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An investigation was conducted into ways to improve the involvement of state and local user personnel in the digital image analysis process by isolating those elements of the analysis process which require extensive involvement by field personnel and providing means for performing those activities apart from a computer facility. In this way, the analysis procedure can be converted from a centralized activity focused on a computer facility to a distributed activity in which users can interact with the data at the field office level or in the field itself. A general image processing software was developed on the University of Minnesota computer system (Control Data Cyber models 172 and 74). The use of color hardcopy image data as a primary medium in supervised training procedures was investigated and digital display equipment and a coordinate digitizer were procured.
In EUV and FUV space-astronomy applications, the best contemporary detector designs are based on the use of microchannel plates due to their ability to deliver photon-counting performance with high efficiency. The major unresolved issue is the choice of position-readout system for the individual photoevents. Electrical event-readout systems are divided into two classes: the discrete wire anodes that perform coordinate digitization by wire-group selection, and the continuous centroid-position encoders for which coordinates are digitized in the associated electronics. The centroid-position encoder techniques are discussed in terms of how they overcome the four chief limitations of the discrete-wire readouts - their limited format size, their flat focal surface, their fundamental hex-channel vs squared-pixel moire pattern, and their image undersampling. With these limitations overcome, microchannel based image systems can deliver the performance demanded by the forthcoming generation of applications in space astronomy.
This briefing presents some prior work on security needs for virtual power plants (VPPs). This presentation introduces virtual power plants (VPPs) and discusses why they are an emerging participant in our power grid. We will look at several examples where they have been critical for grid reliability. We will then take a dive into some of the risks associated with wide-area digital coordination of VPP assets, and finally conclude with an outlook on what's next.
It has been almost 50 years since humans last set foot on the Moon. With NASA’s Artemis program, the United States and its international and commercial partners are embarking on a new endeavor to explore the lunar surface. Before we return, we will have simulated every aspect of these future missions. Many of these models and simulations (M&S) will rely on well-known and commonly-used technologies, some of which trace their origins back to the Apollo program. However, M&S has advanced significantly, as have the underlying computational capabilities. As a result, we are able to model many more aspects of the Artemis vehicles and support systems with significantly improved detail and confidence. Accurately and efficiently modeling the lunar environment will be critical to simulating the Artemis elements and mission activities. This includes characterizing and modeling lunar topography, smaller craters, exposed surface rocks, lunar regolith, surface lighting, and ambient thermal environment. These are all necessary for understanding fundamental behaviors and performance of vehicles and support systems in the lunar environment and are often determining factors in the selection of exploration sites and defining mission profiles. The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Sciences (ARES) team in the Exploration Integration and Science Directorate at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) and the NASA Exploration Systems Simulations (NExSyS) team in the Simulation and Graphics Branch at JSC are developing and maintaining the Digital Lunar Exploration Sites (DLES) data, documentation, and software packages. This data is being fed directly into a diverse collection of graphics and simulation environments, where it is used to construct the closest known truth for numerous potential Lunar South Pole landing sites. DLES is available to projects across NASA and particularly the Artemis program to support coordinated digital representations of the lunar environment. This paper describes the fundamental need for DLES, the science data sets that are going into DLES, some of the processes used to integrate this data into DLES products, the basic products that constitute DLES, and some examples of DLES in use.
