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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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NASA NTRS2019

The Evolution of NASA’s High-End Computing Capabilities

For over 35 years, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center has housed and managed the U.S. space agency’s largest supercomputing assets. Focused on high-end computing technologies, efficient operations, and user success, the NAS Division has worked with industry to deploy a series of highly successful systems that enable scientific and engineering achievements across NASA. The complementary role of the High-End Computing Capability (HECC) project is evolving to meet NASA’s future challenges in returning to the Moon as a pathway to Mars, while continuing exciting research in aeronautics, space exploration, and Earth science.

Thigpen, William↗
NASA NTRS2015

Fault Management Architectures and the Challenges of Providing Software Assurance

The satellite systems Fault Management (FM) is focused on safety, the preservation of assets, and maintaining the desired functionality of the system. How FM is implemented varies among missions. Common to most is system complexity due to a need to establish a multi-dimensional structure across hardware, software and operations. This structure is necessary to identify and respond to system faults, mitigate technical risks and ensure operational continuity. These architecture, implementation and software assurance efforts increase with mission complexity. Because FM is a systems engineering discipline with a distributed implementation, providing efficient and effective verification and validation (VV) is challenging. A breakout session at the 2012 NASA Independent Verification Validation (IVV) Annual Workshop titled VV of Fault Management: Challenges and Successes exposed these issues in terms of VV for a representative set of architectures. NASA's IVV is funded by NASA's Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to extend the work performed at the Workshop session. NASA IVV will extract FM architectures across the IVV portfolio and evaluate the data set for robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods that could be applied to the various architectures and designs. This work focuses efforts on FM architectures from critical and complex projects within NASA. The identification of particular FM architectures, visibility, and associated VVIVV techniques provides a data set that can enable higher assurance that a satellite system will adequately detect and respond to adverse conditions. Ultimately, results from this activity will be incorporated into the NASA Fault Management Handbook providing dissemination across NASA, other agencies and the satellite community. This paper discusses the approach taken to perform the evaluations and preliminary findings from the research including identification of FM architectures, visibility observations, and methods utilized for VVIVV.

Fault Management↗
NASA NTRS2015

Fault Management Architectures and the Challenges of Providing Software Assurance

Fault Management (FM) is focused on safety, the preservation of assets, and maintaining the desired functionality of the system. How FM is implemented varies among missions. Common to most missions is system complexity due to a need to establish a multi-dimensional structure across hardware, software and spacecraft operations. FM is necessary to identify and respond to system faults, mitigate technical risks and ensure operational continuity. Generally, FM architecture, implementation, and software assurance efforts increase with mission complexity. Because FM is a systems engineering discipline with a distributed implementation, providing efficient and effective verification and validation (V&V) is challenging. A breakout session at the 2012 NASA Independent Verification & Validation (IV&V) Annual Workshop titled "V&V of Fault Management: Challenges and Successes" exposed this issue in terms of V&V for a representative set of architectures. NASA's Software Assurance Research Program (SARP) has provided funds to NASA IV&V to extend the work performed at the Workshop session in partnership with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). NASA IV&V will extract FM architectures across the IV&V portfolio and evaluate the data set, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods that could be applied to the various architectures and designs. This SARP initiative focuses efforts on FM architectures from critical and complex projects within NASA. The identification of particular FM architectures and associated V&V/IV&V techniques provides a data set that can enable improved assurance that a system will adequately detect and respond to adverse conditions. Ultimately, results from this activity will be incorporated into the NASA Fault Management Handbook providing dissemination across NASA, other agencies and the space community. This paper discusses the approach taken to perform the evaluations and preliminary findings from the research.

