Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “Critical Infrastructure”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 37 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Development and Qualification Status of the Electric Propulsion Systems for the NASA PPE Mission and Gateway Program

NASA is charged with landing the first American woman and next American man on the South Pole of the Moon and establishing sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade. To meet this challenge, NASA’s Gateway will develop and deploy critical infrastructure required for operations on the lunar surface and that enables a sustained presence on and around the moon. NASA’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), the first planned element of NASA’s cis-lunar Gateway, leverages prior and ongoing NASA and U.S. industry investments in high-power, long-life solar electric propulsion technology investments. NASA awarded a PPE contract to Maxar Technologies to provide a 50 kW-class SEP spacecraft that meets Gateway’s needs, aligns with industry’s heritage spacecraft buses, and allows extensibility for NASA’s Mars exploration goals. Maxar’s PPE concept design, is based on their high heritage, modular, and highly reliable 1300-series bus architecture. The electric propulsion system features three 12 kW Advanced Electric Propulsion (AEPS) thrusters from Aerojet Rocketdyne and four BHT-6000 thrusters from Busek. Maxar-provided power electronics and xenon flow controllers from Moog are utilized in both the 12kW and 6kW electric propulsion strings on the spacecraft. The paper will present overviews of NASA’s Gateway and the PPE Project, status of the development and qualification activities for the two electric propulsion system, and the planned implementation of PPE electric propulsion system as keystone of NASA’s Gateway. The PPE spacecraft is currently heading into the Critical Design Review, with the qualification and flight electric propulsion hardware fabrication already initiated and significant progress being made toward planned qualifications in support of the planned PPE spacecraft co-manifest launch in 2024.

Electric Propulsion↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Development and Qualification Status of the Electric Propulsion Systems for the NASA PPE Mission and Gateway Program

NASA is charged with landing the first American woman and next American man on the South Pole of the Moon and establishing sustainable lunar exploration by the end of the decade. To meet this challenge, NASA’s Gateway will develop and deploy critical infrastructure required for operations on the lunar surface and that enables a sustained presence on and around the moon. NASA’s Power and Propulsion Element (PPE), the first planned element of NASA’s cis-lunar Gateway, leverages prior and ongoing NASA and U.S. industry investments in high-power, long-life solar electric propulsion technology investments. NASA awarded a PPE contract to Maxar Technologies to provide a 50 kW-class SEP spacecraft that meets Gateway’s needs, aligns with industry’s heritage spacecraft buses, and allows extensibility for NASA’s Mars exploration goals. Maxar’s PPE concept design, is based on their high heritage, modular, and highly reliable 1300-series bus architecture. The electric propulsion system features three 12 kW Advanced Electric Propulsion (AEPS) thrusters from Aerojet Rocketdyne and four BHT-6000 thrusters from Busek. Maxar-provided power electronics and xenon flow controllers from Moog are utilized in both the 12kW and 6kW electric propulsion strings on the spacecraft. The paper will present overviews of NASA’s Gateway and the PPE Project, status of the development and qualification activities for the two electric propulsion system, and the planned implementation of PPE electric propulsion system as keystone of NASA’s Gateway. The PPE spacecraft is currently heading into the Critical Design Review, with the qualification and flight electric propulsion hardware fabrication already initiated and significant progress being made toward planned qualifications in support of the planned PPE spacecraft co-manifest launch in 2024.

Electric Propulsion↗
NASA NTRS2003

Prevention of Spacecraft Anomalies: The Role of Space Climate and Space Weather Models

Space-based systems are developing into critical infrastructure to support the quality of life on Earth. Mission requirements along with rapidly evolving technologies have outpaced efforts to accommodate detrimental space environment impacts on systems. This chapter describes approaches to accommodate space climate and space weather impacts on systems and notes areas where gaps in model development limit our ability to prevent spacecraft anomalies.

Barth, Janet L.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Space Weather Effects on Spacecraft Systems

Space-based systems are developing into critical infrastructure required to support the quality of life on Earth. Hence, spacecraft reliability is a serious issue that is complicated by exposure to the space environment. Complex mission designs along with rapidly evolving technologies have outpaced efforts to accommodate detrimental space environment impacts on systems. Hazardous space environments, the effects on systems, and the accommodation of the effects are described with a focus on the need to predict space environments.

