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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2019

Exploring Beyond Earth's Atmosphere with Human-Machine Teams

NASA's highly successful Kepler Mission has revolutionized our understanding of the Galaxy. We now know that planets, even Earth-size planets in the habitable zone, are common. With the end of the Kepler Mission we now look to the future with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) which will discover thousands of exoplanets in orbit around the brightest stars in the sky. In a two-year survey, TESS will perform an all-sky search of more than 200,000 stars for temporary drops in brightness caused by planetary transits. With Kepler and TESS, humanity is finally at the verge of studying the masses, sizes, densities, orbits, and atmospheres of a large cohort of small planets, including a sample of rocky worlds in the habitable zones of their host stars which may prove to host life. The massive data sets generated by Kepler and TESS must be meticulously combed for the weakest planetary signals every month. While a daunting and error-prone task for humans, this is an exciting opportunity for the breakthroughs recently seen in machine learning. Specifically, traditional methods for identifying planet transits require extensive data processing pipelines followed by extensive human vetting. This manual process risks loss of information due to the data processing and to inconsistency and biases due to individual human vetters. The latest advancements in machine learning will allow an objective classifier to minimize the losses of information and greatly lessen the burden on the human vetters, in addition to providing assessment of quality and score to each planet candidate, freeing the humans to concentrate on border cases and other more interesting investigations.

Smith, Jeffrey C.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Alternative Metrics for Evaluating the Resilence of Advanced Life Support Systems

Ensuring the safety of the crew is a key performance requirement of a life support system. However, a number of conceptual and practical difficulties arise when devising metrics to concretely measure the ability of a life support system to maintain critical functions in the presence of anticipated and unanticipated faults. Resilience is a dynamic property of a life support system that depends on the complex interactions between faults, controls and system hardware. We review some of the approaches to understanding the robustness or resilience of complex systems being developed in diverse fields such as ecology, software engineering and cell biology and discuss their applicability to regenerative life support systems. We also consider how approaches to measuring resilience vary depending on system design choices such as the definition and choice of the nominal operating regime. Finally, we explore data collection and implementation issues such as the key differences between the instantaneous or conditional and average or overall measures of resilience. Extensive simulation of a hybrid computational model of a water revitalization subsystem (WRS) with probabilistic, component-level faults provides data about off-nominal behavior of the system. The data are used to consider alternative measures of resilience as predictors of the system's ability to recover from component-level faults.

Bell, Ann Maria↗
NASA NTRS1998

F18 Life Support: APECS and EDOX Cockpit Integration

Two systems are currently being integrated into the F18 Hornet support aircraft at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC). The first system is the Aircrew Personal Environmental Control System (APECS). The system is designed to increase aircrew performance by combating heat stress in the cockpit. The second system is the Extended Duration Oxygen System (EDOX). This system will provide additional redundancy and oxygen system duration to the F18 without extensive modification to the current system.

Herrick, Paul↗
NASA NTRS1988

Cultural systems for growing potatoes in space

Higher plants are being evaluated for life support to provide needed food, oxygen and water as well as removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The successful utilization of plants in space will require the development of not only highly productive growing systems but also highly efficient bioregenerative systems. It will be necessary to recycle all inedible plant parts and all human wastes so that the entire complement of elemental compounds can be reused. Potatoes have been proposed as one of the desirable crops because they are 1) extremely productive, yielding more than 100 metric tons per hectare from field plantings, 2) the edible tubers are high in digestible starch (70%) and protein (10%) on a dry weight basis, 3) up to 80% of the total plant production is in tubers and thus edible, 4) the plants are easily propagated either from tubers or from tissue culture plantlets, 5) the tubers can be utilized with a minimum of processing, and 6) potatoes can be prepared in a variety of different forms for the human diet (Tibbitts et al., 1982). However potatoes have a growth pattern that complicates the development of growing the plants in controlled systems. Tubers are borne on underground stems that are botanically termed 'rhizomes', but in common usage termed 'stolons'. The stolons must be maintained in a dark, moist area with sufficient provision for enlargement of tubers. Stems rapidly terminate in flowers forcing extensive branching and spreading of plants so that individual plants will cover 0.2 m2 or more area. Thus the growing system must be developed to provide an area that is darkened for tuber and root growth and of sufficient size for plant spread. A system developed for growing potatoes, or any plants, in space will have certain requirements that must be met to make them a useful part of a life support system. The system must 1) be constructed of materials, and involve media, that can be reused for many successive cycles of plant growth, 2) involve a minimum quantity of media, 3) contain media that is essentially inert and not oxidize or degrade with use, 4) utilize a recirculating nutrient solution to permit regulation of pH and nutrient concentrations, and 5) be capable of complete automation of all planting, maintenance and harvesting procedures.