The disaster response domain has experienced an increased focus in recent years due to the rise in number and scale of events, lessons learned from past experience, and emerging technologies that make possible a more coordinated and effective response. As part of this focus, JAXA and NASA have been collaborating on the integration of manned and unmanned aircraft in support of disaster response operations through integrated testing of their respective mission planning and optimization system (Disaster Relief Aircraft Information Sharing Network, or D-NET) and an automated UAS traffic management system (e.g., UTM). In 2018, JAXA and NASA jointly participated in a large-scale disaster drill in Japan where the integration of systems was successfully demonstrated through real-time data exchanges, visualization, and decision making as part of the coordinated airspace management of a manned helicopter in VFR conditions and unmanned small UAS operating in common areas. This work details a flight test consisting of two flights that were conducted December 2019 near the Chofu Aerodrome in Tokyo, which focused on the evaluation of pilots operating under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) communicating through D-NET and sharing intent and position information within UTM. This work contributes to defining the necessary requirements for digital coordination between manned and unmanned operations. UTM requires the use of operation volumes, which are spatial and temporal volumes that encompass UAS flight trajectories and account for technical performance errors and deviations due to disturbances (e.g., wind). A series of flights, representing different missions, used landmark-based operation volumes and conformance of the aircraft to those operation volumes were tracked within UTM. Experienced disaster response helicopter pilots provided insight on the development of the operation plans and their usability during disaster response operations. Results from the flight test supported the suggested benefits of using landmarks for planning and positional awareness and highlighted the need for future research in advanced visualization capabilities to support operations that consider both system constraints and flight deck/airspace management interaction.
Installation of digital coordinate readouts for display in Mount Wilson 60 in. telescope
A contract for modernization of the Mount Wilson 60-inch telescope was awarded. Under this contract, the original hour angle and declination drives were replaced, digital coordinate readouts were added, a Cassegrain/ coude flip cage was built and installed, the telescope was completely rewired, a new control console was installed, and a coude spectrograph was completed. Extensive building modifications also were made to provide a working floor at mezzanine level for a computer and a coude observing room. These modifications and additions were completed by February 1970, and the telescope returned to regular and continuous use for stellar and planetary astronomy.
The acquisition system which operates in conjunction with a balloon-borne TV system, boresighted to a telescope is described. It has two main functions, a star field monitor and an offset star tracker. The design of the system was strongly influenced by the TV camera, which uses the same interlaced scanning system as is employed in commercial television broadcasting. To reduce power and bandwidth requirements, the star field information transmitted in our system consists only of the horizontal and vertical coordinates of each star and its brightness. As a star field monitor the system provides video thresholding, camera blemish suppression, coordinate digitization in 3 axes, circuity to recognize as single star the dispersed video signals resulting from one star overlapping adjacent scanning lines and storage of all signals for readout by the telemetry at appropriate times.
A method is presented for the processing and analysis of digital topography data that can subsequently be entered in an interactive data base in the form of slope, slope length, elevation, and aspect angle. A discussion of the data source and specific descriptions of the data processing software programs are included. In addition, the mathematical considerations involved in the registration of raw digitized coordinate points to the UTM coordinate system are presented. Scale factor considerations are also included. Results of the processing and analysis are illustrated using the Shiprock and Gallup Quadrangle test data.
An approach for merging multiscene LANDSAT data bases into existing geographic information systems having 5-second or smaller cells is described. The approach uses the output from the State of Maryland's UNIVAC 1180-based LANDSAT classification program ASTEP (Algorithm Simulation Test and Evaluation) developed by NASA. The structure of the technique was designed to address the problems that emerged as part of the LANDSAT classification of the 64,000 square mile Chesapeake water shed involving twelve scenes. The removal of overlap among adjacent scenes, the crossreferencing of ground control points, and the isolation of the appropriate pixels from the LANDSAT data base for subsequent positioning into a file containing ancillary data referenced to a specific USGS 7 1/2 minute quadrangle sheet are described. Examples illustrate the clustering of classified LANDSAT pixels to define the dominant land use for each of 8,100 cells within a series of quadrangle sheets distributed over the State of Maryland. The approach uses a hard copy terminal tied to an ASTEP algorithm through telephone lines. A coordinate digitizing board for inputing the position of ground control points is also valuable, although manual measurements are possible. The approach is quite efficient and should be especially attractive for use on regional scale studies.
