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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 865 records · Page 48
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2008

Qualification Testing of Engineering Camera and Platinum Resistance Thermometer (PRT) Sensors for Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Project under Extreme Temperatures to Assess Reliability and to Enhance Mission Assurance

Package Qualification and Verification (PQV) of advanced electronic packaging and interconnect technologies and various other types of qualification hardware for the Mars Exploration Rover/Mars Science Laboratory flight projects has been performed to enhance the mission assurance. The qualification of hardware (Engineering Camera and Platinum Resistance Thermometer, PRT) under extreme cold temperatures has been performed with reference to various project requirements. The flight-like packages, sensors, and subassemblies have been selected for the study to survive three times (3x) the total number of expected temperature cycles resulting from all environmental and operational exposures occurring over the life of the flight hardware including all relevant manufacturing, ground operations and mission phases. Qualification has been performed by subjecting above flight-like qual hardware to the environmental temperature extremes and assessing any structural failures or degradation in electrical performance due to either overstress or thermal cycle fatigue. Experiments of flight like hardware qualification test results have been described in this paper.

package reliability↗
NASA NTRS1990

Olympus propagation studies in the US: Propagation terminal hardware and experiments

Virginia Tech is performing a comprehensive set of propagation measurements using the Olympus satellite beacons at 12.5, 20, and 30 GHz. These data will be used to characterize propagation conditions on small earth terminal (VSAT)-type networks for next generation small aperture Ka-band systems. The European Space Agency (ESA) satellite Olympus was launched July 12, 1989. The spacecraft contains a sophisticated package of propagation beacons operating at 12.5, 19.77, and 29.66 GHz (referred to as 12.5, 20, and 30 beacons). These beacons cover the east coast of the United States with sufficient power for attenuation measurements. The Virginia Satellite Communications Group is completing the hardware construction phase and will begin formal data collection in June.

Stutzmzn, Warren L.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Europa Environmental Testing of Thermal Hardware for the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE) Instrument

The Europa Clipper spacecraft, scheduled for launch in June 2022, hosts a suite of instruments including the Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa (MISE). MISE is a high-optical through-put pushbroom infrared imaging spectrometer that can collect measurements within Europa’s challenging radiation environment. It is externally mounted to the spacecraft and as a result is exposed to high radiation levels and cold temperatures. The instrument consists of a scan mirror assembly, an optical bench including a Dyson spectrometer and a telescope, and a structure that supports a cryocooler and a radiator. The cryocooler is used to actively cool the focal plane array and the spectrometer. The heat from the cryocooler is rejected through pyrolytic graphite sheet thermal straps to a honeycomb radiator. MISE will implement thermal hardware that will either not be used on other parts of the spacecraft or have a more extreme environment than the spacecraft. As a result, the MISE instrument performed numerous environmental tests on its thermal hardware. This paper discusses the results of the thermal cycling and radiation tests performed on the MISE thermal hardware including a Lockheed Martin Micro1-2 cryocooler, Pyrolytic graphite sheet thermal straps, Annealed pyrolytic graphite K-Core, Rosemount Platinum Resistance Thermometers, Tayco Kapton Thermofoil heaters, Dale Ohm resistors, and aluminum honeycomb and facesheets.

Strong, Patrick↗
DOE OSTI2017

RAJA Performance Suite

The RAJA Performance Suite is designed to evaluate performance of the RAJA performance portability library on a wide variety of important high performance computing (HPC) algorithmic lulmels. These kernels assess compiler optimizations and various parallel programming model backends accessible through RAJA, such as OpenMP, CUDA, etc. The Initial version of the suite contains 25 computational kernels, each of which appears in 6 variants: Baseline SequcntiaJ, RAJA SequentiaJ, Baseline OpenMP, RAJA OpenMP, Baseline CUDA, RAJA CUDA. All variants of each kernel perform essentially the same mathematical operations and the loop body code for each kernel is identical across all variants. There are a few kernels, such as those that contain reduction operations, that require CUDA-specific coding for their CUDA variants. ActuaJ computer instructions executed and how they run in parallel differs depending on the parallel programming model backend used and which optimizations are perfonned by the compiler used to build the Perfonnance Suite executable. The Suite will be used primarily by RAJA developers to perform regular assessments of RAJA performance across a range of hardware platforms and compilers as RAJA features are being developed. It will also be used by LLNL hardware and software vendor panners for new defining requirements for future computing platform procurements and acceptance testing. In particular, the RAJA Performance Suite will be used for compiler acceptance testing of the upcoming CORAUSierra machine {initial LLNL delivery expected in late-2017/early 2018) and the CORAL-2 procurement. The Suite will aJso be used to generate concise source code reproducers of compiler and runtime issues we uncover so that we may provide them to relevant vendors to be fixed.