NASA Discipline Number 61-10↗
DOE OSTI2025

Life cycle greenhouse gas emissions and carbon intensity of U.S. fuel use and projection for the next 10 years-based on built capacity and expansion plans

The U.S. Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 supports biofuel production expansion through the 45Z clean fuel production tax credit, replacing previous 40A and 40B credits. This follows on the Renewable Fuel Standard from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and its expansion in 2007. States like California, Oregon, and Washington also offer clean fuel credits. Meanwhile, federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Energy, have advanced alternative fuel technologies through research and development funding. The surging interest in the biofuel industry has spurred the demand for biofuel supplies in the markets, although achieving profitability for advanced biofuels and low-carbon e-fuels remains challenging. This study aims to track U.S. alternative fuel production capacity expansion plans over the next 10 years and estimate impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. By tracking built capacity and industry announcements of planned expansion, this study complements other studies which use models to predict changes in energy technologies and the associated GHG implications. Modeled projections of future technologies are often criticized for over or underestimating the cost and potential role of new technologies. The study focuses on sustainable aviation fuel, renewable diesel, ethanol, biodiesel, and renewable natural gas. Using facility-level data, we conducted a bottom-up analysis linking biofuel production pathways with corresponding pathways and parameterizations in the Argonne R&D GREET model. Results indicate that biofuel capacity could reach 3.8 exajoules in 2035, potentially reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 179 million tonnes, including the full life cycle. This corresponds to a 20% reduction in transportation and 5% in industry sector emissions by 2035, or a 3.6% reduction in economy-wide emissions. Overall, this study shows that while biofuel production capacity in the U.S. is expanding, the capacities remain limited compared to fuel demand. Uncertainty regarding the durability and extension of incentives may be dampening the pace of growth. Meanwhile, demonstrating the commercial potential for alternative fuels and climbing the learning curve for new technologies could lead to an increased pace of expansion in later years. This study offers insights for bioenergy stakeholders, highlighting biofuel technologies' contribution to U.S. energy system and emissions reduction over time based on producers' plans.

Biofuel Producers↗
DOE OSTI2024

Reinforcement expectation in the honeybee ( Apis mellifera ): Can downshifts in reinforcement show conditioned inhibition?

When animals learn the association of a conditioned stimulus (CS) with an unconditioned stimulus (US), later presentation of the CS invokes a representation of the US. When the expected US fails to occur, theoretical accounts predict that conditioned inhibition can accrue to any other stimuli that are associated with this change in the US. Empirical work with mammals has confirmed the existence of conditioned inhibition. But the way it is manifested, the conditions that produce it, and determining whether it is the opposite of excitatory conditioning are important considerations. Invertebrates can make valuable contributions to this literature because of the well-established conditioning protocols and access to the central nervous system (CNS) for studying neural underpinnings of behavior. Nevertheless, although conditioned inhibition has been reported, it has yet to be thoroughly investigated in invertebrates. Here, we evaluate the role of the US in producing conditioned inhibition by using proboscis extension response conditioning of the honeybee (Apis mellifera). Specifically, using variations of a “feature-negative” experimental design, we use downshifts in US intensity relative to US intensity used during initial excitatory conditioning to show that an odorant in an odor–odor mixture can become a conditioned inhibitor. We argue that some alternative interpretations to conditioned inhibition are unlikely. However, we show variation across individuals in how strongly they show conditioned inhibition, with some individuals possibly revealing a different means of learning about changes in reinforcement. We discuss how the resolution of these differences is needed to fully understand whether and how conditioned inhibition is manifested in the honeybee, and whether it can be extended to investigate how it is encoded in the CNS. It is also important for extension to other insect models. In particular, work like this will be important as more is revealed of the complexity of the insect brain from connectome projects.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2024

