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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
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1998

Reusable Rocket Engine Operability Modeling and Analysis

This paper describes the methodology, model, input data, and analysis results of a reusable launch vehicle engine operability study conducted with the goal of supporting design from an operations perspective. Paralleling performance analyses in schedule and method, this requires the use of metrics in a validated operations model useful for design, sensitivity, and trade studies. Operations analysis in this view is one of several design functions. An operations concept was developed given an engine concept and the predicted operations and maintenance processes incorporated into simulation models. Historical operations data at a level of detail suitable to model objectives were collected, analyzed, and formatted for use with the models, the simulations were run, and results collected and presented. The input data used included scheduled and unscheduled timeline and resource information collected into a Space Transportation System (STS) Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) historical launch operations database. Results reflect upon the importance not only of reliable hardware but upon operations and corrective maintenance process improvements.

Christenson, R. L.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Exchange of Standardized Flight Dynamics Data

Spacecraft operations require the knowledge of the vehicle trajectory and attitude and also that of other spacecraft or natural bodies. This knowledge is normally provided by the Flight Dynamics teams of the different space organizations and, as very often spacecraft operations involve more than one organization, this information needs to be exchanged between Agencies. This is why the Navigation Working Group within the CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems), has been instituted with the task of establishing standards for the exchange of Flight Dynamics data. This exchange encompasses trajectory data, attitude data, and tracking data. The Navigation Working Group includes regular members and observers representing the participating Space Agencies. Currently the group includes representatives from CNES, DLR, ESA, NASA and JAXA. This Working Group meets twice per year in order to devise standardized language, methods, and formats for the description and exchange of Navigation data. Early versions of some of these standards have been used to support mutual tracking of ESA and NASA interplanetary spacecraft, especially during the arrival of the 2003 missions to Mars. This paper provides a summary of the activities carried out by the group, briefly outlines the current and envisioned standards, describes the tests and operational activities that have been performed using the standards, and lists and discusses the lessons learned from these activities.

standards↗
NASA NTRS2003

Development and Flight Testing of an Adaptable Vehicle Health-Monitoring Architecture

Development and testing of an adaptable wireless health-monitoring architecture for a vehicle fleet is presented. It has three operational levels: one or more remote data acquisition units located throughout the vehicle; a command and control unit located within the vehicle; and a terminal collection unit to collect analysis results from all vehicles. Each level is capable of performing autonomous analysis with a trained adaptable expert system. The remote data acquisition unit has an eight channel programmable digital interface that allows the user discretion for choosing type of sensors; number of sensors, sensor sampling rate, and sampling duration for each sensor. The architecture provides framework for a tributary analysis. All measurements at the lowest operational level are reduced to provide analysis results necessary to gauge changes from established baselines. These are then collected at the next level to identify any global trends or common features from the prior level. This process is repeated until the results are reduced at the highest operational level. In the framework, only analysis results are forwarded to the next level to reduce telemetry congestion. The system's remote data acquisition hardware and non-analysis software have been flight tested on the NASA Langley B757's main landing gear.

Woodard, Stanley E.↗
NASA NTRS2015

NASA Lessons Learned on Reusable and Expendable Launch Vehicle Operations and Their Application Towards DARPA's Experimental Spaceplane (XS-1) Program

Outline: Selected Historic Shuttle Operations Data; Shuttle Lessons Learned Recommendations for Lower Cost, Operationally Efficient Launch Vehicle Systems; Selected Expendable launch vehicle experiences; Past NASA Launch Vehicle Development Programs, Studies (1985 to present); Discussion: Suggested applications of NASA Lessons Learned to already-baselined contractor XS-1 Phase I concepts.

