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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 73 records · Page 4

Low-Power Multi-Aspect Space Radiation Detector System

The advanced space radiation detector development team at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has the goal of developing unique, more compact radiation detectors that provide improved real-time data on space radiation. The team has performed studies of different detector designs using a variety of combinations of solid-state detectors, which allow higher sensitivity to radiation in a smaller package and operate at lower voltage than traditional detectors. Integration of all of these detector technologies will result in an improved detector system in comparison to existing state-of-the-art (SOA) instruments for the detection and monitoring of the deep space radiation field.

Wrbanek, John D.↗

Advanced Space Radiation Detector Technology Development

The advanced space radiation detector development team at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has the goal of developing unique, more compact radiation detectors that provide improved real-time data on space radiation. The team has performed studies of different detector designs using a variety of combinations of solid-state detectors, which allow higher sensitivity to radiation in a smaller package and operate at lower voltage than traditional detectors. Integration of multiple solid-state detectors will result in an improved detector system in comparison to existing state-of-the-art (SOA) instruments for the detection and monitoring of the space radiation field for deep space and aerospace applications.

Wrbanek, John D.↗

Advanced Space Radiation Detector Technology Development

The advanced space radiation detector development team at the NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has the goal of developing unique, more compact radiation detectors that provide improved real-time data on space radiation. The team has performed studies of different detector designs using a variety of combinations of solid-state detectors, which allow higher sensitivity to radiation in a smaller package and operate at lower voltage than traditional detectors. Integration of multiple solid-state detectors will result in an improved detector system in comparison to existing state-of-the-art instruments for the detection and monitoring of the space radiation field for deep space and aerospace applications.

Wrbanek, John D.↗

Advanced Space Radiation Detector Technology Development

The advanced space radiation detector development team at NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) has the goal of developing unique, more compact radiation detectors that provide improved real-time data on space radiation. The team has performed studies of different detector designs using a variety of combinations of solid-state detectors, which allow higher sensitivity to radiation in a smaller package and operate at lower voltage than traditional detectors. Integration of multiple solid-state detectors will result in an improved detector system in comparison to existing state-of-the-art instruments for the detection and monitoring of the space radiation field for deep space and aerospace applications.

Wrbanek, John D.↗

A systems approach to computer-based training

This paper describes the hardware and software systems approach used in the Automated Recertification Training System (ARTS), a Phase 2 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project for NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC). The goal of this project is to optimize recertification training of technicians who process the Space Shuttle before launch by providing computer-based training courseware. The objectives of ARTS are to implement more effective CBT applications identified through a need assessment process and to provide an ehanced courseware production system. The system's capabilities are demonstrated by using five different pilot applications to convert existing classroom courses into interactive courseware. When the system is fully implemented at NASA/KSC, trainee job performance will improve and the cost of courseware development will be lower. Commercialization of the technology developed as part of this SBIR project is planned for Phase 3. Anticipated spin-off products include custom courseware for technical skills training and courseware production software for use by corporate training organizations of aerospace and other industrial companies.

Drape, Gaylen W.↗

Automatic Radiated Susceptibility Test System for Payload Equipment

An automatic radiated susceptibility test system (ARSTS) was developed for NASA Lewis Research Center's Electro-magnetic Interference laboratory. According to MSFC-SPEC 521B, any electrical or electronic equipment that will be transported by the spacelab and space shuttle must be tested for susceptibility to electromagnetic interference. This state-of-the-art automatic test system performs necessary calculations; analyzes, processes, and records a great quantity of measured data; and monitors the equipment being tested in real-time and with minimal user intervention. ARSTS reduces costly test time, increases test accuracy, and provides reliable test results.

Ngo, Hoai T.↗

Development and Testing of an Ultracapacitor Based Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) System

The NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) initiated the development and testing of an ultracapacitor based uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system as a means to provide backup power for the many critical NASA applications. A UPS system typically utilizes batteries for energy storage. The battery is the most vulnerable part of the UPS system, requiring regular maintenance and replacement. Battery performance is also extremely temperature dependent. Ultracapacitors are ideal for UPS systems where long life, maintenance free operation, and excellent low temperature performance is essential. State of the art symmetric ultracapacitors were used for these tests. The ultracapacitors were interconnected in an innovative configuration to minimize interconnection impedance, and to provide voltage balancing. Ultracapacitors can be charged extremely rapidly and supply high current, which are essential characteristics for an effective UPS system. Charging ultracapacitors is significantly less complex than charging batteries since there is no chemical reaction occurring while charging ultracapacitors. The report concludes that the implementation of symmetric ultracapacitors in a UPS system can provide significant improvements in power system performance and reliability.