An integrative framework reveals widespread gene flow during the early radiation of oaks and relatives in Quercoideae (Fagaceae)

ABSTRACT Although the frequency of ancient hybridization across the Tree of Life is greater than previously thought, little work has been devoted to uncovering the extent, timeline, and geographic and ecological context of ancient hybridization. Using an expansive new dataset of nuclear and chloroplast DNA sequences, we conducted a multifaceted phylogenomic investigation to identify ancient reticulation in the early evolution of oaks (Quercus). We document extensive nuclear gene tree and cytonuclear discordance among major lineages ofQuercusand relatives in Quercoideae. Our analyses recovered clear signatures of gene flow against a backdrop of rampant incomplete lineage sorting, with gene flow most prevalent among major lineages ofQuercusand relatives in Quercoideae during their initial radiation, dated to the Early‐Middle Eocene. Ancestral reconstructions including fossils suggest ancestors ofCastanea + Castanopsis,Lithocarpus, and the Old World oak clade probably co‐occurred in North America and Eurasia, while the ancestors ofChrysolepis, Notholithocarpus, and the New World oak clade co‐occurred in North America, offering ample opportunity for hybridization in each region. Our study shows that hybridization—perhaps in the form of ancient syngameons like those seen today—has been a common and important process throughout the evolutionary history of oaks and their relatives. Concomitantly, this study provides a methodological framework for detecting ancient hybridization in other groups.

Biochemistry & Molecular Biology↗
DOE OSTI2022

The Land–Sea Connection: Insights Into the Plant Lineage from a Green Algal Perspective

The colonization of land by plants generated opportunities for the rise of new heterotrophic life forms, including humankind. A unique event underpinned this massive change to earth ecosystems—the advent of eukaryotic green algae. Today, an abundant marine green algal group, the prasinophytes, alongside prasinodermophytes and nonmarine chlorophyte algae, is facilitating insights into plant developments. Genome-level data allow identification of conserved proteins and protein families with extensive modifications, losses, or gains and expansion patterns that connect to niche specialization and diversification. Here, we contextualize attributes according to Viridiplantae evolutionary relationships, starting with orthologous protein families, and then focusing on key elements with marked differentiation, resulting in patchy distributions across green algae and plants. We place attention on peptidoglycan biosynthesis, important for plastid division and walls; phytochrome photosensors that are master regulators in plants; and carbohydrate-active enzymes, essential to all manner of carbohydratebiotransformations. Together with advances in algal model systems, these areas are ripe for discovering molecular roles and innovations within and across plant and algal lineages.

Plant Sciences↗
NASA NTRS1987

A high temperature fatigue and structures testing facility

As man strives for higher levels of sophistication in air and space transportation, awareness of the need for accurate life and material behavior predictions for advanced propulsion system components is heightened. Such sophistication will require complex operating conditions and advanced materials to meet goals in performance, thrust-to-weight ratio, and fuel efficiency. To accomplish these goals will require that components be designed using a high percentage of the material's ultimate capabilities. This serves only to complicate matters dealing with life and material behavior predictions. An essential component of material behavior model development is the underlying experimentation which must occur to identify phenomena. To support experimentation, the NASA Lewis Research Center's High Temperature Fatigue and Structures Laboratory has been expanded significantly. Several new materials testing systems have been added, as well as an extensive computer system. The intent of this paper is to present an overview of the laboratory, and to discuss specific aspects of the test systems. A limited discussion of computer capabilities will also be presented.

Bartolotta, Paul A.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Multilayer Pressure Vessel Materials Testing and Analysis Phase 2

To provide NASA with a suite of materials strength, fracture toughness and crack growth rate test results for use in remaining life calculations for the vessels described above, Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) was contracted in two phases to obtain relevant material property data from a representative vessel. An initial characterization of the strength, fracture and fatigue crack growth properties was performed in Phase 1. Based on the results and recommendations of Phase 1, a more extensive material property characterization effort was developed in this Phase 2 effort. This Phase 2 characterization included additional strength, fracture and fatigue crack growth of the multilayer vessel and head materials. In addition, some more limited characterization of the welds and heat affected zones (HAZs) were performed. This report

Popelar, Carl F.↗
NASA NTRS2026

Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID): A Dryland Research Agenda and Campaign Strategy

