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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2007

An Airborne Communications Roadmap for the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service: Overview and Status

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the responsibilities, operations and numbers of the U.S. Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS) wer e greatly expanded. With this expansion, new critical research and te chnology needs were identified, including the need for air to ground telecommunications capabilities. To address this need, the FAMS has cr eated a working group to develop, deploy and enhance aviation communi cations with respect to security and law enforcement. This paper presents the working group's progress to date in generating a FAMS air-gro und communications roadmap identifying expected communications servic es, technology maturity, and technology gaps over a timeline. The paper includes a communications preliminary requirements summary and syst em performance characteristics needed to meet identified operational needs. The system engineering process utilized is presented beginning with the identification of users, their operational needs and relevant constraints. The operational needs are translated to desired airbor ne communications services. System technical performance requirements associated with the identified services are summarized. In addition, notional communications architectures addressing the requirements are presented. Finally, future plans to identify and assess potential ca ndidate systems and their associated technical architectures, gaps and barriers to implementation are discussed. The paper addresses the cu rrent, near term (within 5 years) and far term (10 years) timeframes for such an airborne communications system.

Martzaklis, Konstantinos S.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Surface Systems Capability Gaps for Enabling NASA’s Sustainable Lunar Operations

This paper discusses the NASA Ground, Test, and Surface Systems Taxonomy (TX-13) related capability gaps, including details of architecture, technology, engineering, and policy gaps for enabling sustainable lunar surface operations and subsequent Mars missions. Architecture gaps include standardized architectures and interfaces, multi-element systems engineering and integration, design for supportability, and nuclear payload processing and launch approach. Technology gaps, primarily focused on uncrewed surface operations, include automated/autonomous cryogenic loading, transfer, servicing, and storage of commodities; health determination and fault management; automated/autonomous planning and scheduling; automated/autonomous inspection, maintenance and repair; logistics management and reliability; launch and landing site preparation; commodity management; and advanced umbilicals and dust tolerant interfaces. Engineering gaps include high-purity propellant production for ground and surface applications and large-scale xenon servicing capabilities. The policy gap includes nuclear propulsion acceptance testing and qualification approach. Strategically identifying human/automation roles and tasks and infusing automation and autonomy practices early in a system’s lifecycle is essential for achieving the mission objectives for a sustainable human lunar presence, improving performance and mission effectiveness, reducing operations costs and reliance on humans to perform tasks, and accommodating ground communication delays.

Surface Systems↗
NASA NTRS2024

Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate: Moon to Mars Architecture Definition Document

