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

NASA Best Practices Overview

While prevention of launch and on-orbit collisions has been an institutional concern of NASA for several decades (beginning with the Shuttle program), historically the paucity of space actors and deployed payloads made the conduct of such protection activities relatively straightforward. With the substantial increases in launched payloads over the last several years, collision avoidance operations have become substantially more complicated. At the same time, many operators are uncertain regarding what collision avoidance activities are appropriate to their missions. The lack of a space traffic management authority to articulate standards and guidelines for such conduct has only increased the confusion. In response to this situation, NASA has published a Spacecraft Conjunction Assessment and Collision Avoidance Handbook, which articulates and explains the launch and on-orbit collision avoidance best practices that the Agency has developed and is requiring of present and future NASA missions. Because the CA2 Handbook is a living document regularly updated to reflect best practices changes as the industry develops, feedback from both NASA missions and other users is continuously collected in order to issue CA2 Handbook updates. This talk will summarize and explain the collision avoidance best practices from the CA2 Handbook, along with the key issues that drove the selection of those practices.

Conjunction Assessment↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Systems Engineering Best Practices Workshop

This presentation reflects discussion points made by participants during the Systems Engineering Best Practices workshop held during the 2024 In-Person LEARN Forum at NASA Ames Research on September 25, 2024. Points covered include those related to systems engineering in terms of best practices as applied to technical documentation, engineering activities, and risk management.

Jeff Homan↗
DOE OSTI2024

Benchmarking Advanced Water Splitting Technologies: Best Practices in Materials Characterization

The high-level project goal is to create a comprehensive Best Practices benchmarking framework at the materials, component, device and systems levels for advanced water splitting technologies. All advanced water splitting pathways covered under the HydroGEN Energy Materials Network (EMN) Consortium, which include advanced high and low temperature electrolysis of water, photoelectrochemical (PEC) water splitting and solar thermochemical hydrogen (STCH) need these best practices to advance materials discovery. These practices will also aid the H2@Scale DOE initiative to accomplish their goals of large-scale H2 production.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

Compressed Air Scoping Tool Teaches Energy Efficiency Best Practices

Standards and practices around compressed air systems are evolving as previous golden rules become outdated and unhelpful. One of the most referenced guidelines gives us the perfect example: The previous rule of thumb for compressed air storage – 1-3 gal/cfm1,2 – is now accepted to be 3-5 gal/cfm. This change in recommended storage is only one of many in the industry, resulting in industrial users lost in a sea of contradictory best practices. To help combat confusion and poor information sharing, a collaborative effort between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Better Plants program created the Compressed Air (CA) Scoping Tool with the most up-to-date best practices in the industry (as of 2023). It can be used as a nonbiased, one-stop shop for best practice recommendations. The Excelbased tool is designed to be an initial step in understanding the operation of a compressed air system, a baselining tool enabling users to comprehend various aspects of a facility’s system from the production of compressed air to its application by end users.

42 ENGINEERING↗
NASA NTRS2023

Best Practices for the Design, Development, and Operation of Robust and Reliable Space Vehicle Guidance, Navigation, and Control Systems

This document summarizes and updates the NESC Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GN&C) Technical Discipline Team’s (TDT) work to synthesize and document the current best practices for the design & development of robust and reliable GN&C systems for robotic and crewed (human-rated) spacecraft. These GN&C best practices for future science and exploration missions were derived from the lessons learned, both positive and negative, on earlier spaceflight projects, both robotic and crewed. An attempt has been made to capture preferred practices that reflect the key considerations, trades, and processes directly attributed to past mission success.

Guidance, Navigation, and Control↗
DOE OSTI2026

Verification and Validation of Performance with Dissemination of Best Practices in District Energy and CHP for Enhanced Resiliency, Energy Efficiency, and Cybersecurity

This report contains the results of the International District Energy Association’s work to analyze, validate, and verify performance data of existing district energy systems and identify industy best practices for the purpose of improving system reliability, resiliency, and efficiency, and to accellerate decarbonization. In addition to a technical evaluation of the surveyed systems and identification of a series of technical performance metrics, the report illustrates the accompanying operations and financial best practices employed by surveyed systems to fully serve their customer base. Additionally, the third chapter of the report describes the current landscape of cybersecurity threats and counteracting measures, and recommends a series of steps for effectively guarding highly networked district energy systems against cybersecurity attacks.

