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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 91 records · Page 5
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2025

Basin & Range Investigation for Developing Geothermal Energy

Hidden geothermal systems represent a potentially prolific energy resource that could support critical U.S. public and government energy priorities. Basin and Range Investigations for Developing Geothermal Energy (BRIDGE) addressed some the challenges associated with hidden system exploration by prioritizing cost-effective exploration early on through strategic workflow and informed decision-making that mitigates early risk and shifts resources to later exploration stages (e.g., drilling). Sandia National Laboratories partnered with U.S. Navy Geothermal Office, Geologic Geothermal Group, and independent consultants, with additional collaboration with U.S. Geological Survey and private industry. The primary tool of the BRIDGE project was to deploy a regional-scale airborne electromagnetic method to investigate the shallow resistivity structure in areas with high prospectivity. This was followed up at several prospects by a multidisciplinary exploration approach, including additional geologic, geophysical and geochemical studies. A central tenet to the BRIDGE methodology is that zones of low resistivity frequently occur over geothermal systems in the Basin and Range, and when paired with other data constraints, imaging these zones can enable discovery of these systems. In addition to exploring greenfield areas (i.e., Grover Point), the BRIDGE project also flew HTEM resistivity surveys over known geothermal systems including those with established power plants (Don A. Campbell and Salt Wells) and prospects that are known to the literature but remain undeveloped, at least in part, due to a lack of understanding on the location of their producible reservoirs. BRIDGE produced a comprehensive set of data from prospects identified in the Nevada Play Fairway Analysis along with conceptual models for top ranking prospects, wherein all of the observations are used to inform an interpreted model of the system. These models present a range of possible system parameters such as temperature and size, and they are further informed by system analogues in the Basin and Range province and elsewhere. The results of this work leave space for further exploration that may now occur at prospects ‘down the list’ rather than distribution exploration resources evenly across all prospects.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2016

On-Orbit Manufacturing From Orbital Factories to In Situ Resource Utilization

This webinar will review commercial prospects for manufacturing in orbit. Doing business in space is rapidly becoming more reliable, affordable and accessible. From 2010 to 2015 launch prices went down by a factor of 10 or more, to about $5,000kg while investments into Space 2.0 companies and technologies are closing in on $2.5 Billion (New Space Global). With three commercial suppliers (SpaceX, Orbital ATK and Sierra Nevada Corp) to Earths orbits, mission frequency is improving dramatically. Moreover, private space companies (SpaceX Reusable Dragon Lab; Bigelows B330) are also scouting the opportunities of renting or selling modules as platforms for orbital free-flying facilities; modules that can be used for automated fabrication to manned experiments.Topics addressed in the webinar include: 1. Case studies of unique competitive advantages that can be gained from microgravity and space vacuum: wafer reprocessing, fiber optics, crystal growth;2. Prospective solar power orbital data centers;3. Reuse and recycling of orbital debris as a possible feedstock for robotic 3D fabrication potentially in the vacuum as well as inside facilities;4. The story behind the original WakeShield wafer fabrication facility and its relevance to todays activities;5. Energy needs for on-orbit manufacturing6. Environmental value proposition of on-orbit manufacturing for products with toxic byproducts or excessively large green house gases footprints;7. Longer term scenario of flexible, connected, automated, intelligent and sustainable orbital factories of the future.Opening up a less-appreciated aspect of NewSpace, this webinar will be of high interest to CTOs, Directors and Managers from product development to RD, Innovation Strategy leaders, and investors, across many different industrial verticals (materials, electronics, pharmaceuticals, advanced sustainable manufacturing, bioengineering, etc.)and anyone trying to understand what value space can have for their business in the near and far future.

Cozmuta, Ioana↗
DOE OSTI2022

Small experiment, Big Data: the data production of the Muon $g-2$ Experiment

The Muon $g-2$ Experiment at Fermilab aims to measure the muon anomalous magnetic moment with the unprecedented precision of 140 parts per billion (ppb). In April 2021 the collaboration published the first measurement, based on the first year of data taking. The result confirmed the previous experiment at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), and increased the long-standing tension with the Standard Model prediction to 4.2 $\sigma$. The experiment is now running the sixth year of data acquisition of positive muon data, having accumulated a total of $\sim$19 times the statistics of the BNL experiment. A collaboration-wide effort is now in place to help produce the multi-petabyte-sized data sets, a challenge typically faced by much bigger experiments. Having a quick production turnaround time is of critical importance in order to achieve a timely analysis and publication schedule. In this paper I will describe the production workflow, the former and current challenges, the resources, tools, and the future prospects of the Muon $g-2$ Experiment.

