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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 793 records · Page 44

Computer generated maps from digital satellite data - A case study in Florida

Ground cover maps are important tools to a wide array of users. Over the past three decades, much progress has been made in supplementing planimetric and topographic maps with ground cover details obtained from aerial photographs. The present investigation evaluates the feasibility of using computer maps of ground cover from satellite input tapes. Attention is given to the selection of test sites, a satellite data processing system, a multispectral image analyzer, general purpose computer-generated maps, the preliminary evaluation of computer maps, a test for areal correspondence, the preparation of overlays and acreage estimation of land cover types on the Landsat computer maps. There is every indication to suggest that digital multispectral image processing systems based on Landsat input data will play an increasingly important role in pattern recognition and mapping land cover in the years to come.

Arvanitis, L. G.↗

NDMAS System and Process Description

The U. S. Department of Energy (DOE) has made a significant investment in research to develop the next generation of reactor technologies as well as to improve the performance and lengthen the life cycle of existing nuclear reactors. Data collected to demonstrate new concepts may also be used in the future to support licensing of these technologies. Provenance of these data must be preserved. The Nuclear Data Management and Analysis System (NDMAS) was established to manage and preserve data collected by fuels and materials research conducted by the high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor program. The scope of NDMAS is expanding to include other nuclear research programs that have the shared need to preserve the provenance of research data. Nuclear research funded by DOE is conducted by Idaho National Laboratory (INL), universities, other national laboratories, foreign research partners, and private companies. This research will generate a large amount of data from a variety of sources over a period of many years. Managing the data generated by the research and development projects presents a significant challenge for retaining data integrity and availability.

Tracking Provenance of Earth Science Data

Tremendous volumes of data have been captured, archived and analyzed. Sensors, algorithms and processing systems for transforming and analyzing the data are evolving over time. Web Portals and Services can create transient data sets on-demand. Data are transferred from organization to organization with additional transformations at every stage. Provenance in this context refers to the source of data and a record of the process that led to its current state. It encompasses the documentation of a variety of artifacts related to particular data. Provenance is important for understanding and using scientific datasets, and critical for independent confirmation of scientific results. Managing provenance throughout scientific data processing has gained interest lately and there are a variety of approaches. Large scale scientific datasets consisting of thousands to millions of individual data files and processes offer particular challenges. This paper uses the analogy of art history provenance to explore some of the concerns of applying provenance tracking to earth science data. It also illustrates some of the provenance issues with examples drawn from the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) Data Processing System (OMIDAPS) run at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center by the first author.

Tilmes, Curt↗

AOIPS 3 User's guide. Volume 1: Overview and software utilization

This is Volume I of the Atmospheric and Oceanographic Information Processing System (AOIPS) User's Guide. AOIPS 3 is the version of the AOIPS software as of April 1989. The AOIPS software was developed jointly by the Goddard Space Flight Center and General Sciences Corporation. Volume 1 is intended to provide the user with an overall guide to the AOIPS system. It introduces the user to AOIPS system concepts, explains how programs are related and the necessary order of program execution, and provides brief descriptions derived from on-line help for every AOIPS program. It is intended to serve as a reference for information such as: program function, inmput/output variable descriptions, program limitations, etc. AOIPS is an interactive meteorological processing system with capabilities to ingest and analyze the many types of meteorological data. AOIPS includes several applications in areas of relevance to meteorological research. AOIPS is partitioned into four applications components: satellite data analysis, radar data analysis, aircraft data analysis, and utilities.

Schotz, S. S.↗

Ground Test Technology Demonstration for Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Engines

