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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 145 records · Page 8
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

Parametric Cost Modeling of Space Missions Using the Develop New Projects (DMP) Implementation Process

This paper presents an overview of a parametric cost model that has been built at JPL to estimate costs of future, deep space, robotic science missions. Due to the recent dramatic changes in JPL business practices brought about by an internal reengineering effort known as develop new products (DNP), high-level historic cost data is no longer considered analogous to future missions. Therefore, the historic data is of little value in forecasting costs for projects developed using the DNP process. This has lead to the development of an approach for obtaining expert opinion and also for combining actual data with expert opinion to provide a cost database for future missions. In addition, the DNP cost model has a maximum of objective cost drivers which reduces the likelihood of model input error. Version 2 is now under development which expands the model capabilities, links it more tightly with key design technical parameters, and is grounded in more rigorous statistical techniques. The challenges faced in building this model will be discussed, as well as it's background, development approach, status, validation, and future plans.

Rosenberg, Leigh↗
NASA NTRS2007

2nd ISS Treadmill Development "T2 Project"

An overview of the development of a treadmill for the International Space Station is presented. Topics discussed include: flight certification of a Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) Woodway Path treadmill; development and certificaiton of a crew interface to optimize use of the COTS design and/or existing NASA design (such as the ARED Pacebook); development and certification of a power supply to provide power from the ISS Vehicle to the treadmill system (crew interfaces, motor, controller and subject loading devices).

MacNeill, Kevin↗
NASA NTRS2011

Advanced Rigid Ablative TPS

NASA Exploration Systems Mission Directorate s (ESMD) Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL) Technology Development Project (TDP) and the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate s (ARMD) Hypersonics Project are developing new advanced rigid ablators in an effort to substantially increase reliability, decrease mass, and reduce life cycle cost of rigid aeroshell-based entry systems for multiple missions. Advanced Rigid Ablators combine ablation resistant top layers capable of high heat flux entry and enable high-speed EDL with insulating mass-efficient bottom that, insulate the structure and lower the areal weight. These materials may benefit Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) vendors and may potentially enable new NASA missions for higher velocity returns (e.g. asteroid, Mars). The materials have been thermally tested to 400-450 W/sq cm at the Laser Hardened Materials Evaluation Lab (LHMEL), Hypersonics Materials Evaluation Test System (HyMETS) and in arcjet facilities. Tested materials exhibit much lower backface temperatures and reduced recession over the baseline materials (PICA). Although the EDL project is ending in FY11, NASA in-house development of advanced ablators will continue with a focus on varying resin systems and fiber/resin interactions.

Gasch, Matthew J.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) Project: Overview and Year 4 Accomplishments

The Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) project is in Phase 2 of a multiyear effort initiated in Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, to mature toward the next Technology Readiness Level (TRL) critical technologies required to enable 4-m-or-larger monolithic or segmented ultraviolet, optical, and infrared (UVOIR) space telescope primary-mirror assemblies for general astrophysics and ultra-high-contrast observations of exoplanets. Key hardware accomplishments of 2015/16 are the successful low-temperature fusion of a 1.5-meter diameter ULE mirror that is a 1/3rd scale model of a 4-meter mirror and the initiation of polishing of a 1.2-meter Extreme-Lightweight Zerodur mirror. Critical to AMTD's success is an integrated team of scientists, systems engineers, and technologists; and a science-driven systems engineering approach.

Space Mirror Technology↗
NASA NTRS2010

Airspace Systems Program: Next Generation Air Transportation System Concepts and Technology Development FY2010 Project Plan Version 3.0

This document describes the FY2010 plan for the management and execution of the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) Concepts and Technology Development (CTD) Project. The document was developed in response to guidance from the Airspace Systems Program (ASP), as approved by the Associate Administrator of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD), and from guidelines in the Airspace Systems Program Plan. Congress established the multi-agency Joint Planning and Development Office (JPDO) in 2003 to develop a vision for the 2025 Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) and to define the research required to enable it. NASA is one of seven agency partners contributing to the effort. Accordingly, NASA's ARMD realigned the Airspace Systems Program in 2007 to "directly address the fundamental research needs of the Next Generation Air Transportation System...in partnership with the member agencies of the JPDO." The Program subsequently established two new projects to meet this objective: the NextGen-Airspace Project and the NextGen-Airportal Project. Together, the projects will also focus NASA s technical expertise and world-class facilities to address the question of where, when, how and the extent to which automation can be applied to moving aircraft safely and efficiently through the NAS and technologies that address optimal allocation of ground and air technologies necessary for NextGen. Additionally, the roles and responsibilities of humans and automation influence in the NAS will be addressed by both projects. Foundational concept and technology research and development begun under the NextGen-Airspace and NextGen-Airportal projects will continue. There will be no change in NASA Research Announcement (NRA) strategy, nor will there be any change to NASA interfaces with the JPDO, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Research Transition Teams (RTTs), or other stakeholders

