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In Spring 2013, high level NASA and Boeing management were seeking opportunities to collaborate on a flight test activity involving the ecoDemonstrator. The Airspace Systems Program Office identified FIM as a viable candidate. ATD‐1 accepted the challenge. Work began in July for a December 2013 flight test.
Citizen science (or crowdsourcing) has drawn much high-level recent and ongoing interest and support. It is poised to be applied, beyond the by-now fairly familiar use of, e.g., Twitter for natural hazards monitoring, to science research, such as augmenting the validation of NASA earth science mission data. This interest and support is seen in the 2014 National Plan for Civil Earth Observations, the 2015 White House forum on citizen science and crowdsourcing, the ongoing Senate Bill 2013 (Crowdsourcing and Citizen Science Act of 2015), the recent (August 2016) Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) call for public participation in its newly-established Citizen Science Domain Working Group, and NASA's initiation of a new Citizen Science for Earth Systems Program (along with its first citizen science-focused solicitation for proposals). Over the past several years, we have been exploring the feasibility of extracting from the Twitter data stream useful information for application to NASA precipitation research, with both "passive" and "active" participation by the twitterers. The Twitter database, which recently passed its tenth anniversary, is potentially a rich source of real-time and historical global information for science applications. The time-varying set of "precipitation" tweets can be thought of as an organic network of rain gauges, potentially providing a widespread view of precipitation occurrence. The validation of satellite precipitation estimates is challenging, because many regions lack data or access to data, especially outside of the U.S. and in remote and developing areas. Mining the Twitter stream could augment these validation programs and, potentially, help tune existing algorithms. Our ongoing work, though exploratory, has resulted in key components for processing and managing tweets, including the capabilities to filter the Twitter stream in real time, to extract location information, to filter for exact phrases, and to plot tweet distributions. The key step is to process the "precipitation" tweets to be compatible with satellite-retrieved precipitation data. These key components for processing and managing "precipitation" tweets (and additional ones to be developed) are not limited to precipitation, nor are they limited to the Twitter social medium. Indeed, to maximize the value of our work for NASA earth science programs, these components should be generalized and be part of an overall framework for processing citizen science data for science research. In this paper, we outline such a framework.
In September 2011, the Atmosphere Resource Recovery and Environmental Monitoring (ARREM) project was commissioned by NASA's Advanced Exploration Systems program to advance Atmosphere Revitalization Subsystem (ARS) and Environmental Monitoring Subsystem (EMS) technologies for enabling future crewed space exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit. The ARREM project's period of performance covered U.S. Government fiscal years 2012-2014. The ARREM project critically assessed the International Space Station (ISS) ARS and EMS architectures and process technologies as the foundation for an architecture suitable for deep space exploration vehicles. The project's technical content included technical tasks focused on improving the reliability and life cycle cost of ARS and EMS technologies as well as reducing future flight project developmental risk and design, development, test, and evaluation costs. Targeted technology development and maturation tasks, including key technical trade assessments, were accomplished and integrated ARS architectures were demonstrated. The ARREM project developed, demonstrated, and tested leading process technology candidates and subsystem architectures that met or exceeded key figures of merit, addressed capability gaps, and significantly improved the efficiency, safety, and reliability over the state-of-the-art ISS figures of merit. Promising EMS instruments were developed and functionally demonstrated in a simulated cabin environment. The project's technical approach and results are described and recommendations for continued development are provided.
