Results for “AUGMENTATION” — Page 100

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Coupling Online Conductivity with Offline Ion Chromatography Measurements using the Particle-into-Liquid Sampler

A particle-into-liquid sampler has been combined with a flow through conductivity cell to provide a continuous, non-destructive, online measurement in support of offline ion chromatography analysis. The conductivity measurement provides a rapid assessment of the total ion concentration augmenting the slower batch data from the offline analysis and is developed primarily to assist airborne measurements, where fast time response is essential. A model of the conductivity was developed for measured ions and excellent closure is derived for laboratory-generated aerosols. The PILS-conductivity measurement was extensively tested during the NASA Cloud, Aerosol and Monsoon Processes: Philippines Experiment (CAMP2Ex) across nineteen research flights and the conductivity data was found to augment the temporal capability of the PILS instrument for assessing ionic species, allowing sub-minute variability to be resolved. Through the sampling of a diverse range of ambient aerosol, including biomass burning, fresh and aged urban pollution, the conductivity measurement offered additional useful information to untangle the composition of complex aerosol mixtures, specifically for assessing acidic aerosol conditions.

Ewan Colin Crosbie↗

NASA NTRS2020

RMIT AR Android Application Abstract

This summer, I've worked as an intern for IT-C1's Rapid Model Import Tool (RMIT) project under Bill Little. The goal of this project was to develop a mobile application for IT-C1's larger project, RMIT, so that it could be deployed in a convenient way. The current function of RMIT is to import file types that are not normally compatible with the Unity 3D software development engine and make them into files that can be placed into Unity for the specific purpose of viewing CAD models in virtual reality (VR). The mobile application that I worked on uses augmented reality (AR), using the camera on a mobile device, to show virtual models in the real world for the purpose of visualization and understanding. In addition to single-player capabilities, this application will include a multi-player mode so that collaborating engineers can see each other's work on their own devices.Working on this application required many steps. First, I hard to learn a lot about how mobile development is different from desktop development, and what the limitations of augmented reality are at its current state. From there, I was assigned new tasks and goals every two weeks, which included addingground plane and air plane functionality, designing a user interface, adding multi-player capability and allowing the user to manipulate models placed in a scene.

Dorian Thompson↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Clinical Decision Support - Concepts of Operation

We are entering a new era in space exploration to return to the moon and explore Mars. These ambitious goals will require significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints make it absolutely necessary to develop transformative solutions using new technologies. The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element of the Human Research Program (HRP) pushes the boundary of space medical systems to advance the care of astronauts on future exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit by identifying and testing next-generation medical care and crew health maintenance technologies. The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) project addresses the gap Medical-701 within the Inflight Medical Conditions risk: Enhance medical capabilities within an exploration medical system. For long-duration, deep space missions, computational and data resources will play an important role in maintaining crew health, wellness and performance where the crew will need to be more self-reliant. The aim of the CDS project is to develop and provide recommended requirements for an in-vehicle CDSS that acts as an assistant for delivering optimal health and performance and medical care during exploration missions. The CDSS is envisioned as a software-based tool that will augment a crewmembers’ knowledge, skills and abilities to assist in decision-making and crew health and performance (CHP) management thus increasing CHP systems capabilities. The human interface will be context aware and lessen the cognitive load to assimilate and use information as well as combine large disparate data sets in such a manner that provides the crew with actionable insight to decisions related to crew medical, health and performance management. Crew autonomy will be provided through a CDS that presents knowledge and data in a context aware manner to augment a crew members’ knowledge, skills and abilities during the process of observation, orientation, decisions and action. The CDS project addresses the need for crew members to operate independently during long duration space exploration missions that require medical Levels of Care (LoC) V, the highest level specified by NASA-STD-3001 and described in more detail by the ExMC interpretation of LoC document (NASA/TM-2017-219290), where significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care necessitate increasing crew autonomy in decision making and task performance. The CDS project will develop and test a series of iterative and increasingly more complex system prototypes. These annual demonstrations of the data system integration with the crew health and performance domain will inform exploration medical system requirements for an on-board Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) through a series of use cases that guide CDS prototype functionality. CDS concepts are based on ExMC Concept of Operations documents (presented separately) and will highlight architecture extensibility to other more complex analyses and tests using core crew health and performance integrated data management, processing and visualization capabilities. This approach also establishes how externally developed analyses and approaches could be added to expand a clinical decision support system and thus highlight how a comprehensive system can be commercially and/or globally developed. The CDS project will build upon the concept of an integrated data management approach based on the Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project to more fully address challenges associated with in-flight and habitat medical, health and performance care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities required for medical LoC V. These requirements will be derived through systems engineering approaches and software prototype developments over the course of the multi-year CDS project to address crew health and performance decision-making and task performance, often autonomously executed by the crew, in a manner that is consistent with the appropriate medical level of care for the mission. This presentation will provide an overview of the vision for the CDS project and highlight the initial accomplishments in project planning, implementation and requirements identification in fiscal year 2020.

