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At least 73 records · Page 4

Ionosphere Plasma State Determination in Low Earth Orbit from International Space Station Plasma Monitor

A plasma diagnostic package is deployed on the International Space Station (ISS). The system - a Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU) - is used by NASA to monitor the electrical floating potential of the vehicle to assure astronaut safety during extravehicular activity. However, data from the unit also reflects the ionosphere state and seems to represent an unutilized scientific resource in the form of an archive of scientific plasma state data. The unit comprises a Floating Potential probe and two Langmuir probes. There is also an unused but active plasma impedance probe. The data, at one second cadence, are collected, typically for a two week period surrounding extravehicular activity events. Data is also collected any time a visiting vehicle docks with ISS and also when any large solar events occur. The telemetry system is unusual because the package is mounted on a television camera stanchion and its data is impressed on a video signal that is transmitted to the ground and streamed by internet to two off center laboratory locations. The data quality has in the past been challenged by weaknesses in the integrated ground station and distribution systems. These issues, since mid‐2010, have been largely resolved and the ground stations have been upgraded. Downstream data reduction has been developed using physics based modeling of the electron and ion collecting character in the plasma. Recursive algorithms determine plasma density and temperature from the raw Langmuir probe current voltage sweeps and this is made available in real time for situational awareness. The purpose of this paper is to describe and record the algorithm for data reduction and to show that the Floating probe and Langmuir probes are capable of providing long term plasma state measurement in the ionosphere. Geophysical features such as the Appleton anomaly and high latitude modulation at the edge of the Auroral zones are regularly observed in the nearly circular, 51 deg inclined, 400 km altitude ISS orbit. Evidence of waves in the ion collection current data is seen in geographic zones known to exhibit the spread‐F phenomenon. An anomaly in the current collection characteristic of the cylindrical probe appears also too be organized by the geomagnetic field.

Kramer, Leonard↗

Automated Operations Development for Advanced Exploration Systems

Automated space operations command and control software development and its implementation must be an integral part of the vehicle design effort. The software design must encompass autonomous fault detection, isolation, recovery capabilities and also provide single button intelligent functions for the crew. Development, operations and safety approval experience with the Timeliner system on-board the International Space Station (ISS), which provided autonomous monitoring with response and single command functionality of payload systems, can be built upon for future automated operations as the ISS Payload effort was the first and only autonomous command and control system to be in continuous execution (6 years), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week within a crewed spacecraft environment. Utilizing proven capabilities from the ISS Higher Active Logic (HAL) System [1] , along with the execution component design from within the HAL 9000 Space Operating System [2] , this design paper will detail the initial HAL System software architecture and interfaces as applied to NASA s Habitat Demonstration Unit (HDU) in support of the Advanced Exploration Systems, Autonomous Mission Operations project. The development and implementation of integrated simulators within this development effort will also be detailed and is the first step in verifying the HAL 9000 Integrated Test-Bed Component [2] designs effectiveness. This design paper will conclude with a summary of the current development status and future development goals as it pertains to automated command and control for the HDU.

Haddock, Angie↗

A steerable radiator for spacecraft application

Future large space structures such as the Space Station will have high dissipation and long life requirements which dictate the requirements for steerable radiators. Several rotary coupling concepts were considered to accomplish heat transport across the steerable radiator system's rotating interface. Rotary fluid couplings were chosen over rotary contact couplings or flexible lines because of low temperature gradients and operational flexibility. A rotary fluid coupling has been designed for use on initial operating capability (IOC) and growth Space Station. Its internal seals have been demonstrated to a 10 year life with minimal (0.055 lbm NH3/year) leakage between internal passages. Materials compatibility tests have been conducted to demonstrate compatibility with ammonia. A seal leakage management system has been designed to: (1) monitor pressures between the internal seals, (2) remove leakage, and (3) store the leakage fluid in a reservoir.

Heizer, B. L.↗

Monitoring the Microgravity Environment Quality On-Board the International Space Station Using Soft Computing Techniques

This paper presents an artificial intelligence monitoring system developed by the NASA Glenn Principal Investigator Microgravity Services project to help the principal investigator teams identify the primary vibratory disturbance sources that are active, at any moment in time, on-board the International Space Station, which might impact the microgravity environment their experiments are exposed to. From the Principal Investigator Microgravity Services' web site, the principal investigator teams can monitor via a graphical display, in near real time, which event(s) is/are on, such as crew activities, pumps, fans, centrifuges, compressor, crew exercise, platform structural modes, etc., and decide whether or not to run their experiments based on the acceleration environment associated with a specific event. This monitoring system is focused primarily on detecting the vibratory disturbance sources, but could be used as well to detect some of the transient disturbance sources, depending on the events duration. The system has built-in capability to detect both known and unknown vibratory disturbance sources. Several soft computing techniques such as Kohonen's Self-Organizing Feature Map, Learning Vector Quantization, Back-Propagation Neural Networks, and Fuzzy Logic were used to design the system.