Eichenberg, Dennis J.↗

The Earth Observing System (EOS) Ground System: Leveraging an Existing Operational Ground System Infrastructure to Support New Missions

The Earth Observer System (EOS) was officially established in 1990 and went operational in December 1999 with the launch of its flagship spacecraft Terra. Aqua followed in 2002 and Aura in 2004. All three spacecraft are still operational and producing valuable scientific data. While all are beyond their original design lifetime, they are expected to remain viable well into the 2020s. The EOS Ground System is a multi-mission system based at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center that supports science and spacecraft operations for these three missions. Over its operational lifetime to date, the EOS Ground System has evolved as needed to accommodate mission requirements. With an eye towards the future, several updates are currently being deployed. Subsystem interconnects are being upgraded to reduce data latency and improve system performance. End-of-life hardware and operating systems are being replaced to mitigate security concerns and eliminate vendor support gaps. Subsystem hardware is being consolidated through the migration to Virtual Machine based platforms. While mission operations autonomy was not a design goal of the original system concept, there is an active effort to apply state-of-the-art products from the Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) to facilitate automation where possible within the existing heritage architecture. This presentation will provide background information on the EOS ground system architecture and evolution, discuss latest improvements, and conclude with the results of a recent effort that investigated how the current system could accommodate a proposed new earth science mission.

Earth Science Mission Operations (ESMO)↗

NASA Propulsion Sub-System Concept Studies and Risk Reduction Activities for Resource Prospector Lander

NASA's exploration roadmap is focused on developing technologies and performing precursor missions to advance the state of the art for eventual human missions to Mars. One of the key components of this roadmap is various robotic missions to Near-Earth Objects, the Moon, and Mars to fill in some of the strategic knowledge gaps. The Resource Prospector (RP) project is one of these robotic precursor activities in the roadmap. RP is a multi-center and multi-institution project to investigate the polar regions of the Moon in search of volatiles. The mission is rated Class D and is approximately 10 days, assuming a five day direct Earth to Moon transfer. Because of the mission cost constraint, a trade study of the propulsion concepts was conducted with a focus on available low-cost hardware for reducing cost in development, while technical risk, system mass, and technology advancement requirements were also taken into consideration. The propulsion system for the lander is composed of a braking stage providing a high thrust to match the lander's velocity with the lunar surface and a lander stage performing the final lunar descent. For the braking stage, liquid oxygen (LOX) and liquid methane (LCH4) propulsion systems, derived from the Morpheus experimental lander, and storable bi-propellant systems, including the 4th stage Peacekeeper (PK) propulsion components and Space Shuttle orbital maneuvering engine (OME), and a solid motor were considered for the study. For the lander stage, the trade study included miniaturized Divert Attitude Control System (DACS) thrusters (Missile Defense Agency (MDA) heritage), their enhanced thruster versions, ISE-100 and ISE-5, and commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware. The lowest cost configuration of using the solid motor and the PK components while meeting the requirements was selected. The reference concept of the lander is shown in Figure 1. In the current reference configuration, the solid stage is the primary provider of delta-V. It will generate 15,000-lbf of thrust with a single burn of ~ 80's seconds. The lander stage is a bi-propellant, pressure-regulated, pulsing liquid propulsion system to perform all other functions.

Trinh, Huu P.↗

Description of an experimental expert system flight status monitor

This paper describes an experimental version of an expert system flight status monitor being developed at the Dryden Flight Research Facility of the NASA Ames Research Center. This experimental expert system flight status monitor (ESSFSM) is supported by a specialized knowledge acquisition tool that provides the user with a powerful and easy-to-use documentation and rule construction tool. The EESFSM is designed to be a testbed for concepts in rules, inference mechanisms, and knowledge structures to be used in a real-time expert system flight status monitor that will monitor the health and status of the flight control system of state-of-the-art, high-performance, research aircraft.

Duke, E. L.↗

Carrier Plus: A sensor payload for Living With a Star Space Environment Testbed (LWS/SET)

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTR4) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center are collaborating to develop the Carrier Plus sensor experiment platform as a capability of the Space Environments Testbed (SET). The Space Environment Testbed (SET) provides flight opportunities for technology experiments as part of NASA's Living With a Star (LWS) program. The Carrier Plus will provide new capability to characterize sensor technologies such as state-of-the-art visible focal plane arrays (FPAs) in a natural space radiation environment. The technical objectives include on-orbit validation of recently developed FPA technologies and performance prediction methodologies, as well as characterization of the FPA radiation response to total ionizing dose damage, displacement damage and transients. It is expected that the sensor experiment will carry 4-6 FPAs and associated radiation correlative environment monitors (CEMs) for a 2006-2007 launch. Sensor technology candidates may include n- and p-charge coupled devices (CCDs), active pixel sensors (APS), and hybrid CMOS arrays. The presentation will describe the Carrier Plus goals and objectives, as well as provide details about the architecture and design. More information on the LWS program can be found at http://lws.gsfc.nasa.gov/. Business announcements for LWS/SET and program briefings are posted at http://lws-set.gsfc.nasa.gov

