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At least 235 records · Page 13

Two-photon excitation of atomic oxygen

A standard perturbation expansion in the atom-radiation-field interaction is used to calculate the two-photon excitation cross section for the 1s2 2s2 2p4 3p to 1s2 2s2 3(4S)3p 3P transition in atomic oxygen. The lowest-order summation over bound and continuum intermediate states is handled by solving the equivalent inhomogeneous differential equation. Higher-order electron-correlation effects are also examined.

Pindzola, M. S.↗

Development of the functional simulator for the Galileo attitude and articulation control system

A simulation program for verifying and checking the performance of the Galileo Spacecraft's Attitude and Articulation Control Subsystem's (AACS) flight software is discussed. The program, which is called Functional Simulator (FUNSIM), provides a simple method of interfacing user-supplied mathematical models coded in FORTRAN which describes spacecraft dynamics, sensors, and actuators; this is done with the AACS flight software, coded in HAL/S (High-level Advanced Language/Shuttle). It is thus able to simulate the AACS flight software accurately to the HAL/S statement level in the environment of a mainframe computer system. FUNSIM also has a command and data subsystem (CDS) simulator. It is noted that the input/output data and timing are simulated with the same precision as the flight microprocessor. FUNSIM uses a variable stepsize numerical integration algorithm complete with individual error bound control on the state variable to solve the equations of motion. The program has been designed to provide both line printer and matrix dot plotting of the variables requested in the run section and to provide error diagnostics.

Namiri, M. K.↗

The semi-Markov unreliability range evaluator program

The SURE program is a design/validation tool for ultrareliable computer system architectures. The system uses simple algebraic formulas to compute accurate upper and lower bounds for the death state probabilities of a large class of semi-Markov models. The mathematical formulas used in the program were derived from a mathematical theorem proven by Allan White under contract to NASA Langley Research Center. This mathematical theorem is discussed along with the user interface to the SURE program.

Butler, R. W.↗

On the Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities of supersonic shear layers

Analytical consideration is given to a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability in a finite width supersonic shear layer with linear and sinusoidal velocity profiles in the transition region. An analogy is explored between the pressure perturbation and the bound and scattering wave states of the one-dimensional Schroedinger equation. A numerical model is obtained for generating contour maps of the real and imaginary parts of the perturbation frequency in the (A,B)-plane. A comparison is made between the numerical results and analytical expressions derived for very small Mach numbers. Two unstable regimes are characterized in the (A,B)-plane. The method is concluded useful for both laboratory and astrophysics problems.

Choudhury, S. R.↗

Upper and lower covariance bounds for perturbed linear systems

Both upper and lower bounds are established for state covariance matrices under parameter perturbations of the plant. The motivation for this study lies in the fact that many robustness properties of linear systems are given explicitly in terms of the state covariance matrix. Moreover, there exists a theory for control by covariance assignment. The results provide robustness properties of these covariance controllers.

Xu, J.-H.↗

Getting water from the water of hydration on Mars

Both Viking landers found evidence of water in small concentration in the soils of Mars. Using the gas chromatograph mass spectrometer the soil samples on Mars were heated to 500 C to release the water. This result lead researchers to believe that the water in the soil of Mars was tightly bound in a hydration state. In the laboratory several Mars analog soils and a few bench mark soils were run through a microwave to determine the amount of water released using this method. The results suggest that sufficient water can be obtained using this method to augment the activities of a human base on Mars.

Gwynne, O.↗

Stable Inversion for Nonlinear Nonminimum-Phase Time Varying Systems

In this paper, we extend stable inversion to nonlinear time-varying systems and study computational issues; the technique is applicable to minimum-phase as well as nonminimum-phase systems. The inversion technique is new, even in the linear time-varying case, and relies on partitioning (the dichotomic split of) the linearized system dynamics into time-varying, stable, and unstable, submanifolds. This dichotomic split is used to build time-varying filters which are, in turn, the basis of a contraction used to find a bounded inverse input-state trajectory. Finding the inverse input-state trajectory allows the development or exact-output tracking controllers. The method is local to the time-varying trajectory and requires that the internal dynamics vary slowly; however, the method represents a significant advance relative to presently available tracking controllers. Present techniques are restricted to time-invariant nonlinear systems and, in the general case, track only asymptotically.