Girotti, Paolo↗
NASA NTRS1992

A Backscatter Moessbauer Spectrometer (BaMS) for use on Mars

The use of Moessbauer spectroscopy for in situ analysis on the surface of Mars was proposed and the design and implementation of a backscatter Moessbauer spectrometer (BaMS) instrument suitable for planetary missions to the surfaces of Mars (MESUR), the Moon (Artemis and lunar outpost), asteroids, or other solid solar system objects is discussed. The BaMS instrument is designed to be capable of analysis of a sample for the mineralogy of its iron-bearing phases without any sample preparation. A requirement of lander missions to Mars is instrumentation for in situ mineralogical analyses. Such analyses provide data needed for primary characterization as to the type of surface materials present and by inference the processes that formed and subsequently modified them. For purposes of providing diagnostic information about naturally occurring materials, the element iron is particularly important because it is abundant and multivalent (primarily 0, +2, and +3 oxidation states). Knowledge of the oxidation state of iron and its distribution among iron-bearing mineralogies tightly constrains the types of materials present. The pivotal role of iron was already recognized in 1978 by COMPLEX, who recommended development of flight instruments that would identify mineralogy and the oxidation state of iron in planetary surface materials. The near-term U.S. strategy for the exploration of Mars is the MESUR (Mars Environmental SURvey) program, which entails emplacement of a network of small, long-lived surface landers. For the Moon, BaMS was recommended as part of a three-instrument landed payload for the Artemis missions, targeted for 1997. BaMS would prospect for ilmenite, an oxygen resource material, and provide data to assess the maturity of lunar soil. Because instrumental characteristics are low mass, low volume, and low power consumption, BaMS is suitable for implementation on even small landers and rovers, as are being envisioned in MESUR and Artemis concepts. In addition to providing highly diagnostic data, a BaMS analyzer is inherently simple and, as is highly desirable for remote operation, no sample preparation is required.

Agresti, D. G.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Mission and Implementation of an Affordable Lunar Return

We present an architecture that establishes the infrastructure for routine space travel by taking advantage of the Moon's resources, proximity and accessibility. We use robotic assets on the Moon that are teleoperated from Earth to prospect, test, demonstrate and produce water from lunar resources before human arrival. This plan is affordable, flexible and not tied to any specific launch vehicle solution. Individual surface pieces are small, permitting them to be deployed separately on small launchers or combined together on single large launchers. Schedule is our free variable; even under highly constrained budgets, the architecture permits this program to be continuously pursued using small, incremental, cumulative steps. The end stage is a fully functional, human-tended lunar outpost capable of producing 150 metric tonnes of water per year enough to export water from the Moon and create a transportation system that allows routine access to all of cislunar space. This cost-effective lunar architecture advances technology and builds a sustainable transportation infrastructure. By eliminating the need to launch everything from the surface of the Earth, we fundamentally change the paradigm of spaceflight.

Spudis, Paul↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Numerical Modelling of Sublimation Losses During Sample Handling Within the Light WAVE Lunar Water Prospecting Instrument

NASA’s focus of exploring the Moon’s south pole under the Artemis program has placed new emphasis on characterizing the quantity and distribution of water ice and other volatiles present within the Moon’s permanently shadowed regions (PSRs), first measured during the 2009 LCROSS mission. NASA’s VIPER rover is the first of a series of prospecting missions to characterize this water ice resource. NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) has developed the Light Water Analysis and Volatiles Extraction (Light WAVE) instrument shown in Figure 1 for a follow-on prospecting mission, designed to be a rover payload for water ice prospecting at various depths and locations within PSRs. A key source of error for lunar water prospecting instruments, including Light WAVE, is the loss of water in an icy regolith sample to the lunar vacuum via sublimation due to heating above its ice-stable temperature. This abstract and conference presentation discuss a sublimation model for Light WAVE’s sample crucible using COMSOL Multiphysics to assess the sublimation losses that would occur between sample collection from an external drill and sealing the sample within Light WAVE’s boiler.