clinical decision support↗

NASA NTRS2020

Modeling and Control for a Flexible Inverted Pendulum Robot

This report describes the tasks accomplished during Fall 2020 at the Kennedy Space Center under the scope of the Robotic Control System Design internship project. These tasks primarily supported development of an augmented adaptive control system for an inverted pendulum (IP) robotic system on a 4-wheel mobile base (Penny). This system serves as an analogue to the control problems in the flight of rockets in the initial and latter stages of launch, and methods developed as part of this research can later be applied to more complex IP systems, such as launch vehicles. To more accurately model launch vehicles, a flexible aluminum pendulum is used both on the hardware and in the simulated models. In order to capture the flexible dynamics of the system, hardware modifications were made to Penny (including installation of a rate gyro at the tip of the pendulum). Simulink models were created to control and model the hardware system, and Simscape models were created/updated to model the system in simulation. MATLAB programs were created throughout the internship to analyze data generated from hardware and simulation runs. Linear fixed-gain controllers have been applied to the simulated and hardware system, and work continues with augmenting these controllers using sensor blending and direct output adaptive control methods to improve stabilization of system states and cancel flex dynamics. In addition to describing the work done to support these modeling efforts, an Independent Research and Technology Development (IR&TD) proposal for a lunar simulation with soil deformation modeling developed during the internship is briefly described.

Nashir A Janmohamed↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Clinical Decision Support - Overview and Update

We are entering a new era in space exploration to return to the moon and explore Mars. These ambitious goals will require significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints make it absolutely necessary to develop transformative solutions using new technologies. The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element of the Human Research Program (HRP) pushes the boundary of space medical systems to advance the care of astronauts on future exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit by identifying and testing next-generation medical care and crew health maintenance technologies. The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) project addresses the gap Medical-701 within the Inflight Medical Conditions risk: Enhance medical capabilities within an exploration medical system. For long-duration, deep space missions, computational and data resources will play an important role in maintaining crew health, wellness and performance where the crew will need to be more self-reliant. The aim of the CDS project is to develop and provide recommended requirements for an in-vehicle CDSS that acts as an assistant for delivering optimal health and performance and medical care during exploration missions. The CDSS is envisioned as a software-based tool that will augment a crewmembers’ knowledge, skills and abilities to assist in decision-making and crew health and performance (CHP) management thus increasing CHP systems capabilities. The human interface will be context aware and lessen the cognitive load to assimilate and use information as well as combine large disparate data sets in such a manner that provides the crew with actionable insight to decisions related to crew medical, health and performance management. Crew autonomy will be provided through a CDS that presents knowledge and data in a context aware manner to augment a crew members’ knowledge, skills and abilities during the process of observation, orientation, decisions and action. The CDS project addresses the need for crew members to operate independently during long duration space exploration missions that require medical Levels of Care (LoC) V, the highest level specified by NASA-STD-3001 and described in more detail by the ExMC interpretation of LoC document (NASA/TM-2017-219290), where significant changes to in-flight and habitat medical care necessitate increasing crew autonomy in decision making and task performance. The CDS project will develop and test a series of iterative and increasingly more complex system prototypes. These annual demonstrations of the data system integration with the crew health and performance domain will inform exploration medical system requirements for an on-board Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) through a series of use cases that guide CDS prototype functionality. CDS concepts are based on ExMC Concept of Operations documents (presented separately) and will highlight architecture extensibility to other more complex analyses and tests using core crew health and performance integrated data management, processing and visualization capabilities. This approach also establishes how externally developed analyses and approaches could be added to expand a clinical decision support system and thus highlight how a comprehensive system can be commercially and/or globally developed. The CDS project will build upon the concept of an integrated data management approach based on the Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project to more fully address challenges associated with in-flight and habitat medical, health and performance care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time and medical evacuation capabilities required for medical LoC V. These requirements will be derived through systems engineering approaches and software prototype developments over the course of the multi-year CDS project to address crew health and performance decision-making and task performance, often autonomously executed by the crew, in a manner that is consistent with the appropriate medical level of care for the mission. This presentation will provide an overview of the vision for the CDS project and highlight the initial accomplishments in project planning, implementation and requirements identification in fiscal year 2020.