Barth, Janet L.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Systemic Analysis Approaches for Air Transportation

Air transportation system designers have had only limited success using traditional operations research and parametric modeling approaches in their analyses of innovations. They need a systemic methodology for modeling of safety-critical infrastructure that is comprehensive, objective, and sufficiently concrete, yet simple enough to be used with reasonable investment. The methodology must also be amenable to quantitative analysis so issues of system safety and stability can be rigorously addressed. However, air transportation has proven itself an extensive, complex system whose behavior is difficult to describe, no less predict. There is a wide range of system analysis techniques available, but some are more appropriate for certain applications than others. Specifically in the area of complex system analysis, the literature suggests that both agent-based models and network analysis techniques may be useful. This paper discusses the theoretical basis for each approach in these applications, and explores their historic and potential further use for air transportation analysis.

Conway, Sheila↗
NASA NTRS2010

Operating and Managing a Backup Control Center

Due to the criticality of continuous mission operations, some control centers must plan for alternate locations in the event an emergency shuts down the primary control center. Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas is the Mission Control Center (MCC) for the International Space Station (ISS). Due to Houston s proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, JSC is prone to threats from hurricanes which could cause flooding, wind damage, and electrical outages to the buildings supporting the MCC. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) has the capability to be the Backup Control Center for the ISS if the situation is needed. While the MSFC Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) does house the BCC, the prime customer and operator of the ISS is still the JSC flight operations team. To satisfy the customer and maintain continuous mission operations, the BCC has critical infrastructure that hosts ISS ground systems and flight operations equipment that mirrors the prime mission control facility. However, a complete duplicate of Mission Control Center in another remote location is very expensive to recreate. The HOSC has infrastructure and services that MCC utilized for its backup control center to reduce the costs of a somewhat redundant service. While labor talents are equivalent, experiences are not. Certain operations are maintained in a redundant mode, while others are simply maintained as single string with adequate sparing levels of equipment. Personnel at the BCC facility must be trained and certified to an adequate level on primary MCC systems. Negotiations with the customer were done to match requirements with existing capabilities, and to prioritize resources for appropriate level of service. Because some of these systems are shared, an activation of the backup control center will cause a suspension of scheduled HOSC activities that may share resources needed by the BCC. For example, the MCC is monitoring a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. As the threat to MCC increases, HOSC must begin a phased activation of the BCC, while working resource conflicts with normal HOSC activities. In a long duration outage to the MCC, this could cause serious impacts to the BCC host facility s primary mission support activities. This management of a BCC is worked based on customer expectations and negotiations done before emergencies occur. I.

Marsh, Angela L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Consequence and Resilience Modeling for Chemical Supply Chains

The U.S. chemical sector produces more than 70,000 chemicals that are essential material inputs to critical infrastructure systems, such as the energy, public health, and food and agriculture sectors. Disruptions to the chemical sector can potentially cascade to other dependent sectors, resulting in serious national consequences. To address this concern, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) tasked Sandia National Laboratories to develop a predictive consequence modeling and simulation capability for global chemical supply chains. This paper describes that capability , which includes a dynamic supply chain simulation platform called N_ABLE(tm). The paper also presents results from a case study that simulates the consequences of a Gulf Coast hurricane on selected segments of the U.S. chemical sector. The case study identified consequences that include impacted chemical facilities, cascading impacts to other parts of the chemical sector. and estimates of the lengths of chemical shortages and recovery . Overall. these simulation results can DHS prepare for and respond to actual disruptions.

Stamber, Kevin L.↗
NASA NTRS2012

The NASA Heliophysics Active Final Archive at the Space Physics Data Facility

The 2009 NASA Heliophysics Science Data Management Policy re-defined and extended the responsibilities of the Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) project. Building on SPDF's established capabilities, the new policy assigned the role of active "Final Archive" for non-solar NASA Heliophysics data to SPDF. The policy also recognized and formalized the responsibilities of SPDF as a source for critical infrastructure services such as VSPO to the overall Heliophysics Data Environment (HpDE) and as a Center of Excellence for existing SPDF science-enabling services and software including CDAWeb, SSCWeb/4D Orbit Viewer, OMNIweb and CDF. We will focus this talk to the principles, strategies and planned SPDF architecture to effectively and efficiently perform these roles, with special emphasis on how SPDF will ensure the long-term preservation and ongoing online community access to all the data entrusted to SPDF. We will layout our archival philosophy and what we are advocating in our work with NASA missions both current and future, with potential providers of NASA and NASA-relevant archival data, and to make the data and metadata held by SPDF accessible to other systems and services within the overall HpOE. We will also briefly review our current services, their metrics and our current plans and priorities for their evolution.