Kopardekar, Parimal H.↗
NASA NTRS2015

Advanced Stirling Convertor Development for NASA Radioisotope Power Systems

Sunpower Inc.'s Advanced Stirling Convertor (ASC) initiated development under contract to the NASA Glenn Research Center and after a series of successful demonstrations, the ASC began transitioning from a technology development project to a flight development project. The ASC has very high power conversion efficiency making it attractive for future Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) in order to make best use of the low plutonium-238 fuel inventory in the United States. In recent years, the ASC became part of the NASA and Department of Energy (DOE) Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator (ASRG) Integrated Project. Sunpower held two parallel contracts to produce ASCs, one with the DOE and Lockheed Martin to produce the ASC-F flight convertors, and one with NASA Glenn for the production of ASC-E3 engineering units, the initial units of which served as production pathfinders. The integrated ASC technical team successfully overcame various technical challenges that led to the completion and delivery of the first two pairs of flightlike ASC-E3 by 2013. However, in late fall 2013, the DOE initiated termination of the Lockheed Martin ASRG flight development contract driven primarily by budget constraints. NASA continues to recognize the importance of high-efficiency ASC power conversion for RPS and continues investment in the technology including the continuation of ASC-E3 production at Sunpower and the assembly of the ASRG Engineering Unit #2. This paper provides a summary of ASC technical accomplishments, overview of tests at Glenn, plans for continued ASC production at Sunpower, and status of Stirling technology development.

Plutonium 238↗
NASA NTRS2006

Development Overview of the Revised NASA Ultra Long Duration Balloon

The development of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration s (NASA) Ultra Long Duration Balloon (ULDB) has made significant strides in addressing the deployment issues experienced in the scaling up of the balloon structure. This paper concentrates on the super-pressure balloon developments that have been, and are currently being planned by the NASA Balloon Program Office at Goddard Space Flight Center s Wallops Flight Facility. The goal of the NASA ULDB development project is to attempt to extend the potential flight durations for large scientific balloon payloads. A summary of the February 2005 test flight from Ft. Sumner, New Mexico will be presented. This test flight spurred a number of investigations and advancements for this project. The development path has pursued some new approaches in the design, analysis, and testing of the balloons. New issues have been ideEti6ed throu& both analysis md testing. These have been addressed in the design stage before the next balloon construction was begun. This paper will give an overview of the recent history for this effort and the development approach pursued for ULDB. A description of the balloon design, including the modifications made as a result of the lessons learned, will be presented. Areas to be presented include the design approach, deployment issues that have been encountered and the proposed solutions, ground testing, photogrammetry, and an analysis overview. Test flight planning and considerations will be presented including test flight safety. An extended duration test flight of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration s Ultra Long Duration Balloon is planned for the May/June 2006 time frame. This flight is expected to fly from Sweden to either Canada or Alaska. Preliminary results of this flight will be presented as available. Future plans for both ground testing and additional test flights will also be presented. Goals of the future test flights, which are staged in increments of increasing suspended load and altitude, will be presented. This will include the projected balloon volumes, payload capabilities, test flight locations, and proposed flight schedule.

Cathey, H. M.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Land use planning

The organization, objectives, and accomplishments of the panel on Land Use Planning are reported. Technology developments, and projected developments are discussed along with anticipated information requirements. The issues for users, recommended remote sensing programs, and space systems are presented. It was found that remote sensing systems are useful in future land use planning. It is recommended that a change detection system for monitoring land use and critical environmental areas be developed by 1979.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1976

First concept for a tropical area monitoring project

The first concept of a tropical area monitoring project is presented. The project would develop an operational system capable of monitoring land areas by machine processing of satellite data. LANDSAT images would be processed within a controlled isolable unit to detect changes in forest cover, rangeland, soil integrity, and other factors important to conservation of tropical ecology. An introductory developmental effort is described to demonstrate the use of LANDSAT data in this application. The independent unit, which functions as a user organization within the development project, assures that the technology will be transferable to a user organization through well defined, easily monitored interfaces with the rest of the world.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1991

Problem solving with genetic algorithms and Splicer

Genetic algorithms are highly parallel, adaptive search procedures (i.e., problem-solving methods) loosely based on the processes of population genetics and Darwinian survival of the fittest. Genetic algorithms have proven useful in domains where other optimization techniques perform poorly. The main purpose of the paper is to discuss a NASA-sponsored software development project to develop a general-purpose tool for using genetic algorithms. The tool, called Splicer, can be used to solve a wide variety of optimization problems and is currently available from NASA and COSMIC. This discussion is preceded by an introduction to basic genetic algorithm concepts and a discussion of genetic algorithm applications.