clinical decision support system↗

NASA NTRS2020

Tunable Piezoelectricity of Multifunctional Boron Nitride Nanotube/Poly(dimethylsiloxane) Stretchable Composites

Boron nitride nanotubes (BNNT) uniformly dispersed in stretchable materials, such as poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS), could create the next generation of composites with augmented mechanical, thermal, and piezoelectric characteristics. This work reports tunable piezoelectricity of multifunctional BNNT/PDMS stretchable composites prepared via co-solvent blending with tetrahydrofuran (THF) to disperse BNNTs in PDMS while avoiding sonication or functionalization. The resultant stretchable BNNT/PDMS composites demonstrate augmented Young’s modulus (200% increase at 9 wt% BNNT) and thermal conductivity (120% increase at 9 wt% BNNT) without losing stretchability. Further-more, BNNT/PDMS composites demonstrate piezoelectric responses that are linearly proportional to BNNT wt%, achieving a piezoelectric constant (|d33|) of 18 pmV−1 at 9 wt% BNNT without poling, which is competitive with commercial piezoelectric polymers. Uniquely, BNNT/PDMS accommodates tensile strains up to 60% without plastic deformation by aligning BNNTs, which enhances the composites’ piezoelectric response approximately five times. Finally, the combined stretchable and piezoelectric nature of the composite was exploited to produce a vibration sensor sensitive to low-frequency (≈1 kHz) excitation. This is the first demonstration of multifunctional, stretchable BNNT/PDMS composites with enhanced mechanical strength and thermal conductivity and furthermore tunable piezoelectric response by varying BNNT wt% and applied strain, permitting applications in soft actuators and vibration sensors.

Boron Nitride Nanotubes, Polydimethylsiloxane, Pie↗

NASA NTRS2022

Computational Analysis of the X-57 Maxwell Airplane at Unpowered Conditions (Preliminary Fuselage)