Marshall, Cheryl J.↗

Probabilistic Cloud Optimized Day-Ahead Forecasting System Based on WRF-Solar (Final Report)

The most persistent challenge in both intraday and day-ahead solar forecasting is to get numerical weather prediction models to produce the right type of clouds with the right frequency at the right time and place. Another challenge is to understand and communicate the forecast uncertainty. The objective of this project was to develop an optimized ensemble-based solar irradiance forecasting system that will (1) demonstrably improve the current state-of-the-art solar forecasts from the deterministic Weather Research and Forecasting-Solar (WRF-Solar) model and (2) provide probabilistic forecasts for grid operations. This probabilistic solar forecasting system, referred to as the WRF-Solar Ensemble Prediction System (WRF-Solar EPS), aims to significantly enhance both the intraday and the day-ahead solar forecasting capability for grid operations. This technical report summarizes the work performed in the past 3 years through a collaboration between the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the National Center for Atmospheric Research as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Forecasting 2 program that aims to improve the accuracy of solar energy forecasts and enable increased deployment of solar energy on the electric grid.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

Aircraft Turbine Engine Control Research at NASA Glenn Research Center

This lecture will provide an overview of the aircraft turbine engine control research at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Glenn Research Center (GRC). A brief introduction to the engine control problem is first provided with a description of the current state-of-the-art control law structure. A historical aspect of engine control development since the 1940s is then provided with a special emphasis on the contributions of GRC. The traditional engine control problem has been to provide a means to safely transition the engine from one steady-state operating point to another based on the pilot throttle inputs. With the increased emphasis on aircraft safety, enhanced performance and affordability, and the need to reduce the environmental impact of aircraft, there are many new challenges being faced by the designers of aircraft propulsion systems. The Controls and Dynamics Branch (CDB) at GRC is leading and participating in various projects in partnership with other organizations within GRC and across NASA, other government agencies, the U.S. aerospace industry, and academia to develop advanced propulsion controls and diagnostics technologies that will help meet the challenging goals of NASA programs under the Aeronautics Research Mission. The second part of the lecture provides an overview of the various CDB technology development activities in aircraft engine control and diagnostics, both current and some accomplished in the recent past. The motivation for each of the research efforts, the research approach, technical challenges and the key progress to date are summarized. The technologies to be discussed include system level engine control concepts, gas path diagnostics, active component control, and distributed engine control architecture. The lecture will end with a futuristic perspective of how the various current technology developments will lead to an Intelligent and Autonomous Propulsion System requiring none to very minimum pilot interface, interfacing directly with the flight management system to determine its mode of operation, and providing personalized engine control to optimize its performance given the current condition and mission objectives.

Propulsion↗

Air Breathing Propulsion Controls and Diagnostics Research at NASA Glenn Under NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Programs

This lecture will provide an overview of the aircraft turbine engine control research at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Glenn Research Center (GRC). A brief introduction to the engine control problem is first provided with a description of the current state-of-the-art control law structure. A historical aspect of engine control development since the 1940s is then provided with a special emphasis on the contributions of GRC. The traditional engine control problem has been to provide a means to safely transition the engine from one steady-state operating point to another based on the pilot throttle inputs. With the increased emphasis on aircraft safety, enhanced performance and affordability, and the need to reduce the environmental impact of aircraft, there are many new challenges being faced by the designers of aircraft propulsion systems. The Controls and Dynamics Branch (CDB) at GRC is leading and participating in various projects in partnership with other organizations within GRC and across NASA, other government agencies, the U.S. aerospace industry, and academia to develop advanced propulsion controls and diagnostics technologies that will help meet the challenging goals of NASA programs under the Aeronautics Research Mission. The second part of the lecture provides an overview of the various CDB technology development activities in aircraft engine control and diagnostics, both current and some accomplished in the recent past. The motivation for each of the research efforts, the research approach, technical challenges and the key progress to date are summarized. The technologies to be discussed include system level engine control concepts, gas path diagnostics, active component control, and distributed engine control architecture. The lecture will end with a futuristic perspective of how the various current technology developments will lead to an Intelligent and Autonomous Propulsion System requiring none to very minimum pilot interface, interfacing directly with the flight management system to determine its mode of operation, and providing personalized engine control to optimize its performance given the current condition and mission objectives.