McGuire, Robert E.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Sun-Earth Connections: How the Sun Knocks Out My Cell Phone from 150 Million Kilometers Away

Large solar particle events (SPE) threaten many elements of critical infrastructure. A 2013 study by Lloyds of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research recently found that if a worst-case solar event like the 1859 Carrington Event struck our planet now, it could result on $0.6-$2.36 trillion in damages to the economy. In March 2014, researchers Y. D. Liu et al. revealed that just such an event had narrowly missed Earth in July 2012. The event was observed by the STEREO A spacecraft. In this presentation, we examine how the sun can pack such a punch from 150 million km away, the threats such solar particle events pose, their mechanisms and the efforts NASA and other space agencies are carrying out to understand and mitigate such risks.

sun-earth connections↗
NASA NTRS2014

Hurricane Sandy and Adaptation Pathways in New York: Lessons from a First-Responder City

Two central issues of climate change have become increasingly evident: Climate change will significantly affect cities; and rapid global urbanization will increase dramatically the number of individuals, amount of critical infrastructure, and means of economic production that are exposed and vulnerable to dynamic climate risks. Simultaneously, cities in many settings have begun to emerge as early adopters of climate change action strategies including greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation. The objective of this paper is to examine and analyze how officials of one city - the City of New York - have integrated a flexible adaptation pathways approach into the municipality's climate action strategy. This approach has been connected with the City's ongoing response to Hurricane Sandy, which struck in the October 2012 and resulted in damages worth more than US$19 billion. A case study narrative methodology utilizing the Wise et al. conceptual framework (see this volume) is used to evaluate the effectiveness of the flexible adaptation pathways approach in New York City. The paper finds that Hurricane Sandy serves as a ''tipping point'' leading to transformative adaptation due to the explicit inclusion of increasing climate change risks in the rebuilding effort. The potential for transferability of the approach to cities varying in size and development stage is discussed, with elements useful across cities including the overall concept of flexible adaptation pathways, the inclusion of the full metropolitan region in the planning process, and the co-generation of climate-risk information by stakeholders and scientists.

adaptation pathways↗
NASA NTRS2014

How the Sun Knocks Out My Cell Phone from 150 Million Kilometers Away

Large solar particle events (SPE) threaten many elements of critical infrastructure. A 2013 study by Lloyds of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research recently found that if a worst-case solar event like the 1859 Carrington Event struck our planet now, it could result on $0.6-$2.36 trillion in damages to the economy. In March 2014, researchers Y. D. Liu et al. revealed that just such an event had narrowly missed Earth in July 2012. The event was observed by the STEREO A spacecraft. In this presentation, we examine how the sun can pack such a punch from 150 million km away, the threats such solar particle events pose, their mechanisms and the efforts NASA and other space agencies are carrying out to understand and mitigate such risks.

geomagnetic storms↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA Collaborative Approach Mitigates Environmentally-Driven Obsolescence

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) missions, like Department of Defense (DoD) organizations, require the rigorous testing and qualification of critical materials. Obsolescence supply risks created by environmental requirements can affect the cost, schedule and performance of NASA missions and the resilience of critical infrastructure. The NASA Technology Evaluation for Environmental Risk Mitigation (TEERM) Principal Center helps to identify obsolescence supply risks driven by environmental requirements and works proactively with NASA Centers and Programs, the DoD, the European Space Agency (ESA) and other agencies and partners to identify and evaluate environmentally friendly alternatives. TEERM tracks environmental regulations, identifies the potential loss of material availability and works with NASA programs and Centers to evaluate potential impacts through a risk assessment approach. TEERM collaborative projects identify, demonstrate and evaluate commercially viable alternative technologies and materials. A major focus during the Space Shuttle Program was the need to replace ozone depleting substances that were used in spray foam and cleaning applications. The potential obsolescence of coatings containing hexavalent chromium and the risks associated with lead free solder were also of concern for the Space Shuttle and present ongoing risks to new programs such as the Space Launch System. One current project teams NASA and ESA in the evaluation and testing of individual coatings and coating systems as replacements for hexavalent chromium coatings in aerospace applications. The proactive, collaborative approach used by TEERM helps reduce the cost burden on any one team partner, reduces duplication of effort, and enhances the technical quality and overall applicability of the testing and analysis.

