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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 217 records · Page 12
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2010

Systems Engineering and Application of System Performance Modeling in SIM Lite Mission

The SIM Lite Astrometric Observatory will be the first space-based Michelson interferometer operating in the visible wavelength, with the ability to perform ultra-high precision astrometric measurements on distant celestial objects. SIM Lite data will address in a fundamental way questions such as characterization of Earth-mass planets around nearby stars. To accomplish these goals it is necessary to rely on a model-based systems engineering approach - much more so than most other space missions. This paper will describe in further detail the components of this end-to-end performance model, called "SIM-sim", and show how it has helped the systems engineering process.

Exoplanet↗
NASA NTRS2012

Principles to Products: Toward Realizing MOS 2.0

This is a report on the Operations Revitalization Initiative, part of the ongoing NASA-funded Advanced Multi-Mission Operations Systems (AMMOS) program. We are implementing products that significantly improve efficiency and effectiveness of Mission Operations Systems (MOS) for deep-space missions. We take a multi-mission approach, in keeping with our organization's charter to "provide multi-mission tools and services that enable mission customers to operate at a lower total cost to NASA." Focusing first on architectural fundamentals of the MOS, we review the effort's progress. In particular, we note the use of stakeholder interactions and consideration of past lessons learned to motivate a set of Principles that guide the evolution of the AMMOS. Thus guided, we have created essential patterns and connections (detailed in companion papers) that are explicitly modeled and support elaboration at multiple levels of detail (system, sub-system, element...) throughout a MOS. This architecture is realized in design and implementation products that provide lifecycle support to a Mission at the system and subsystem level. The products include adaptable multi-mission engineering documentation that describes essentials such as operational concepts and scenarios, requirements, interfaces and agreements, information models, and mission operations processes. Because we have adopted a model-based system engineering method, these documents and their contents are meaningfully related to one another and to the system model. This means they are both more rigorous and reusable (from mission to mission) than standard system engineering products. The use of models also enables detailed, early (e.g., formulation phase) insight into the impact of changes (e.g., to interfaces or to software) that is rigorous and complete, allowing better decisions on cost or technical trades. Finally, our work provides clear and rigorous specification of operations needs to software developers, further enabling significant gains in productivity.

AMMOS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Integrating the human element into the systems engineering process and MBSE methodology

In response to the challenges related to the increasing size and complexity of systems, organizations have recognized the need to integrate human considerations in the beginning stages of systems development. Human Systems Integration (HSI) seeks to accomplish this objective by incorporating human factors within systems engineering (SE) processes and methodologies, which is the focus of this paper. A representative set of HSI methods from multiple sources are organized, analyzed, and mapped to the systems engineering Vee-model. These methods are then consolidated and evaluated against the SE process and Models-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) methodology to determine where and how they could integrate within systems development activities in the form of specific enhancements. Overall conclusions based on these evaluations are presented and future research areas are proposed.

60 APPLIED LIFE SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS2016

JPL's Foundry Furnace: Web-Based Concurrent Engineering for Formulation

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Innovation Foundry is an enterprise tasked with shepherding space mission concepts through the formulation lifecycle. It oversees a number of “virtual teams” for the various stages of formulation. Among these is Team X, which has had considerable success over its more than 20-year history. In a Team X study, domain experts (including engineers devoted to the various spacecraft subsystems) work concurrently and collaboratively over several days to arrive at a feasible point design with a reasonable cost estimate. They use a set of linked Excel workbooks, each developed and approved by a responsible “line organization” within JPL. This toolset has served Team X well over the years, and has evolved since its inception. At the same time, the Innovation Foundry’s portfolio of formulation teams has expanded, and so has the scope of the design challenges they face. The A-Team runs workshop-like architecture studies to focus science investigations, generate mission concepts, assess feasibility, and explore trade spaces. Team Xc performs rapid point design in the style of Team X, but for CubeSats and small spacecraft, using a different toolset. Proposal teams further mature concepts to the point where they can be proposed. Recognizing the importance of trade space modeling combined with new IT services for providing and integrating data, JPL is developing the Foundry Furnace web-based software infrastructure. It will support A-Team, Team Xc, and Team X, providing study management, a catalog of hardware components, a library of re-usable analyses, and a design environment. It is a modernization of JPL’s concurrent engineering infrastructure, embracing the core concepts of Model-Based Systems Engineering, and built with modern software design philosophies.

