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The airport and cargo terminal were individually analyzed in depth as the principal direct infrastructure components having cross impacts with aircraft carrying cargo. Containerization was also addressed in depth as an infrastructure component since it categorically is linked with and cross impacted by the aircraft, the cargo terminal, the surface transport system, the shipper and consignee, and the actual cargo being moved.
By integrating the ground based infrastructure component of a mobile satellite system with the infrastructure systems of terrestrial 800 MHz cellular service providers, a seamless network of universal coverage can be established. Users equipped for both cellular and satellite service can take advantage of a number of features made possible by such integration, including seamless handoff and universal roaming. To provide maximum benefit at lowest posible cost, the means by which these systems are integrated must be carefully considered. Mobile satellite hub stations must be configured to efficiently interface with cellular Mobile Telephone Switching Offices (MTSO's), and cost effective mobile units that provide both cellular and satellite capability must be developed.
By integrating the ground based infrastructure component of a mobile satellite system with the infrastructure systems of terrestrial 800 MHz cellular service providers, a seamless network of universal coverage can be established.
Heliophysics data and computational infrastracture are not equipped for 21st science, suffering from holes in the know-how to build better systems. Without a clear vision, efforts to improve the infrastructure have been incremental and incoherent. This poster presents both the vision and the technology required: an online LIbrary KnowledgE and Discovery (LIKED) resource for discovering and implementing knowledge, data, and infrastructure resources; and an online analysis ecosystem to simplify Discovery, Implementation, Analysis, Reproducibility, and Sharing (DIARieS) of scientific results and environments. The LIKED and DIARieS solutions adopt FAIR data principles and the best practices from the budding field of open science. The proposed new infrastructure components will close many of the current gaps in heliophysics’ infrastructure, such as the ability to search for data and knowledge by phenomenon across domains, and to find software and examples relevant to the desired data set (including model data). Further, these components will enable community members to more efficiently use the resources already present and improve upon the content via a community-curated and trusted library. Combining these solutions lowers the barriers to heliophysics resources for all, increasing the return on our investments. Finally, the structure behind these ideas are topic-agnostic, so they are fully extensible to other fields, leading to invaluable connections to other disciplines. Just as with the development and construction of a long-term satellite mission, we must work together as a community to build a vision of the infrastructure that will most benefit the community, and then collaborate to construct, assemble, and test all the necessary pieces individually and as a unit. Our purpose in presenting this work is to not only describe the proposed vision, but also to gather feedback from the community on this topic.
Power outages caused by extreme weather events, such as hurricanes, can significantly disrupt essential services and delay recovery efforts, underscoring the importance of enhancing our infrastructure's resilience. This study investigates the spread of power outages during hurricanes by analyzing the correlation between the network of critical infrastructure and outage propagation. We leveraged datasets from Hurricanemapping.com, the North American Energy Resilience Model Interdependency Analysis (NAERM-IA), and historical power outage data from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)'s EAGLE-I system. Our analysis reveals a consistent positive correlation between the extent of critical infrastructure components accessible within a certain number of steps (k-hop distance) from initial impact areas and the occurrence of power outages in broader regions. This insight suggests that understanding the interconnectedness among critical infrastructure elements is key to identifying areas indirectly affected by extreme weather events.
Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) is a critical technology for reducing anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but its large-scale deployment is complicated by uncertainties in geological storage performance. These uncertainties pose significant financial and operational risks, as underperforming storage sites can lead to costly infrastructure modifications, inefficient pipeline routing, and economic shortfalls. To address this challenge, we propose a novel optimization workflow that is based on mixed-integer linear programming and explicitly integrates probabilistic modeling of storage uncertainty into CCS infrastructure design. This workflow generates multiple infrastructure scenarios by sampling storage capacity distributions, optimally solving each scenario using a mixed-integer linear programming model, and aggregating results into a heatmap to identify core infrastructure components that have a low likelihood of underperforming. A risk index parameter is introduced to balance trade-offs between cost, CO2 processing capacity, and risk of underperformance, allowing stakeholders to quantify and mitigate uncertainty in CCS planning. Applying this workflow to a CCS dataset from the US Department of Energy’s Carbon Utilization and Storage Partnership project reveals key insights into infrastructure resilience. Reducing the risk index from 15% to 0% is observed to lead to an 83.7% reduction in CO2 processing capacity and a 77.1% decrease in project profit, quantifying the trade-off between risk tolerance and project performance. Furthermore, our results highlight critical breakpoints, where small adjustments in the risk index produce disproportionate shifts in infrastructure performance, providing actionable guidance for decision-makers. Unlike prior approaches that aimed to cheaply repair underperforming infrastructure, our workflow constructs robust CCS networks from the ground up, ensuring cost-effective infrastructure under storage uncertainty. These findings demonstrate the practical relevance of incorporating uncertainty-aware optimization into CCS planning, equipping decision-makers with a tool to make informed project planning decisions.