The flying spot digitizer can measure the coordinates of star images on photographic plates in one pass with an accuracy of 4.8 microns r.m.s. error. A field of the size 50 x 100 square millimeters is measured in a few seconds. Suggestions are made as to how a better accuracy can be achieved through the way in which the measurements are arranged and by repetition of the measurements. It is suggested that the speed of photographic astrometric measurements can be improved by about two orders of magnitude, at no loss of accuracy, by proper use of the FSD.
Since 1958, NASA has delivered its enduring bold purpose, characterized in the 2022 NASA Strategic Plan as a mission to discover, explore, innovate, and advance solutions to the problems of flight, within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere, for the benefit of humankind. The NASA Strategic Plan also recognizes that this mission will be delivered differently as it looks to a future marked by radical global change, which is in part being driven by digital advances. For this reason, in late 2020 NASA established an Enterprise Digital Transformation (DT) agency-level strategic initiative to accelerate and coordinate leveraging digital advances to transform the way the Agency works, the experience of its workforce and the agility of its workplace. This paper documents NASA’s DT strategic framework and associated implementation approach, with the DT strategic initiative serving to ignite, connect, integrate, and facilitate DT progress across a federated organizational operating model.
The author has identified the following significant results. To transfer points from topographic maps to space platform imagery a generalized resection program has been developed in which any resection parameter can be enforced in the solution to any desired extent. This allows for the use of orbital parameters in the resection solution. In addition to the resection program, a technique has been developed applicable to space platform photography with which elevations can be assigned to digitzed map points through the use of digital terrain models. Using this technique tedious manual elevation assignment for thousands of digitized points can be avoided. The software to project the map points to the space platform image has also been developed and tested. Programs are being tested to relate the projected image coordinates to digital image tape locations so that any desired sample unit can be retrieved from the digital tapes with considerable accuracy.
Methods for creating color thematic maps and land use tabulations, employing both Landsat imagery and computer image processing, are discussed. The system, the Multiple Input Land Use System (MILUS) has been tested in the metropolitan section of Dayton, Ohio. Training areas for land use were first digitized by coordinates and then transformed onto an image of white lines on a black background. This image was added to a Landsat image of the same area. Then multispectral classification was performed. A tape of digitized census tract boundaries was computer interfaced to yield an image of tract boundaries on a background registered to the thematic land-use map. Using a data management system, the data were then used to produce figures for the area and percent of land use in each tract. Future work is expected to convert most of the steps into interactive processing. This would greatly reduce the time needed to edit and register the data sets.
Application of digital computers for deriving motion equations of point mass in curvilinear coordinate systems by use of tensor calculus
This report describes a spherical fitting algorithm that can be used for estimating the oscilloscope film trace coordinates. This algorithm was adopted from a least square algebraic spherical fitting algorithm developed by the author earlier for photovoltaic velocimetry applications. Preliminary assessment suggests that the algorithm may be used for optimizing the coordinates manually digitized by the user, or may be used as an uncertainty estimator for the user’s film reading uncertainties.
The author has identified the following significant results. Multidiscipline team interpretation and mapping of resources for Crook County is nearly complete on 1:250,000 scale enlargements of ERTS-1 imagery. Maps of geology, landforms, soils and vegetation-land use are being interpreted to show limitations, suitabilities and geologic hazards for land use planning. Mapping of lineaments and structures from ERTS-1 imagery has shown a number of features not previously mapped in Oregon. A timber inventory of Ochoco National Forest has been made. Inventory of forest clear-cutting practices has been successfully demonstrated with ERTS-1 color composites. Soil tonal differences in fallow fields shown on ERTS-1 correspond with major soil boundaries in loess-mantled terrain. A digital classification system used for discriminating natural vegetation and geologic materials classes has been successful in separation of most major classes around Newberry Cauldera, Mt. Washington and Big Summit Prairie. Computer routines are available for correction of scanner data variations; and for matching scales and coordinates between digital and photographic imagery. Methods of Diazo film color printing of computer classifications and elevation-slope perspective plots with computer are being developed.