The X-57 Maxwell is an all-electric airplane that implements a distributed electric propulsion system to demonstrate that high-efficiency electric propulsion can be integrated with aerodynamics to increase the performance of an airplane. To this end, distributed electric fans were installed on the wing to provide increased flow over the wing at the low takeoff and landing speeds of the X-57. The low-speed lift augmentation allows for a reduction in wing area for cruise optimization. The X-57 wing area was reduced to 42 percent of the wing area of the baseline aircraft, a Tecnam P2006T. With this reduced wing area and the electric propulsion system, it is estimated that the X-57 will cruise on less than one-third the total energy compared to the baseline aircraft. To meet the cruise performance goal at a Mach number of 0.233 at an altitude of 8000 feet, the X-57 has a cruise lift coefficient of 0.7516 and needs to have a cruise drag coefficient of 0.05423 or less. The USM3D computational solver was used to investigate the X-57 performance, without the distributed electric propulsion high-lift system operating. The unpowered X-57 performance is of interest to quantify if the X-57 can meet the cruise drag performance goal, and to document the lift performance of the very small wing at takeoff and landing conditions. The primary configurations investigated in this paper include the cruise configuration with no flap deflection, a takeoff configuration with a 10◦ flap deflection, and a landing configuration with a 30◦ flap deflection. The conditions for the cruise configuration were a flight unit Reynolds number of 1.32E+06 per foot, an altitude of 8000 feet, a Mach number of 0.233, and angles of attack from −2° to 24° . At the cruise lift coefficient of 0.7516, the computed drag coefficient is 0.05275. This computed drag is less than the drag coefficient of 0.05423 that is required to meet the X-57 airplane performance goal. However, the computational airplane is a completely smooth geometry and does not account for protuberance drag, nor the drag from steps and gaps in the actual X-57 airplane. Therefore, based upon the CFD drag calculation there is a 10-percent margin to account for some of the differences between the as-built metal fuselage and empennage construction, and the smooth computational geometry. The computed cruise drag also does not account for an induced drag reduction due to the wing-tip propellers and a drag reduction due to laminar flow achieved on the wing. The computed lift to drag ratio is 14.14 at the cruise lift coefficient of 0.7516, and the maximum computed lift to drag ratio is 15.8. The maximum lift coefficient for the cruise configuration was 2.13 at an angle of attack of 15°. The conditions for the takeoff configuration with a 10° flap deflection were a flight unit Reynolds number of 0.986E+06 per foot, an altitude of 2500 feet, a Mach number of 0.149, and angles of attack from −2° to 22°. The maximum lift coefficient for the takeoff configuration was 2.21 at an angle of attack of 16°. The conditions for the landing configuration with a 30° flap deflection were a flight unit Reynolds number of 0.922E+06 per foot, an altitude of 2500 feet, a Mach number of 0.139, and angles of attack from −2° to 24°. The maximum lift coefficient for the landing configuration was 2.58 and occurred at two angles of attack, 10° and 14°. Based on the unpowered maximum lift coefficient of 2.58 for the 30° flap deflection, along with computations of the distributed electric propulsion lift augmentation (not shown in this paper), the X-57 Maxwell is estimated to meet its powered landing goal of a maximum lift coefficient of 4.0.

X-57 Maxwell Airplane↗

NASA NTRS2020

Inter-species molecular attraction effect in the development of a two-species mixing layer

Simulations of fluid mixing occurring at high-pressures mandate the use of real-fluid equations of state to capture the effect of boh intermolecular repulsive forces and attractive forces which are neglected in perfect gases. Dedicated mixing rules account for these forces by providing a generic mapping of the mixture state-space onto a pure fluid domain. However, the specific inter-species molecular forces depend on the particular characteristics of the molecular pairs under consideration, and typically require the knowledge of binary interaction coefficients k_{αβ}. The impact of k_{αβ} on a flow field is as of now unclear; further, k_{αβ} is unknown for many molecular pairs and when unknown, set to be null. This study addresses the impact of k_{αβ} on the temporal evolution of a real-fluid mixing layer and uses Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) to explore this impact. The results show differences between augmented attraction (k_{αβ}<0) and diminished attraction (k_{αβ}>0), affecting both fluid dynamics and diffusion processes. Specifically, in a binary mixing layer, it is observed that augmented attraction leads to delayed transition and mixing layer growth, manifested in the momentum layer thickness. The fractal dimension, which is a manifestation of interface corrugation, is calculated. These results provide an hitherto undocumented mechanism affecting the development of mixing layers.