Murphy, Jonathan↗
NASA NTRS2016

Architecture Modeling on the Europa Project

In 2015 NASA chartered a partnership between the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) to begin planning a mission to study the Jovian moon Europa. The project has adopted a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) approach to its architecting process since its early formulation, developing certain modeling practices and tools as needed, with the expectation that this process would result in a more consistent and verifiable architecture than with a more traditional document-based approach. A sound architecture is essential to provide the rationale for requirements on the system design, and to define the trade space of acceptable design points within which technical and programmatic concerns as well as project objectives can be addressed. This paper provides an overview of the framework used by the Europa project to describe the mission architecture and discusses how a system model was instrumental in providing a single-source-of-truth for this description. Several key modeling patterns to represent the architecture are presented, along with audit methods to ensure the consistency and the correctness of the model. Finally, the benefits and challenges of using a model-based approach to generate traditional requirements documents and other gate products are assessed.

Dubos, Gregory F.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Early Formulation Model-centric Engineering on Nasa's Europa Mission Concept Study

By leveraging the existing Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) infrastructure at JPL and adding a modest investment, the Europa Mission Concept Study made striking advances in mission concept capture and analysis. This effort has reaffirmed the importance of architecting and successfully harnessed the synergistic relationship of system modeling to mission architecting. It clearly demonstrated that MBSE can provide greater agility than traditional systems engineering methods. This paper will describe the successful application of MBSE in the dynamic environment of early mission formulation, the significant results produced and lessons learned in the process.

science mission afforability↗
DOE OSTI2025

ORNL Design Engineering Library: Validated Thermoelectric Digital Twins

Radioisotope thermoelectric generators (RTGs) serve a crucial role in supplying thermal and electrical energy for reliable and long-duration power in remote and extreme environments. The thermal energy is provided by the decay of radioisotopes and is converted into electrical energy using the steady-state thermoelectric process by exploiting the Seebeck effect. Maintaining a thermal gradient through the material is necessary to drive current production. Modern predictive multi-physics tools are able to effectively describe the complex and strongly coupled phenomena needed for accurate model-based system engineering efforts needed to develop higher performing RTGs. Experimental validation of model simulations is essential to confirm the accuracy, reliability, and applicability of predictive multiphysics tools. Validation fosters confidence among users, helps meet regulatory requirements, and contributes to the ongoing improvement of simulation techniques, ultimately leading to better, safer, and more efficient designs and processes. Validated models can then be used as digital twins and can be interrogated to understand and quantify the performance gaps between theoretical and physical systems. These insights can be used to build higher performing systems.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2019

MBSE for the Gateway Program

The Gateway Program and many of its module developers are using Magic Draw to coordinate functions, requirements, and interfaces between the various elements that make up the Gateway Platform. This also extends to the visiting vehicles (Human Lander System, Logistics Module, and Orion). The Propulsion and Power Element (PPE) is using Magic Draw to coordinate the design activities at NASA GRC (Glenn Research Center) and the contractor. This discussion will provide an overview of the MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) efforts and how we are interfacing the various MBSE models into a single integrated model.

Systems Engineering↗
NASA NTRS2016

Model Based Mission Assurance: NASA's Assurance Future

Model Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) is seeing increased application in planning and design of NASA’s missions. This suggests the question: what will be the corresponding practice of Model Based Mission Assurance (MBMA)? Contemporaneously, NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA) is evaluating a new objectives based approach to standards to ensure that the Safety and Mission Assurance disciplines and programs are addressing the challenges of NASA’s changing missions, acquisition and engineering practices, and technology. MBSE is a prominent example of a changing engineering practice. We use NASA’s objectives-based strategy for Reliability and Maintainability as a means to examine how MBSE will affect assurance. We surveyed MBSE literature to look specifically for these affects, and find a variety of them discussed (some are anticipated, some are reported from applications to date). Predominantly these apply to the early stages of design, although there are also extrapolations of how MBSE practices will have benefits for testing phases. As the effort to develop MBMA continues, it will need to clearly and unambiguously establish the roles of uncertainty and risk in the system model. This will enable a variety of uncertainty-based analyses to be performed much more rapidly than ever before and has the promise to increase the integration of CRM (Continuous Risk Management) and PRA (Probabilistic Risk Analyses) even more fully into the project development life cycle. Various views and viewpoints will be required for assurance disciplines, and an over-arching viewpoint will then be able to more completely characterize the state of the project/program as well as (possibly) enabling the safety case approach for overall risk awareness and communication.

