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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 NTRS2006

Developing Fabrication Technologies to Provide On Demand Manufacturing for Exploration of the Moon and Mars

NASA's human exploration initiative poses great opportunity and risk for manned and robotic missions to the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Engineers and scientists at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) are developing technologies for in situ fabrication capabilities during lunar and Martian surface operations utilizing provisioned and locally refined materials. Current fabrication technologies must be advanced to support the special demands and applications of the space exploration initiative such as power, weight and volume constraints. In Situ Fabrication and Repair (ISFR) will advance state-of-the-art technologies in support of habitat structure development, tools, and mechanical part fabrication. The repair and replacement of space mission components, such as life support items or crew exercise equipment, fall within the ISFR scope. This paper will address current fabrication technologies relative to meeting ISFR targeted capabilities, near-term advancement goals, and systematic evaluation of various fabrication methods.

Hammond, Monica S.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Yield strengths of flows on the earth, Mars, and moon

Dimensions of flows on the earth, Mars, and moon and their topographic gradients obtained from remote measurements are used to calculate yield strengths with a view to explore the validity of the Bingham plastic model and determine whether there is a relation between yield strengths and silica contents. Other factors are considered such as the vagaries of natural phenomena that might contribute to erroneous interpretations and measurements. Comparison of yield strengths of Martian and lunar flows with terrestrial flows suggests that the Martian and lunar flows are more akin to terrestrial basalts than they are to terrestrial andesites, trachytes, and rhyolites.

Moore, H. J.↗
NASA NTRS1992

An analysis of power beaming for the Moon and Mars

Operations on the surface of the Moon and Mars will depend on a reliable source of electrical power. At NASA Lewis Research Center, the feasibility of powering lunar and Martian surface sites by power beaming was studied. Constellations of nuclear or solar powered satellites using microwave or laser transmitters were designed to power an equatorial surface base. Additional surface assets, such as rovers, can also be powered from the same orbiting satellites, requiring only the additional mass of a receiver. However, the actual mass and power capabilities of the system are dependent on the location of the surface receiver. The masses of the beam power systems can be reduced by up to 50 percent, by using the power source of an electric propulsion vehicle to power the beam system. The important analyses results and any additional issues that remain unresolved are discussed.

Stavnes, Mark W.↗
NASA NTRS2023

Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate (ESDMD) Moon-to-Mars Architecture Definition Document

There are many opportunities in executing the ambitious Moon-to-Mars efforts through an integrated architecture. NASA addresses this in its Moon-to-Mars Strategy and Objectives Development2 document (hereafter referred to as the M2M Strategy). Many of these opportunities involve establishing a system engineering framework that can support the breadth of necessary program and system contributions. By applying these needs to nearer-term lunar development, NASA will be instituting the process, procedures, and techniques needed to enable longer-term Mars goals and more. Some of the challenges being addressed in the M2M Strategy are associated with the architecture definition and include broad/changing goals, funding, and external pressures/influences. This document and the methodology outlined for architecture definition have been crafted to contend with these using an iterative and adaptable framework. The primary purpose of the Architecture Definition Document (ADD) is to capture the methodology, organization, and decomposition necessary to translate the broad objectives outlined in the M2M Strategy into functions and use cases that can be allocated to implementable programs and projects. Inherent in this process will be the need to communicate the long-term vision, maintain traceability to responsible parties, and iterate on the architectural implementation as innovations and solutions develop. This document will be updated and improved in conjunction with the Architecture Concept Review (ACR) which will be held annually to help unify the Agency and to get buy-in and input from across the Agency on the human exploration architecture. The annual nature of the process provides the opportunity to continually incorporate new developments in technologies and new partnerships, whether they be with industry, the U.S. Government, international entities, or academia.

Moon-to-Mars Strategy↗
NASA NTRS2000

Aladdin: Exploration and Sample Return from the Moons of Mars

Aladdin is a remote sensing and sample return mission focused on the two small moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos. Understanding the moons of Mars will help us to understand the early history of Mars itself. Aladdin's primary objective is to acquire well documented, representative samples from both moons and return them to Earth for detailed analyses. Samples arrive at Earth within three years of launch. Aladdin addresses several of NASA's highest priority science objectives: the origin and evolution of the Martian system (one of two silicate planets with satellites) and the composition and nature of small bodies (the building blocks of the solar system). The Aladdin mission has been selected as a finalist in both the 1997 and 1999 Discovery competitions based on the high quality of science it would accomplish. The equivalent of Aladdin's Phase A development has been successfully completed, yielding a high degree of technical maturity. Aladdin uses an innovative flyby sample acquisition method, which has been validated experimentally and does not require soft landing or anchoring. An initial phasing orbit at Mars reduces mission propulsion requirements, enabling Aladdin to use proven, low-risk chemical propulsion with good mass margin. This phasing orbit is followed by a five month elliptical mission during which there are redundant opportunities for acquisition of samples and characterization of their geologic context using remote sensing. The Aladdin mission is a partnership between Brown University, the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, and NASA Johnson Space Center.