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engines have been deemed a key technology to enable human missions to Mars due to their high efficiency, also known as specific impulse (Isp). Ground testing the NTP engine is critical in maturing the technology and increasing the design’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL), thus mitigating risk from NTP engine performance/operations. NTP engine development began with open-air ground testing through the Rover/NERVA program back in the 1960s when regulatory requirements were not as stringent as they are today. Due to the formation of regulatory bodies, increase in oversight and environmental requirements, the exhaust gas released from NTP engines must be captured or processed to gain approval in the case that the exhaust gas contains fission products from the nuclear fuel elements within the reactor. Ground test campaigns following Rover/NERVA focused on the certification of a full scale NTP engine, which led to exhaust processing systems such as the Rocket Exhaust Capture System (RECS) and Real Time (RT) exhaust processing. These systems were deemed favorable for regulatory compliance but have a high initial investment cost. Reassurance on the feasibility of ground testing and the NTP engine technology likely need to be achieved before NASA invests in these systems. Recently the objectives for NTP engine ground testing have shifted from certification testing of a full scale engine to demonstration testing of a subscale engine. The shift to demonstration testing allows for a shorter testing duration and a lower operational thrust (for demo testing purposes only) to demonstrate the NTP engine (5k-12.5k lbf). Due to these factors, the infrastructure, consumables, total footprint, and exhaust system complexity are able to be drastically reduced, thus reducing cost significantly. The High-pressure Exhaust Capture System (HECS) concept was designed for a NTP engine ground test demonstration. The HECS concept greatly reduces cost compared to previous concepts and suggests favorable regulatory acceptance due to its ability to capture all of the exhaust gas from the NTP engine.

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion↗

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion Engine Technology Demonstration Testing

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion (NTP) engines have been deemed a key technology to enable human missions to Mars due to their high efficiency, also known as specific impulse (Isp). Ground testing the NTP engine is critical in maturing the technology and increasing the design’s Technology Readiness Level (TRL), thus mitigating risk from NTP engine performance/operations. NTP engine development began with open-air ground testing through the Rover/NERVA program back in the 1960s when regulatory requirements were not as stringent as they are today. Due to the formation of regulatory bodies, increase in oversight and environmental requirements, the exhaust gas released from NTP engines must be captured or processed to gain approval in the case that the exhaust gas contains fission products from the nuclear fuel elements within the reactor. Ground test campaigns following Rover/NERVA focused on the certification of a full scale NTP engine, which led to exhaust processing systems such as the Rocket Exhaust Capture System (RECS) and Real Time (RT) exhaust processing. These systems were deemed favorable for regulatory compliance but have a high initial investment cost. Reassurance on the feasibility of ground testing and the NTP engine technology likely need to be achieved before NASA invests in these systems. Recently the objectives for NTP engine ground testing have shifted from certification testing of a full scale engine to demonstration testing of a subscale engine. The shift to demonstration testing allows for a shorter testing duration and a lower operational thrust (for demo testing purposes only) to demonstrate the NTP engine (5k-12.5k lbf). Due to these factors, the infrastructure, consumables, total footprint, and exhaust system complexity are able to be drastically reduced, thus reducing cost significantly. The High-pressure Exhaust Capture System (HECS) concept was designed for a NTP engine ground test demonstration. The HECS concept greatly reduces cost compared to previous concepts and suggests favorable regulatory acceptance due to its ability to capture all of the exhaust gas from the NTP engine.

Nuclear Thermal Propulsion↗

Leveraging Multiple Raman Excitation Wavelength Systems for Process Monitoring of Nuclear Waste Streams

Processing nuclear waste from sites such as Hanford is a significant environmental cleanup need while being a significant logistical challenge. Integration of process monitoring tools, that can provide in situ and real-time feedback about the process, can significantly alleviate needs to collect grab samples for process control and product characterization. Raman spectroscopy paired with chemometric analysis is one process monitoring tool that can provide chemical composition information on a large number of chemical targets in nuclear waste streams. However, methods to improve limits of detection as well as drop uncertainty in quantification are needed. Optimizing instrument specifications can achieve this, here this is demonstrated by comparing limits of detection for key analytes when using Raman systems with 671 nm, 532 nm, and 405 nm excitation wavelengths. Generally, limits of detection decease (allowing the measurement of lower salt concentrations) with decreasing wavelength. Similarly, data collection times and averaging were optimized. Finally, multiple chemometric modeling approaches were leveraged, including multiblock methods that combined data from all three Raman systems to simultaneously quantify targets with improved sensitivity.