Energy Infrastructure components depend on an evolving, interdependent business ecosystem exposed to long-term, legal, adversarial tactics. An INL-Naval Postgraduate School partnership was designed to support INL Lab Directed Research and Development, NPS graduate research projects, and joint publications. The Technology, Organization, and Person of interest Graph Extraction, Analysis, and Reporting (TOP GEAR) enumerates networks of organizations and people that own, operate, and maintain regional infrastructure assets. TOP GEAR allows analysts to model current and future state what-if scenarios that include technological and policy mitigations.
Large metallic infrastructure components on the Moon are currently cost prohibitive due to the expense of transporting mass to the lunar surface. Astrobotic has quoted upwards of $1.2 million dollars per kilogram of payload to the surface. Advantageously, however, aluminum is present in great quantities as aluminum silicates on the lunar surface. And because aluminum is ductile, highly conductive, and amendable for advanced manufacturing processes such as wire fed directed energy deposition (DED), if it can be refined from regolith, its utilization can enable cost-effective, on-surface manufacturing of metallic infrastructure. The goal of project is to develop the core processes and technologies to extract aluminum from Lunar regolith and refine it into wire feedstock from a carbothermic reduction process.
The results of a study conducted at NASA-LaRC to assess the impact on the space station of accommodating a Manned Lunar Base are documented. Included in the study are assembly activities for all infrastructure components, resupply and operations support for lunar base elements, crew activity requirements, the effect of lunar activities on Cape Kennedy operations, and the effect on space station science missions. Technology needs to prepare for such missions are also defined. Results of the study indicate that the space station can support the manned lunar base missions with the addition of a Fuel Depot Facility and a heavy lift launch vehicle to support the large launch requirements.
The lunar Campsite concept responds to a perceived need to identify early manned science and exploration missions that require minimal initial funding. The Campsite concept defers the build-up of many infrastructure components without escalating total program costs. The lunar Campsite has been sized nominally for four crew for 42 days (1 lunar night and 2 lunar days), but can be modified to span two lunar nights up to 60 days. Total mission fulfillment requires five Earth-to-LEO launches, four (100 mt class launch vehicle) for the two vehicle assemblies and one (PLS or NSTS) for the crew. The lunar Campsite mission mode is tandem direct using a booster stage and a lander stage. The booster is separated from the lander after the TLI burn and is expended into the Earth's atmosphere. In the Campsite mode, the lander lands on the surface not to be returned. In the crew delivery mode, the lander is guided to a precision landing about 500 m from the Campsite, and with enough propellant to return the crew to Earth. The Campsite consists of a habitat and airlock, body mounted radiators with a surface shield, sun tracking solar arrays, and an Earth-tracking high-gain antenna. The CV is very similar to the campsite delivery vehicle. The CV does not, however, have radiators or solar arrays. The vehicle stacks are essentially common in that they utilize the same structure system and engines, the same propellant tanks, the same 'cut-out' in which the CRV and payloads are incorporated, and the same RCS locations. The booster and lander stage propellant tank propellant capacities are identical and have margins which would allow additional fueling for propulsive capture of the boost stage into Earth orbit. This contractual study was performed to identify Campsite and vehicle interfaces and vehicle requirements, and to surface issues related to the integration of the Campsite and LTV's.