Hornung, RichardD.↗
NASA NTRS1990

The JPL telerobot operator control station: Operational experiences

The Operator Control Station of the JPL/NASA Telerobot Demonstration System provides an efficient man-machine interface for the performance of telerobot tasks. Its hardware and software have been designed with high flexibility. It provides a feedback-rich interactive environment in which the Operator performs teleoperation tasks, robotic tasks, and telerobotic tasks with ease. The to-date operational experiences of this system, particularly related to the Object Designate Process and the Voice Input/Output Process are discussed.

Kan, Edwin P.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Development of Biocompatibility Procedures for Assessment of Plant Growth in Ground Test Hardware for the EMCS

The European Modular Cultivation System (EMCS) is an European Space Agency-developed facility designed to support plant research in microgravity on the IS NASA is responsible for providing US specific hardware to use within the EMCS. In preparation for flight, research will be developed and tested at Ames Research Center in the EMCS ground test hardware, the Experiment Reference Module (ERM) In order to determine the acceptability of the ERM for such purposes, biocompatibility tests will be performed to determine that the hardware functions as intended and successfully supports the' growth of plants. In this report, we describe the development of procedures and the collection of baseline data against which to compare ERM function, e.g. biocompatibility testing. A simple and robust system was developed to grow whole Arabidopsis thaliana plants within the confined volumes characteristic of spaceflight hardware. Our system for growing plants eliminated the necessity of a water/nutrient delivery system and allowed for quantifiable assessment of individual plants, as well as entire population dynamics. To insure uniform germination, seeds were started in small straw segments and transplanted into modified scintillation vials. Seedlings were selected prior to transplantation to decrease genetic variability. Plants were grown for a total of 24 days in standard laboratory plant growth chambers under controlled conditions. Sequential digital still images were taken on a daily basis. Analysis of these images allowed for the quantification of even minute environmental effect, on growth dynamics whole plants. The data collected provide reliable growth curves against which to compare plants grown in the ERM.

Bowman, R. N.↗
NASA NTRS1992

SSME Streamtube Evaluation Program (SSTEP)

An analytical model of the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) called SSME Streamtube Evaluation Program (SSTEP) has been developed based upon the assumption that the propellant flows through the main combustion chamber can be represented by a bundle of parallel streamtubes. The motivation for the development of SSTEP lies in the desire to gain a basic understanding of the engine performance effects of several common SSME hardware modifications. Specifically, this model has been used to evaluate the changes in performance due to boundary layer coolant hole enlargement, LOX post plugging, acoustic cavity elimination, baffle removal, and main combustion chamber coolant leakage. The results show a good general agreement with the available test data suggesting at least a qualitative agreement between SSTEP modeling and actual engine performance. Through the use of several adjustment factors, which represent relaxations of the SSTEP formulation assumptions, it is shown that the test data can be very closely matched and that SSTEP can be used as a performance prediction tool.

Greene, William D.↗
NASA NTRS2001

PacRIM II: A review of AirSAR operations and system performance

In this paper we briefly review the AirSAR system, its expected performance, and quality of data obtained during that mission. We discuss the system hardware calibration methodologies, and present quantitative performance values of radar backscatter and interferometric height errors (random and systematic) from PACRIM II calibration data.