Pieters, C.↗
NASA NTRS2024

Moon to Mars (M2M) Cross Program Utilization Payload Safety Process

It is the goal of Moon to Mars (M2M) to establish a single consolidated set of safety requirements and a safety review process for utilization payloads that will cross program vehicle hatches or operate externally on multiple program vehicles during transport or operation that satisfies Exploration Ground Systems (EGS), Orion, EVA, and Human Surface Mobility Program (EHP), Gateway (GW), and Human Landing System (HLS) programs. This document defines the Cross Program Utilization Payload (xPUP) safety review process for mission effectivity of Artemis III and beyond. This review process will help ensure protection of the overall Moon to Mars integrated system from potential hazards created by cross program payloads that either cross a program vehicle hatch or can interface with more than one M2M lunar exploration program vehicle. The process will identify payload hazards and controls that will protect ground personnel, flight crew, the integrated vehicle, ground equipment, or facilities. This process is also applicable to samples that cross hatches between vehicles including for return to Earth. The xPUP safety review process will be led by one of the M2M programs' integration safety panels, chosen on a per-payload basis. After the lead integration safety panel is determined, the common safety process is established, based on pre-determined criteria, which includes ad-hoc members from other stakeholder programs. Stakeholder programs are those that interface with the utilization payload in any way (e.g., operating on a lunar exploration vehicle or crossing program vehicle hatches). The xPUP will execute this safety review process for flight and ground utilization payload hardware design, its ground support equipment, and landing and recovery in accordance with the applicable safety requirements as specified in M2M-30043: Moon to Mars Cross Program Utilization Payload Safety Requirements. The xPUP safety process will follow the lead integration safety panel’s safety process requirements. Formal agreements will be communicated with the payload developer using the payload integration processes documented in M2M-30037, Artemis Payload Integration Implementation Plan.

payloads↗
NASA NTRS2009

Spacesuit Cooling on the Moon and Mars

NASA is planning to return to the moon and then explore Mars. A permanent base at the south pole of the moon will be the test bed for Mars. At the moon base, two crewmembers are expected to conduct Extravehicular Activity (EVA) six days every week. Current spacesuits are cooled by the sublimation of water ice into vacuum. A single 7 hour EVA near the lunar equator in daylight can expend up to 5 kilograms of water. Because of the high cost of transporting spacesuit cooling water to the moon, the water for one EVA could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lunar south pole and Mars have low surface temperatures that make cooling much easier than at the lunar equator. Alternate cooling methods and keeping to cool environments can reduce or eliminate the loss of water for spacesuit cooling. If cooling water is not needed, a recycling life support system can provide all the required crew water and oxygen without transporting additional water from Earth.

Jones, Harry W.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Frontiers of Life Sciences: The Human Exploration of the Moon and Mars

The rapid development of the productive processes after World War II extended human settlements into new ecological niches. Advances in Life Sciences played a decisive role supporting the establishment of human presence in areas of the planet where human life could have not existed otherwise. The evolution of life support systems, and the fabrication of new materials and technologies has enabled humans to inhabit Polar Regions, ocean surfaces and depths; and to leave Earth and occupy Low Earth Orbit. By the end of the 20 th Century, stations in the Antarctic and Arctic, off shore oil platforms, submarines, and space stations had become the ultimate demonstration of human ability to engineer habitats at Earth extreme environments and outer space. As we enter the 21st Century, the next development of human settlements will occur through the exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond. The major risks of space exploration derive from long exposure of humans and other life systems to radiation, microgravity, isolation and confinement, dependence on artificial life support systems, and unknown effects (e.g., altered magnetic fields, ultrahigh vacuum on bacteria, fungi, etc.). Countermeasures will require a complete characterization of human and other biological systems adaptation processes. To sustain life in transit and on the surface of the Moon and Mars will require a balance of spacecraft, cargo, astronaut crews, and the use of in situ resources. Limitations on the number of crewmembers, payloads, and the barrenness of the terrain require a novel design for the capabilities needed in transit and at exploration outpost sites. The planned destinations have resources that may be accessed to produce materials, food, shelter, power, and to provide an environment compatible with successful occupation of longterm exploration sites. Once more, the advancements of Life Sciences will be essential for the design of interplanetary voyages and planetary surface operations. This presentation delineates the role of Life Sciences and its frontiers, especially Cell Science, in the context of human exploration. Life support systems, food production, and medical equipment encompass many of vital aspects related to the new vision for NASA.