Bayer, Steven E.↗
NASA NTRS1993

Development and evaluation of a predictive algorithm for telerobotic task complexity

There is a wide range of complexity in the various telerobotic servicing tasks performed in subsea, space, and hazardous material handling environments. Experience with telerobotic servicing has evolved into a knowledge base used to design tasks to be 'telerobot friendly.' This knowledge base generally resides in a small group of people. Written documentation and requirements are limited in conveying this knowledge base to serviceable equipment designers and are subject to misinterpretation. A mathematical model of task complexity based on measurable task parameters and telerobot performance characteristics would be a valuable tool to designers and operational planners. Oceaneering Space Systems and TRW have performed an independent research and development project to develop such a tool for telerobotic orbital replacement unit (ORU) exchange. This algorithm was developed to predict an ORU exchange degree of difficulty rating (based on the Cooper-Harper rating used to assess piloted operations). It is based on measurable parameters of the ORU, attachment receptacle and quantifiable telerobotic performance characteristics (e.g., link length, joint ranges, positional accuracy, tool lengths, number of cameras, and locations). The resulting algorithm can be used to predict task complexity as the ORU parameters, receptacle parameters, and telerobotic characteristics are varied.

Gernhardt, M. L.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Central Valley Water Resources II: Groundwater Sustainability Management Support in the California Central Valley using GRACE and InSAR Datasets

California’s Central Valley is one of the most productive agricultural regions in the United States, producing a fourth of the nation’s food supply. The water demand in this region is heavily dependent on groundwater resources, resulting in over pumping of aquifers at unsustainable rates during recent periods of severe drought. Over the past century, Central Valley aquifers have experienced a significant decline in groundwater levels, resulting in land subsidence and irreversible loss in groundwater storage. In 2014, the state enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requiring high and medium priority subbasins to suspend overdraft and achieve sustainable levels of pumping and recharge by 2042.The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) oversees subbasin groundwater management; however, monitoring remains challenging due to sparse and inconsistent in situ data. To assist the DWR, this project developed a user-friendly executable application and an interactive visualization tool to quantify groundwater storage and land subsidence trends using remotely sensed and in situ data. The team utilized NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE), GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO), Sentinel-1 C-band Synthetic Aperture Radar (C-SAR) interferograms, and Advanced Land Observing Satellite 2 (ALOS-2) Phased Array L-band Synthetic Aperture Radar 2 (PALSAR-2) interferograms in conjunction with well and GPS measurements to analyze groundwater and subsidence trends. GRACE and well data returns produced a strong Pearson correlation of .84, while Sentinel-1 and GPS data returns produced a Pearson correlation of .41 over the entire Central Valley. These findings suggest remotely sensed GRACE and interferometric SAR data can be used in the absence of in situ data.

DEVELOP Project Summary↗
NASA NTRS2015

Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) Project: 3.0 Year Status

Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) is a funded NASA Strategic Astrophysics Technology project. Begun in 2011, we are in Phase 2 of a multi-year effort. Our objective is to mature towards TRL6 critical technologies needed to produce 4-m or larger flight-qualified UVOIR mirrors by 2018 so that a viable astronomy mission can be considered by the 2020 Decadal Review. The developed technology must enable missions capable of both general astrophysics and ultra-high contrast observations of exoplanets. Just as JWST's architecture was driven by launch vehicle, a future UVOIR mission's architecture (monolithic, segmented or interferometric) will depend on capacities of future launch vehicles (and budget). Since we cannot predict the future, we must prepare for all potential futures. Therefore, we are pursuing multiple technology paths. AMTD uses a science-driven systems engineering approach. We mature technologies required to enable the highest priority science AND result in a high-performance low-cost low-risk system. One of our key accomplishments is that we have derived engineering specifications for advanced normal-incidence monolithic and segmented mirror systems needed to enable both general astrophysics and ultra-high contrast observations of exoplanets missions as a function of potential launch vehicle and its inherent mass and volume constraints. Another key accomplishment is that we have matured our technology by building and testing hardware. To demonstrate stacked core technology, we built a 400 mm thick mirror. Currently, to demonstrate lateral scalability, we are manufacturing a 1.5 meter mirror. To assist in architecture trade studies, the Engineering team develops Structural, Thermal and Optical Performance (STOP) models of candidate mirror assembly systems including substrates, structures, and mechanisms. These models are validated by test of full- and subscale components in relevant thermo-vacuum environments. Specific analyses include: maximum mirror substrate size, first fundamental mode frequency (i.e., stiffness) and mass required to fabricate without quilting, survive launch, and achieve stable pointing and maximum thermal time constant.