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) explores the unknown in air and space, innovates for the benefit of humanity, and inspires the world through discovery. Extending the reach of humanity through the human exploration of the Moon, Mars, and beyond is key to that mission. NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives document establishes long-term goals and objectives for crewed deep space exploration; however, satisfying NASA’s Moon to Mars Objectives requires an innovative approach to the definition, management, and execution of NASA’s Moon to Mars Architecture. An architecture offers a high-level unifying structure and defines a system. It provides rules, guidelines, and constraints that define a cohesive and coherent framework that identifies constituent parts, relationships, and connections and establishes how those parts fit and work together. This Architecture Definition Document (ADD) establishes the process for the decomposition of objectives empowers the agency’s success in achieving human exploration of the cosmos. NASA updates this document annually to reflect the maturation of the architecture and the progress NASA and partners make toward achieving exploration objectives. The ADD is not a manifest or requirements document. Instead, it serves as a tool for the programs, projects, and engineers who will implement and execute NASA’s bold ambitions for crewed exploration of deep space. As established in the Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives, “Why” we explore encompasses three pillars: Science, Inspiration, and National Posture. Ensuring success in all three areas requires an architectural approach that incorporates innovation, collaboration, and partnerships that can be sustained across a multi-decadal effort. This second revision (Rev-B) of the ADD, developed to support NASA’s 2024 Architecture Concept Review (ACR), incorporates several key updates to support the continued evolution of the architecture. Since the last revision of the ADD, NASA has significantly improved the clarity of the objective decomposition, which distills exploration objectives into the characteristics and needs and use cases and functions needed to achieve them. The updated decomposition incorporates findings from internal studies and diverse stakeholder feedback. A model-based systems engineering approach ensures coherence and consistency, removing inconsistency and repetition. Revision B also incorporates advancements to NASA’s Mars architecture, including insight into initial capabilities, systems, and operations necessary to support the Humans to Mars segment. Updates to objective decomposition for Mars add significant detail to the ADD and hint at areas of forward work and future study. An appendix adds greater depth in the future decisions needed for Mars that will drive lunar needs. They are not the only decisions to be made, but they will have huge effects on subsequent decisions. NASA continues to introduce new exploration systems into the architecture. Two new elements — initial surface habitat and lunar surface cargo lander—successfully passed mission concept review in 2024 as a result of extensive analysis, concept refinement, and studies. These elements and their respective reference missions appear in this revision. NASA also continues to apply architecture processes to cross-agency efforts and coordination with external stakeholders by including definitions of architecture technology gaps — essential areas for engagement across and beyond the agency. The technology gaps appendix identifies areas that need attention and innovation to enable future exploration. In publishing this information, NASA communicates the technologies and capabilities that may benefit from partnership with industry, academia, other U.S. government agencies, and international space agencies. Ultimately, NASA established the Moon to Mars Architecture approach to communicate and facilitate humanity’s journey into the universe according to the principles and recurring tenets of NASA’s Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives. The NASA architecture team thanks their many stakeholders, participants, and partners for their efforts to review and provide feedback. Their support has been critical to the success of this approach.

Elements↗
DOE OSTI2020

Mind the Gap: Building Simulation in the Architectural Design Studio

Building modelling and simulation approaches are increasingly being utilized in architectural design studios to guide and inform the design process and offer evidence-based feedback on proposed building performance. The development of intuitive and simplified simulation interfaces has greatly contributed to achieving this integration. One aspect that is often overlooked is the workflow that governs and regulates integrated design, which can have significant impacts on final design outcomes. Currently there are numerous software packages available for building performance simulations. This makes it challenging to select an appropriate tool that provides accurate results yet allows a designer to make informed architectural decisions with a designer-friendly interface. Furthermore, workflows to incorporate simulations into the design process proved to highly impact student’s project design integration. Yet, it is not clear what type of workflows are successful to achieve this goal, under what conditions, and/or for which building and site typologies. This paper addresses these issues by first reviewing three different workflows for integrating building performance simulation processes and highlighting their strengths and weaknesses. Second, a comparative case study approach was employed to test three of the most common workflows in three different integrated design architectural studios at the senior and vertical studio levels as well as in two courses that run parallel and complementary to the design studios. The workflows, processes, and the resultant student projects were further analyzed based on criteria for better integrated design and architectural excellence as outlined in the American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (AIA COTE) Top 10 Student’s Competition. Third, to situate the pedagogical case studies’ results within a larger context, a survey of the AIA COTE Top 10 student competition award recipients over the last five years was conducted. The results are summarized in a pedagogical framework that outlines best strategies of the type of workflows, software, design process used, methods to achieve desired interaction between design process and analytical feedback, and metrics for educators to evaluate the success of this integration and their learning outcomes in the design studio. The goal is to help bridge the gap between the building design and simulation within the design studio’s creative process for more integrated design outcomes.