Designed for human exploration missions into deep space, NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) represents a new spaceflight infrastructure asset, enabling a wide variety of unique utilization opportunities. While primarily focused on launching the large systems needed for crewed spaceflight beyond Earth orbit, SLS also offers a game-changing capability for the deployment of small satellites to deep-space destinations, beginning with its first flight. Currently, SLS is making rapid progress toward readiness for its first launch in two years, using the initial configuration of the vehicle, which is capable of delivering more than 70 metric tons (t) to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). On its first flight, an uncrewed test of the Orion spacecraft into distant retrograde orbit around the moon, accompanying Orion on SLS will be 13 small-satellite secondary payloads, which will deploy in cislunar space. These secondary payloads will include not only NASA research, but also spacecraft from industry and international partners and academia. The payloads also represent a variety of disciplines including, but not limited to, studies of the moon, Earth, sun, and asteroids. The Space Launch System Program is working actively with the developers of the payloads toward vehicle integration. Following its first flight and potentially as early as its second, SLS will evolve into a more powerful configuration with a larger upper stage. This configuration will initially be able to deliver 105 t to LEO, and will continue to be upgraded to a performance of greater than 130 t to LEO. While the addition of the more powerful upper stage will mean a change to the secondary payload accommodations from those on the first launch, the SLS Program is already evaluating options for future secondary payload opportunities. Early discussions are also already underway for the use of SLS to launch spacecraft on interplanetary trajectories, which could open additional opportunities for small satellites. This presentation will include an overview of the SLS vehicle and its capabilities, including the current status of progress toward first launch. It will also explain the opportunities the vehicle offers for small satellites, including an overview of the CubeSat manifest for Exploration Mission-1 in 2018 and a discussion of future capabilities.
This presentation was presented to the Integrated Aviation Systems Program at the FY17 Annual Review of the UAS-NAS project. The presentation captures the overview of the work completed by the UAS-NAS project and its subprojects.
There were four projects that I was a part of working on during the spring semester of 2018. This included the completion of the Launch Director Console (LDC) project and the completion and submission of a Concept of Operations (ConOps) document for the Record and Playback System (RPS) at the Launch Control Center (LCC), as well as supporting the implementation of a unit in RPS known as the CDP (Communication Data Processor). Also included was my support and mentorship of a High School robotics team that is sponsored by Kennedy Space Center. The LDC project is an innovative workstation to be used by the launch director for the future Space Launch System program. I worked on the fabrication and assembly of the final console. The ConOps on RPS is a technical document for which I produced supporting information and notes. All of this was done in the support of the IT Project Management Office (IT-F). The CDP is a subsystem that will eventually be installed in and operated by RPS.
NASA's new heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System (SLS), is moving closer to its planned 2019 launch, with the in-space stage and spacecraft adapters complete and all other major elements of the rocket manufactured and currently being outfitted for flight. Exploration Mission-1 (EM-1), the first flight of SLS and the new Orion crew vehicle, will verify and validate new systems and provide an unparalleled opportunity for 13 6U CubeSat-class payloads to be released into deep space. Payloads are being developed by NASA, industry, international and academic partners and were selected for the EM-1 flight to address strategic knowledge gaps in the agency's plans for human deep space exploration. Destinations range from the lunar surface to an asteroid to an orbit around the Earth-moon L2 libration point. Missions include studying the effects of space radiation on a living organism (yeast), landing the smallest lander to date on the moon, and searching for water in permanently shaded lunar craters. Propulsion technology demonstrations include solar sails, use of inert water to carry out lunar gravity assist maneuvers, and use of new "green" chemical propellants. SLS employs an evolutionary design approach, with an initial capability of at least 26 metric tons (t) to trans-lunar injection (TLI). The later Block 1B configuration, which will become the Agency's workhorse launch vehicle into the 2020s, will lift at least 34 t to TLI in its crew configuration and at least 37 t in the cargo configuration. In addition to greater lift capability, Block 1B will also offer larger payload volume than Block 1 for both co-manifested and secondary payloads. In Block 1B, various combinations of 6U, 12U and 27U payloads may be accommodated in the vehicle's stage adapter. Opportunities for deep space research once out of reach for small science payloads will be within reach, opening many possibilities for exciting new technology demonstrations and scientific missions. This paper will provide an overview of the capabilities and the status of the Block 1 vehicle, with particular emphasis on the secondary payload accommodations and the deployment system. Brief descriptions of the 13 6U EM-1 payloads will be included. In addition, a discussion of the payload developers' responsibilities and the Space Launch System Program's roles and responsibilities in accommodating these and future payloads will be included. Finally, the author will look ahead to SLS Block 1B and missions beyond EM-1 and the opportunities for 6U, 12U and 27U CubeSats.