Lunar Polar Water↗
NASA NTRS1992

Space Station Freedom user's guide

This guide is intended to inform prospective users of the accommodations and resources provided by the Space Station Freedom program. Using this information, they can determine if Space Station Freedom is an appropriate laboratory or facility for their research objectives. The steps that users must follow to fly a payload on Freedom are described. This guide covers the accommodations and resources available on the Space Station during the Man-Tended Capability (MTC) period, scheduled to begin the end of 1996, and a Permanently Manned Capability (PMC) beginning in late 1999.

Source record↗
DOE OSTI2022

Machine learning and shallow groundwater chemistry to identify geothermal prospects in the Great Basin, USA

This study discovers various geothermal prospects in the Great Basin, USA based on shallow groundwater chemical (geochemical) data. The geochemical data are expected to include hidden (latent) information that is a proxy for geothermal prospectivity. We processed the sparse geochemical data in the Great Basin at 14,341 locations including 18 attributes. Next, a non-negative matrix factorization with customized k-means clustering is applied to the geochemical data matrix that automatically finds three hidden geothermal signatures representing modestly, moderately, and highly confident geothermal prospects. The algorithm also evaluated the probability of occurrence of these types of resources through the studied region. There is a consistency between regional geothermal prospectivity as estimated by our ML methodology and the traditional play fairway analysis conducted over a portion of the study area. We also identify the dominant data attributes associated with each signature. Finally, our ML analyses allow us to reconstruct attributes from sparse into continuous over the study domain. The predicted continuous attributes can be used for future detailed geothermal explorations in the Great Basin.

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1991

Utilization of space resources: A historical view

While widely accepted today, the use of non-Earth resources in official space planning circles has been long in coming. Popular and governmental acceptance of using extraterrestrial resources, be they asteroids, comets, or other celestial bodies are highlighted. Particular emphasis is placed on those individuals, such as the late Dandridge Cole, who pioneered early discussion and thought on the topic over a period of several decades. The evolution of using extraterrestrial resources in governmental space policy, such as NASA's Outlook for Space (1976) and Pioneering the Space Frontier (1986) is reviewed. Put forward is the view that a redefinition of resources of near-Earth space may be warranted, particularly in consideration of using high vacuum, solar radiation, and magnetospheric phenomenon for experimentation and application purposes. Lastly, a prospective look at public reaction to utilizing space resources is presented.

David, Leonard W.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Lunar Prospecting: Searching for Volatiles at the South Pole

The Resource Prospector is an in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology demonstration mission, planned for a 2021 launch to search for and analyze volatiles at the Lunar South Pole. The mission poses unique operational challenges. Operating at the Lunar South Pole requires navigating a surface with lighting, shadow and regolith characteristics unlike those of previous missions. The short round trip communications time enables reactive surface operations for science and engineering. Navigation of permanently shadowed regions with a solar powered rover creates risks, including power and thermal management, and requires constant real time decision making for safe entry, path selection and egress. The mission plan requires a faster rover egress from the lander than any previous NASA rover mission.

operations↗
NASA NTRS2017

Resource Prospector: Evaluating the ISRU Potential of the Lunar Poles

Resource Prospector (RP) is a lunar volatiles prospecting mission being developed for potential flight in CY2021-2022. The mission includes a rover-borne payload that (1) can locate surface and near-subsurface volatiles, (2) excavate and analyze samples of the volatile-bearing regolith, and (3) demonstrate the form, extractability and usefulness of the materials. The primary mission goal for RP is to evaluate the In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) potential of the lunar poles.