Elzeyadi, Ihab↗
DOE OSTI2026

Low-frequency electrochemical pulsing to manage flooding and salt precipitation in zero-gap CO 2 -to-ethylene electrolyzers

The electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to ethylene presents a promising route for utilizing exhaust gases to produce value-added chemicals with broad manufacturing applications. While zero-gap electrolyzer architectures show great potential to enable commercial-scale CO 2 -to-ethylene conversion, their performance is often limited by failure within the first 100 hours. In this work, we demonstrate that a low-frequency electrochemical pulsing protocol effectively mitigates carbonate salt precipitation and flooding by managing water transport to and through the cathode gas diffusion electrode and associated flow fields. Operando neutron imaging further reveals the dynamics of water crossover and flooding, emphasizing the intricate interplay between electrochemical operation and ionic transport. By mitigating short-term flooding and salt precipitation failure modes, this study establishes a foundation for understanding long-term degradation mechanisms and advancing the practical viability of CO 2 electrolyzers for industrial-scale applications.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
NASA NTRS2017

LOX/Methane In-Space Propulsion Systems Technology Status and Gaps

Human exploration architecture studies have identified liquid oxygen (LOX)Methane (LCH4) as a strong candidate for both interplanetary and descent ascent propulsion solutions. Significant research efforts into methane propulsion have been conducted for over 50 years, ranging from fundamental combustion mixing efforts to rocket chamber and system level demonstrations. Over the past 15 years NASA and its partners have built upon these early activities that have demonstrated practical components and sub-systems needed to field future methane space transportation elements. These advanced development efforts have formed a foundation of LOXLCH4 propulsion knowledge that has significantly reduced the development risks of future methane based space transportation elements for human exploration beyond earth orbit. As a bipropellant propulsion system, LOXLCH4 has some favorable characteristics for long life and reusability, which are critical to lunar and Mars missions. Non-toxic, non-corrosive, self-venting, and simple to purge. No extensive decontamination process required as with toxic propellants. High vapor pressure provides for excellent vacuum ignition characteristics. Performance is better than current earth storable propellants for human scale spacecraft. Provides the capability for future Mars exploration missions to use propellants that are produced in-situ on Mars Liquid Methane is thermally similar to O2 as a cryogenic propellant, 90,111 K (LO2, LCH4 respectively) instead of the 23 K of LH2. Allows for common components and thus providing cost savings as compared to liquid hydrogen (LH2). Due to liquid methane having a 6x higher density than hydrogen, it can be stored in much smaller volumes. Cryogenic storage aspect of these propellants needs to be addressed. Passive techniques using shielding and orientations to deep space Refrigeration may be required to maintain both oxygen and methane in liquid forms

Propulsion systems↗
DOE OSTI2024

Approximate 𝑡-Designs in Generic Circuit Architectures

Unitary 𝑡-designs are distributions on the unitary group whose first 𝑡 moments appear maximally random. Previous work has established several upper bounds on the depths at which certain specific random quantum circuit ensembles approximate 𝑡-designs. Here we show that these bounds can be extended to any fixed architecture of Haar-random two-site gates. This is accomplished by relating the spectral gaps of such architectures to those of one-dimensional brickwork architectures. Our bound depends on the details of the architecture only via the typical number of layers needed for a block of the circuit to form a connected graph over the sites. When this quantity is bounded, the circuit forms an approximate 𝑡-design in at most linear depth. We give numerical evidence for a stronger bound that depends only on the number of connected blocks into which the architecture can be divided. We also give an implicit bound for nondeterministic architectures in terms of properties of the corresponding distribution over fixed architectures.

information scrambling↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Bootstrapping Multi-Agent Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) System Integration Using Ground-Based Assets: Lessons Learned