Banuti, Daniel↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Impact of NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling Project on Planetary Mission Design

Planetary missions continue to grow larger and more complex. Furthermore, the current focus on human exploration of the Moon and Mars, as well as Mars Sample Return(MSR), place increas-ingly stringent requirements on the reliability of the entry, descent, and landing (EDL) system that ensures the safe delivery of payload or crew to their destination. Planetary EDL is an area in which mission designers are critically reliant on modeling and simulation to demonstrate the reliability of the system, as there are no ground facilities that are able to fully test these systems in a flight-relevant environment. NASA’s state-of-the-art modeling and simulation capability must continually evolve to meet the needs of the next generation of planetary EDL. To accomplish this aim, NASA’s Entry Systems Modeling (ESM) Project was formed in 2013and is funded bythe Space Technology Mission Directorate(STMD) and Science Mission Directorate (SMD). ESM is the Agency’s only cross-cutting effort for advancing entry systems modeling and simulation capabilities across a range of technical disciplines and Solar System destinations. ESM is a portfolio project covering a variety of mid-TRL research efforts within four core EDL-related areas of investment: (1) Thermal protection material modeling, (2) Shock layer kinetics and radiation, (3) Aerosciences, and (4) Guidance, navigation, and con-trol. The material modeling group creates detailed material response modelsof thermal protection systems (TPS)from the micro to macro scale, and at the fun-damental and engineering levels. Shock layer kinetics and radiation focuses on radiative heating of space-craft, quantum chemistry and benchmark experiments for validation.Aerosciences is a broad research area that impacts many aspects of entry systems, including parachutes, aerodynamics, and turbulent heating augmentation due to TPS roughness.The guidance, navigation,and control effort under ESM is expanding the capabilities of NASA’s main flight mechanics tool, POST2, for use on high-performance computing architectures and to generalize interoperability with external applications for more detailed end-to-end simula-tion.In addition, several focusedresearch topics have been approvedto augment ESM’s core portfolio. These include efforts for deep post-flight analysis of Mars 2020/MEDLI2 flight data; development ofTPS failure models; improvement of hypersonic wakeflow models; and a recently concluded effort to provide material response models for NuSil-coated PICA heat-shield material. This presentation will discuss each of these investment areas and demonstrate via real mission examples how advances to the state-of-the-art enabled by ESM are directly impacting the missions of today and tomorrow, including InSight, Mars 2020, Mars Sample Return, Orion, and Dragonfly.

Entry Systems Modeling↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Model Predictive Control Study for an Electrified Turbofan Engine

A control sensitivity study is conducted for electrified aircraft propulsion concepts using a publicly available turbofan engine simulation. A Proportional-Integral (PI) controller serves as a baseline for comparison against an advanced Model Predictive Control (MPC) approach. MPC is used in the control scheme to allow for subsystem coordination of engine and electric power loads. The electrified turbofan engine includes electric machines to augment the amount of torque being applied to the spools of the engine during transient phases of operation. Power augmentation allows for energy to be stored or exhausted in a manner that increases the fuel efficiency of the engine, reducing aircraft emissions and noise. The study compares the fan speed, high pressure compressor stall margin, and low pressure compressor stall margin against the baseline PI control system, an MPC system without electric machines, and an MPC system with electric machines. The MPC system with electric machines is optimized using the sample time, control horizon and prediction horizon. The MPC design provided a stable damped response as desired and allowed operability margins to be maintained

Electrified Aircraft Propulsion↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Clinical Decision Support Software: Modeling and Capabilities

With its distance from Earth and communication delays, exploration space flight will place new demands for crew autonomy. Crewmembers operating during such missions require a dedicated Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) that enhances their earth independence by augmenting their knowledge, skills, and abilities in different medical scenarios. A CDSS is a software application that must function optimally in diverse and varied scenarios (while interfacing with and providing actionable information to appropriate vehicle systems) to augment crew performance by enhancing or adding knowledge, skills, and abilities that preserve health and wellness and ultimately helping to ensure mission success. In addition, the software tool should provide various functions and computational models to meet the demands of astronauts beyond low earth orbit.