Fault Management↗
NASA NTRS2007

Web-Based Real-Time Emergency Monitoring

The Web-based Real-Time Asset Monitoring (RAM) module for emergency operations and facility management enables emergency personnel in federal agencies and local and state governments to monitor and analyze data in the event of a natural disaster or other crisis that threatens a large number of people and property. The software can manage many disparate sources of data within a facility, city, or county. It was developed on industry-standard Geo- Spatial software and is compliant with open GIS standards. RAM View can function as a standalone system, or as an integrated plugin module to Emergency Operations Center (EOC) software suites such as REACT (Real-time Emergency Action Coordination Tool), thus ensuring the widest possible distribution among potential users. RAM has the ability to monitor various data sources, including streaming data. Many disparate systems are included in the initial suite of supported hardware systems, such as mobile GPS units, ambient measurements of temperature, moisture and chemical agents, flow meters, air quality, asset location, and meteorological conditions. RAM View displays real-time data streams such as gauge heights from the U.S. Geological Survey gauging stations, flood crests from the National Weather Service, and meteorological data from numerous sources. Data points are clearly visible on the map interface, and attributes as specified in the user requirements can be viewed and queried.

Harvey, Craig A.↗
NASA NTRS2008

The NASA Real Time Mission Monitor - A Situational Awareness Tool for Conducting Tropical Cyclone Field Experiments

The NASA Real Time Mission Monitor (RTMM) is a situational awareness tool that integrates satellite, aircraft state information, airborne and surface instruments, and weather state data in to a single visualization package for real time field experiment management. RTMM optimizes science and logistic decision-making during field experiments by presenting timely data and graphics to the users to improve real time situational awareness of the experiment's assets. The RTMM is proven in the field as it supported program managers, scientists, and aircraft personnel during the NASA African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analyses (investigated African easterly waves and Tropical Storm Debby and Helene) during August-September 2006 in Cape Verde, the Tropical Composition, Cloud and Climate Coupling experiment during July-August 2007 in Costa Rica, and the Hurricane Aerosonde mission into Hurricane Noel in 2-3 November 2007. The integration and delivery of this information is made possible through data acquisition systems, network communication links, and network server resources built and managed by collaborators at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC). RTMM is evolving towards a more flexible and dynamic combination of sensor ingest, network computing, and decision-making activities through the use of a service oriented architecture based on community standards and protocols. Each field experiment presents unique challenges and opportunities for advancing the functionality of RTMM. A description of RTMM, the missions it has supported, and its new features that are under development will be presented.

Goodman, Michael↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Datascope to Enable Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO)

BACKGROUND: NASA has amassed sixty years of knowledge and experience relevant to maintenance of crew health and performance in low earth orbit. The Apollo Program introduced the importance of ensuring progressively autonomous operational capability. Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) will require a gradual shift in the balance of medical responsibility, management, and authority from terrestrial to space-based assets. Terrestrial assets will continue to be essential for pre-mission screening and planning in addition to maintenance of crew health and performance. However, new capabilities are needed to enable EIMO and the amount of data required to support these systems, and mitigate the impacts of data transmission delays and reduced bandwidth coupled with lack of cloud-like resources and on-board computing capacity that is currently unclear or operationally insufficient. OVERVIEW: The overall goal of EIMO is to develop artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions to analyze crew health and performance data utilizing a clinical decision support system (CDSS) to provide crew medical officers (CMO) with the equivalent of real-time, on-board medical consults. The EIMO ecosystem is envisioned as a “system of systems” where embedded reference databases and real-time data streams from multiple input vectors continuously and seamlessly assess crew health and performance. EIMO will be designed to make recommendations to the CMO using multi-modal AI-based natural language processing and machine learning methods with interoperability to push/pull data within and between multiple vehicle and habitat architectures. DISCUSSION: Data flows and storage/retrieval capacity are severely constrained during space missions and the challenges will become even greater during exploration missions. Just as each past program from Mercury to the International Space Station (ISS) required rethinking the interaction between ground-based controllers and space-based crew, so too will future missions to the Moon and Mars. While the NASA High-Performance Spaceflight Computing Processor project aims to increase computational capacity by 100 times over current spaceflight computers, the projected deliverable still lags considerably behind what will be needed to enable an AI-driven CDSS. Restrictions in processing speed and data storage capacity, coupled with transmission bottlenecks and delays, necessitate definition and optimization of an integrated data architecture to enable a progressively autonomous medical capability.