North, Regina M.↗
NASA NTRS1994

What would we miss if we characterized the Moon and Mars with just planetary meteorites, remote mapping, and robotic landers?

Exploration of the Moon and planets began with telescopic studies of their surfaces, continued with orbiting spacecraft and robotic landers, and will culminate with manned exploration and sample return. For the Moon and Mars we also have accidental samples provided by impacts on their surfaces, the lunar and martian meteorites. How much would we know about the lunar surface if we only had lunar meteorites, orbital spacecraft, and robotic exploration, and not the Apollo and Luna returned samples? What does this imply for Mars? With martian meteorites and data from Mariner, Viking, and the future Pathfinder missions, how much could we learn about Mars? The basis of most of our detailed knowledge about the Moon is the Apollo samples. They provide ground truth for the remote mapping, timescales for lunar processes, and samples from the lunar interior. The Moon is the foundation of planetary science and the basis for our interpretation of the other planets. Mars is similar to the Moon in that impact and volcanism are the dominant processes, but Mars' surface has also been affected by wind and water, and hence has much more complex surface geology. Future geochemical or mineralogical mapping of Mars' surface should be able to tell us whether the dominant rock types of the ancient southern highlands are basaltic, anorthositic, granitic, or something else, but will not be able to tell us the detailed mineralogy, geochemistry, or age. Without many more martian meteorites or returned samples we will not know the diversity of martian rocks, and therefore will be limited in our ability to model martian geological evolution.

Lindstrom, M. M.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA's Moon to Mars Autonomous Habitat Status

NASA is developing a strategy for sending humans to the Mars vicinity, known broadly as the Moon to Mars (M2M) Campaign. A critical part of this campaign is the development of in-space and surface habitation systems capable of substantially extending human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Mars missions feature an in-space transit habitat capable of supporting crews of four on ~850-1200-day missions, including transit to and from Mars and time in Mars orbit. Surface and transit habitats are complex elements which must keep crewmembers healthy and productive in deep-space environments with limited resources, long rescue times in contingency situations, and communication delays; all within constrained mass, volume, and power budgets. These habitats provide crew both living and workspace as well as most of the resources needed to support crew life. For deep space habitats, automation needs to be employed due to latency and for significant amounts of time when the habitats are uncrewed. Automation of systems is possible in space applications, but there are limitations. Outside of the Earth’s (or any) magnetosphere, radiation environments are harsh to both the physical hardware and the software components. Radiation (charged particles and ionizing electromagnetic waves) degrades and damages the hardware and causes single event upsets (SEUs) in software. If the hardware is damaged, data can be lost, or control actions not made. For software, SEUs cause algorithms to result in different solutions, or incorrect commands to be sent out. This means that algorithms and hardware used for deep space systems are different than what is used on Earth. Radiation-tolerant hardware is generations behind the current state-of-the-art hardware. Recent NASA missions, such as James Webb Space Telescope, continue to rely on older technologies such as the RAD750 processor, and the most advanced processors are still single core and less than 1.5 GHz. There have been attempts to use higher performance processors, but these often take multiple mitigation steps to handle the radiation environments, which limits the processing power and/or throughput. Current techniques for radiation mitigation have been redundancies, voting, physical separation of hardware, encasing materials, under-clocking hardware, and more. Some radiation mitigation techniques do provide benefits such as having a redundant system to improve the probability that a system will be available when needed. Autonomous software systems will have fewer interactions with humans on deep space missions and therefore need to be able to handle more off-nominal conditions. Microgravity also complicates the autonomous aspects of the mission because autonomous systems are usually built from known deterministic states, but microgravity causes physical objects to shift and move changing the location an autonomous system placed the object. Not only does the software need to be reliable and deterministic, losing resources due to a software error is not only costly but detrimental to reputation. The combination of having lower performance hardware and having to be able to verify and deterministically run software and an ever-changing environment makes deep space autonomous systems more complicated. Multiple gaps have been identified including verification of autonomous software algorithms (including artificial intelligence and machine learning), higher performance processors (graphics and general purpose), high speed networks (onboard and transmissions), memory, power distribution, data security, and variations from these. These gaps need to be closed for more advanced systems to be deployed and reduce the size, weight, and power impacts on the habitats.