Jules, Kenol↗

ITCS Test Strip Development and Certification

Internal coolant loops used for International Space Station thermal control must be periodically monitored for system health, including pH, biocide levels and any indication of ammonia. The presence of ammonia, possible via a microleak in the interface between the internal and external thermal control systems, could be a danger to the crew. The Internal Thermal Control System (ITCS) Sampling Kit uses test strips as a colorimetric indicator of pH and concentrations of biocide and free ammonia. This paper describes the challenges in designing an ammonia colorimetric indicator in a variable pH environment, as well as lessons learned, ultimately resulting in a robust test strip to indicate a hazardous ammonia leak.

Carrigan, Caitlin↗

NASA Advanced Explorations Systems: 2017 Advancements in Life Support Systems

The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Life Support Systems (LSS) project strives to develop reliable, energy-efficient, and low-mass spacecraft systems to provide environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) critical to enabling long duration human missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Highly reliable, closed-loop life support systems are among the capabilities required for the longer duration human space exploration missions planned in the mid-2020s and beyond. The LSS Project is focused on four are-as-architecture and systems engineering for life support systems, environmental monitoring, air revitalization, and wastewater processing and water management. Starting with the International Space Station (ISS) LSS systems as a point of departure where applicable, the three-fold mission of the LSS Project is to address discrete LSS technology gaps, to improve the reliability of LSS systems, and to advance LSS systems toward integrated testing aboard the ISS. This paper is a follow on to the AES LSS development status reported in 2016 and provides additional details on the progress made since that paper was published with specific attention to the status of the Aerosol Sampler ISS Flight Experiment, the Spacecraft Atmosphere Monitor (SAM) Flight Experiment, the Brine Processor Assembly (BPA) Flight Experiment, the CO2 removal technology development tasks, and the work investigating the impacts of dormancy on LSS systems.

Schneider, Walter F.↗

NASA Advanced Explorations Systems: Advancements in Life Support Systems

The NASA Advanced Exploration Systems (AES) Life Support Systems (LSS) project strives to develop reliable, energy-efficient, and low-mass spacecraft systems to provide environmental control and life support systems (ECLSS) critical to enabling long duration human missions beyond low Earth orbit (LEO). Highly reliable, closed-loop life support systems are among the capabilities required for the longer duration human space exploration missions assessed by NASA's Habitability Architecture Team (HAT). The LSS project is focused on four areas: architecture and systems engineering for life support systems, environmental monitoring, air revitalization, and wastewater processing and water management. Starting with the international space station (ISS) LSS systems as a point of departure (where applicable), the mission of the LSS project is three-fold: 1. Address discrete LSS technology gaps 2. Improve the reliability of LSS systems 3. Advance LSS systems towards integrated testing on the ISS. This paper summarized the work being done in the four areas listed above to meet these objectives. Details will be given on the following focus areas: Systems Engineering and Architecture- With so many complex systems comprising life support in space, it is important to understand the overall system requirements to define life support system architectures for different space mission classes, ensure that all the components integrate well together and verify that testing is as representative of destination environments as possible. Environmental Monitoring- In an enclosed spacecraft that is constantly operating complex machinery for its own basic functionality as well as science experiments and technology demonstrations, it's possible for the environment to become compromised. While current environmental monitors aboard the ISS will alert crew members and mission control if there is an emergency, long-duration environmental monitoring cannot be done in-orbit as current methodologies rely largely on sending environmental samples back to Earth. The LSS project is developing onboard analysis capabilities that will replace the need to return air and water samples from space for ground analysis. Air Revitalization- The air revitalization task is comprised of work in carbon dioxide removal, oxygen generation and recovery and trace contamination and particulate control. The CO2 Removal and associated air drying development efforts under the LSS project are focused both on improving the current SOA technology on the ISS and assessing and examining the viability of other sorbents and technologies available in academia and industry. The Oxygen Generation and Recovery technology development area encompasses several sub-tasks in an effort to supply O2 to the crew at the required conditions, to recover O2 from metabolic CO2, and to recycle recovered O2 back to the cabin environment. Current state-of-the-art oxygen generation systems aboard space station are capable of generating or recovering approximately 40% of required oxygen; for exploration missions this percentage needs to be greatly increased. A spacecraft cabin trace contaminant and particulate control system serves to keep the environment below the spacecraft maximum allowable concentration (SMAC) for chemicals and particulates. Both passive (filters) and active (scrubbers) methods contribute to the overall TC & PC design. Work in the area of trace contamination and particulate control under the LSS project is focused on making improvements to the SOA TC & PC systems on ISS to improve performance and reduce consumables. Wastewater Processing and Water Management- A major goal of the LSS project is the development of water recovery systems to support long duration human exploration beyond LEO. Current space station wastewater processing and water management systems distill urine and wastewater to recover water from urine and humidity condensate in the spacecraft at a approximately 74% recovery rate. For longer, farther missions into deep space, that recovery rate must be greatly increased so that astronauts can journey for months without resupply cargo ships from Earth.