B Russell↗

NASA NTRS2020

Integrating the Science Opportunity Analyzer with a Reusable Opportunity Search Framework

In our interactions with the Science Opportunity Analyzer (SOA) software, we recognized how its ability to search for geometric events in space is a need for robotic space missions in general. To satisfy this need, we propose the Tychonis framework, which is built upon the principles of: (1) separations of concerns, (2) extensibility, (3) reusability, and (4) independent verification and validation. Tychonis’ separation of concerns results in the availability of different constructs to model geometric events and search for them. These constructs can be extended by users as needed and reused across missions without changes. Given the low coupling between concerns, and the fact Tychonis can be augmented in isolation, its constructs can be validated independently from other pieces of software. This paper elaborates on these topics and presents an integration case study between Tychonis and SOA that relies on the concept of dynamic integration. Dynamic integration entails that augmentations of the framework are reflected automatically in the host application without any changes to the host application’s code. The SOA-Tychonis integration case study can be extrapolated to other tools that need to search for geometric events as the pattern repeats across implementations: (i) the manipulation of a user interface to model opportunities, (ii) the execution of algorithms to search for opportunities, and (iii) the presentation of search results to users. Overall, Tychonis’ is a story about how the application of proven software principles and good design choices can reduce risk and cost to space missions

Soria, Manel↗

NASA NTRS2023

The Value of a Spaceflight Clinical Decision Support System for Earth-Independent Medical Operations

As NASA prepares for crewed lunar missions over the next several years, plans are also underway to journey farther into deep space. Deep space exploration will require a paradigm shift in astronaut medical support toward progressively earth-independent medical operations (EIMO). The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) element of NASA’s Human Research Program (HRP) is investigating the feasibility and value of advanced capabilities to promote and enhance EIMO. Currently, astronauts rely on real-time communication with ground-based medical providers. However, as the distance from Earth increases, so do communication delays and disruptions. Moreover, resupply and evacuation will become increasingly complex, if not impossible, on deep space missions. In contrast to today’s missions in low earth orbit (LEO), where most medical expertise and decision-making are ground-based, an exploration crew will need to autonomously detect, diagnose, treat, and prevent medical events. Due to the sheer amount of pre-mission training required to execute a human spaceflight mission, there is often little time to devote exclusively to medical training. One potential solution is to augment the long duration exploration crew’s knowledge, skills, and abilities with a clinical decision support system (CDSS). An analysis of preliminary data indicates the potential benefits of a CDSS to mission outcomes when augmenting cognitive and procedural performance of an autonomous crew performing medical operations, and we provide an illustrative scenario of how such a CDSS might function.

Brian K. Russell↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Enabling in-time Prognostics with Surrogate Modeling through Physics-enhanced Dynamic Mode Decomposition Method

Computational models provide essential quantitative tools for assessing and predicting the health and performance of physical systems. However, high-fidelity models are rarely used in real-time operations or large optimization loops, due to their time-intensive nature. A common approach to improving computational efficiency of prognosis is to employ surrogate models. Such models can significantly decrease computation time for some accuracy loss. In this context, use of Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) is proposed to generate surrogate models for lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery discharge. DMD has been suggested and used successfully in the area of fluid dynamics for over a decade, but it has not been applied to the PHM domain, where far-ahead prediction of nonlinear behavior is crucial to propagate faults or predict Remaining Useful Life (RUL). For Li-ion battery health management, the standard application of DMD using only the observable quantities of interest was unable to capture the nonlinear discharge of batteries exhibited in lab testing. The Koopman theory, however, provides a mechanism to tradeoff low dimensional nonlinear models with high-dimensional linear ones in a DMD framework, by augmenting nonlinear state variables into the system representation. In this way, DMD allows for configurable simulation accuracy dependent on the dimensionality of the Koopman operator. For battery health management, we augmented the observable variables with the hidden states of a higher-fidelity physics model to build the DMD surrogate. In comparison to a high-fidelity model, the surrogate improved computational efficiency with only a minimal loss of accuracy, and enabled long-term prognostics horizons. A generalized method for this was implemented in the prog models python package.