environmentall-driven obsolescence↗
NASA NTRS2017

Developing a Robust, Interoperable GNSS Space Service Volume (SSV) for the Global Space User Community

For over two decades, researchers, space users, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) service providers, and international policy makers have been working diligently to expand the space-borne use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and, most recently, to employ the full complement of GNSS constellations to increase spacecraft navigation performance. Space-borne Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) applications employing GNSS are now ubiquitous in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). GNSS use in space is quickly expanding into the Space Service Volume (SSV), the signal environment in the volume surrounding the Earth that enables real-time PNT measurements from GNSS systems at altitudes of 3000 km and above. To support the current missions and planned future missions within the SSV, initiatives are being conducted in the United States and internationally to ensure that GNSS signals are available, robust, and yield precise navigation performance. These initiatives include the Interagency Forum for Operational Requirements (IFOR) effort in the United States, to support GPS SSV signal robustness through future design changes, and the United Nations-sponsored International Committee on GNSS (ICG), to coordinate SSV development across all international GNSS constellations and regional augmentations. The results of these efforts have already proven fruitful, enabling new missions through radically improved navigation and timing performance, ensuring quick recovery from trajectory maneuvers, improving space vehicle autonomy and making GNSS signals more resilient from potential disruptions. Missions in the SSV are operational now and have demonstrated outstanding PNT performance characteristics; much better than what was envisioned less than a decade ago. The recent launch of the first in a series of US weather satellites will employ the use of GNSS in the SSV to substantially improve weather prediction and public-safety situational awareness of fast moving events, including hurricanes, flash floods, severe storms, tornados and wildfires. Thus, the benefits of the GNSS expansion and use into the SSV are tremendous, resulting in orders of magnitude return in investment to national governments and extraordinary societal benefits, including lives saved and critical infrastructure and property protected. However, this outstanding success is tempered by dual challenges: that for GPS, the current SSV specifications do not adequately protect SSV future use; and that for GNSS, the capabilities that are currently available are not protected in the future by specifications.

Bauer, Frank H.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Developing a Robust, Interoperable GNSS Space Service Volume (SSV) for the Global Space User Community

For over two decades, researchers, space users, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) service providers, and international policy makers have been working diligently to expand the space-borne use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) and, most recently, to employ the full complement of GNSS constellations to increase spacecraft navigation performance. Space-borne Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) applications employing GNSS are now ubiquitous in Low Earth Orbit (LEO). GNSS use in space is quickly expanding into the Space Service Volume (SSV), the signal environment in the volume surrounding the Earth that enables real-time PNT measurements from GNSS systems at altitudes of 3000 km and above. To support the current missions and planned future missions within the SSV, initiatives are being conducted in the United States and internationally to ensure that GNSS signals are available, robust, and yield precise navigation performance. These initiatives include the Interagency Forum for Operational Requirements (IFOR) effort in the United States, to support GPS SSV signal robustness through future design changes, and the United Nations-sponsored International Committee on GNSS (ICG), to coordinate SSV development across all international GNSS constellations and regional augmentations. The results of these efforts have already proven fruitful, enabling new missions through radically improved navigation and timing performance, ensuring quick recovery from trajectory maneuvers, improving space vehicle autonomy and making GNSS signals more resilient from potential disruptions. Missions in the SSV are operational now and have demonstrated outstanding PNT performance characteristics; much better than what was envisioned less than a decade ago. The recent launch of the first in a series of US weather satellites will employ the use of GNSS in the SSV to substantially improve weather prediction and public-safety situational awareness of fast moving events, including hurricanes, flash floods, severe storms, tornados and wildfires. Thus, the benefits of the GNSS expansion and use into the SSV are tremendous, resulting in orders of magnitude return in investment to national governments and extraordinary societal benefits, including lives saved and critical infrastructure and property protected. However, this outstanding success is tempered by dual challenges: that for GPS, the current SSV specifications do not adequately protect SSV future use; and that for GNSS, the capabilities that are currently available are not protected in the future by specifications.