Stahl, H. Philip↗
NASA NTRS2021

Pointing Error Budget Development and Methodology on the Psyche Project

The Psyche mission was selected by NASA as the 14th mission in the Discovery Program in 2017. The Psyche spacecraft utilizes solar electric propulsion, and will journey to the asteroid (16) Psyche during a 3.5 year trajectory after its planned 2022 launch. The spacecraft instrument suite includes a magnetometer, a multispectral imager, a gamma ray neutron spectrometer, and an X-band radio telecommunications system. It also includes the Deep Space Optical Communication technical demonstration. These instruments along with other spacecraft components require pointing accuracy to meet their scientific and engineering performance requirements. Early on in the project development, the team established a methodology by which pointing accuracy (knowledge and control) is analyzed against the system requirements by means of pointing error budgets and requirement allocations. A margin policy was implemented to ensure the instrument and engineering component pointing accuracy requirements will be met during verification and in flight. Psyche’s pointing management framework defines detailed rationales for the system and subsystem error allocations of the top level pointing accuracy requirements, with sufficient project level pointing margin, and supports end-to-end pointing requirement verification. This paper will present an overview of the Psyche project’s pointing error budget development process, and discuss the rationale behind the methodology. Psyche’s pointing budget methodology integrates best practices and lessons learned from heritage missions, while focusing on the specific needs of the Psyche spacecraft and its science instruments. Key challenges in the pointing error budget development will be reviewed, and a deep dive into two key Psyche pointing budgets are presented. The systems engineering of Psyche’s pointing budget methodology outlined in this paper will serve as a resource for future deep space missions.

Lai, Peter↗
NASA NTRS2015

Overview of Stirling Technology Research at NASA Glenn Research Center

Stirling Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) are under development to provide power on future space science missions where robotic spacecraft will orbit, flyby, land or rove using less than a quarter of the plutonium the currently available RPS uses to produce about the same power. Glenn Research Center's (GRC's) newly formulated Stirling Cycle Technology Development Project (SCTDP) continues development of Stirling-based systems and subsystems, which include a flight-like generator and related housing assembly, controller, and convertors. The project also develops less mature technologies under Stirling Technology Research, with a focus on demonstration in representative environments to increase the technology readiness level (TRL). Matured technologies are evaluated for selection in future generator designs. Stirling Technology Research tasks focus on a wide variety of objectives, including increasing temperature capability to enable new environments, reducing generator mass and/or size, improving reliability or system fault tolerance, and developing alternative designs. The task objectives and status are summarized.

robotics↗
NASA NTRS2016

Overview of Stirling Technology Research at NASA Glenn Research Center

Stirling Radioisotope Power Systems (RPSs) are under development to provide power on future space science missions where robotic spacecraft will orbit, fly by, land, or rove using less than a quarter of the plutonium the currently available RPS uses to produce about the same power. NASA Glenn Research Center's newly formulated Stirling Cycle Technology Development Project (SCTDP) continues development of Stirling-based systems and subsystems, which include a flight-like generator and related housing assembly, controller, and convertors. The project also develops less mature technologies under Stirling Technology Research, with a focus on demonstration in representative environments to increase the technology readiness level (TRL). Matured technologies are evaluated for selection in future generator designs. Stirling Technology Research tasks focus on a wide variety of objectives, including increasing temperature capability to enable new environments, reducing generator mass and/or size, improving reliability and system fault tolerance, and developing alternative designs. The task objectives and status are summarized.

robotics↗
NASA NTRS2014

Switchable Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) Thermal Materials Project

Develop 2-way switchable thermal systems for use in systems that function in cold to hot temperature ranges using different alloy designs for SMA system concepts. In this project, KSC will specifically address designs of two proof of concept SMA systems with transition temperatures in the 65-95 C range and investigate cycle fatigue and "memory loss" due to thermal cycling.

thermal↗