We present an integrated reliability and aviation safety analysis tool. The reliability models for selected infrastructure components of the air traffic control system are described. The results of this model are used to evaluate the likelihood of seeing outcomes predicted by simulations with failures injected. We discuss the design of the simulation model, and the user interface to the integrated toolset.
The strategy for accomplishing civilian exploration goals and objectives is in the process of a fundamental shift towards a potential new approach called Flexible Path. This paper suggests that a government-industry or public-private partnership in the commercial development of low Earth orbit to geostationary orbit (LEO-to-GEO (LTG)) space, following or in parallel with the commercialization of Earth-to-LEO and International Space Station (ISS) operations, could serve as a necessary, logical step that can be incorporated into the flexible path approach. A LTG satellite-servicing infrastructure and architecture concept is discussed within this new strategic context. The concept consists of a space harbor that serves as a transport facility for a fleet of specialized, fully- or semi-autonomous robotic servicing spacecraft. The baseline, conceptual system architecture is composed of a space harbor equipped with specialized servicer spacecraft; a satellite command, communication, and control system; a parts station; a fuel station or depot; and a fuel/parts replenishment transport. The commercial servicer fleet would consist of several types of spacecraft, each designed with specialized robotic manipulation subsystems to provide services such as refueling, upgrade, repair, inspection, relocation, and removal. The space harbor is conceptualized as an ISS-type, octagonal truss structure equipped with radiation tolerant subsystems. This space harbor would be primarily capable of serving as an operational platform for various commercially owned and operated servicer spacecraft positioned and docked symmetrically on four of the eight sides. Several aspects of this concept are discussed, such as: system-level feasibility in terms of ISS-truss-type infrastructure and subsystems emplacement and maintenance between LEO and GEO; infrastructure components assembly in LEO, derived from ISS assembly experience, and transfer to various higher orbital locations; the evolving Earth-to-orbit (ETO) capability to deliver humans and cargo to LEO for assembly purposes; system architectural definition, optimal orbital parameters, mass estimations, delta velocity ( V) estimations, power and propulsion options, and assessments of various critical technologies. Large-scale, robotic, LTG satellite servicing is considered as an essential economic pre-condition and next parallel or sequential step on the road toward exploration beyond LEO. Such a step might produce the necessary pre-requisite economic value that can be used by future decision makers to justify further investment in exploration beyond LEO.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems can be used to produce high-quality, desirable food year round, and the fresh produce can positively contribute to the health and well being of residents in communities with difficult supply logistics. While CEA has many positive outcomes for a remote community, the associated high electric demands have prohibited widespread implementation in what is typically already a fully subscribed power generation and distribution system. Recent advances in CEA technologies as well as renewable power generation, storage, and micro-grid management are increasing system efficiency and expanding the possibilities for enhancing community supporting infrastructure without increasing demands for outside supplied fuels. We will present examples of how new lighting, nutrient delivery, and energy management and control systems can enable significant increases in food production efficiency while maintaining high yields in CEA. Examples from Alaskan communities where initial incorporation of renewable power generation, energy storage and grid management techniques have already reduced diesel fuel consumption for electric generation by more than 40% and expanded grid capacity will be presented. We will discuss how renewable power generation, efficient grid management to extract maximum community service per kW, and novel energy storage approaches can expand the food production, water supply, waste treatment, sanitation and other community support services without traditional increases of consumable fuels supplied from outside the community. These capabilities offer communities with a range of choices to enhance their communities. The examples represent a synergy of technology advancement efforts to develop sustainable community support systems for future space-based human habitats and practical implementation of infrastructure components to increase efficiency and enhance health and well being in remote communities today and tomorrow.