NASA is investigating a range of future human spaceflight missions, including both Mars-distance and Near Earth Object (NEO) targets. Of significant importance for these missions is the balance between crew autonomy and vehicle automation. As distance from Earth results in increasing communication delays, future crews need both the capability and authority to independently make decisions. However, small crews cannot take on all functions performed by ground today, and so vehicles must be more automated to reduce the crew workload for such missions.NASAs Advanced Exploration Systems Program funded Autonomous Mission Operations (AMO) project conducted an autonomous command and control experiment on-board the International Space Station that demonstrated single action intelligent procedures for crew command and control. The target problem was to enable crew initialization of a facility class rack with power and thermal interfaces, and involving core and payload command and telemetry processing, without support from ground controllers. This autonomous operations capability is enabling in scenarios such as initialization of a medical facility to respond to a crew medical emergency, and representative of other spacecraft autonomy challenges. The experiment was conducted using the Expedite the Processing of Experiments for Space Station (EXPRESS) rack 7, which was located in the Port 2 location within the U.S Laboratory onboard the International Space Station (ISS).
There is an increasing need to fly Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) to perform missions of vital importance to national security and defense, emergency management, science, and to enable commercial applications. However, routine access by UAS into the NAS remains unrealized. The UAS community needs routine access to the global airspace for all classes of UAS. Based upon that need, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Integrated Aviation Systems Program (IASP) UAS Integration in the NAS Project identified the following goal: To Provide research findings, utilizing simulation and flight tests, to support the development and validation of Detect and Avoid (DAA) and Command and Control (C2) technologies necessary for integrating UAS into the NAS. Because this is such a broad reaching challenge facing the UAS community, the UAS-NAS Project recognizes the importance of working together with others in Industry and Other Government Agencies to overcome the technical, operational, and public perception barriers.
There's a lot of paperwork to go to space! Building tools to help the folks "behind the scenes" at NASA takes a deep understanding of their complex worlds. In this lightning talk, David Luetger will discuss how San Jose State University Research Foundation at NASA Ames used qualitative data to support NASA's Space Launch System program, and introduced a new set of stakeholders to user-centered design.
The GEOS-Carb project seeks to make high quality, data-driven products that support NASA's Carbon Monitoring System Program. These include bottom-up land and ocean flux estimates along with fossil fuel emissions, all informed by satellite data and the MERRA-2 reanalysis. These flux data support atmospheric carbon products that include both simulations and data assimilation products. We show examples of this work and discuss applications to future mission planning.
NASA future missions demand safe, high specific energy (>400 Wh/kg) batteries. Current state-of-the-art (SOA) lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) can only provide ~150-200 Wh/kg in energy capacity, which is unable to meet NASA's future energy goals, and also pose safety issues due to the use of liquid flammable electrolyte. There are intense on-going development activities to increase battery energy density. The use of Li metal as an anode material has emerged as one highly attractive option for achieving high-energy, next generation batteries. This is because Li has many advantages. It is the lightest metal, but also has the highest theoretical capacity. It also has the lowest potential, which boosts whole cell voltage, and Li metal is 100% active material and requires no binder. Thus, Li metal is an ideal anode material for high energy battery chemistries. Lithium metal based advanced battery chemistries are envisioned to be mission enhancing and, in many cases, mission enabling for future space and aeronautic applications. However, the reliable use of this exceptionally high capacity anode in a commercial rechargeable battery has not been achieved due to safety and reliability concerns resulting from thermal runaway and short-circuit issues due to dendritic growth on the Li metal anode from lithium plating during charge-discharge cycles. A solid state electrolyte, such as garnet/ceramic or solid polymer nanocomposite electrolyte, is a promising approach to make Li metal safely cycling. The solid state electrolyte is non-flammable and eliminates leakage and fire hazard by replacing the liquid flammable electrolyte. However, the low-ionic conductivity and high interfacial impedance are the key issues to be overcome. In this presentation, the research activities on solid state electrolyte development funded by the NASA Advanced Energy Storage System program and by the NASA Center Innovative Fund will be presented, and the progress and results will be also discussed.
