Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “insider threat”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

93 records · Page 6

Emergency Response Manual

Safety and security is very important at NASA. The Security Management and Safeguards Office goal is ensure safety and security for all NASA Lewis and Plum Brook Station visitors and workers. The office protects against theft, sabotage, malicious damage, espionage, and other threats or acts of violence. There are three types of security at NASA: physical, IT, and personnel. IT is concerned with sensitive and classified information and computers. Physical security includes the officers who check visitors and workers in and patrol the facility. Personnel security is concerned with background checks during hiring. During my internship, I met people from and gained knowledge about all three types of security. I primarily worked with Dr. Richard Soppet in physical security. During my experience with physical security, I observed and worked with many aspects of it. I attended various security meetings at both NASA Lewis and Plum Brook. The meetings were about homeland security and other improvements that will be made to both facilities. I also spent time with a locksmith. The locksmith makes copies of keys and unlocks doors for people who need them. I rode around in a security vehicle with an officer as he patrolled. I also observed the officer make a search of a visitor s vehicle. All visitors vehicles are searched upon entering NASA. I spent time and observed in the dispatch office. The officer answers calls and sends out officers when needed. The officer also monitors the security cameras. My primary task was completing an emergency response manual. This manual would assist local law enforcement and fire agencies in case of an emergency. The manual has pictures and descriptions of the buildings. It also contains the information about hazards inside of the buildings. This information will be very helpul to law enforcement so that when called upon during an emergency, they will not create an even bigger problem with collateral damage.

Barnett, Traci M.↗

Comparing the Earth Impact Flux from Comets and Near-Earth Asteroids

Long-period comets (LPC), defined here as those active comets with orbital periods greater than 200 years, are the most difficult objects to mitigate should one be found on an Earth threatening trajectory. The arrival of these objects from the distant Oort cloud cannot be predicted and the impact warning time would be measured in a few months - not years. At the distance of Jupiter, an inactive cometary nucleus with a diameter of one kilometer and a geometric albedo equal to 0.04 would have an apparent magnitude fainter than 25 near opposition and, hence would be well outside the detection capability of current NEO search telescopes. In general LPCs do not become active, and hence discoverable, until inside the orbit of Jupiter and it takes but nine months for a LPC to travel the distance from Jupiter's orbit to that of the Earth.Estimating the impact energy for long-period comets is particularly difficult because the sizes and masses of these objects are not well known. Their solid nuclei are hidden from ground-based telescopes by their gas and dust atmospheres and even when nearby spacecraft observations can determine a size and shape for a cometary nucleus, there are no direct determinations of any cometary mass or bulk density to date. However, a variety of indirect bulk density determinations consistently provide values below one gram per cubic centimeter, the value for water. From measurements made by the Deep Impact spacecraft during its encounter with comet Tempel 1 in July 2005, the bulk density was estimated to be 0.6 grams per cubic centimeter. The mean impact velocity of a LPC is about 51 km/s, three times the 17 km/s value for a typical near-Earth asteroid (NEA) so the impact energy for an LPC would be 9 times that of a NEA of similar mass. However, the bulk density of a comet (approx. 0.6 g/cu cm) is several times less than the density of a stony NEA (approx. 2.6 g/ cu cm) so for a LPC and a stony NEA of the same size, the LPC's impact energy would be about twice that of the NEA.To properly allocate the limited resources available for NEO surveys and physical characterization, it is important to understand the relative threat from long-period comets versus the threat posed by near-Earth asteroids.

near Earth objects↗

A Geometric Analysis to Protect Manned Assets from Newly Launched Objects - COLA Gap Analysis

A safety risk was identified for the International Space Station (ISS) by The Aerospace Corporation following the launch of GPS IIR-20 (March 24, 2009), when the spent upper stage of the launch vehicle unexpectedly crossed inside the ISS notification box shortly after launch. This event highlighted a 56-hour vulnerability period following the end of the launch Collision Avoidance (COLA) process where the ISS would be unable to react to a conjunction with a newly launched object. Current launch COLA processes screen each launched object across the launch window to determine if an object's nominal trajectory is predicted to pass within 200 km of the ISS (or any other manned/mannable object), resulting in a launch time closure. These launch COLA screens are performed from launch through separation plus I 00 minutes. Once the objects are in orbit, they are cataloged and evaluated as part of routine on-orbit conjunction assessment processes. However, as the GPS IIR-20 scenario illustrated, there is a vulnerability period in the time line between the end of launch COLA coverage and the beginning of standard on-orbit COLA assessment activities. The gap between existing launch and on-orbit COLA processes is driven by the time it takes to track and catalog a launched object, identify a conjunction, and plan and execute a collision avoidance maneuver. For the ISS, the total time required to accomplish an of these steps is 56 hours. To protect human lives, NASA/JSC has requested that an US launches take additional steps to protect the ISS during this "COLA gap" period. The uncertainty in the state of a spent upper stage can be quite large after all bums are complete and all remaining propellants are expelled to safe the stage. Simply extending the launch COLA process an additional 56 hours is not a viable option as the 3-sigma position uncertainty will far exceed the 200 km miss-distance criterion. Additionally, performing a probability of collision (Pc) analysis over this period is also not practical due to the limiting effects of these large orbit state uncertainties. An estimated upper bound for Pc for a typical spent upper stage if nominally aligned for a direct broadside collision with the ISS is only on the order of 10-6. For a smaller manned object such as a Soyuz capsule, the risk level decreases to an order of 10'8 . In comparison, the Air Force Range policy (AFI 91-217) for launch COLAs would only eliminate launch opportunities when conjunctions with objects exceed a Pc of 10'5 This paper demonstrates a conservative geometry-based methodology that may be used to determine if launch opportunities pose a threat to the ISS during the COLA gap period. The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center has developed this COLA gap analysis method and employed it fQr three NASA missions to identify potential ISS conjunctions and corresponding launch window closures during the 56-hour at-risk period. In the analysis, for each launch opportunity, the nominal trajectory of the spent upper stage and the orbit state of the ISS are propagated over the 56 hour period. Each time the upper stage crosses the orbit plane of the ISS, the relative radial and argument of latitude separations are calculated. A window cutout is identified if these separation differences fall within a mission-specific violation box, which is determined from the evaluation of a Monte Carlo dispersions analysis that quantifies the potential variation in the upper stage radial and argument of latitude differences. This paper details the results of these analyses and their impacts to each mission.

Hametz, Mark E.↗