The highly dynamic nature of UAVs imposes significant challenges when conducting initial testing ranging from safety risks posed by high-capacity lithium batteries and spinning propellers to rigorous timing demands on controllers and the consequences of failures mid-air. Flight testing of a single vehicle is time and labor intensive due to these challenges and more, and the complexity increases exponentially with the number of vehicles. While simulations and hardware-in-the-loop bench testing can provide adequate environments for preliminary validation, differences in system deployment architecture, software interfaces, and hardware infrastructure between simulation and a fleet of real UAVs create a sizable gap that must be navigated carefully during system integration. In support of the Autonomy Teaming and TRAjectories for Complex Trusted Operational Reliability (ATTRACTOR) project, which had the goal of establishing a basis of certification of trust and trustworthiness in multi-agent autonomous systems, this gap was tackled from two directions. First, a novel mixed-reality simulation environment was engineered to blur the transition from simulation to flight hardware. Second, a fleet of Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs) was developed as a test and evaluation platform that more closely represented the final aerial fleet while eliminating many of the risks associated with air vehicles. This paper delves into the second element, analyzing the efficacy of the USV platform in performing system integration testing for the UAV system. In this paper we present the USV fleet and its role in reducing the aforementioned gaps in deployment architecture, software interfaces, and hardware infrastructure when moving from simulation to flight. An overview of the hardware and software onboard the vehicles will be provided along with supporting infrastructure. The system integration process will be documented including results in supporting both the overarching design reference mission (DRM) of ATTRACTOR and individual research efforts conducted during the project. Finally, we will discuss some of the practical lessons learned regarding the testing, deployment, and operation of multi-agent autonomous systems.

Matthew P Vaughan↗
NASA NTRS2005

Laser System for Precise, Unambiguous Range Measurements

The Modulation Sideband Technology for Absolute Range (MSTAR) architecture is the basis of design of a proposed laser-based heterodyne interferometer that could measure a range (distance) as great as 100 km with a precision and resolution of the order of 1 nm. Simple optical interferometers can measure changes in range with nanometer resolution, but cannot measure range itself because interference is subject to the well-known integer-multiple-of-2 -radians phase ambiguity, which amounts to a range ambiguity of the order of 1 m at typical laser wavelengths. Existing rangefinders have a resolution of the order of 10 m and are therefore unable to resolve the ambiguity. The proposed MSTAR architecture bridges the gap, enabling nanometer resolution with an ambiguity range that can be extended to arbitrarily large distances. The MSTAR architecture combines the principle of the heterodyne interferometer with the principle of extending the ambiguity range of an interferometer by using light of two wavelengths. The use of two wavelengths for this purpose is well established in optical metrology, radar, and sonar. However, unlike in traditional two-color laser interferometry, light of two wavelengths would not be generated by two lasers. Instead, multiple wavelengths would be generated as sidebands of phase modulation of the light from a single frequency- stabilized laser. The phase modulation would be effected by applying sinusoidal signals of suitable frequencies (typically tens of gigahertz) to high-speed electro-optical phase modulators. Intensity modulation can also be used

Dubovitsky, Serge↗
NASA NTRS2011

Executable Architecture Research at Old Dominion University

Executable Architectures allow the evaluation of system architectures not only regarding their static, but also their dynamic behavior. However, the systems engineering community do not agree on a common formal specification of executable architectures. To close this gap and identify necessary elements of an executable architecture, a modeling language, and a modeling formalism is topic of ongoing PhD research. In addition, systems are generally defined and applied in an operational context to provide capabilities and enable missions. To maximize the benefits of executable architectures, a second PhD effort introduces the idea of creating an executable context in addition to the executable architecture. The results move the validation of architectures from the current information domain into the knowledge domain and improve the reliability of such validation efforts. The paper presents research and results of both doctoral research efforts and puts them into a common context of state-of-the-art of systems engineering methods supporting more agility.

Tolk, Andreas↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Space Crop Production

As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and variety for astronauts. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our home planet. The space environment presents unique challenges to crop production, and technology and knowledge gaps have been identified. Key gaps include how to: - Identify and demonstrate effective options to provide both water and oxygen to the root zone in microgravity - Understand the deep space radiation impacts on seeds and plants - Investigate the relationship between microbiomes and food safety - Store and handle seeds to ensure they are viable, free of contaminants and long-lived - Identify / develop potential crops suitable for the space environment - Understand automation and human factors - Determine scalability for different concepts and architectures Filling these gaps will help enable future human exploration and move us toward Earth-independence.