There is an increasing need to fly Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) to perform missions of vital importance to national security and defense, emergency management, science, and to enable commercial applications. However, routine access by UAS into the NAS remains unrealized. The UAS community needs routine access to the global airspace for all classes of UAS. Based upon that need, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) Integrated Aviation Systems Program (IASP) UAS Integration in the NAS Project identified the following goal: To Provide research findings, utilizing simulation and flight tests, to support the development and validation of Detect and Avoid (DAA) and Command and Control (C2) technologies necessary for integrating UAS into the NAS. Because this is such a broad reaching challenge facing the UAS community, the UAS-NAS Project recognizes the importance of working together with others in Industry and Other Government Agencies to overcome the technical, operational, and public perception barriers.
The Tendon Actuated Lightweight In-Space MANipulator (TALISMAN), invented and initially developed under the Space Technology Mission Directorate Human Robotics Systems program, is a tendon-actuated robot that established a new structural architecture for long-reach space manipulators. The TALISMAN is designed to have significant stiffness and strength in the plane of the tendons or cables, and operations are designed such that all primary loads are applied in that same plane. However, during normal operations it is possible for out-of-plane forces to be applied on the TALISMAN when secondary loads are imparted by a tool or action at the wrist. These secondary loading conditions will induce out-of-plane bending loads in the TALISMAN hinge joints. The TALISMAN hinge joints must be designed for these out-of-plane loads, to ensure no failure of the joint occurs during operations. A series hinge joint out-of-plane stiffness tests were conducted at five different joint angles; at three cable pre-loads from 25-lbf to 100-lbf; up to an equivalent out-of-plane tip load of 27.28-lbf at the end of a 51-in. long distal link. The objective of the tests was to provide an initial set of deflection, cable load, and strain data to inform accurate modeling of the hinge joint out-of-plane stiffness. The test objective was achieved by developing an FEM of the hinge joint able to predict tip displacement to within 10% of values measured in tests. The hinge joint FEM may now be implemented into a full-scale analysis model of the TALISMAN V2.0 to provide predictions of out-of-plane displacement under different load and joint angle conditions.
NASA is committed to landing the first woman and first person of color on the Moon by 2025 to begin a sustaining presence. A major component of this mission is NASA’s orbiting lunar outpost, Gateway, that will be subjected to the harsh environment of space during its 7-day orbit around the Moon. One aspect of this environment that is not well quantified is microscopic lunar regolith particles, or simply, lunar dust. As Apollo 17 Mission Commander Eugene Cernan said, “I think dust is probably one of our greatest inhibitors to a nominal operation on the moon. I think we can overcome other physiological or physical or mechanical problems except dust” [1]. These dust particles, most of which are smaller than the width of two human hairs and of highly irregular shape, are composed mainly of dielectric materials. Such characteristics can allow the dust particles to collect electric charge from the surrounding environment, resulting in electrostatic interactions between the dust, electromagnetic fields, and electrically charged surfaces [2-3]. Due to the nature of these fields, dust can collect on and contaminate charged surfaces. Lunar dust introduced into the Gateway environment by a lunar ascent vehicle element returning from the surface of the Moon presents risks to Gateway hardware such as radiators, solar arrays, antennae, and docking mechanisms. To quantify this risk and inform NASA, International Partner, and Commercial Provider stakeholders, Booz Allen, in partnership with NASA, is developing a toolset to model the interaction of charged lunar dust particles with the cis-lunar and deep-space environments. This includes a comprehensive physics model of the space plasma and solar radiation environment and electromagnetic interaction of spacecraft and lunar dust. Spacecraft charging and plasma environment are solved using the open-source code from The French Aerospace Lab (ONERA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), known as Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Software (SPIS) [4]. The physics of particle charging and motion is handled by a time-dependent implementation of Orbital-Motion-Limited (OML) theory which accounts for plasma flows and positive potential grains [5-7], using Siemens STAR-CCM+ as the framework. Model validation includes lab experiments by NASA experts and academia, as well as future on-orbit dust detecting payloads on the exterior of Gateway and Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) missions to the lunar surface [7-9]. The results and analyses will inform Gateway Program system owners at risk for lunar dust contamination.