prognostics and health management↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Interoperable Services to Mitigate Lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing Challenges

Across the Earth, both civilian and government endeavors enjoy a built-in reliance on a position, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure to which they are largely blind. Whether walking, driving, flying, or orbiting, Earth-centric PNT systems that have evolved over decades provide a core functionality to which we have grown accustomed for these pursuits. As NASA joins with other government space agencies and commercial partners to return humans to the Moon in a sustained manner within the current decade, expectations for PNT knowledge and timeliness at the Moon rival those on Earth. The need exists to develop a viable lunar-centric PNT infrastructure to support the planned human and robotic exploits. Navigating within the influence of the Moon presents its own set of challenges. Identification, understanding, and use of a unified reference frame and time system on which navigation is based becomes a fundamental need at the Moon. In addition to the unified foundational elements, measurement liability, dynamic conditions that require Earth-independent autonomous operations, and standards for PNT signals and message-based data exchange each represent distinct challenges to navigation in a burgeoning operational lunar environment. The PNT services planned as part of the lunar communications and navigation relay architecture known as LunaNet aid in surmounting the challenges. LunaNet interoperability specifications stipulate standards for signal parameters, messages, and lunar reference systems for PNT services. Within LunaNet’s defined interoperability resides the concept of a Reference Signal to provide communication signals specifically structured to enable measurement of pseudorange, Doppler, and time transfer by the recipient. One such signal type, the Augmented Forward Signal (AFS), functions as the mainstay for LunaNet PNT, while also serving the data needs for ubiquitous broadcast of network access and rapid unscheduled dissemination of alerts and messages. The presence of a geometrically distributed network of orbiting nodes transmitting the AFS forms the basis for the Lunar Augmented Navigation System (LANS), that delivers both radio navigation and data to multiple users in the lunar environment simultaneously. After reviewing the challenges associated with lunar navigation, this paper will describe the concepts and rationale behind the LunaNet PNT services. By borrowing techniques from Earth-centric Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS), the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards, PNT from LunaNet aids to overcome challenges faced for accurate lunar navigation.

LunaNet↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Interoperable Services to Mitigate Lunar Position, Navigation, and Timing Challenges

Across the Earth, both civilian and government endeavors enjoy a built-in reliance on a position, navigation, and timing (PNT) infrastructure to which they are largely blind. Whether walking, driving, flying, or orbiting, Earth-centric PNT systems that have evolved over decades provide a core functionality to which we have grown accustomed for these pursuits. As NASA joins with other government space agencies and commercial partners to return humans to the Moon in a sustained manner within the current decade, expectations for PNT knowledge and timeliness at the Moon rival those on Earth. The need exists to develop a viable lunar-centric PNT infrastructure to support the planned human and robotic exploits. Navigating within the influence of the Moon presents its own set of challenges. Identification, understanding, and use of a unified reference frame and time system on which navigation is based becomes a fundamental need at the Moon. In addition to the unified foundational elements, measurement liability, dynamic conditions that require Earth-independent autonomous operations, and standards for PNT signals and message-based data exchange each represent distinct challenges to navigation in a burgeoning operational lunar environment. The PNT services planned as part of the lunar communications and navigation relay architecture known as LunaNet aid in surmounting the challenges. LunaNet interoperability specifications stipulate standards for signal parameters, messages, and lunar reference systems for PNT services. Within LunaNet’s defined interoperability resides the concept of a Reference Signal to provide communication signals specifically structured to enable measurement of pseudorange, Doppler, and time transfer by the recipient. One such signal type, the Augmented Forward Signal (AFS), functions as the mainstay for LunaNet PNT, while also serving the data needs for ubiquitous broadcast of network access and rapid unscheduled dissemination of alerts and messages. The presence of a geometrically distributed network of orbiting nodes transmitting the AFS forms the basis for the Lunar Augmented Navigation System (LANS), that delivers both radio navigation and data to multiple users in the lunar environment simultaneously. After reviewing the challenges associated with lunar navigation, this paper will describe the concepts and rationale behind the LunaNet PNT services. By borrowing techniques from Earth-centric Global Navigation Satellite Services (GNSS), the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System, and the Consultative Committee for Space Data Standards, PNT from LunaNet aids to overcome challenges faced for accurate lunar navigation.