Devasia, S.↗

Development of a Cold-Walled Molten Regolith Electrolysis Reactor for Lunar Oxygen Production

On the lunar surface, production of commodi-ties to support human presence, such as water, food and oxygen, and sustain the growth of a per-manent outpostwill likely require the use oflocal resources. The moon is covered almost entirely withfragmented oxide minerals known as regolithhundreds of meter thick.As a resource, it is rich in oxygen (> 42 wt.%) bound in a solid state with a variety of metals. The molten regolith electrolysis (MRE)reactor is a promising technology for the production of gaseous oxygen from the lunar reg-olithin a simple, single-stepreaction that requires minimalconsumable materials, produces oxygen and metals with high electrical efficiency and high yields from any regolithcomposition.This process involvesmelting regolith to~1600°C then electro-lyzing the molten pool to separate metal and oxy-gen ions that are then collected as liquid metal and gaseous oxygen at the respective electrodes. Lab-scale demonstrations of the MRE technology have previously reliedon external heating sources to bring the entirety of the reactor up to the operating temperaturewhich creates corrosive interfaces be-tween the molten regolith and the containment ma-terial in the reactor, limiting the overall lifespan of a reactor[1]. The Gaseous Lunar Oxygen from Regolith Electrolysis (GaLORE) project is focused on the development of a “cold-walled” or “Joule-heated” reactor design in which an internal heating source is used to selectively melt a pool of regolith between the electrodes of the reactor, leaving a shell of solidified regolith between the molten pool and the containment vessel of the reactor. This next generation reactor concept has been under development as molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) by MIT and Boston Metal for the production of iron from pure ores for terrestrial application [2]. The GaLORE project in engaged in early development of the technology for use with varying lunar regolith compositionsin the lunar environment. Thermal modelling of a proposed cold-walledreac-tor design were used as a scaffold to develop pa-rameters for a feasible reactor shape and size as well as target energy consumption[3]. The current development effort for the cold-walled reactor de-sign will be presented as a trade study of the most promising techniques for melting regolithwithin the constraints imposed by the lunar environment.Heater devices are designed to accommodate lim-ited electrical power availabilityon the moon, a wide range of regolith compositions that may be seen on the moon, limited metals available for re-placing consumed parts,and the low thermal con-ductivity of granular regolith in vacuum.Heater de-vices will be down-selectedbased on performance measurements within the above operationalcon-straints,and selected devices will be integrated into a reactor with electrodes to begin producing oxygen. [1]Sibille,L.,Sadoway, D.R.,Sirk, A., Tripathy,P.,Melendez, O., Standish, E., Dominguez, J. A., Stefanescu, D.M.,Curreri, P.A., Poizeau,S.,2009. “Recent Advancesin Scale-up Development of Molten Regolith Electrolysis for Oxygen Production in support of a Lunar Base.”AIAA 2009-659, 47th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 5 -8 January 2009, Orlando, FL. [2] Boston Metal, https://www.boston-metal.com/moe-technology/#moe-process[3]Schreiner, S.S.,Sibille, L., Dominguez, J.A., Hoffman, J.A., 2016. "A parametric sizing model for Molten Regolith Electrolysis reactors to pro-duce oxygen on the Moon." Advances in Space Research 57.,7,1585-1603.

K D Grossman↗

Imaginary-frequency polarizability and van der Waals force constants of two-electron atoms, with rigorous bounds

Variational functionals of Braunn and Rebane (1972) for the imagery-frequency polarizability (IFP) have been generalized by the method of Gramian inequalities to give rigorous upper and lower bounds, valid even when the true (but unknown) unperturbed wavefunction must be represented by a variational approximation. Using these formulas in conjunction with flexible variational trial functions, tight error bounds are computed for the IFP and the associated two- and three-body van der Waals interaction constants of the ground 1(1S) and metastable 2(1,3S) states of He and Li(+). These bounds generally establish the ground-state properties to within a fraction of a per cent and metastable properties to within a few per cent, permitting a comparative assessment of competing theoretical methods at this level of accuracy. Unlike previous 'error bounds' for these properties, the present results have a completely a priori theoretical character, with no empirical input data.

Glover, R. M.↗

Interactions among the lower valence states of the OH radical

In order to define the origins of experimentally observed predissociations within the A2 sigma/+/ state of OH, overlaps have been computed of the bound level vibrational wavefunctions in the A2 sigma/+/ state with the vibrational continua of states of OH arising from the ground electronic state separated atoms. The dependence of the transition moment upon internuclear distance is derived and compared with previous results. Implications of this analysis in terms of the two body formation of OH are indicated.

Smith, W. H.↗

An algorithm for minimum-cost set-point ordering in a cryogenic wind tunnel

An algorithm for minimum cost ordering of set points in a cryogenic wind tunnel is developed. The procedure generates a matrix of dynamic state transition costs, which is evaluated by means of a single-volume lumped model of the cryogenic wind tunnel and the use of some idealized minimum-costs, which is evaluated by means of a single-volume lumped model of the cryogenic wind tunnel and the use of some idealized minimum-cost state-transition control strategies. A branch and bound algorithm is employed to determine the least costly sequence of state transitions from the transition-cost matrix. Some numerical results based on data for the National Transonic Facility are presented which show a strong preference for state transitions that consume to coolant. Results also show that the choice of the terminal set point in an open odering can produce a wide variation in total cost.