PacRIM II AirSAR radar remote-sensing↗
NASA NTRS1989

High capacity demonstration of honeycomb panel heat pipes

The feasibility of performance enhancing the sandwich panel heat pipe was investigated for moderate temperature range heat rejection radiators on future-high-power spacecraft. The hardware development program consisted of performance prediction modeling, fabrication, ground test, and data correlation. Using available sandwich panel materials, a series of subscale test panels were augumented with high-capacity sideflow and temperature control variable conductance features, and test evaluated for correlation with performance prediction codes. Using the correlated prediction model, a 50-kW full size radiator was defined using methanol working fluid and closely spaced sideflows. A new concept called the hybrid radiator individually optimizes heat pipe components. A 2.44-m long hybrid test vehicle demonstrated proof-of-principle performance.

Tanzer, H. J.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Point-Focus Concentration Compact Telescoping Array: Extreme Environments Solar Power Base Phase Final Report

Orbital ATK, in partnership with Mark ONeill LLC (MOLLC), has developed a novel solar array platform, PFC-CTA, which provides a significant advance in performance and cost reduction compared to all currently available space solar systems. PFC refers to the Point Focus Concentration of light provided by MOLLCs thin, flat Fresnel optics. These lenses focus light to a point of approximately 100 times the intensity of the ambient light, onto a solar cell of approximately 125th the size of the lens. CTA stands for Compact Telescoping Array, which is the solar array blanket structural platform originally devised by NASA and currently being advanced by Orbital ATK and partners under NASA and AFRL funding to a projected TRL 5+ by late-2018.The NASA Game Changing Development Extreme Environment Solar Power (EESP) Base Phase study has enabled Orbital ATK to refine component designs, perform component level and system performance analyses, and test prototype hardware of the key elements of PFC-CTA, and increased the TRL of PFC-specific technology elements to TRL 4. Key performance metrics currently projected are as follows: Scalability from 5 kW to 300 kW per wing (AM0); Specific Power 500 Wkg (AM0); Stowage Efficiency 100 kWm3; 5:1 margin on pointing tolerance vs. capability; 50 launched cost savings; Wide range of operability between Venus and Saturn by active andor passive thermal management.

McEachen, Michael E.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Point-Focus Concentration Compact Telescoping Array: EESP Option 1 Phase Final Report for Public Release

Orbital ATK, in partnership with Mark O’Neill LLC (MOLLC) and SolAero Technologies Corp., has developed a novel solar array platform, PFC-CTA, which provides a significant advance in performance and cost reduction compared to all currently available space solar systems. “PFC” refers to the Point Focus Concentration of light provided by MOLLC’s thin, flat Fresnel optics. These lenses focus light to a point of approximately 100 times the intensity of the ambient light, onto a solar cell of approximately 1/25th the size of the lens. “CTA” stands for Compact Telescoping Array1, which is the solar array blanket structural platform originally devised by NASA and currently being advanced by Orbital ATK and partners under NASA and AFRL funding to a projected TRL 5+ by late-2018. The NASA Game Changing Development Extreme Environment Solar Power (EESP) Option 1 Phase study has enabled Orbital ATK to generate and refine component designs, perform component level and system performance analyses, and test prototype hardware of the key elements of PFC-CTA, and increased the TRL of PFC-specific technology elements to TRL ~5. Key performance metrics currently projected are as follows: Scalability from < 5 kW to >300 kW per wing (AM0); Specific Power > 250 W/kg (BoL, AM0); Stowage Efficiency > 60 kW/m3; 5:1 margin on pointing tolerance vs. capability; >50% launched cost savings; Wide range of operability between Venus and Saturn by active and/or passive thermal management.

Mceachen, Michael E.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Reliability and Qualification of Hardware to Enhance the Mission Assurance of JPL/NASA Projects

Packaging Qualification and Verification (PQV) and life testing of advanced electronic packaging, mechanical assemblies (motors/actuators), and interconnect technologies (flip-chip), platinum temperature thermometer attachment processes, and various other types of hardware for Mars Exploration Rover (MER)/Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), and JUNO flight projects was performed to enhance the mission assurance. The qualification of hardware under extreme cold to hot temperatures was performed with reference to various project requirements. The flight like packages, assemblies, test coupons, and subassemblies were selected for the study to survive three times the total number of expected temperature cycles resulting from all environmental and operational exposures occurring over the life of the flight hardware including all relevant manufacturing, ground operations, and mission phases. Qualification/life testing was performed by subjecting flight-like qualification hardware to the environmental temperature extremes and assessing any structural failures, mechanical failures or degradation in electrical performance due to either overstress or thermal cycle fatigue. Experimental flight qualification test results will be described in this presentation.