Medical operations↗
NASA NTRS1995

Designing Flight-Deck Procedures

A complex human-machine system consists of more than merely one or more human operators and a collection of hardware components. In order to operate a complex system successfully, the human-machine system must be supported by an organizational infrastructure of operating concepts, rules, guidelines, and documents. The coherency of such operating concepts, in terms of consistency and logic, is vitally important for the efficiency and safety of any complex system. In high-risk endeavors such as aircraft operations, space flight, nuclear power production, manufacturing process control, and military operations, it is essential that such support be flawless, as the price of operational error can be high. When operating rules are not adhered to, or the rules are inadequate for the task at hand, not only will the system's goals be thwarted, but there may also be tragic human and material consequences. To ensure safe and predictable operations, support to the operators, in this case flight crews, often comes in the form of standard operating procedures. These provide the crew with step-by-step guidance for carrying out their operations. Standard procedures do indeed promote uniformity, but they do so at the risk of reducing the role of human operators to a lower level. Management, however, must recognize the danger of over-procedurization, which fails to exploit one of the most valuable assets in the system, the intelligent operator who is "on the scene." The alert system designer and operations manager recognize that there cannot be a procedure for everything, and the time will come in which the operators of a complex system will face a situation for which there is no written procedure. Procedures, whether executed by humans or machines, have their place, but so does human cognition.

Degani, Asaf↗
NASA NTRS2018

Multi-Operator Multi-UAV (MOMU) Control: Exploring the Influence of Sensor Tools and Playbook Task Delegation

New concepts of operations for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) will require a change from the current 2:1 operator to vehicle crew configuration. One particular control paradigm, largely driven by logistics, manpower, and training burdens, as well as the desire to force multiply, involves a single operator simultaneously managing multiple UAVs. This mode of operations has shown to significantly increase cognitive workload and decrease situation awareness, as operators are required to simultaneously attend to multiple sources of information. One potential way to mitigate potential drawbacks of multi-vehicle control by a single operator is to migrate to a multi-operator multi-UAV (MOMU) crew configuration, whereby M operators control N (> M) vehicles. This type of crew configuration can be organized in several ways to dynamically manage cognitive workload, match operator qualifications and skills to mission requirements, increase utilization of available assets, and thereby achieve maximum force multiplication. The present experiment examined task performance in a simulated MOMU environment and evaluated the potential benefits of sensor management aids ("Tools") as well as integrated sensor and flight automation ("Plays") compared to a fully manual condition ("Manual"). Tools support the operator by facilitating rapid understanding and management of sensor information, while the Plays support the operator by offloading/automating subtasks. Six pairs of participants were recruited for this study and tasked with sharing a pool of UAVs in order to conduct reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition (RSTA) missions in adjacent Areas of Operation (AOs). Participants were given four tasks to accomplish, in order of priority: 1) prosecute High Value Targets (HVTs); 2) identify / track targets (military vehicles); 3) identify / mark civilian vehicles; and 4) respond to chat messages. Performance on the mission tasks was measured in terms of accuracy and reaction time. A composite mission score was also calculated using a payoff matrix that weighted each task according to priority. The results indicate that Playbook demonstrated better performance overall with higher accuracy rates and the highest composite score compared to Tools and Manual. The implications of these results to supporting future MOMU concepts of operations is discussed.