Reusable launch vehicle↗
NASA NTRS2016

Source Data Impacts on Epistemic Uncertainty for Launch Vehicle Fault Tree Models

Launch vehicle systems are designed and developed using both heritage and new hardware. Design modifications to the heritage hardware to fit new functional system requirements can impact the applicability of heritage reliability data. Risk estimates for newly designed systems must be developed from generic data sources such as commercially available reliability databases using reliability prediction methodologies, such as those addressed in MIL-HDBK-217F. Failure estimates must be converted from the generic environment to the specific operating environment of the system in which it is used. In addition, some qualification of applicability for the data source to the current system should be made. Characterizing data applicability under these circumstances is crucial to developing model estimations that support confident decisions on design changes and trade studies. This paper will demonstrate a data-source applicability classification method for suggesting epistemic component uncertainty to a target vehicle based on the source and operating environment of the originating data. The source applicability is determined using heuristic guidelines while translation of operating environments is accomplished by applying statistical methods to MIL-HDK-217F tables. The paper will provide one example for assigning environmental factors uncertainty when translating between operating environments for the microelectronic part-type components. The heuristic guidelines will be followed by uncertainty-importance routines to assess the need for more applicable data to reduce model uncertainty.

Al Hassan, Mohammad↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Data Driven UAM Flight Energy Consumption Prediction and Risk Assessment

With the current technological advancements revolutionizing the concept of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and package delivery, there is also, a concurrent need to quantify the operational safety of these vehicles in terms of their associated risk. Conducting safe flight operations is critical for UAM vehicles which are electrically Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles, to operate in current Air traffic control. In this paper, a data-driven method for UAM vehicle energy consumption prediction and risk quantification with conditional value-at-risk based on energy consumption distribution is presented. Significant factors affecting energy consumption, such as density altitude, aircraft design, airspeed, and collision avoidance algorithms, are considered in the data-driven based energy consumption prediction of different eVTOL

Data-driven↗
NASA NTRS1994

Intelligent vehicle control: Opportunities for terrestrial-space system integration

For 11 years the Department of Defense has cooperated with a diverse array of other Federal agencies including the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the Department of Energy, to develop robotics technology for unmanned ground systems. These activities have addressed control system architectures supporting sharing of tasks between the system operator and various automated subsystems, man-machine interfaces to intelligent vehicles systems, video compression supporting vehicle driving in low data rate digital communication environments, multiple simultaneous vehicle control by a single operator, path planning and retrace, and automated obstacle detection and avoidance subsystem. Performance metrics and test facilities for robotic vehicles were developed permitting objective performance assessment of a variety of operator-automated vehicle control regimes. Progress in these areas will be described in the context of robotic vehicle testbeds specifically developed for automated vehicle research. These initiatives, particularly as regards the data compression, task sharing, and automated mobility topics, also have relevance in the space environment. The intersection of technology development interests between these two communities will be discussed in this paper.

Shoemaker, Charles↗
NASA NTRS1977

Comparative vibration environments of transportation vehicles

Measured vibration data are presented for a number of air and surface vehicles. Consideration is given to the importance of direction effects; of vehicle operating modes such as takeoff, cruise, and landing; and of measurement location on the level and frequency of the measurements. Various physical measurement units or descriptors are used to quantify and compare the data. Results suggest the range of vibration associated with a particular mode of transportation and illustrate the comparative levels in terms of each of the descriptors. Collectively, the results form a data base which may be useful in assessing the ride of existing or future systems relative to vehicles in current operation. In addition, subjective response data obtained from vibration simulator studies are presented to illustrate human response characteristics as well as to indicate a laboratory approach for the development of ride-quality criteria.

Stephens, D. G.↗
NASA NTRS1971

The Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle.

After listing the basic requirements such as operational demands and lunar environmental conditions, characteristic design data of the roving vehicle are given with special attention to the four wheel drive and its control system, the steering system, and the navigational instrumentation. The overall system is optimized in view of total mass, range, mobility, load carrying capability, safety, highest reliability through redundancy, and last but not least, cost and development time. Optimization of the drive and power system has first been evaluated by mathematical models and computational simulation of the vehicle hardware, the wheel/soil interaction, and the lunar terrain profile. The next step to refine optimization and evaluation of the drive, steering, and power system including man/machine interaction has been carried out by the use of a six-degree-of-freedom simulator subjecting the astronauts in their space suits to simulated vehicle motions while driving over a simulated terrain, observable on a cathode ray tube display.