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

Redirecting data to improve page locality in a scalable data fabric

A data processing system includes a host processor, a local memory coupled to the host processor, a plurality of remote memory media, and a scalable data fabric coupled to the host processor and to the plurality of remote memory media. The scalable data fabric includes a filter for storing information indicating a location of data that is stored by the data processing system. The host processor includes a hardware sequencer coupled to the filter for selectively moving data stored by the filter to the local memory.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Composite Materials for Low-Temperature Applications

Composite materials with improved thermal conductivity and good mechanical strength properties should allow for the design and construction of more thermally efficient components (such as pipes and valves) for use in fluid-processing systems. These materials should have wide application in any number of systems, including ground support equipment (GSE), lunar systems, and flight hardware that need reduced heat transfer. Researchers from the Polymer Science and Technology Laboratory and the Cryogenics Laboratory at Kennedy Space Center were able to develop a new series of composite materials that can meet NASA's needs for lightweight materials/composites for use in fluid systems and also expand the plastic-additive markets. With respect to thermal conductivity and physical properties, these materials are excellent alternatives to prior composite materials and can be used in the aerospace, automotive, military, electronics, food-packaging, and textile markets. One specific application of the polymeric composition is for use in tanks, pipes, valves, structural supports, and components for hot or cold fluid-processing systems where heat flow through materials is a problem to be avoided. These materials can also substitute for metals in cryogenic and other low-temperature applications. These organic/inorganic polymeric composite materials were invented with significant reduction in heat transfer properties. Decreases of 20 to 50 percent in thermal conductivity versus that of the unmodified polymer matrix were measured. These novel composite materials also maintain mechanical properties of the unmodified polymer matrix. These composite materials consist of an inorganic additive combined with a thermoplastic polymer material. The intrinsic, low thermal conductivity of the additive is imparted into the thermoplastic, resulting in a significant reduction in heat transfer over that of the base polymer itself, yet maintaining most of the polymer's original properties. Normal polymer processing techniques can turn these composite materials into unique, custom parts for ground support, Shuttle, and Constellation needs. We fabricated test specimens of the composite and base materials for thermal and mechanical characterization and found that the strength of the composite material at nominal-percentage loading remained relatively unchanged from the base material.

Source record↗

Minimax control of a system with process uncertainty in substate space

The control of a single input-single output plant with parameter uncertainty was approached using a minimax technique. A linear time invariant controller results which requires only partial state feedback and is optimal in the sense that it minimizes a quadratic criterion involving tracking error, control, and parameter uncertainty. Bounded input-bounded output stability is guaranteed provided the transfer function has only left half plane zeros. If uncertainties are bounded, it is always possible to stabilize the system when sufficient control amplitude is available. The number of states required to generate the control is equal to the system order less the number of zeros.

Basuthakur, S.↗

Multiprocessor graphics computation and display using transputers

A package of two-dimensional graphics routines was developed to run on a transputer-based parallel processing system. These routines were designed to enable applications programmers to easily generate and display results from the transputer network in a graphic format. The graphics procedures were designed for the lowest possible network communication overhead for increased performance. The routines were designed for ease of use and to present an intuitive approach to generating graphics on the transputer parallel processing system.

Ellis, Graham K.↗

Dynamic cache bypassing

A processing system fills a memory access request for data from a processor core by bypassing a cache when a write congestion condition is detected, and when transferring the data to the cache would cause eviction of a dirty cache line. The cache is bypassed by transferring the requested data to the processor core or to a different cache. Accordingly, the processing system can temporarily bypass the cache storing the dirty cache line when filling a memory access request, thereby avoiding the eviction and write back to main memory of a dirty cache line when a write congestion condition exists.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Theory on data processing and instrumentation

A selection of NASA Earth observations programs are reviewed, emphasizing hardware capabilities. Sampling theory, noise and detection considerations, and image evaluation are discussed for remote sensor imagery. Vision and perception are considered, leading to numerical image processing. The use of multispectral scanners and of multispectral data processing systems, including digital image processing, is depicted. Multispectral sensing and analysis in application with land use and geographical data systems are also covered.