Playbook↗
NASA NTRS2016

Technical Reference Suite Addressing Challenges of Providing Assurance for Fault Management Architectural Design

Research into complexities of software systems Fault Management (FM) and how architectural design decisions affect safety, preservation of assets, and maintenance of desired system functionality has coalesced into a technical reference (TR) suite that advances the provision of safety and mission assurance. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Program, with Software Assurance Research Program support, extracted FM architectures across the IV&V portfolio to evaluate robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods applied to the architectures and designs. This investigation spanned IV&V projects with seven different primary developers, a wide range of sizes and complexities, and encompassed Deep Space Robotic, Human Spaceflight, and Earth Orbiter mission FM architectures. The initiative continues with an expansion of the TR suite to include Launch Vehicles, adding the benefit of investigating differences intrinsic to model-based FM architectures and insight into complexities of FM within an Agile software development environment, in order to improve awareness of how nontraditional processes affect FM architectural design and system health management. The identification of particular FM architectures, visibility, and associated IV&V techniques provides a TR suite that enables greater assurance that critical software systems will adequately protect against faults and respond to adverse conditions. Additionally, the role FM has with regard to strengthened security requirements, with potential to advance overall asset protection of flight software systems, is being addressed with the development of an adverse conditions database encompassing flight software vulnerabilities. Capitalizing on the established framework, this TR suite provides assurance capability for a variety of FM architectures and varied development approaches. Research results are being disseminated across NASA, other agencies, and the software community. This paper discusses the findings and TR suite informing the FM domain in best practices for FM architectural design, visibility observations, and methods employed for IV&V and mission assurance.

Fitz, Rhonda↗
NASA NTRS2010

NASA Earth Observations Track the Gulf Oil Spill

The NASA Applied Sciences Program created the Gulf of Mexico Initiative (GOMI) in 2007 "to enhance the region s ability to recover from the devastating hurricanes of 2005 and to address its coastal management issues going into the future." The GOMI utilizes NASA Earth science assets to address regional priorities defined by the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, a partnership formed by the states of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas, along with 13 federal agencies and 4 regional organizations to promote regional collaboration and enhance the ecological and economic health of the Gulf of Mexico. NASA's GOMI is managed by the Applied Science and Technology Project Office at Stennis Space Center and has awarded over $18 million in Gulf of Mexico research since 2008. After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, GOMI personnel assisted members of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance with obtaining NASA remote sensing data for use in their oil spill response efforts.

Jones, Jason B.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Mobile Aircrafticing Forecast System

An integrated mobile field system for forecasting ground and in-flight aviation icing hazards would be a vital asset for winter operations. Improved icing forecasts are critical to managing aviation icing hazards.

Forecasting Icing Winter↗
NASA NTRS2008

Western Aeronautical Test Range

This viewgraph presentation reviews the work of the Western Aeronautical Test Range (WATR). NASA's Western Aeronautical Test Range is a network of facilities used to support aeronautical research, science missions, exploration system concepts, and space operations. The WATR resides at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center located at Edwards Air Force Base, California. The WATR is a part of NASA's Corporate Management of Aeronautical Facilities and funded by the Strategic Capability Asset Program (SCAP). Maps show the general location of the WATR area that is used for aeronautical testing and evaluation. The products, services and facilities of WATR are discussed,

Sakahara, Robert D.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Technical Reference Suite Addressing Challenges of Providing Assurance for Fault Management Architectural Design

Research into complexities of software systems Fault Management (FM) and how architectural design decisions affect safety, preservation of assets, and maintenance of desired system functionality has coalesced into a technical reference (TR) suite that advances the provision of safety and mission assurance. The NASA Independent Verification and Validation (IVV) Program, with Software Assurance Research Program support, extracted FM architectures across the IVV portfolio to evaluate robustness, assess visibility for validation and test, and define software assurance methods applied to the architectures and designs. This investigation spanned IVV projects with seven different primary developers, a wide range of sizes and complexities, and encompassed Deep Space Robotic, Human Spaceflight, and Earth Orbiter mission FM architectures. The initiative continues with an expansion of the TR suite to include Launch Vehicles, adding the benefit of investigating differences intrinsic to model-based FM architectures and insight into complexities of FM within an Agile software development environment, in order to improve awareness of how nontraditional processes affect FM architectural design and system health management.