Shull, Sarah A.↗

Fiber optic sensor technology - An opportunity for smart aerospace structures

Fiber optic sensors provide the opportunity for fabricating materials with internal sensors which can serve as lifetime health monitors, analogous to a central nervous system. The embedded fiber optic sensors can be interrogated by various techniques to measure internal strain, temperature, pressure, acoustic waves and other parameters indicative of structural integrity. Experiments have been conducted with composite samples with embedded sensors to measure strain using optical time domain reflectometry, modal interference and an optical phase locked loop. Fiber optic sensors have been developed to detect acoustic emission and impact damage and have been demonstrated for cure monitoring. These sensors have the potential for lifetime monitoring of structural properties, providing real time nondestructive evaluation.

Heyman, J. S.↗

Real Time On-line Space Research Laboratory Environment Monitoring with Off-line Trend and Prediction Analysis

One of the responsibilities of the NASA Glenn Principal Investigator Microgravity Services is to support NASA sponsored investigators in the area of reduced-gravity acceleration data analysis, interpretation and the monitoring of the reduced-gravity environment on-board various carriers. With the International Space Station currently operational, a significant amount of acceleration data is being down-linked and processed on ground for both the space station onboard environment characterization (and verification) and scientific experiments. Therefore, to help principal investigator teams monitor the acceleration level on-board the International Space Station to avoid undesirable impact on their experiment, when possible, the NASA Glenn Principal Investigator Microgravity Services developed an artificial intelligence monitoring system, which detects in near real time any change in the environment susceptible to affect onboard experiments. The main objective of the monitoring system is to help research teams identify the vibratory disturbances that are active at any instant of time onboard the International Space Station that might impact the environment in which their experiment is being conducted. The monitoring system allows any space research scientist, at any location and at any time, to see the current acceleration level on-board the Space Station via the World Wide Web. From the NASA Glenn s Exploration Systems Division web site, research scientists can see in near real time the active disturbances, such as pumps, fans, compressor, crew exercise, re-boost, extra-vehicular activity, etc., and decide whether or not to continue operating or stopping (or making note of such activity for later correlation with science results) their experiments based on the g-level associated with that specific event. A dynamic graphical display accessible via the World Wide Web shows the status of all the vibratory disturbance activities with their degree of confidence as well as their g-level contribution to the environment. The system can detect both known and unknown vibratory disturbance activities. It can also perform trend analysis and prediction by analyzing past data over many Increments of the space station for selected disturbance activities. This feature can be used to monitor the health of onboard mechanical systems to detect and prevent potential system failure as well as for use by research scientists during their science results analysis. Examples of both real time on-line vibratory disturbance detection and off-line trend analysis are presented in this paper. Several soft computing techniques such as Kohonen s Self-Organizing Feature Map, Learning Vector Quantization, Back-Propagation Neural Networks, and Fuzzy Logic were used to design the system.

Jules, Kenol↗

NCC Simulation Model: Simulating the operations of the network control center, phase 2

The simulation of the network control center (NCC) is in the second phase of development. This phase seeks to further develop the work performed in phase one. Phase one concentrated on the computer systems and interconnecting network. The focus of phase two will be the implementation of the network message dialogues and the resources controlled by the NCC. These resources are requested, initiated, monitored and analyzed via network messages. In the NCC network messages are presented in the form of packets that are routed across the network. These packets are generated, encoded, decoded and processed by the network host processors that generate and service the message traffic on the network that connects these hosts. As a result, the message traffic is used to characterize the work done by the NCC and the connected network. Phase one of the model development represented the NCC as a network of bi-directional single server queues and message generating sources. The generators represented the external segment processors. The served based queues represented the host processors. The NCC model consists of the internal and external processors which generate message traffic on the network that links these hosts. To fully realize the objective of phase two it is necessary to identify and model the processes in each internal processor. These processes live in the operating system of the internal host computers and handle tasks such as high speed message exchanging, ISN and NFE interface, event monitoring, network monitoring, and message logging. Inter process communication is achieved through the operating system facilities. The overall performance of the host is determined by its ability to service messages generated by both internal and external processors.