Bauer, Frank H.↗
NASA NTRS2016

New York, USA

New York City, one of the most populous and ethnically diverse cities in the world, has responded to a variety of enviornmental challenges in its history. The most recent is climate change, which is projected to have wide impacts on the city's critical infrastructure and population through higher temperatures, more intense flooding events and sea level rise. The city recognized the risks early and has become a national and international leader in responding to this new challenge, illustrating how this is possible for a large city. As part of a mature urban region, it is an excellent bellwether for the impacts that may be experienced by other cities, especially those in emerging metropolitan conurbations.

Solecki, William↗
NASA NTRS2017

Leveraging Terrestrial Industry for Utilization of Space Resources

NASA's Journey to Mars: Pioneering Next Steps in Space Exploration released in October of 2015 states that NASA is working toward the capability to work, operate, and sustainably live safely beyond Earth. To progress from our current "Earth-Reliant" approach to exploration and eventually become "Earth Independent", we need to first identify resources in space and then learn to use and harvest them to minimize logistics from Earth, reduce costs, and enable sustainable and affordable space transportation and surface operations. Known as In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU), the collection and conversion of space resources into products such as propellants, fuel cell reactants, and life support consumables can greatly reduce the mass, cost, and risk of space exploration. Also, the ability to perform civil engineering, construction, and manufacturing at sites of exploration can also allow for increased crew safety and sustainable growth in critical infrastructure. Much of what NASA wants to do on the Moon and Mars with respect to harnessing and utilizing space resources has been performed and perfected on Earth over the centuries. While minimizing mass and operating in the vacuum of space may be unique challenges to NASA, both terrestrial industry and NASA face many of the same challenges associated with operating in severe environments, minimizing maintenance and logistics, maximizing performance per unit mass and volume, performing remote and autonomous operations, and integrating hardware from many vendors and countries. In the end, both NASA and terrestrial industry need to obtain a return on the investment for the development and deployment of these capabilities. This paper will first examine what is ISRU and what are the space resources of interest. The paper will than discuss what are NASA's approach, life cycle, and economic considerations for implementing ISRU. The paper will outline the site and infrastructure needs associated with a phased implementation of ISRU into human missions to the Moon and Mars. The paper will than assess what technologies and operations from terrestrial industries are relevant and synergistic with ISRU (from prospecting to product storage), and what challenges and similarities between the two can be exploited. Lastly, the paper will end with a discussion on where do we go from here for industry and NASA to collaborate.

Sanders, Gerald B.↗
NASA NTRS2017

Geomagnetically Induced Currents: Science, Engineering, and Applications Readiness

This paper is the primary deliverable of the very first NASA Living With a Star Institute Working Group, Geomagnetically Induced Currents (GIC) Working Group. The paper provides a broad overview of the current status and future challenges pertaining to the science, engineering, and applications of the GIC problem. Science is understood here as the basic space and Earth sciences research that allows improved understanding and physics-based modeling of the physical processes behind GIC. Engineering, in turn, is understood here as the ''impact'' aspect of GIC. Applications are understood as the models, tools, and activities that can provide actionable information to entities such as power systems operators for mitigating the effects of GIC and government agencies for managing any potential consequences from GIC impact to critical infrastructure. Applications can be considered the ultimate goal of our GIC work. In assessing the status of the field, we quantify the readiness of various applications in the mitigation context. We use the Applications Readiness Level (ARL) concept to carry out the quantification.

Geomagnetically induced currents↗
NASA NTRS2018

Bureau of Networks and Observations

Role of the Bureau: To advocate and encourage implementation of the Core and Co-location Network to satisfy GGOS requirements, to monitor the status of the network and project its future condition, and to support and advocate for infrastructure critical for the development of data products essential to GGOS.

Pearlman, Michael R.↗