Billingsley, F. C.↗

The Sample Analysis at Mars Investigation and Instrument Suite

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation of the Mars Science Laboratory(MSL) addresses the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatilesextracted from solid samples. The SAM investigation is designed to contribute substantiallyto the mission goal of quantitatively assessing the habitability of Mars as an essentialstep in the search for past or present life on Mars. SAM is a 40 kg instrument suite locatedin the interior of MSLs Curiosity rover. The SAM instruments are a quadrupole massspectrometer, a tunable laser spectrometer, and a 6-column gas chromatograph all coupledthrough solid and gas processing systems to provide complementary information on thesame samples. The SAM suite is able to measure a suite of light isotopes and to analyzevolatiles directly from the atmosphere or thermally released from solid samples. In additionto measurements of simple inorganic compounds and noble gases SAM will conducta sensitive search for organic compounds with either thermal or chemical extraction fromsieved samples delivered by the sample processing system on the Curiosity rovers roboticarm.

isotopes↗

The Sample Analysis at Mars Investigation and Instrument Suite

The Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) investigation of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) addresses the chemical and isotopic composition of the atmosphere and volatiles extracted from solid samples. The SAM investigation is designed to contribute substantially to the mission goal of quantitatively assessing the habitability of Mars as an essential step in the search for past or present life on Mars. SAM is a 40 kg instrument suite located in the interior of MSL's Curiosity rover. The SAM instruments are a quadrupole mass spectrometer, a tunable laser spectrometer, and a 6-column gas chromatograph all coupled through solid and gas processing systems to provide complementary information on the same samples. The SAM suite is able to measure a suite of light isotopes and to analyze volatiles directly from the atmosphere or thermally released from solid samples. In addition to measurements of simple inorganic compounds and noble gases SAM will conduct a sensitive search for organic compounds with either thermal or chemical extraction from sieved samples delivered by the sample processing system on the Curiosity rover's robotic arm,

Mahaffy, Paul↗

Space Station technology testbed: 2010 deep space transport

A space station in a crew-tended or permanently crewed configuration will provide major R&D opportunities for innovative, technology and materials development and advanced space systems testing. A space station should be designed with the basic infrastructure elements required to grow into a major systems technology testbed. This space-based technology testbed can and should be used to support the development of technologies required to expand our utilization of near-Earth space, the Moon and the Earth-to-Jupiter region of the Solar System. Space station support of advanced technology and materials development will result in new techniques for high priority scientific research and the knowledge and R&D base needed for the development of major, new commercial product thrusts. To illustrate the technology testbed potential of a space station and to point the way to a bold, innovative approach to advanced space systems' development, a hypothetical deep space transport development and test plan is described. Key deep space transport R&D activities are described would lead to the readiness certification of an advanced, reusable interplanetary transport capable of supporting eight crewmembers or more. With the support of a focused and highly motivated, multi-agency ground R&D program, a deep space transport of this type could be assembled and tested by 2010. Key R&D activities on a space station would include: (1) experimental research investigating the microgravity assisted, restructuring of micro-engineered, materials (to develop and verify the in-space and in-situ 'tuning' of materials for use in debris and radiation shielding and other protective systems), (2) exposure of microengineered materials to the space environment for passive and operational performance tests (to develop in-situ maintenance and repair techniques and to support the development, enhancement, and implementation of protective systems, data and bio-processing systems, and virtual reality and telepresence/kinetic processes), (3) subsystem tests of advanced nuclear power, nuclear propulsion and communication systems (using boom extensions, remote station-keeping platforms and mobile EVA crew and robots), and (4) logistics support (crew and equipment) and command and control of deep space transport assembly, maintenance, and refueling (using a station-keeping platform).

Holt, Alan C.↗

The Space Cube Architecture -- A Road Map for the Future

Concepts of using modular computer system processing units using today's technology are described. Topics covered are: reasons for modularizing, reasons for stacking modules, module packaging & inter- module packaging, interconnection between modules, space-bus require- ments, gateway features, general architecture, single string and dual string architecture (and examples), and triple module redundancy.

space cube architecture modular computer system pr↗

Error detection and correction utilizing locally stored parity information

A processing system includes a memory coupled to a processor. The memory stores data blocks, with each data block having a separate associated checksum value stored along with the data block in the memory. The processor has a storage location that stores parity information for the data blocks, with the parity information having a plurality of parity blocks. Each parity block represents a parity of a corresponding set of data blocks. The parity blocks can be accessed for use in error detection and correction schemes used by the processing system.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