Tripp, J. S.↗

Structured Uncertainty Bound Determination From Data for Control and Performance Validation

This report attempts to document the broad scope of issues that must be satisfactorily resolved before one can expect to methodically obtain, with a reasonable confidence, a near-optimal robust closed loop performance in physical applications. These include elements of signal processing, noise identification, system identification, model validation, and uncertainty modeling. Based on a recently developed methodology involving a parameterization of all model validating uncertainty sets for a given linear fractional transformation (LFT) structure and noise allowance, a new software, Uncertainty Bound Identification (UBID) toolbox, which conveniently executes model validation tests and determine uncertainty bounds from data, has been designed and is currently available. This toolbox also serves to benchmark the current state-of-the-art in uncertainty bound determination and in turn facilitate benchmarking of robust control technology. To help clarify the methodology and use of the new software, two tutorial examples are provided. The first involves the uncertainty characterization of a flexible structure dynamics, and the second example involves a closed loop performance validation of a ducted fan based on an uncertainty bound from data. These examples, along with other simulation and experimental results, also help describe the many factors and assumptions that determine the degree of success in applying robust control theory to practical problems.

Lim, Kyong B.↗

Convective Weather Forecast Quality Metrics for Air Traffic Management Decision-Making

Since numerical weather prediction models are unable to accurately forecast the severity and the location of the storm cells several hours into the future when compared with observation data, there has been a growing interest in probabilistic description of convective weather. The classical approach for generating uncertainty bounds consists of integrating the state equations and covariance propagation equations forward in time. This step is readily recognized as the process update step of the Kalman Filter algorithm. The second well known method, known as the Monte Carlo method, consists of generating output samples by driving the forecast algorithm with input samples selected from distributions. The statistical properties of the distributions of the output samples are then used for defining the uncertainty bounds of the output variables. This method is computationally expensive for a complex model compared to the covariance propagation method. The main advantage of the Monte Carlo method is that a complex non-linear model can be easily handled. Recently, a few different methods for probabilistic forecasting have appeared in the literature. A method for computing probability of convection in a region using forecast data is described in Ref. 5. Probability at a grid location is computed as the fraction of grid points, within a box of specified dimensions around the grid location, with forecast convection precipitation exceeding a specified threshold. The main limitation of this method is that the results are dependent on the chosen dimensions of the box. The examples presented Ref. 5 show that this process is equivalent to low-pass filtering of the forecast data with a finite support spatial filter. References 6 and 7 describe the technique for computing percentage coverage within a 92 x 92 square-kilometer box and assigning the value to the center 4 x 4 square-kilometer box. This technique is same as that described in Ref. 5. Characterizing the forecast, following the process described in Refs. 5 through 7, in terms of percentage coverage or confidence level is notionally sound compared to characterizing in terms of probabilities because the probability of the forecast being correct can only be determined using actual observations. References 5 through 7 only use the forecast data and not the observations. The method for computing the probability of detection, false alarm ratio and several forecast quality metrics (Skill Scores) using both the forecast and observation data are given in Ref. 2. This paper extends the statistical verification method in Ref. 2 to determine co-occurrence probabilities. The method consists of computing the probability that a severe weather cell (grid location) is detected in the observation data in the neighborhood of the severe weather cell in the forecast data. Probabilities of occurrence at the grid location and in its neighborhood with higher severity, and with lower severity in the observation data compared to that in the forecast data are examined. The method proposed in Refs. 5 through 7 is used for computing the probability that a certain number of cells in the neighborhood of severe weather cells in the forecast data are seen as severe weather cells in the observation data. Finally, the probability of existence of gaps in the observation data in the neighborhood of severe weather cells in forecast data is computed. Gaps are defined as openings between severe weather cells through which an aircraft can safely fly to its intended destination. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II summarizes the statistical verification method described in Ref. 2. The extension of this method for computing the co-occurrence probabilities in discussed in Section HI. Numerical examples using NCWF forecast data and NCWD observation data are presented in Section III to elucidate the characteristics of the co-occurrence probabilities. This section also discusses the procedure for computing throbabilities that the severity of convection in the observation data will be higher or lower in the neighborhood of grid locations compared to that indicated at the grid locations in the forecast data. The probability of coverage of neighborhood grid cells is also described via examples in this section. Section IV discusses the gap detection algorithm and presents a numerical example to illustrate the method. The locations of the detected gaps in the observation data are used along with the locations of convective weather cells in the forecast data to determine the probability of existence of gaps in the neighborhood of these cells. Finally, the paper is concluded in Section V.