Dryland ecosystems cover 41% of Earth’s land surfaces, account for 44% of cultivated lands and 60% of food sources, and make large contributions to the global water and carbon cycles. However, these ecosystems are experiencing unprecedented extremes including heatwaves, floods, and droughts as well as hotter temperatures and often declining water resource availability. These ecosystems are some of the most challenging to monitor given their high temporal variability with rapid response to their environment as well as vast spatial variability with intermixing of different plant species and life forms amongst bare soil coverage. The Adaptation and Response in Drylands (ARID) campaign was selected by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a scoping study to develop a research agenda for a dryland field campaign. Here, we detail our ARID science research agenda and implementation plan that were developed based on an extensive community engagement effort in over 160 events with over a thousand scientists, land managers, and Tribal communities between 2023 and 2024. The selected science themes cover drought and climate variability, ecosystem structure, function, and biodiversity, carbon cycle interannual variability and trends, and social ecological systems (land management and adaptation). We then detail our remote sensing, modeling, and field-based strategies to capture high temporal and high spatial resolution processes. Finally, our implementation strategy is presented which includes focus area selections in a core intensive western U.S. domain and distributed international domains. This strategy includes our overarching guiding principles of using multi-temporal airborne acquisitions and super sites as well as enhancing land management in co-development with end-user partners. While originally developed for NASA, our ARID report creates a blueprint for any future dryland field campaign, at any scale, that can be implemented widely for foundational and applied science objectives.

drylands↗
NASA NTRS2004

Advanced Life Support Project: Crop Experiments at Kennedy Space Center

Crop production systems provide bioregenerative technologies to complement human crew life support requirements on long duration space missions. Kennedy Space Center has lead NASA's research on crop production systems that produce high value fresh foods, provide atmospheric regeneration, and perform water processing. As the emphasis on early missions to Mars has developed, our research focused on modular, scalable systems for transit missions, which can be developed into larger autonomous, bioregenerative systems for subsequent surface missions. Components of these scalable systems will include development of efficient light generating or collecting technologies, low mass plant growth chambers, and capability to operate in the high energy background radiation and reduced atmospheric pressures of space. These systems will be integrated with air, water, and thermal subsystems in an operational system. Extensive crop testing has been done for both staple and salad crops, but limited data is available on specific cultivar selection and breadboard testing to meet nominal Mars mission profiles of a 500-600 day surface mission. The recent research emphasis at Kennedy Space Center has shifted from staple crops, such as wheat, soybean and rice, toward short cycle salad crops such as lettuce, onion, radish, tomato, pepper, and strawberry. This paper will review the results of crop experiments to support the Exploration Initiative and the ongoing development of supporting technologies, and give an overview of capabilities of the newly opened Space Life Science (SLS) Lab at Kennedy Space Center. The 9662 square m (104,000 square ft) SLS Lab was built by the State of Florida and supports all NASA research that had been performed in Hanger-L. In addition to NASA research, the SLS Lab houses the Florida Space Research Institute (FSRI), responsible for co-managing the facility, and the University of Florida (UF) has established the Space Agriculture and Biotechnology Research and Education (SABRE) Center with several faculty.

Sager, John C.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Design of rotors for improved structural life

Major rotor design criteria are discussed with particular emphasis on those aspects of rotor design that ensure long life component integrity. Dynamic considerations, that necessitate tuning of bladed disk and seal assemblies to avoid excessive vibratory stress at both design and off-design conditions are reviewed as well as low cycle fatigue considerations, which have resulted in detailed analysis procedures to establish part temperature and stress variation throughout an operating cycle and extensive specimen and component fatigue testing to establish safe cyclic operating limits. The frequency, size, and behavior of intrinsic material defects were investigated. Manufacturing process improvements, including the application of increasingly sophisticated inspection techniques and quality control procedures are reviewed in light of their impact on component durability.

Hill, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS1979

Space transportation system options for extended duration and power

A modification kit for the Space Transportation System (STS) Orbiter is proposed to provide more power and mission duration for payloads. The power extension package (PEP) - a flexible-substrate solar array deployed on the Space Shuttle Orbiter remote manipulator system - can provide as much as 29 kW total power for durations of 10 to 48 days. The kit is installed only for those flights which require enhanced power or duration. Modifications to the Orbiter thermal control and life support systems to improve heat balance and to reduce consumables are proposed. The changes consist of repositioning the Orbiter forward radiators and replacing the lithium hydroxide scrubber with a regenerable solid amine.