Space Crop Production↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Space Crop Production

As astronauts venture farther from Earth, and for longer periods, food will become increasingly critical. Crop production can supplement a packaged diet to provide additional nutrients and variety for astronauts. Testing with the Veggie and Advanced Plant Habitat chambers on the International Space Station is allowing us to understand the impacts of gravity and spaceflight on crop growth and nutritional content, and the importance of plants to astronauts living and working away from our home planet. The space environment presents unique challenges to crop production, and technology and knowledge gaps have been identified. Key gaps include how to: • Identify and demonstrate effective options to provide both water and oxygen to the root zone in microgravity • Understand the deep space radiation impacts on seeds and plants • Investigate the relationship between microbiomes and food safety • Store and handle seeds to ensure they are viable, free of contaminants and long-lived • Identify / develop potential crops suitable for the space environment • Understand automation and human factors • Determine scalability for different concepts and architectures Filling these gaps will help enable future human exploration and move us toward Earth-independence.

Veggie↗
DOE OSTI2026

A Review of Software for Designing and Operating Quantum Networks

Quantum networks development is crucial to realizing a production-grade network that can support distributed sensing, secure communication, and utility-scale quantum computation. However, the transition from laboratory demonstration to deployable networks requires software implementations of architectures and protocols tailored to the unique constraints of quantum systems. This paper reviews the current state of software implementations for quantum networks, organized around a three-plane abstraction of infrastructure, logical, and control/service planes. We cover software for both designing quantum network protocols (e.g., SeQUeNCe, QuISP, and NetSquid) and operating testbeds, with a focus on essential control/service plane functions such as entanglement, topology, and resource management, in a proposed taxonomy. Our review highlights a persistent gap between theoretical architecture and protocol proposals and their realization in simulators or testbeds, particularly in dynamic topology and network management. We conclude by outlining open challenges and proposing a roadmap for developing scalable software architectures to enable hybrid, large-scale quantum networks.

Network Design↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Validation of a Probabilistic Continuity Assessment Method for Earth Observation Portfolios

With the increased reliance on spaceborne Earth observation data among the Earth science community and other end users, it is important that efforts are made to promote data continuity for a range of parameters of interest. Continuity gaps may occur between missions measuring like parameters due to mission development delays or early termination and introduce the potential of increased uncertainty for retrieved parameters. To inform portfolio-level decisions for Earth observing missions, Ivanco et al. developed a method that enables the assessment of the probability of continuity gaps for multi-mission architectures and provides a framework to assess this probability in the context of multiple scenarios that represent possible future states of the architecture [Ivanco et al., “A Scenario-Based Approach to Assess Continuity Gaps in Earth Observations,” IEEE Aerospace Conf., 2024]. While this method was previously applied to assess continuity gaps for a specific multi-mission architecture, it had not yet been validated with historical data. This paper outlines the process of validating the probabilistic gap assessment method by utilizing data obtained from past NASA Earth Science mission formulation documents and provides a discussion of the results and takeaways from the validation. Future areas of improvement pertaining to both the modeling and simulation methodologies and underlying assumptions are identified and discussed.

Katharine Burn↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Exploration Capabilities Data Analysis: An Integrated Approach