Chatterji, Gano B.↗

Theoretical study of the spectroscopy of the alkali oxides LiO, NaO, and KO

A state-averaged complete-active-space self-consistent-field multireference configuration-interaction method is presented to characterize the bound-bound emission from the CPi-2 state into the two lowest ionic states of LiO, NaO, and KO. Ab initio calculations use the experimental results obtained by Woodward et al. (1989) of the emitting state as CPi-2, but indicate that the tentative experimental band assignments are incorrect.

Langhoff, Stephen R.↗

An Ab Initio Study of the Low-Lying Doublet States of AgO and AgS

Spectroscopic constants (D(sub o), r(sub e), mu(sub e), T(sub e)) are determined for the doublet states of AgO and AgS below approx. = 30000/cm. Large valence basis sets are employed in conjunction with relativistic effective core potentials (RECPs). Electron correlation is included using the modified coupled-pair functional (MCPF) and multireference configuration interaction (MRCI) methods. The A(sup 2)Sigma(sup +) - X(sup 2)Pi band system is found to occur in the near infrared (approx. = 9000/cm) and to be relatively weak with a radiative lifetime of 900 microns for A(sup 2)Sigma(sup +) (upsilon = 0). The weakly bound C(sup 2)Pi state (our notation), the upper state of the blue system, is found to require high levels of theoretical treatment to determine a quantitatively accurate potential. The red system is assigned as a transition from the C(sup 2)Pi state to the previously unobserved A(sup 2)Sigma(sup +) state. Several additional transitions are identified that should be detectable experimentally. A more limited study is performed for the vertical excitation spectrum of AgS. In addition, a detailed all-electron study of the X(sup 2)Pi and A(sup 2)Sigma(sup +) states of AgO is carried out using large atomic natural orbital (ANO) basis sets. Our best calculated D(sub o) value for AgO is significantly less than the experimental value, which suggests that there may be some systematic error in the experimental determination.

Bauschlicher, Charles W., Jr.↗

A Geometric Analysis to Protect Manned Assets from Newly Launched Objects - COLA Gap Analysis

A safety risk was identified for the International Space Station (ISS) by The Aerospace Corporation following the launch of GPS IIR-20 (March 24, 2009), when the spent upper stage of the launch vehicle unexpectedly crossed inside the ISS notification box shortly after launch. This event highlighted a 56-hour vulnerability period following the end of the launch Collision Avoidance (COLA) process where the ISS would be unable to react to a conjunction with a newly launched object. Current launch COLA processes screen each launched object across the launch window to determine if an object's nominal trajectory is predicted to pass within 200 km of the ISS (or any other manned/mannable object), resulting in a launch time closure. These launch COLA screens are performed from launch through separation plus I 00 minutes. Once the objects are in orbit, they are cataloged and evaluated as part of routine on-orbit conjunction assessment processes. However, as the GPS IIR-20 scenario illustrated, there is a vulnerability period in the time line between the end of launch COLA coverage and the beginning of standard on-orbit COLA assessment activities. The gap between existing launch and on-orbit COLA processes is driven by the time it takes to track and catalog a launched object, identify a conjunction, and plan and execute a collision avoidance maneuver. For the ISS, the total time required to accomplish an of these steps is 56 hours. To protect human lives, NASA/JSC has requested that an US launches take additional steps to protect the ISS during this "COLA gap" period. The uncertainty in the state of a spent upper stage can be quite large after all bums are complete and all remaining propellants are expelled to safe the stage. Simply extending the launch COLA process an additional 56 hours is not a viable option as the 3-sigma position uncertainty will far exceed the 200 km miss-distance criterion. Additionally, performing a probability of collision (Pc) analysis over this period is also not practical due to the limiting effects of these large orbit state uncertainties. An estimated upper bound for Pc for a typical spent upper stage if nominally aligned for a direct broadside collision with the ISS is only on the order of 10-6. For a smaller manned object such as a Soyuz capsule, the risk level decreases to an order of 10'8 . In comparison, the Air Force Range policy (AFI 91-217) for launch COLAs would only eliminate launch opportunities when conjunctions with objects exceed a Pc of 10'5 This paper demonstrates a conservative geometry-based methodology that may be used to determine if launch opportunities pose a threat to the ISS during the COLA gap period. The NASA Launch Services Program at Kennedy Space Center has developed this COLA gap analysis method and employed it fQr three NASA missions to identify potential ISS conjunctions and corresponding launch window closures during the 56-hour at-risk period. In the analysis, for each launch opportunity, the nominal trajectory of the spent upper stage and the orbit state of the ISS are propagated over the 56 hour period. Each time the upper stage crosses the orbit plane of the ISS, the relative radial and argument of latitude separations are calculated. A window cutout is identified if these separation differences fall within a mission-specific violation box, which is determined from the evaluation of a Monte Carlo dispersions analysis that quantifies the potential variation in the upper stage radial and argument of latitude differences. This paper details the results of these analyses and their impacts to each mission.

Hametz, Mark E.↗