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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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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

Space-Spurred Metallized Materials

Spurred R&D toward improved vacuum metallizing techniques led to an extensive line of commercial products, from insulated outdoor garments to packaging for foods, from wall coverings to window shades, from life rafts to candy wrappings, reflective blankets to photographic reflectors. Metallized Products, Inc. (MPI) was one of the companies that worked with NASA in development of the original space materials. MPI markets its own metallized products and supplies materials to other manufacturers. One of the most widely used MPI products is TXG laminate. An example is a reflective kite, the S.O.S. Signal Kite that can be flown as high as 200 feet to enhance radar and visual detectability. It offers a boon to campers, hikers, mountain climbers and boaters. It is produced by Solar Reflections, Inc. The company also markets a solar reflective hat. Another example is by Pro-Tektion, Inc. to provide protection for expensive musical equipment that have sensitive electronic components subject to damage from the heat of stage lights, dust, or rain at outdoor concerts. MP supplied the material and acceptance of the covers by the sound industry has been excellent.

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NASA NTRS1997

"TPSX: Thermal Protection System Expert and Material Property Database"

The Thermal Protection Branch at NASA Ames Research Center has developed a computer program for storing, organizing, and accessing information about thermal protection materials. The program, called Thermal Protection Systems Expert and Material Property Database, or TPSX, is available for the Microsoft Windows operating system. An "on-line" version is also accessible on the World Wide Web. TPSX is designed to be a high-quality source for TPS material properties presented in a convenient, easily accessible form for use by engineers and researchers in the field of high-speed vehicle design. Data can be displayed and printed in several formats. An information window displays a brief description of the material with properties at standard pressure and temperature. A spread sheet window displays complete, detailed property information. Properties which are a function of temperature and/or pressure can be displayed as graphs. In any display the data can be converted from English to SI units with the click of a button. Two material databases included with TPSX are: 1) materials used and/or developed by the Thermal Protection Branch at NASA Ames Research Center, and 2) a database compiled by NASA Johnson Space Center 9JSC). The Ames database contains over 60 advanced TPS materials including flexible blankets, rigid ceramic tiles, and ultra-high temperature ceramics. The JSC database contains over 130 insulative and structural materials. The Ames database is periodically updated and expanded as required to include newly developed materials and material property refinements.

Squire, Thomas H.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Characterization of the dimensional stability of advanced metallic materials using an optical test bench structure

The dimensional stability of low-density high specific-strength metal-matrix composites (including 30 vol pct SiC(p)/SXA 24-T6 Al, 25 vol pct SiC(p)/6061-T6 Al, 40 vol pct graphite P100 fiber/6061 Al, 50 vol pct graphite P100 fiber/6061 Al, and 40 vol pct P100 graphite fiber/AZ91D Mg composites) and an Al-Li-Mg metal alloy was evaluated using a specially designed five-strut optical test bench structure. The structure had 30 thermocouple locations, one retroreflector, one linear interferometer multilayer insulation, and various strip heaters. It was placed in a 10 exp -7 torr capability vacuum chamber with a laser head positioned at a window port, and a laser interferometer system for collecting dimensional change data. It was found that composite materials have greater 40-C temporal dimensional stability than the AL-Li-Mg alloy. Aluminum-based composites demonstrated better 40-C temporal stability than Mg-based composites.

Hsieh, Cheng↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lessons for Future In-Space Telerobotic Servicing from Robotic Refueling Mission

The Robotic Refueling Mission (RRM) was a multi-phased technology development effort by the National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The program leveraged the existing robotic systems and expertise of the International Space Station (ISS) program and the tool design and satellite servicing expertise of NASA’s Exploration & In-space Services (NExIS) Projects Division at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to evaluate new hardware and techniques for on-orbit telerobotic servicing. Between 2011 and 2021, two external ISS payloads housed over a dozen robotic tools and adapters designed to service a variety of existing and novel satellite interfaces. Robot operators at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) and CSA used the Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) to retrieve and operate these tools for tasks such as cutting wires or multi-layer insulation blanketing, removing valve caps, mating electrical connectors, transferring fluids, and performing visual inspections inside a vehicle. Each phase of RRM involved years of preparation. Tool and interface designs were prototyped and evaluated using both NASA and Canadian ground robotic systems. Procedures were developed by GSFC engineers and vetted in partnership with JSC and CSA robot operators. GSFC engineers were trained to provide real-time support during on-orbit operations. These preparatory efforts and the successful on-orbit evaluations yielded an array of lessons for future in-space telerobotic missions. Designing robotic tools for the space environment requires special consideration of materials, indicators, and differences between ground and flight use cases and environments. When there is a limited window for on-orbit operations, devoting time and high-fidelity hardware to ground testing can be critical. Needs during potential troubleshooting are more essential to camera view quality, frame rate, and position requirements more than nominal operations. Detailed hardware manuals, nominal and contingency procedures, along with clearly defined operations team roles and protocols are vital for efficiency. RRM also demonstrated how the ISS can be utilized to increase the technology readiness levels required for future missions and led to additional technology partnerships between NExIS and the ISS program. The lessons from RRM are currently being applied to designs, operations concepts, and ground test methodology for missions such as On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing1(OSAM-1)and Mars Sample Return.