EOSDIS epitomizes a System of Systems, whose many varied and distributed parts are integrated into a single, highly functional organized science data system. A distributed architecture was adopted to ensure discipline-specific support for the science data, while also leveraging standards and establishing policies and tools to enable interdisciplinary research, and analysis across multiple scientific instruments. The EOSDIS is composed of system elements such as geographically distributed archive centers used to manage the stewardship of data. The infrastructure consists of underlying capabilities connections that enable the primary system elements to function together. For example, one key infrastructure component is the common metadata repository, which enables discovery of all data within the EOSDIS system. EOSDIS employs processes and standards to ensure partners can work together effectively, and provide coherent services to users.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) systems can be used to produce high-quality, desirable food year round, and the fresh produce can positively contribute to the health and well being of residents in communities with difficult supply logistics. While CEA has many positive outcomes for a remote community, the associated high electric demands have prohibited widespread implementation in what is typically already a fully subscribed power generation and distribution system. Recent advances in CEA technologies as well as renewable power generation, storage, and micro-grid management are increasing system efficiency and expanding the possibilities for enhancing community supporting infrastructure without increasing demands for outside supplied fuels. We will present examples of how new lighting, nutrient delivery, and energy management and control systems can enable significant increases in food production efficiency while maintaining high yields in CEA.Examples from Alaskan communities where initial incorporation of renewable power generation, energy storage and grid management techniques have already reduced diesel fuel consumption for electric generation by more than 40 and expanded grid capacity will be presented. We will discuss how renewable power generation, efficient grid management to extract maximum community service per kW, and novel energy storage approaches can expand the food production, water supply, waste treatment, sanitation and other community support services without traditional increases of consumable fuels supplied from outside the community. These capabilities offer communities with a range of choices to enhance their communities. The examples represent a synergy of technology advancement efforts to develop sustainable community support systems for future space-based human habitats and practical implementation of infrastructure components to increase efficiency and enhance health and well-being in remote communities today and tomorrow.
Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a burgeoning flight services concept for passenger and cargo airborne applications operating within and around urban environments. Among the services envisioned, most attention is being directed at airborne personal transport to improve transit time and mitigate automobile congestion. In addition, delivery services for more efficient transport of goods and local area information gathering for timely media dissemination and emergency monitoring will also likely be early UAM system applications. Among the infrastructure components in need of development are communications systems that manage these air vehicles. Not only will there be a need to communicate with the pilots in command of the aircraft for traffic management, but the control of the aircraft and monitoring of the aircraft systems will also need to use these communications systems to ensure safe operations.
We define DIAMOND, an architecture for generalized, persistent platforms in space, providing support infrastructure for multiple payloads with diverse missions, and able to accept the integration of payloads delivered to the platform after it is established in space. Such platforms would create a new space ecosystem with opportunities for much larger platforms than currently exist, for adaptation to changing technological and market conditions over long periods of time, and for tenants of the platform to launch only their unique payloads without having to carry all the equipment needed to support them. The DIAMOND architecture uses a novel “Architectural Shearing Layer” approach combining long-lived but replaceable structural and support infrastructure components with shorter-lived, higher-value service and tenant facilities. The structural aspect of the proposed architecture is a regular lattice constructed of tetrahedral cells, constructed of only a few types of simple structural components, patterned according to the cubic lattice of natural diamond crystals. The cubic lattice is arranged on larger scales to be fractal sponge, providing a disproportionately large number of surface attachment points while maintaining overall low mass of the entire structure. Generalized architectural shearing layers are also provided that permit easy separation between structural, power, thermal, propulsion/attitude control, pointing/vibration control, computing/data storage, and communication, and various operational aspects of the architecture. The combined result ensures longevity by enabling space platforms to undergo many cycles of change with little peril and at low cost, changing any part of the platform at different times and rates while leaving the remaining parts of the platform undisturbed.
This report focuses on the use of fluoropolymers in infrastructure materials (building construction materials, transportation, and electrical transmission and distribution); renewable energy generation components (specifically wind and solar); and energy storage components (lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells) and product lifespan impacts if fluoropolymers were no longer available or allowed in commerce. Additionally, environmental considerations for fluoropolymer manufacture, use, and end-of-life disposal are discussed. This document is the second of two companion reports. The first report, Assessment of Fluoropolymer Production and Use With Analysis of Alternative Replacement Materials, contained an analysis of use of fluoropolymers and their potential replacement technologies in aerospace, automotive, battery, building construction, chemical processing, electronics, infrastructure, semiconductor, solar panel, and wind energy industries sectors, along with qualitative life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost-benefit analysis of replacing fluoropolymers. This report does not focus on the lifecycle aspects of use of fluoropolymer or alternatives in the designated applications. For more information on those topics, see aforementioned report.