and for humanity to learn how to live in a deep space environment. Much like the ISS, during operations and visiting vehicles approaches, the Lunar Gateway structures will be impinged upon from various plume sources: reaction control system rocket engine plumes, wastewater venting plumes, and plasma plumes from electric thrusters for station keeping. This presentation will describe the engineering challenges associated with each of these plume impingement scenarios and will detail the physical models and simulation approaches to predict the thermomechanical loading, contamination accretion, and erosion of station components due to plume impingement in space environments.

computational fluid dynamics↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Plume Impingement Studies in Space Environments for NASA Deep Space Logistics

NASA’s Artemis program is preparing to return Americans to the moon, in preparation for future deep space missions to Mars and beyond. The Lunar Gateway – a space station to be placed in orbit around the moon – serves as a critical component of the Artemis program, and will be the launchpad for future astronauts to visit the lunar surface and for humanity to learn how to live in a deep space environment. Much like the ISS, during operations and visiting vehicles approaches, the Lunar Gateway structures will be impinged upon from various plume sources: reaction control system rocket engine plumes, wastewater venting plumes, and plasma plumes from electric thrusters for station keeping. This presentation will describe the engineering challenges associated with each of these plume impingement scenarios and will detail the physical models and simulation approaches to predict the thermomechanical loading, contamination accretion, and erosion of station components due to plume impingement in space environments.

Plume Impingement↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Artemis Lunar Mission Availability & Design

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Artemis Program is leading international spaceexploration in a return to human lunar missions. The mission design underpinning this program is a critical aspect inthe integration of the multiple vehicles, processes, and capabilities to execute the most demanding human spaceflightmissions to date. Frequently mission design is characterized solely by its trajectory and the associated delta-velocityto achieve the end-to-end mission on a single day of flight. However, in practical terms for spaceflight missions,actual performance must characterize the translation delta-velocity demand, integrated power and thermal, crew dayoperations, commodities limitations, launch vehicle opportunities, and numerous additional factors across numerouslaunch day dependent variables. These factors together provide a unified set of mission design constraints that mustall be met in order to execute a fully integrated mission. The frequency of achieving all of the mission designconstraints is thus characterized as mission availability. The mission availability reflects the number of opportunitiesin any given period (month, year, etc.) for which an end-to-end mission could be launched. Ensuring adequatemission availability for the Artemis Program is necessary to support long term viability and sustainability of humanlunar exploration. This paper will characterize the driving factors in the Artemis mission availability includingvehicle specific effects from the Space Launch System (SLS), Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, Gateway, HumanLanding System (HLS) and other contributing projects. This analysis will also summarize the relevant factors thatfuture vehicles and projects should consider for the integration and expansion of exploration capabilities with theArtemis Program.

Nujoud Fahoum Merancy↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Integration of Advanced Structures and Materials Technologies for a Robust Lunar Habitat

NASA’s Artemis program plans to have a sustainable lunar base deployed on the Moon by 2028. The base calls for a foundation surface habitat that can support a crew of four members for a minimum mission duration of 28-days. The lack of a magnetic field and significant lunar atmosphere extends the lifetime of secondary radiation emitted from metallic structures, which is a health hazard for exposed astronauts. Integration of non-metallic structural materials into surface habitat design may alleviate some of these concerns. Additionally, it is favorable for the structure to be collapsible for transportation to optimize payload volume, mass efficiency, and monetary constraints. As a result, inflatable structures are being investigated due to their improved packing efficiency at launch, optimal mass-to-volume ratio, and large surface area that can efficiently disperse structural loads and heat. Currently, only two inflatable airlocks have been deployed in space. Thus, there is a significant need to advance technologies associated with inflatable structures to provide greater options for future missions, i.e., Artemis and beyond. This study focused on the inflatable lunar habitat applications of emerging NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) technologies and their required development steps to become space qualified. The Bowling Habitat architecture was generated from 13 of these NASA LaRC technologies, five of which were deemed critical, five determined as enhancing technologies, and three were classified as transformational technologies for the Artemis program. To address the payload constraints, the study also considered a tentative timeline that aligned with the current Artemis schedule for transporting the Bowling Habitat to the Moon. Ultimately, the Bowling Habitat mainly addressed the structural needs of an inflatable lunar habitat, meaning that major areas pertaining to the life-style aspects of the habitat must be improved. Areas include, but are not limited to, hard connection points, the monitoring of human health, and extra radiation protection for solar proton events.

Inflatable Habitat↗