Fitz, Rhonda↗
NASA NTRS2006

Sensor to User - NASA/EOS Data for Coastal Zone Management Applications Developed from Integrated Analyses: Verification, Validation and Benchmark Report

The NASA Applied Sciences Program seeks to transfer NASA data, models, and knowledge into the hands of end-users by forming links with partner agencies and associated decision support tools (DSTs). Through the NASA REASoN (Research, Education and Applications Solutions Network) Cooperative Agreement, the Oceanography Division of the Naval Research Laboratory (NRLSSC) is developing new products through the integration of data from NASA Earth-Sun System assets with coastal ocean forecast models and other available data to enhance coastal management in the Gulf of Mexico. The recipient federal agency for this research effort is the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The contents of this report detail the effort to further the goals of the NASA Applied Sciences Program by demonstrating the use of NASA satellite products combined with data-assimilating ocean models to provide near real-time information to maritime users and coastal managers of the Gulf of Mexico. This effort provides new and improved capabilities for monitoring, assessing, and predicting the coastal environment. Coastal managers can exploit these capabilities through enhanced DSTs at federal, state and local agencies. The project addresses three major issues facing coastal managers: 1) Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs); 2) hypoxia; and 3) freshwater fluxes to the coastal ocean. A suite of ocean products capable of describing Ocean Weather is assembled on a daily basis as the foundation for this semi-operational multiyear effort. This continuous realtime capability brings decision makers a new ability to monitor both normal and anomalous coastal ocean conditions with a steady flow of satellite and ocean model conditions. Furthermore, as the baseline data sets are used more extensively and the customer list increased, customer feedback is obtained and additional customized products are developed and provided to decision makers. Continual customer feedback and response with new improved products are required between the researcher and customer. This document details the methods by which these coastal ocean products are produced including the data flow, distribution, and verification. Product applications and the degree to which these products are used successfully within NOAA and coordinated with the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources (MDMR) is benchmarked.

Hall, Callie↗
NASA NTRS2005

An Error Analysis of the Phased Array Antenna Pointing Algorithm for STARS Flight Demonstration No. 2

STARS is a multicenter NASA project to determine the feasibility of using space-based assets, such as the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) and Global Positioning System (GPS), to increase flexibility (e.g. increase the number of possible launch locations and manage simultaneous operations) and to reduce operational costs by decreasing the need for ground-based range assets and infrastructure. The STARS project includes two major systems: the Range Safety and Range User systems. The latter system uses broadband communications (125 kbps to 500 kbps) for voice, video, and vehicle/payload data. Flight Demonstration #1 revealed the need to increase the data rate of the Range User system. During Flight Demo #2, a Ku-band antenna will generate a higher data rate and will be designed with an embedded pointing algorithm to guarantee that the antenna is pointed directly at TDRS. This algorithm will utilize the onboard position and attitude data to point the antenna to TDRS within a 2-degree full-angle beamwidth. This report investigates how errors in aircraft position and attitude, along with errors in satellite position, propagate into the overall pointing vector.

Carney, Michael P.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Applying Satellite Data to Support Disaster Response and Emergency Management Decision Making

Using the vantage point of space, satellite observations provide information about the Earth that can serve a critical role in building situational awareness and filling in data gaps during disaster response. NASA’s Earth Science Division ( studies the Earth as a system and develops technologies to improve the quality of life here on our home planet. Within NASA ESD, the Disasters Program and its Disasters Response Coordination System (DRCS) aims to advance Earth science data and information to support management decisions that prevent or mitigate the impacts of disasters. Using a whole-of-NASA approach to coordinate and mobilize the Agency’s assets and expertise to provide geospatial information during disasters, this work brings the utility of Earth observation information to emergency management and disaster response and reduces the impacts of disasters on lives and livelihoods .This poster will introduce the utility of satellite and geospatial information to disaster response through examples of recent DRCS incident response activations and highlight the DRCS model that employs a user-centered activation framework beginning with direct requests from responders and ending with after-action assessments that feed lessons learned and process improvements.

Remote Sensing↗