Colaprete, A.↗
DOE OSTI2023

The Prospects for Pumped Storage Hydropower in Alaska

Key Takeaways: The resource mapping analysis confirmed that numerous locations in Alaska are suitable for the development of pumped storage hydropower (PSH) projects, both larger grid scale projects and smaller projects that could be suitable for remote communities; The resource assessment for larger, grid-scale projects showed the potential for more than 1,800 closed-loop systems in Alaska, with a total energy storage capacity of about 4 terawatt hours (TWh); Because of their small reservoir sizes and dam heights, many locations were identified as potentially suitable for small-scale PSH systems. Nearly 50% of the identified potentially suitable small-scale PSH sites are in Southeast Alaska; PSH candidate sites were part of the optimal capacity expansion solution in all scenarios analyzed for the Railbelt system. Depending on the scenario, the new PSH capacity that the model selected for the analysis period until 2046 ranged from 300 MW to 600 MW. The locations and timing of new PSH investments vary in different scenarios; Lithium-ion batteries were also selected a source of new generating capacity in all analyzed scenarios for the Railbelt system, indicating that the system will need a mix of short- and long-duration energy storage to support variable renewable energy sources and provide system reliability in the future; For rural communities, analysis results showed that PSH suitability is very site-specific; in addition to diesel fuel costs and PSH capital costs, suitability depends heavily on available renewable resources and existing infrastructure (e.g., reservoirs, transmission access and construction road access); The analysis for rural communities also showed that PSH projects with 10-hour energy storage are likely to be more economical for remote community applications in Alaska than those with larger reservoirs that could provide 10 days of energy storage; Lithium-ion batteries seem to be an economically more viable energy storage option for small, remote communities in Alaska.

13 HYDRO ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS2017

DEEP SPACE INDUSTRIALIZATION: Key To Sustainable Exploration, Development and Settlement of the Solar System

Recent developments related to deep space exploration and development have raised the question of whether the paradigm shift that many people have been expecting, from space exploration to space development and industrialization, is finally occurring. These recent events include Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) announcement that they have been contacted by two wealthy individuals who would like to travel around the Moon within the next two years and a recently reported story of Jeff Bezos’ proposal to the Trump Administration to offer cargo delivery services to the Lunar surface (Blue Moon) by mid 2020 as part of a public/private partnership with NASA. In addition Bob Bigelow, founder of Bigelow Aerospace, has announced the capability and desire to put a crewed space station in orbit around the Moon in this same 2020 time period. Moon Express has also recently announced that they are fully funded for their attempt to land their robotic probe on the lunar surface at the end of this year, not only to win the Google Lunar XPrize but also to jump start their lunar mining efforts. On the international front the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has established a 200 million euro fund to invest in space mining companies with the aim of making Luxembourg the European leader in deep space commerce. To date they have made investments in two companies; Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources both of which were established to prospect and mine near Earth asteroids. Other counties such as India, China, Japan and even Israel are eying this high frontier for deep space commerce. This paper will explore how these developments could help enable this deep space industrialization and jumpstart a thriving deep space economy. The role that NASA and the US government can and should play in this effort and the role of public/private partnerships will also be discussed. Finally, what these developments could lead to over the next 10-15 years will be analysed and the potential size of this deep space economy will be estimated.

Pittman, Robert B.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Lunar Explorer Instrument for Space Biology Applications (LEIA) Pre-Flight Tests: Mechanical Considerations​

The BioSensor payload on the upcoming LEIA platform aboard the CLPS (CP-22) lander will carry yeast to the Moon's south pole to study the effects of lunar radiation and gravity. From Earth, BioSensor will transport desiccated yeast within 16 fluidic cards, each containing 16 fluidic wells of 100 microliters volume. At the start of the experiment, these microbes will be autonomously rehydrated on the Moon, and optical absorbance measurements at three wavelengths will be performed across all 256 wells. Absorbance measurements in fluidic wells are susceptible to noise and artifacts due to bubble formation during well rehydration and microbial growth. BioSensor, as a biofluidics system, faces significant data anomalies caused by payload vibrations, particularly from the operation of the co-located PROSPECT’s ProSEED drill, to assess lunar resources by penetrating the subsurface. To evaluate the impact of drill vibrations, fully assembled and filled fluidic cards were subjected to sine sweep signals in the x, y, z planes, ranging from 5 - 2560 Hz at g-loads of 0.25 and 0.5, with on-board accelerometer for localized vibration measurement. Wells with various fill conditions, including partial fills with different bubble sizes and completely filled wells, were tested. Results indicated that small bubbles adhered to well walls at high frequencies but were dislodged at low frequencies, causing data anomalies. Medium and large bubbles exhibited higher interference with optical data due to lower surface tension and variable bubble surface flexion. Overall, it was found that irrespective of the fill type, low-frequency vibrations were most detrimental to optical readings. Understanding the drill schedule and correlating it with BioSensor timestamps will help identify periods when BioSensor data is unreliable, a crucial step for accurately interpreting the microbial response data and ensuring the validity of the BioSensor's scientific measurements on the lunar surface.