Zakiya Tomlinson↗
NASA NTRS2008

Coaxial Electric Heaters

Coaxial electric heaters have been conceived for use in highly sensitive instruments in which there are requirements for compact heaters but stray magnetic fields associated with heater electric currents would adversely affect operation. Such instruments include atomic clocks and magnetometers that utilize heated atomic-sample cells, wherein stray magnetic fields at picotesla levels could introduce systematic errors into instrument readings. A coaxial electric heater is essentially an axisymmetric coaxial cable, the outer conductor of which is deliberately made highly electrically resistive so that it can serve as a heating element. As in the cases of other axisymmetric coaxial cables, the equal magnitude electric currents flowing in opposite directions along the inner and outer conductors give rise to zero net magnetic field outside the outer conductor. Hence, a coaxial electric heater can be placed near an atomic-sample cell or other sensitive device. A coaxial electric heater can be fabricated from an insulated copper wire, the copper core of which serves as the inner conductor. For example, in one approach, the insulated wire is dipped in a colloidal graphite emulsion, then the emulsion-coated wire is dried to form a thin, uniform, highly electrically resistive film that serves as the outer conductor. Then the film is coated with a protective layer of high-temperature epoxy except at the end to be electrically connected to the power supply. Next, the insulation is stripped from the wire at that end. Finally, electrical leads from the heater power supply are attached to the exposed portions of the wire and the resistive film. The resistance of the graphite film can be tailored via its thickness. Alternatively, the film can be made from an electrically conductive paint, other than a colloidal graphite emulsion, chosen to impart the desired resistance. Yet another alternative is to tailor the resistance of a graphite film by exploiting the fact that its resistance can be changed permanently within about 10 percent by heating it to a temperature above 300 C. A coaxial heater, with electrical leads attached, that has been bent into an almost full circle for edge heating of a circular window is shown. (In the specific application, there is a requirement for a heated cell window, through which an optical beam enters the cell.)

Strekalov, Dmitry↗
NASA NTRS2004

NASA Tech Briefs, May 2004

Topics include: Embedded Heaters for Joining or Separating Plastic Parts; Curing Composite Materials Using Lower-Energy Electron Beams; Aluminum-Alloy-Matrix/Alumina-Reinforcement Composites; Fibrous-Ceramic/Aerogel Composite Insulating Tiles; Urethane/Silicone Adhesives for Bonding Flexing Metal Parts; Scalable Architecture for Multihop Wireless ad Hoc Networks; Improved Thermoplastic/Iron-Particle Transformer Cores; Cooperative Lander-Surface/Aerial Microflyer Missions for Mars Exploration Dual-Frequency Airborne Scanning Rain Radar Antenna System Eight-Channel Continuous Timer Reduction of Phase Ambiguity in an Offset-QPSK Receiver Ambient-Light-Canceling Camera Using Subtraction of Frames Lightweight, Flexible, Thin, Integrated Solar-Power Packs Windows(Registered Trademark)-Based Software Models Cyclic Oxidation Behavior Software for Analyzing Sequences of Flow-Related Images Improved Ball-and-Socket Docking Mechanism Two-Stage Solenoid Ordered Nanostructures Made Using Chaperonin Polypeptides Low-Temperature Plasma Functionalization of Carbon Nanotubes Improved Cryostat for Cooling a Wide Panel Current Pulses Momentarily Enhance Thermoelectric Cooling Hand-Held Color Meters Based on Interference Filters Calculating Mass Diffusion in High-Pressure Binary Fluids Fresnel Lenses for Wide-Aperture Optical Receivers Increasing Accuracy in Computed Inviscid Boundary Conditions Higher-Order Finite Elements for Computing Thermal Radiation Radar for Monitoring Hurricanes from Geostationary Orbit Time-Transfer System for Two Orbiting Spacecraft

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NASA NTRS2008

Three-Stage InP Submillimeter-Wave MMIC Amplifier

A submillimeter-wave monolithic integrated- circuit (S-MMIC) amplifier has been designed and fabricated using an indium phosphide (InP) 35-nm gate-length high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) device, developed at Northrop Grumman Corporation. The HEMT device employs two fingers each 15 micrometers wide. The HEMT wafers are grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) and make use of a pseudomorphic In0.75Ga0.25As channel, a silicon delta-doping layer as the electron supply, an In0.52Al0.48As buffer layer, and an InP substrate. The three-stage design uses coplanar waveguide topology with a very narrow ground-to-ground spacing of 14 micrometers. Quarter-wave matching transmission lines, on-chip metal-insulator-metal shunt capacitors, series thin-film resistors, and matching stubs were used in the design. Series resistors in the shunt branch arm provide the basic circuit stabilization. The S-MMIC amplifier was measured for S-parameters and found to be centered at 320 GHz with 13-15-dB gain from 300-345 GHz. This chip was developed as part of the DARPA Submillimeter Wave Imaging Focal Plane Technology (SWIFT) program (see figure). Submillimeter-wave amplifiers could enable more sensitive receivers for earth science, planetary remote sensing, and astrophysics telescopes, particularly in radio astronomy, both from the ground and in space. A small atmospheric window at 340 GHz exists and could enable ground-based observations. However, the submillimeter-wave regime (above 300 GHz) is best used for space telescopes as Earth s atmosphere attenuates most of the signal through water and oxygen absorption. Future radio telescopes could make use of S-MMIC amplifiers for wideband, low noise, instantaneous frequency coverage, particularly in the case of heterodyne array receivers.

Pukala, David↗