Evans, John↗
DOE OSTI2025

Prototype Development for MBSE-Driven Digital Environment at Fermilab

Complex projects like Fermilab s accelerators and detectors involve thousands of interdependent components and requirements, making traditional documentation hard to keep consistent and often causing rework. Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tackles this by representing the system as a digital, queryable model. While widely used in aerospace and safety-critical industries, MBSE adoption has been limited elsewhere due to steep learning curves and high costs. This project investigates how a web-first, low-code MBSE stack can reduce those barriers and offer an accessible, unified source of truth for engineers and physicists.

Valle, Diego Pedro (ORCID:0009000865900663)↗
NASA NTRS2020

Vision for Cross-Center MSBE Collaboration on the Gateway Program

Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) can be a challenge when there is only one modeler and one model involved. For the Gateway Program, due to its unique acquisition approach, the modeling efforts involve multiple NASA centers with each developing their own models. Every additional model to be integrated compounds the difficulties, necessitating stronger ontologies and explicitly defined interfaces between models. To help facilitate this integration, a vision of collaboration between centers is in its beginning stages. This vision includes looking at models as systems themselves and developing their own use cases, requirements and interfaces between each of them. The goal of this presentation is to share the Gateway Program's cross-center vision for model collaboration, the lessons learned in developing and implementing that vision for the various system engineering products needed to satisfy life cycle review criteria and how treating models as systems helped in these efforts.

Crane, Jeremiah↗
NASA NTRS2004

Model-Based Engineering Design for Trade Space Exploration throughout the Design Cycle

This paper presents ongoing work to standardize model-based system engineering as a complement to point design development in the conceptual design phase of deep space missions. It summarizes two first steps towards practical application of this capability within the framework of concurrent engineering design teams and their customers. The first step is standard generation of system sensitivities models as the output of concurrent engineering design sessions, representing the local trade space around a point design. A review of the chosen model development process, and the results of three case study examples, demonstrate that a simple update to the concurrent engineering design process can easily capture sensitivities to key requirements. It can serve as a valuable tool to analyze design drivers and uncover breakpoints in the design. The second step is development of rough-order- of-magnitude, broad-range-of-validity design models for rapid exploration of the trade space, before selection of a point design. At least one case study demonstrated the feasibility to generate such models in a concurrent engineering session. The experiment indicated that such a capability could yield valid system-level conclusions for a trade space composed of understood elements. Ongoing efforts are assessing the practicality of developing end-to-end system-level design models for use before even convening the first concurrent engineering session, starting with modeling an end-to-end Mars architecture.

models↗
NASA NTRS2016

A Representative Application of a Layered Interface Modeling Pattern

Model-based systems engineering (MBSE) is intended to improve how systems engineering is performed compared with a more traditional document-based approach by effectively using models to analyze, specify, design, and verify systems. The OMG Systems Modeling Language (OMG SysML™) enables the practice of MBSE by providing a robust and expressive language for representing systems.