Navigation↗

NASA NTRS2021

Exploration Medical Capability Clinical Decision Support System Concept of Operations

The Clinical Decision Support (CDS) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element of the Human Research Program (HRP). Specifically, the CDS project addresses the ExMC gap, Medical-701: Enhance medical capabilities within an exploration medical system. For long-duration, deep space missions, computational and data resources will play an important role in maintaining crew health, wellness and performance where the crew will need to be more self-reliant as we enter a new era in space exploration to return to the moon and explore Mars. These ambitious goals will require significant change in in-flight medical care due to constraints on mass, volume, power, crew time, skills reduction over time and medical evacuation capabilities. These constraints make it absolutely necessary to develop transformative solutions using new technologies. Unlike the current paradigm for crew health in low-Earth orbit missions that rely on constant communication with Mission Control, the deep space missions will experience communication delays and possibly, no communications for finite periods of time. Hence, crew health management will benefit from analytics’ capabilities to augment decision support. A comprehensive, multi-functional on-board clinical decision support system (CDSS) will help crews assess and diagnose conditions, decide appropriate responses, and guide the provision of tailored and evidence-based treatments, while reflecting contextual factors and constraints. The context may include present and historical data, viable diagnostic equipment, available supplies and medications, and vehicle and environmental health. Communication time with ground-based personnel is delayed or non-existent during significant portions of the mission so the crew will need to autonomously respond to health, performance and medical situations, particularly those that are unplanned. The CDSS must also provide additional capabilities as complex as training for an emergency situation while augmenting non-expert practitioner skillsets if the Crew Medical Officer (CMO) is incapacitated, and as routine as facilitating delayed communication with flight surgeons on the ground. The CDSS must connect complex issues involving health, wellness, task performance and environmental domains. Furthermore, CDSS functionality will focus on semi-autonomous and autonomous decision-making by the crew that is necessary to address challenges in executing a self-contained medical system that enables health care without assistance from ground clinical experts. The document, ExMC CDSS Architecture Recommendation, (HRP- 48032) establishes a description of the envisioned CDSS architecture. The analytics, descriptive or advanced, contained in a CDSS will interface with the integrated crew health and performance architecture that provides the appropriate data sets. The aim of the CDS project is to develop requirements for a CDSS through a series of test-bed prototype developments and demonstrations.

HRP↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Application and Use of Lunar Node-Derived Beacons for Lunar Surface Navigation

To maximize the scientific return and safety of operations on the lunar surface, multiple civil organizations are investing in Position, Navigation, and Timing infrastructure. This approach mimics the deployment of Global Navigation Satellite Systems around the Earth and aims to enable a similar robust capability around the moon. With these satellites, it will be possible to maintain high- fidelity knowledge of positioning and timing both on the surface and in orbit. For initial deployments, this capability is focused on high need areas, such as the Lunar South Pole, the target of the currently in-planning Artemis surface missions to high accuracy. Similar to GNSS systems, this capability will be implemented over time to build up to a level of global access for real-time navigation. For early missions, this means a limited capability in terms of coverage. To provide increased performance, ground augmentation can be leveraged. This not only provides an additional reference signal but helps to supply timing to enable a high accuracy real-time position solutions. This paper discusses the path towards evolving the Lunar Node 1 platform to augment these early constellation deployments. Analysis of notional performance with and without surface aids is provided, as well as discussion and paths towards deployment and operation. Given the analysis results, the benefit of surface navigation aids to both provide additional surface-based signals to fill in coverage gaps helps to provide additional robustness and an early-on capability.

Evan J. Anzalone↗