Loftus, J. P., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Low-cycle thermal fatigue

A state-of-the-art review is presented of the field of thermal fatigue. Following a brief historical review, the concept is developed that thermal fatigue can be viewed as processes of unbalanced deformation and cracking. The unbalances refer to dissimilar mechanisms occurring in opposing halves of thermal fatigue loading and unloading cycles. Extensive data summaries are presented and results are interpreted in terms of the unbalanced processes involved. Both crack initiation and crack propagation results are summarized. Testing techniques are reviewed, and considerable discussion is given to a technique for thermal fatigue simulation, known as the bithermal fatigue test. Attention is given to the use of isothermal life prediction methods for the prediction of thermal fatigue lives. Shortcomings of isothermally-based life prediction methods are pointed out. Several examples of analyses and thermal fatigue life predictions of high technology structural components are presented. Finally, numerous dos and don'ts relative to design against thermal fatigue are presented.

Halford, G. R.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Space station

The history of American space flight indicates that a space station is the next logical step in the scientific pursuit of greater knowledge of the universe. The Space Station and its complement of space vehicles, developed by NASA, will add new dimensions to an already extensive space program in the United States. The Space Station offers extraordinary benefits for a comparatively modest investment (currently estimated at one-ninth the cost of the Apollo Program). The station will provide a permanent multipurpose facility in orbit necessary for the expansion of space science and technology. It will enable significant advancements in life sciences research, satellite communications, astronomy, and materials processing. Eventually, the station will function in support of the commercialization and industrialization of space. Also, as a prerequisite to manned interplanetary exploration, the long-duration space flights typical of Space Station missions will provide the essential life sciences research to allow progressively longer human staytime in space.

Stewart, Donald F.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Performance of the Wavelet Decomposition on Massively Parallel Architectures

Traditionally, Fourier Transforms have been utilized for performing signal analysis and representation. But although it is straightforward to reconstruct a signal from its Fourier transform, no local description of the signal is included in its Fourier representation. To alleviate this problem, Windowed Fourier transforms and then wavelet transforms have been introduced, and it has been proven that wavelets give a better localization than traditional Fourier transforms, as well as a better division of the time- or space-frequency plane than Windowed Fourier transforms. Because of these properties and after the development of several fast algorithms for computing the wavelet representation of any signal, in particular the Multi-Resolution Analysis (MRA) developed by Mallat, wavelet transforms have increasingly been applied to signal analysis problems, especially real-life problems, in which speed is critical. In this paper we present and compare efficient wavelet decomposition algorithms on different parallel architectures. We report and analyze experimental measurements, using NASA remotely sensed images. Results show that our algorithms achieve significant performance gains on current high performance parallel systems, and meet scientific applications and multimedia requirements. The extensive performance measurements collected over a number of high-performance computer systems have revealed important architectural characteristics of these systems, in relation to the processing demands of the wavelet decomposition of digital images.

El-Ghazawi, Tarek A.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Long Duration Wear Test of the NASA HERMeS Hall Thruster

The NASA Hall Effect Rocket with Magnetic Shielding (HERMeS) 12.5-kW Hall thruster is the subject of extensive technology maturation by NASA GRC (Glenn Research Center) and JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in preparation for development into a flight propulsion system. As part of this on-going effort, a series of three wear tests have been conducted to identify erosion phenomena and the accompanying failure modes as well as to validate service-life models for magnetically-shielded thrusters. This paper presents an overview and summary of the results obtained over the first 1715 hours of the third wear test, which has the overall goal of serving as a pathfinder to identify and correct design or facility issues prior to the flight qualification campaign. Overall, negligible changes in performance and stability are observed as a function of operating time as well as relative to previous wear tests. Erosion of the inner and outer front pole covers is shown to vary by 76-300 percent as a function of discharge voltage and by up to 40 percent as a function of magnetic field strength. Shifting the cathode position upstream relative to the pole covers is shown to reduce keeper erosion rates by 84 percent, which supports this approach for mitigating the elevated keeper wear observed during previous wear tests.

Frieman, Jason D.↗