Wireless sensors, especially if battery powered, have a number of advantages over wired sensors for flexible or temporary diagnostic deployment in a field or lab setting. Recent advances in wireless technology and microprocessor boards have produced a variety of inexpensive off-the shelf chips which can communicate wirelessly with simple protocols. This paper describes the design and implementation of a highly customizable wireless sensor network (called WiSe Net) using inexpensive open-source hardware components as wireless nodes. These wireless sensor nodes can transmit data at a rate <250 Hz, can be battery powered, and have a small footprint (2x5 cm). In addition, a preliminary over-the-air programming system was developed to allow for simple wireless configuration when active. The network performance was demonstrated by taking distributed and electrically isolated temperature measurements on a high-voltage lab apparatus. Although this test case is in a laboratory setting, this network architecture could be easily repurposed for various other forms of monitoring
With the sustained human exploration of nearby celestial bodies on the horizon, a renewed outlook on crew waste management must be realized. Current waste management strategies aboard the International Space Station become impractical as we venture beyond low Earth orbit. Furthermore, for future exploration missions, extracting resources from various waste streams becomes increasingly advantageous. One method of combatting the long-duration waste management problem is by thermally degrading solid and liquid crew waste items into a chemically inert, ventable gas stream, a process known as Trash-to-Gas. The Orbital Syngas/Commodity Augmentation Reactor (OSCAR) is the state-of-the-art Trash-to-Gas system which has been designed to explore microgravity Trash-to-Gas concepts for improved mass/volume reduction and resource recovery from waste. OSCAR is a subscale testbed design that supports the NASA Logistics Reduction project under the Advanced Exploration Systems Program and Space Technology Mission Directorate Flight Opportunities Program to determine the feasibility of Trash-to-Gas technology for future use on long duration space missions. OSCAR has flown on two suborbital flight demonstrations aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard launch vehicle. This paper presents a high-level comparative analysis of these microgravity test campaigns with Earth gravity laboratory experiments. Solid-to-gas conversion, gas production & composition, and reactor temperature & pressure are compared to highlight the operational factors and performance differences within the microgravity environment for future optimization.
Wireless sensors, especially if battery powered, have a number of advantages over wired sensors for flexible or temporary diagnostic deployment in a field or lab setting. Recent advances in wireless technology and microprocessor boards have produced a variety of inexpensive off-the shelf chips which can communicate wirelessly with simple protocols. This paper describes the design and implementation of a highly customizable wireless sensor network (called Wi-Se Net) using inexpensive open-source hardware components as wireless nodes. These wireless sensor nodes can transmit data at a rate <250 Hz, can be battery powered, and have a small footprint (2x5 cm). In addition, a preliminary over-the-air programming system was developed to allow for simple wireless configuration when active. The network performance was demonstrated by taking distributed and electrically isolated temperature measurements on a high-voltage lab apparatus. Although this test case is in a laboratory setting, this network architecture could be easily repurposed for various other forms of monitoring.