PRTs↗
DOE OSTI2025

A Scalable Hardware-and-Human-in-the-Loop Grid-interactive Efficient Building Equipment Performance Dataset

This project developed a publicly available, high-fidelity dataset about the interactions among humans, homes, and heat pumps supporting grid interactive efficient buildings to balance demand on the grid with comfort for occupants. Laboratory measurements and simulations of the hardware capture the second-scale electric power dynamics of heat pumps providing grid services like load shifting and load shedding. Field measurements, behavior tracking, and qualitative surveys of people in their homes over multiple years—including experimentally adjusting the heating and cooling system to provide grid services—to capture the reciprocal effect of human behavior on grid services, and grid services on human comfort. Taken together, these data capture the complete Hardware and Human in the loop system for residential heat pumps, reducing large uncertainties in simulation for design, and models for control of heat pumps, and grid-interactive buildings.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2026

Data-driven analysis to understand GPU hardware resource usage of optimizations

With heterogeneous systems, the number of GPUs per chip increases to provide computational capabilities for solving science at a nanoscopic scale. However, low utilization for single GPUs defies the need to invest more money in expensive accelerators. Although related work develops optimizations to improve application performance, none studies how these optimizations impact hardware resource usage or average GPU utilization. Here, this paper takes a data-driven analysis approach in addressing this gap by (1) characterizing how hardware resource usage affects device utilization, execution time, or both, (2) presenting a multiobjective metric to identify important application-device interactions that can be optimized to improve device utilization and application performance jointly, (3) studying hardware resource usage behaviors of several optimizations for a benchmark application, and finally (4) identifying optimization opportunities for several scientific proxy applications based on their hardware resource usage behaviors. Furthermore, we demonstrate the applicability of our methodology by applying the identified optimizations to a proxy application, which improves the execution time, device utilization, and power consumption by up to 29.6%, 5.3% and 26.5% respectively.

Computer science↗
NASA NTRS2016

Human Exploration Spacecraft Testbed for Integration and Advancement (HESTIA)

The proposed paper will cover ongoing effort named HESTIA (Human Exploration Spacecraft Testbed for Integration and Advancement), led at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Johnson Space Center (JSC) to promote a cross-subsystem approach to developing Mars-enabling technologies with the ultimate goal of integrated system optimization. HESTIA also aims to develop the infrastructure required to rapidly test these highly integrated systems at a low cost. The initial focus is on the common fluids architecture required to enable human exploration of mars, specifically between life support and in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) subsystems. An overview of the advancements in both integrated technologies, in infrastructure, in simulation, and in modeling capabilities will be presented, as well as the results and findings of integrated testing,. Due to the enormous mass gear-ratio required for human exploration beyond low-earth orbit, (for every 1 kg of payload landed on Mars, 226 kg will be required on Earth), minimization of surface hardware and commodities is paramount. Hardware requirements can be minimized by reduction of equipment performing similar functions though for different subsystems. If hardware could be developed which meets the requirements of both life support and ISRU it could result in the reduction of primary hardware and/or reduction in spares. Minimization of commodities to the surface of mars can be achieved through the creation of higher efficiency systems producing little to no undesired waste, such as a closed-loop life support subsystem. Where complete efficiency is impossible or impractical, makeup commodities could be manufactured via ISRU. Although, utilization of ISRU products (oxygen and water) for crew consumption holds great promise of reducing demands on life support hardware, there exist concerns as to the purity and transportation of commodities. To date, ISRU has been focused on production rates and purities for propulsion needs. The meshing of requirements between all potential users, producers, and cleaners of oxygen and water is crucial to guiding the development of technologies which will be used to perform these functions. Various new capabilities are being developed as part of HESTIA, which will enable the integrated testing of these technologies. This includes the upgrading of a 20' diameter habitat chamber to eventually support long duration (90+ day) human-in-the-loop testing of advanced life support systems. Additionally, a 20' diameter vacuum chamber is being modified to create Mars atmospheric pressures and compositions. This chamber, designated the Mars Environment Chamber (MEC), will eventually be upgraded to include a dusty environment and thermal shroud to simulate conditions on the surface of Mars. In view that individual technologies will be in geographically diverse locations across NASA facilities and elsewhere in the world, schedule and funding constraints will likely limit the frequency of physical integration. When this is the case, absent subsystems can be either digitally or physically simulated. Using the Integrated Power Avionics and Software (iPAS) environment, HESTIA is able to bring together data from various subsystems in simulated surroundings, insert faults, errors, time delays, etc., and feed data into computer models or physical systems capable of reproducing the output of the absent subsystems for the consumption of a local subsystems. Although imperfect, this capability provides opportunities to test subsystem integration and interactions at a fraction of the cost. When a subsystem technology is too immature for integrated testing, models can be produced using the General-Use Nodal Network Solver (GUNNS) capability to simulate the overall system performance. In doing so, even technologies not yet on the drawing board can be integrated and overall system performance estimated. Through the integrated development of technologies, as well as of the infrastructure to rapidly and at a low cost, model, simulate, and test subsystem technologies early in their development, HESTIA is pioneering a new way of developing the future of human space exploration.