Benjamin, Norman M.↗

Observation of Stratospheric Ozone with NIES Lidar System in Tsukuba, Japan

Lidars are expected to play important roles in an international monitoring network of the stratosphere such as the Network for the Detection of Stratospheric Change (NDSC). The National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES) in Tsukuba constructed an ozone lidar system in March 1988 and started observation in August 1988. The lidar system has a 2-m telescope and injection locked XeCl and XeF excimer lasers which can measure ozone profiles (15-45 km) and temperature profiles (30-80 km). From December 1991, lidar observations have been carried out in which the second Stokes line of the stimulated Raman scattering of a KrF laser has been used. Ozone profiles obtained with the NIES lidar system are compared with the data provided by the SAGE II satellite sensor. Results showed good agreement for the individual and the zonal mean profiles. Variations of ozone with various time scales at each altitude can be studied using the data obtained with the NIES ozone lidar system. Seasonal variations are easily found at 20 km, 30 km, and 35 km, which are qualitatively understood as a result of dynamical and photochemical effects. Systematic errors of ozone profiles due to the Pinatubo stratospheric aerosols have been detected using multi-wavelength observation.

Nakane, H.↗

General Purpose Data-Driven Monitoring for Space Operations

As modern space propulsion and exploration systems improve in capability and efficiency, their designs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. Determining the health state of these systems, using traditional parameter limit checking, model-based, or rule-based methods, is becoming more difficult as the number of sensors and component interactions grow. Data-driven monitoring techniques have been developed to address these issues by analyzing system operations data to automatically characterize normal system behavior. System health can be monitored by comparing real-time operating data with these nominal characterizations, providing detection of anomalous data signatures indicative of system faults or failures. The Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) is a data-driven system health monitoring software tool that has been successfully applied to several aerospace applications. IMS uses a data mining technique called clustering to analyze archived system data and characterize normal interactions between parameters. The scope of IMS based data-driven monitoring applications continues to expand with current development activities. Successful IMS deployment in the International Space Station (ISS) flight control room to monitor ISS attitude control systems has led to applications in other ISS flight control disciplines, such as thermal control. It has also generated interest in data-driven monitoring capability for Constellation, NASA's program to replace the Space Shuttle with new launch vehicles and spacecraft capable of returning astronauts to the moon, and then on to Mars. Several projects are currently underway to evaluate and mature the IMS technology and complementary tools for use in the Constellation program. These include an experiment on board the Air Force TacSat-3 satellite, and ground systems monitoring for NASA's Ares I-X and Ares I launch vehicles. The TacSat-3 Vehicle System Management (TVSM) project is a software experiment to integrate fault and anomaly detection algorithms and diagnosis tools with executive and adaptive planning functions contained in the flight software on-board the Air Force Research Laboratory TacSat-3 satellite. The TVSM software package will be uploaded after launch to monitor spacecraft subsystems such as power and guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C). It will analyze data in real-time to demonstrate detection of faults and unusual conditions, diagnose problems, and react to threats to spacecraft health and mission goals. The experiment will demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of integrated system health management (ISHM) technologies with both ground and on-board experiments.

Iverson, David L.↗

SERVIR: The Regional Visualization and Monitoring System

This slide presentation reviews the SERVIR program. SERVIR is a partnership between NASA and USAID and three international nodes: Central America, Africa, and the Himalaya region. SERVIR,using satellite observations and ground based observations, is used by decision makers to allow for improved monitoring of air quality, extreme weather, biodiversity, and changes in land cove and has also been used to respond to environmental threats, such as wildfires, floods, landslides, harmful algal blooms, and earthquakes.

Irwin, Daniel E.↗

General Purpose Data-Driven System Monitoring for Space Operations

Modern space propulsion and exploration system designs are becoming increasingly sophisticated and complex. Determining the health state of these systems using traditional methods is becoming more difficult as the number of sensors and component interactions grows. Data-driven monitoring techniques have been developed to address these issues by analyzing system operations data to automatically characterize normal system behavior. The Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) is a data-driven system health monitoring software tool that has been successfully applied to several aerospace applications. IMS uses a data mining technique called clustering to analyze archived system data and characterize normal interactions between parameters. This characterization, or model, of nominal operation is stored in a knowledge base that can be used for real-time system monitoring or for analysis of archived events. Ongoing and developing IMS space operations applications include International Space Station flight control, spacecraft vehicle system health management, launch vehicle ground operations, and fleet supportability. As a common thread of discussion this paper will employ the evolution of the IMS data-driven technique as related to several Integrated Systems Health Management (ISHM) elements. Thematically, the projects listed will be used as case studies. The maturation of IMS via projects where it has been deployed or is currently being integrated to aid in fault detection will be described. The paper will also explain how IMS can be used to complement a suite of other ISHM tools, providing initial fault detection support for diagnosis and recovery

Space Propulsion↗

Monitor for physical property changes in solid propellants

Specially designed sensor is attached to or imbedded in propellant. When sensor is driven into vibration, it moves with a phase lag directly proportional to internal friction or loss coefficent. Resonance frequency of the system is related to Young's modulus. Modulus or internal friction can be monitored over long period of time.

Black, R. E., Jr.↗