Chinmayee Govinda Raj↗
DOE OSTI2024

Field Evaluation of the Caney Shale as an Emerging Unconventional Play, Southern Oklahoma

The Mississippian-age Caney Shale is an emerging unconventional oil and gas (UOG) resource play in the southern Midcontinent and is prospective in the Anadarko, Ardmore, Marietta and western Arkoma basins. This play is enigmatic in that time equivalent Fayetteville Shale in the eastern Arkoma basin and Barnett Shale in the Ft. Worth Basin are major unconventional plays, whereas Caney Shale production is sparse and unpredictable (Cardott, 2017). In the Anadarko, Ardmore and Marietta basins, the Caney Shale is in the oil window, but its resource potential has not been adequately assessed. The Caney reservoir is about 60-300 m thick, is rich in total organic carbon, contains a large oil resource base, and has a strong natural gas drive; however, development has been hampered by high clay content and reactivity of the formation with water. The main objective of this initial four-year research project was to address these issues by establishing a Caney Shale Field Laboratory in the Ardmore Basin of southern Oklahoma to (a) conduct a comprehensive field characterization (b) perform field experiments, and (c) validate cost-effective technologies that will lead to a comprehensive and efficient development strategy plan for Caney Shale.

02 PETROLEUM↗
NASA NTRS1989

A 'figure-of-merit' approach to extraterrestrial resource utilization

An approach for interrelated optimizations in space missions that utilize extraterrestrial resources is developed, consisting in the concept of an overall mission 'figure-of-merit' leading to more realistic designs than through individual performance maximizations. After a brief discussion of this concept, the synthesis of four major components of any future space mission is considered. The four major components are: orbital mechanics of the transportation; performance of the rocket motors; support systems including power, thermal and process controls, and instruments; and in situ resource utilization plant equipment. The Mars Sample Return mission is the basis of an illustration of the proposed concept. A popular spreadsheet is used to quantitatively demonstrate the interdependent nature of the mission optimization. Future prospects are outlined, that promise great economy through extraterrestrial resource utilization and a quick evaluation technique.

Ramohalli, Kumar↗
NASA NTRS2003

Exploring with PAM: Prospecting ANTS Missions for Solar System Surveys

ANTS (Autonomous Nano-Technology Swarm), a large (1000 member) swarm of nano to picoclass (10 to 1 kg) totally autonomous spacecraft, are being developed as a NASA advanced mission concept. ANTS, based on a hierarchical insect social order, use an evolvable, self-similar, hierarchical neural system in which individual spacecraft represent the highest level nodes. ANTS uses swarm intelligence attained through collective, cooperative interactions of the nodes at all levels of the system. At the highest levels this can take the form of cooperative, collective behavior among the individual spacecraft in a very large constellation. The ANTS neural architecture is designed for totally autonomous operation of complex systems including spacecraft constellations. The ANTS (Autonomous Nano Technology Swarm) concept has a number of possible applications. A version of ANTS designed for surveying and determining the resource potential of the asteroid belt, called PAM (Prospecting ANTS Mission), is examined here.

Clark, P. E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

A figure-of-merit approach to extraterrestrial resource utilization

A concept is developed for interrelated optimizations in space missions that utilize extraterrestrial resources. It is shown that isolated (component) optimizations may not result in the best mission. It is shown that substantial benefits can be had through less than the best propellants, propellant combinations, propulsion hardware, and actually, some waste in the traditional sense. One ready example is the possibility of discarding hydrogen produced extraterrestrially by water splitting and using only the oxygen to burn storable fuels. The gains in refrigeration and leak-proof equipment mass (elimination) outweigh the loss in specific impulse. After a brief discussion of this concept, the synthesis of the four major components of any future space mission is developed. The four components are: orbital mechanics of the transportation; performance of the rocket motor; support systems that include power; thermal and process controls, and instruments; and in situ resource utilization plant equipment. This paper's main aim is to develop the concept of a figure-of-merit for the mission. The Mars Sample Return Mission is used to illustrate the new concept. At this time, a popular spreadsheet is used to quantitatively indicate the interdependent nature of the mission optimization. Future prospects are outlined that promise great economy through extraterrestrial resource utilization and a technique for quickly evaluating the same.

Ramohalli, K.↗