Shames, Peter M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

TAMU: Blueprint for A New Space Mission Operations System Paradigm

The Transferable, Adaptable, Modular and Upgradeable (TAMU) Flight Production Process (FPP) is a System of System (SOS) framework which cuts across multiple organizations and their associated facilities, that are, in the most general case, in geographically disperse locations, to develop the architecture and associated workflow processes of products for a broad range of flight projects. Further, TAMU FPP provides for the automatic execution and re-planning of the workflow processes as they become operational. This paper provides the blueprint for the TAMU FPP paradigm. This blueprint presents a complete, coherent technique, process and tool set that results in an infrastructure that can be used for full lifecycle design and decision making during the flight production process. Based on the many years of experience with the Space Shuttle Program (SSP) and the International Space Station (ISS), the currently cancelled Constellation Program which aimed on returning humans to the moon as a starting point, has been building a modern model-based Systems Engineering infrastructure to Re-engineer the FPP. This infrastructure uses a structured modeling and architecture development approach to optimize the system design thereby reducing the sustaining costs and increasing system efficiency, reliability, robustness and maintainability metrics. With the advent of the new vision for human space exploration, it is now necessary to further generalize this framework to take into consideration a broad range of missions and the participation of multiple organizations outside of the MOD; hence the Transferable, Adaptable, Modular and Upgradeable (TAMU) concept.

Ruszkowski, James T.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Creating Systems Engineering Products with Executable Models in a Model-Based Engineering Environment

Applying systems engineering across the life-cycle results in a number of products built from interdependent sources of information using different kinds of system level analysis. This paper focuses on leveraging the Executable System Engineering Method (ESEM) which automates requirements verification (e.g. power and mass budget margins and duration analysis of operational modes) using executable SysML models. The particular value proposition is to integrate requirements, and executable behavior and performance models for certain types of system level analysis. The models are created with modeling patterns that involve structural, behavioral and parametric diagrams, and are managed by an open source Model Based Engineering Environment (named OpenMBEE). This paper demonstrates how the ESEM is applied in conjunction with OpenMBEE to create key engineering products (e.g. operational concept document) for the Alignment and Phasing System (APS) within the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) project, which is under development by the TMT International Observatory (TIO).

MBSE↗
NASA NTRS2012

Orion Flight Test 1 Architecture: Observed Benefits of a Model Based Engineering Approach

This paper details how a NASA-led team is using a model-based systems engineering approach to capture, analyze and communicate the end-to-end information system architecture supporting the first unmanned orbital flight of the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Exploration Vehicle. Along with a brief overview of the approach and its products, the paper focuses on the observed program-level benefits, challenges, and lessons learned; all of which may be applied to improve system engineering tasks for characteristically similarly challenges

Multi-Purpose Crew Exploration Vehicle.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Jupiter Europa Orbiter Architecture Definition Process

The proposed Jupiter Europa Orbiter mission, planned for launch in 2020, is using a new architectural process and framework tool to drive its model-based systems engineering effort. The process focuses on getting the architecture right before writing requirements and developing a point design. A new architecture framework tool provides for the structured entry and retrieval of architecture artifacts based on an emerging architecture meta-model. This paper describes the relationships among these artifacts and how they are used in the systems engineering effort. Some early lessons learned are discussed.

requirements analysis↗
DOE OSTI2026

Captan+X Data Converter Integration

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory's CAPTAN (Compact And Programmable daTa Acquisition Node) series provides a flexible hardware platform for data acquisition across a range of experiments and facilities. The latest iteration, CAPTAN+X, is built around a Kintex-7 FPGA supporting four FPGA Mezzanine Card (FMC) connections. As part of a broader laboratory effort to bring facility systems under a Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) framework, CAPTAN+X is one of several systems slated to be incorporated into this modeling environment in the near term. A necessary step toward that goal is incorporating the platform's core functionality, which centers on integration with the LXD31K4 FMC, a data converter module combining dual AD9652 analog-to-digital converters and dual AD9142A digital-to-analog converters. Achieving compatibility required resolving pin-mapping conflicts between the LXD31K4's High Pin Count connector and the CAPTAN+X's available pin types, adapting a Board Support Project originally written for an UltraScale-class evaluation board to the Kintex-7 architecture, replacing incompatible primitives, restructuring clock distribution, and manually configuring chip initialization in place of an unsupported soft-processor-based approach. Functional verification of the ADC and DAC channels, followed by closed-loop testing combining both converters with real-time filtering, confirmed correct operation of the integrated system. These results establish a working hardware and firmware baseline for the CAPTAN+X platform, positioning it for future inclusion in the laboratory's growing MBSE modeling effort.

Espinoza, David [Illinois U., Urbana (main)]↗