Banker, Brian F.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Stanford Hardware Development Program

Architectures for high performance, digital signal processing, particularly for high resolution, wide band spectrum analysis were developed. These developments are intended to provide instrumentation for NASA's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) program. The real time signal processing is both formal and experimental. The efficient organization and optimal scheduling of signal processing algorithms were investigated. The work is complemented by efforts in processor architecture design and implementation. A high resolution, multichannel spectrometer that incorporates special purpose microcoded signal processors is being tested. A general purpose signal processor for the data from the multichannel spectrometer was designed to function as the processing element in a highly concurrent machine. The processor performance required for the spectrometer is in the range of 1000 to 10,000 million instructions per second (MIPS). Multiple node processor configurations, where each node performs at 100 MIPS, are sought. The nodes are microprogrammable and are interconnected through a network with high bandwidth for neighboring nodes, and medium bandwidth for nodes at larger distance. The implementation of both the current mutlichannel spectrometer and the signal processor as Very Large Scale Integration CMOS chip sets was commenced.

Peterson, A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

PSC implementation and integration

Hardware and software design of the performance seeking control (PSC) for the NASA F-15 research aircraft are described. The hardware architecture, vehicle management system computer (VMSC), pilot interface, and PSC mode selection are discussed. The PSC software is distributed among the VMSC, central computer, digital electronic engine controls (DEEC's), and electronic air inlet controllers (EAIC's). The major PSC modules, VMSC logic, VMSC channel C memory requirements, VMSC channel C timing, and navigation control indicator (NCI) variables and where they are located are presented.

Nobbs, Steven↗
NASA NTRS1998

Autotasked Performance in the NAS Workload: A Statistical Analysis

A statistical analysis of the workload performance of a production quality FORTRAN code for five different Cray Y-MP hardware and system software configurations is performed. The analysis was based on an experimental procedure that was designed to minimize correlations between the number of requested CPUs and the time of day the runs were initiated. Observed autotasking over heads were significantly larger for the set of jobs that requested the maximum number of CPUs. Speedups for UNICOS 6 releases show consistent wall clock speedups in the workload of around 2. which is quite good. The observed speed ups were very similar for the set of jobs that requested 8 CPUs and the set that requested 4 CPUs. The original NAS algorithm for determining charges to the user discourages autotasking in the workload. A new charging algorithm to be applied to jobs run in the NQS multitasking queues also discourages NAS users from using auto tasking. The new algorithm favors jobs requesting 8 CPUs over those that request less, although the jobs requesting 8 CPUs experienced significantly higher over head and presumably degraded system throughput. A charging algorithm is presented that has the following desirable characteristics when applied to the data: higher overhead jobs requesting 8 CPUs are penalized when compared to moderate overhead jobs requesting 4 CPUs, thereby providing a charging incentive to NAS users to use autotasking in a manner that provides them with significantly improved turnaround while also maintaining system throughput.

Carter, R. L.↗