Scott B. Tashakkor↗
NASA NTRS2010

Drilling on the Moon and Mars: Developing the Science Approach for Subsurface Exploration with Human Crews

DOMEX (Drilling on the Moon and Mars in Human Exploration) is using analog missions to develop the approach for using human crews to perform science activities on the Moon and Mars involving exploration and sampling of the subsurface. Subsurface science is an important activity that may be uniquely enabled by human crews. DOMEX provides an opportunity to plan and execute planetary mission science activities without the expense and overhead of a planetary mission. Objectives: The objective of this first in a series of DOMEX missions were to 1) explore the regional area to understand the geologic context and determine stratigraphy and geologic history of various geologic units in the area. 2) Explore for and characterize sites for deploying a deep (10 m depth) drilling system in a subsequent field season. 3) Perform GPR on candidate drill sites. 4) Select sites that represent different geological units deposited in different epochs and collect soil cores using sterile procedures for mineralogical, organic and biological analysis. 5) Operate the MUM in 3 different sites representing different geological units and soil characteristics. 6) Collect rock and soil samples of sites visited and analyze them at the habitat. Results: At mission start the crew performed a regional survey to identify major geologic units that were correlated to recognized stratigraphy and regional geologic maps. Several candidate drill sites were identified. During the rest of the mission, successful GPR surveys were conducted in four locations. Soil cores were collected in 5 locations representing soils from 4 different geologic units, to depths up to 1m. Soil cores from two locations were analyzed with PCR in the laboratory. The remainder were reserved for subsequent analysis. XRD analysis was performed in the habitat and in the field on 39 samples, to assist with sample characterization, conservation, and archiving. MUM was deployed at 3 field locations and 1 test location (outside the habitat) where it operated autonomously for 2-4 hours at each site. Depths achieved ranged from 15 to 70 cm depending on the soil compressive strength and the presence and depth of subsurface indurated layers. Subsurface samples weighing 0.5 to 1 g were collected at the deepest depth encountered at each of the sites using the MUM automated sample collection system, and subsequently analyzed with XRD. Downhole inspection of holes produced by MUM with the Raman spectrometer was acquired on two of the holes and spectral features associated with selenite were identified in specific soil layers. Previously unreported fossilized remains of vertebrate fauna from the Jurassic era were discovered during our mission. Analysis of mineral biomarkers associated with this discovery are underway.

Stoker, C. R.↗
NASA NTRS1978

Floor-fractured craters on the moon and Mars

Impact craters on the moon provided primary pathways for volcanic eruptions through shock-induced fractures that immediately or subsequently tap magma reservoirs. Evidence for this process includes unbreached lava-filled craters and fractured crater floors with associated eruptives. Over 200 craters with floor fractures have been identified on the moon. They commonly occur along the margins of irregular maria, thereby suggesting a link to this important phase of lunar volcanism. Topographic data reveal small elevation differences between the summit of the remnant central peaks and crater rim, and in many cases suggest that floor fracturing resulted from a tabular intrusion localized beneath the crater with uplift of the crater floor. A comparison of lunar and Martian crater photographs shows that some Martian craters also exhibit similar highly localized endogenic modifications.

Schultz, P. H.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Landform degradation on Mercury, the moon, and Mars - Evidence from crater depth/diameter relationships

Craters on Mercury, the moon, and Mars were classified into two groups, namely, fresh and degraded craters, on the basis of qualitative visual degradation as revealed by degree of rim crispness, terraced interior walls, slumping from crater walls, etc., and the depth/diameter relationship of craters was studied. Lunar and Mercurian crater populations indicate the existence of terrain-correlated degradational phenomena. The depth/diameter relations for Mercury and the moon display remarkably similar forms, suggesting similar degrees of landform degradation. Depth/diameter curves display a break in slope, dividing two distinct crater populations. Mars craters show few of the trends of those of Mercury and the moon. The depth/diameter curve has no definite break in slope, though there is considerable depth variation. The role of nonballistic degradation in connection with the early formation of large expanses of intercrater plains is discussed.

Malin, M. C.↗