Engine Control↗

Coulomb sum rule for 4 He and 16 O from coupled-cluster theory

We demonstrate the capability of coupled-cluster theory to compute the Coulomb sum rule for the 4 He and 16 O nuclei using interactions from chiral effective field theory. We perform several checks, including a few-body benchmark for 4He. We provide an analysis of the center-of-mass contaminations, which we are able to safely remove. We then compare with other theoretical results and experimental data available in the literature, obtaining a fair agreement. This is a first and necessary step towards initiating a program for computing neutrino-nucleus interactions from first principles in coupled-cluster theory and supporting the experimental long-baseline neutrino program with a state-of-the-art theory that can reach medium-mass nuclei.

6 ≤ A ≤ 19A ≤ 5↗

An Overview of the NASA Aviation Safety Program (AVSP) Systemwide Accident Prevention (SWAP) Human Performance Modeling (HPM) Element

An overview is provided of the Human Performance Modeling (HPM) element within the NASA Aviation Safety Program (AvSP). Two separate model development tracks for performance modeling of real-world aviation environments are described: the first focuses on the advancement of cognitive modeling tools for system design, while the second centers on a prescriptive engineering model of activity tracking for error detection and analysis. A progressive implementation strategy for both tracks is discussed in which increasingly more complex, safety-relevant applications are undertaken to extend the state-of-the-art, as well as to reveal potential human-system vulnerabilities in the aviation domain. Of particular interest is the ability to predict the precursors to error and to assess potential mitigation strategies associated with the operational use of future flight deck technologies.

Foyle, David C.↗

Distributed earth model/orbiter simulation

Distributed Earth Model/Orbiter Simulation (DEMOS) is a network based application developed for the UNIX environment that visually monitors or simulates the Earth and any number of orbiting vehicles. Its purpose is to provide Mission Control Center (MCC) flight controllers with a visually accurate three dimensional (3D) model of the Earth, Sun, Moon and orbiters, driven by real time or simulated data. The project incorporates a graphical user interface, 3D modelling employing state-of-the art hardware, and simulation of orbital mechanics in a networked/distributed environment. The user interface is based on the X Window System and the X Ray toolbox. The 3D modelling utilizes the Programmer's Hierarchical Interactive Graphics System (PHIGS) standard and Raster Technologies hardware for rendering/display performance. The simulation of orbiting vehicles uses two methods of vector propagation implemented with standard UNIX/C for portability. Each part is a distinct process that can run on separate nodes of a network, exploiting each node's unique hardware capabilities. The client/server communication architecture of the application can be reused for a variety of distributed applications.

Geisler, Erik↗

Performance of a Regenerative Fuel Cell System for the Lunar Surface

Regenerative fuel cells (RFCs) are an attractive energy storage solution for lunar missions as a technology capable of providing a higher specific energy (i.e., W∙h/kg) than state-of-the-art packaged Li-ion battery systems. An RFC consists of the (1 & 2) electrochemical stacks (chemical to electrical energy conversion to supply electricity to an external load, i.e. the fuel cell reaction, and electrical to chemical energy conversion of supplied electrical power to dissociate water into hydrogen and oxygen gases, i.e. water electrolysis), (3) fluidic conditioning, (4) reactant storage, (5) avionics, (6) power management and distribution (PMAD), and (7) thermal management. NASA’s Glenn Research Center has designed, assembled, and tested a breadboard RFC sys-tem capable of operating autonomously for multiple simulated lunar day/night cycles in a laboratory environment. The system is comprised of a non-flow through proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell stack and a liquid-anode feed PEM electrolyzer (EZ) stack designed to electrochemically compress the reactants at balanced pressures up to 12.4 MPa (1800 psia). The fluidic conditioning, avionics, PMAD, and thermal management sub-systems are largely comprised of commercial-off-the-shelf components for this system-level development effort. The hardware is controlled by a CubeSat space processor running an operational program based on core flight architecture that can control the RFC hardware autonomously through a state machine with fault monitoring. The testing results highlighted here were completed with the system in an open-loop configuration such that reactants generated through water electrolysis were vented while gas cylinders supplied fuel cell operation. The breadboard operated autonomously, but there were five unplanned transitions to a safe state that required a manual restart after reviewing the data, determining a root cause, and implementing a solution. Four of the transitions were caused by the thermal management subsystem and the fifth was caused by a water management control issue in the EZ sub-system. The RFC system operated for over 550 hours with the final cycle being slightly abbreviated due to reasons unrelated to system performance.

Kerrigan Cain↗