Haeussermann, W.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Fit2Fly: A Proof of Concept for Testing the Commercial Feasibility of Unmanned Aerial System Operations

As autonomous Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) become more prevalent, improvements in airworthiness assessments, data security, establishing vehicle trust, and more will become necessary to make fleet operations of these systems routine. Currently, these are verified for every UAS vehicle through a time-intensive manual inspection performed by human individuals. This process becomes infeasible when introduced into large-scale operations, so the Fit2Fly project is attempting to address these concerns. Fit2Fly is a multi-year project with a large scope, so we chose to narrow our focus to building a proof-of-concept feasibility simulation in tandem with physical UAS demonstration. This work resulted in a software simulation capable of running asynchronous commercial operations with persistent data modeling in coordination with several autonomous drones using integrated radio and GPS configurations.

Ryan Bonk↗
NASA NTRS2023

Distributed Sensing and Reasoning for Advanced Air Mobility Health Management and Mission Assurance

As envisioned, Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) will introduce new vehicles and operations within the national airspace, moving people and cargo safely and efficiently at a much larger scale than today. Driven by transformative technology and revolutionary aircraft, this movement must still manage technical, regulatory, operational, and policy challenges. NASA’s work in support of AAM and UAM includes, but is not limited to tools, technologies, and architectures for distributed sensing of aircraft, data & reasoning services exchange, Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT), contingency management, and vehicle health management. This paper builds upon these concepts and evaluates the use of distributed sensing and infrastructure assistance towards health management and mission assurance of UAM vehicles in specific operational scenarios. Through analysis of these example missions, aided by the data produced by the conceptual distributed sensing and reasoning infrastructure, we define opportunities for state estimation, diagnosis, and key decision points affecting the health state of the vehicle and the airspace volume. As a result, we define a number of measurable health state parameters providing relevant information to drive decision-making in contingency situations or feed automation tools in support of operators and managers.

Safety↗
NASA NTRS2007

GIS Methodology for Planning Planetary-Rover Operations

A document describes a methodology for utilizing image data downlinked from cameras aboard a robotic ground vehicle (rover) on a remote planet for analyzing and planning operations of the vehicle and of any associated spacecraft. Traditionally, the cataloging and presentation of large numbers of downlinked planetary-exploration images have been done by use of two organizational methods: temporal organization and correlation between activity plans and images. In contrast, the present methodology involves spatial indexing of image data by use of the computational discipline of geographic information systems (GIS), which has been maturing in terrestrial applications for decades, but, until now, has not been widely used in support of exploration of remote planets. The use of GIS to catalog data products for analysis is intended to increase efficiency and effectiveness in planning rover operations, just as GIS has proven to be a source of powerful computational tools in such terrestrial endeavors as law enforcement, military strategic planning, surveying, political science, and epidemiology. The use of GIS also satisfies the need for a map-based user interface that is intuitive to rover-activity planners, many of whom are deeply familiar with maps and know how to use them effectively in field geology.

Powell, Mark↗
NASA NTRS1971

Mariner Mars 1971: Press kit

The news release describes the 1971 launches of Mariner 8 and 9 which were to be the first attempt by NASA to orbit another planet, Mars. Described are: (1) mission capsule; (2) planetary missions; (3) aiming zones; (4) the spacecraft; (5) scientific experiments to be performed; (6) Atlas Centaur launch vehicle; (7) launch operations; (8) tracking and data system and mission operations; and (9) Mariner Mars 71 team and subcontractors.

Mittauer, R. T.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Shuttle entry aerothermodynamic flight research - The Orbiter Experiments (OEX) Program

Results of the OEX program are summarized with emphasis on the information on entry aerothermodynamic phenomena derived from Space Shuttle operations. The discussion focuses on OEX experiment complement and operational history, freestream environment and vehicle attitude data, aerodynamic force and moment data, aerodynamic surface data, and vehicle configuration data. Attention is also given to orbiter aerodynamic performance, stability and control, high-altitude atmospheric density variability, direct simulation Monte Carlo validation, orbital drag variation, and computational fluid dynamic technique validation.