In preparation for humanity’s return to the Moon, it is necessary to advance technologies and capabilities that will allow for human sustainability on the lunar surface, as well as on eventual missions to send humans to Mars. Guided by Space Policy Directive-1 and through the National Aeronautical and Space Administration (NASA) Artemis program, the advancement and development of technologies on the lunar surface will be leveraged towards technologies and knowledge needed for humans to successfully and safely go to Mars and return. In order to understand the capability needs for lunar and Mars missions, the Capabilities Integration Team identifies integration approaches and overlaps between missions to develop strategies for advancing key capabilities that support those needs. Since 2013, the Capabilities Integration Team has reached out to subject matter experts, principal technologists, and system capability leadership teams throughout NASA to gather information about the critical technologies and capabilities needed in order to support the lunar and Mars exploration missions. To properly gather this data, the Capabilities Integration Team used a capability-driven approach to identify gaps between the current state of the art and the needs of proposed exploration missions, as well as activities that may close those gaps. These inputs are used to shape technology investment strategies and are incorporated in missions to the lunar and Mars surfaces. Data collected included: gap definitions and identifying information; gap closure information and metrics for success; mapping of gaps to elements of NASA's Artemis program and future exploration architecture. . The data collected, specifically from the technology gap list, has been used to support the NASA Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate Planning, Programming, Budgeting, and Execution processes, as well as the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate Strategic Technology Plans. This paper discusses the integration approach used by the Capabilities Integration Team to identify current capability gaps for the Moon to Mars architecture and what capabilities exist or must be developed to support those architecture needs. In addition, this paper also details the performance, gap characterization, current capability gap closure opportunities, and risk impacts towards Artemis, and the overall Moon to Mars architecture.

Gregory Benjamin↗
DOE OSTI2024

Time Series Foundation Models and Deep Learning Architectures for Earthquake Temporal and Spatial Nowcasting

Advancing the capabilities of earthquake nowcasting, the real-time forecasting of seismic activities, remains crucial for reducing casualties. This multifaceted challenge has recently gained attention within the deep learning domain, facilitated by the availability of extensive earthquake datasets. Despite significant advancements, the existing literature on earthquake nowcasting lacks comprehensive evaluations of pre-trained foundation models and modern deep learning architectures; each focuses on a different aspect of data, such as spatial relationships, temporal patterns, and multi-scale dependencies. This paper addresses the mentioned gap by analyzing different architectures and introducing two innovative approaches called Multi Foundation Quake and GNNCoder. We formulate earthquake nowcasting as a time series forecasting problem for the next 14 days within 0.1-degree spatial bins in Southern California. Earthquake time series are generated using the logarithm energy released by quakes, spanning 1986 to 2024. Our comprehensive evaluations demonstrate that our introduced models outperform other custom architectures by effectively capturing temporal-spatial relationships inherent in seismic data. The performance of existing foundation models varies significantly based on the pre-training datasets, emphasizing the need for careful dataset selection. However, we introduce a novel method, Multi Foundation Quake, that achieves the best overall performance by combining a bespoke pattern with Foundation model results handled as auxiliary streams.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2012

Three-Dimensional Analysis of Deep Space Network Antenna Coverage

There is a need to understand NASA s Deep Space Network (DSN) coverage gaps and any limitations to provide redundant communication coverage for future deep space missions, especially for manned missions to Moon and Mars. The DSN antennas are required to provide continuous communication coverage for deep space flights, interplanetary missions, and deep space scientific observations. The DSN consists of ground antennas located at three sites: Goldstone in USA, Canberra in Australia, and Madrid in Spain. These locations are not separated by the exactly 120 degrees and some DSN antennas are located in the bowl-shaped mountainous terrain to shield against radiofrequency interference resulting in a coverage gap in the southern hemisphere for the current DSN architecture. To analyze the extent of this gap and other coverage limitations, simulations of the DSN architecture were performed. In addition to the physical properties of the DSN assets, the simulation incorporated communication forward link calculations and azimuth/elevation masks that constrain the effects of terrain for each DSN antenna. Analysis of the simulation data was performed to create coverage profiles with the receiver settings at a deep space altitudes ranging from 2 million to 10 million km and a spherical grid resolution of 0.25 degrees with respect to longitude and latitude. With the results of these simulations, two- and three-dimensional representations of the area without communication coverage and area with coverage were developed, showing the size and shape of the communication coverage gap projected in space. Also, the significance of this communication coverage gap is analyzed from the simulation data.

Kegege, Obadiah↗