Throckmorton, David A.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Ares I-X: First Flight of a New Era

Since 2005, NASA s Constellation Program has been designing, building, and testing the next generation of launch and space vehicles to carry humans beyond low-Earth orbit (LEO). The Ares Projects at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) are developing the Ares I crew launch vehicle and Ares V cargo launch vehicle. On October 28, 2009, the first development flight test of the Ares I crew launch vehicle, Ares I-X, lifted off from a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on successful suborbital flight. Basing exploration launch vehicle designs on Ares I-X information puts NASA one step closer to full-up "test as you fly," a best practice in vehicle design. Although the final Constellation Program architecture is under review, the Ares I-X data and experience in vehicle design and operations can be applied to any launch vehicle. This paper presents the mission background as well as results and lessons learned from the flight.

Davis, Stephen R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Applications of graphics to support a testbed for autonomous space vehicle operations

Researchers describe their experience using graphics tools and utilities while building an application, AUTOPS, that uses a graphical Machintosh (TM)-like interface for the input and display of data, and animation graphics to enhance the presentation of results of autonomous space vehicle operations simulations. AUTOPS is a test bed for evaluating decisions for intelligent control systems for autonomous vehicles. Decisions made by an intelligent control system, e.g., a revised mission plan, might be displayed to the user in textual format or he can witness the effects of those decisions via out of window graphics animations. Although a textual description conveys essentials, a graphics animation conveys the replanning results in a more convincing way. Similarily, iconic and menu-driven screen interfaces provide the user with more meaningful options and displays. Presented here are experiences with the SunView and TAE Plus graphics tools used for interface design, and the Johnson Space Center Interactive Graphics Laboratory animation graphics tools used for generating out out of the window graphics.

Schmeckpeper, K. R.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Results of the NASA Kennedy Space Center 50-MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profiler Operational Acceptance Test

This paper presents results of the new Kennedy Space Center (KSC) 50-MHz Doppler Radar Wind Profiler (DRWP) Operational Acceptance Test (OAT). The goal of the OAT was to verify the data quality of the new DRWP against the performance of the previous DRWP in order to use wind data derived by the new DRWP for space launch vehicle operations support at the Eastern Range. The previous DRWP was used as a situational awareness asset for mission operations to identify rapid changes in the wind environment that weather balloons cannot depict. The Marshall Space Flight Center's Natural Environments Branch assessed data from the new DRWP collected during Jan-Feb 2015 against a specified set of test criteria. Data examination verified that the DRWP provides complete profiles every five minutes from 1.8-19.5 km in vertical increments of 150 m. Analysis of 49 concurrent DRWP and balloon profiles presented root mean square wind component differences around 2.0 m/s. Evaluation of the DRWP's coherence between five-minute wind pairs found the effective vertical resolution to be Nyquist-limited at 300 m for both wind components. In addition, the sensitivity to rejecting data that do not have adequate signal was quantified. This paper documents the data, quality control procedures, methodology, and results of each analysis.

Barbre', Robert E., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Titan/Centaur D-1TTC-5 Helios B flight data report

The fourth operational flight of the newest NASA unmanned launch vehicle is reported. The spacecraft was the Helios B, the second of two solar probes designed and built by the Federal Republic of Germany. The primary mission objective, to place the Helios spacecraft on a heliocentric orbit in the ecliptic plane with a perihelion distance of 0.29 AU, was successfully accomplished. After successful injection of the Helios spacecraft, a series of experiments were performed with the Centaur stage to demonstrate its operational capabilities. All objectives of the extended mission phase were successfully met. This report presents the analysis of the launch vehicle flight data for the primary mission phase of the TC-5 flight.

Adams, K. A.↗