96 KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND PRESERVATION↗
NASA NTRS2018

Best Practices for Training the Structures Flight Test Engineer

The Structures Flight from 412th Test Wing and the Aerostructures Branch at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base have developed a set of best practices for training a structures flight test engineer. These practices represent the hard-won lessons learned and best practices from training generations of engineers to perform high risk envelope expansion and developmental flight test. Collectively, these organizations have tested many of the world's most advanced and innovative aircraft, including the B-2, C-17, F-22, F-35, RQ-4, X-29, F-18 High Angle of Attack Research Vehicle, X-53, G-III Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge, and X-56.

flight tests↗
NASA NTRS2018

Best Practices for Training the Structures Flight Test Engineer

The Structures Flight from 412 Test Wing and the Aerostructures Branch at NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base have developed a set of best practices for training a structures flight test engineer. These practices represent the hard-won lessons learned and best practices from training generations of engineers to perform high risk envelope expansion and developmental flight test.

structures testing↗
NASA NTRS2004

Accelerating Exploration Through the Sharing of Best Practices in Research Partnerships

This paper proposes the formation of an international panel of space related public/private partnerships for the purposes of sharing best practices among members. The exploration and development of space is too costly to be conducted by governments alone. Private industry has a significant role in creating needed technologies, and developing commercial space infrastructure, thereby allowing sustainable exploration to take place. Public/private partnerships between government and industry are key to fostering industrial participation in space. The spacefaring nations have, or are developing these partnerships. Those organizations forming these partnerships can benefit from sharing among each other best practices and lessons learned. In this way the common goal of space exploration and development can be more effectively pursued.

Nall, Mark↗
DOE OSTI2024

Best Practices for Plug Load Management Using a Building Energy Management System

The University of California San Diego (UCSD) successfully integrated PLCs with their BEMS, which resulted in 66% energy savings over one week across 25 plug loads (K. Chia et al. 2023). UCSD documented each step of this effort, highlighting best practices along the way, in their 10-page brief, "Best Practices for Plug Load Management Using a Building Energy Management System" (also referred to as "brief" in this document). This fact sheet provides highlights and key takeaways from UCSD's brief. The reader is encouraged to read UCSD's full brief if they wish to move forward with implementing PLC integration with their BEMS.

Building Energy Management System Integration↗
NASA NTRS2016

CSW Best Practices

During the development of the CMR (Common Metadata Repository) (CMR) for the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), CSW (Catalog Service for the Web) a number of best practices came to light. Given that the ESIP (Earth Science Information Partners) Discovery Cluster is committed to interoperability and standards in earth data discovery this seemed like a convenient moment to provide Best Practices to the organization in the same way we did for OpenSearch for this widely-used standard.

CMR↗
NASA NTRS2007

GN&C Engineering Best Practices For Human-Rated Spacecraft Systems

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) recently completed an in-depth assessment to identify a comprehensive set of engineering considerations for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) of safe and reliable human-rated spacecraft systems. Reliability subject matter experts, discipline experts, and systems engineering experts were brought together to synthesize the current "best practices" both at the spacecraft system and subsystems levels. The objective of this paper is to summarize, for the larger Community of Practice, the initial set of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) engineering Best Practices as identified by this NESC assessment process.

Dennehy, Cornelius J.↗
NASA NTRS2007

GN&C Engineering Best Practices for Human-Rated Spacecraft Systems

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) recently completed an in-depth assessment to identify a comprehensive set of engineering considerations for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) of safe and reliable human-rated spacecraft systems. Reliability subject matter experts, discipline experts, and systems engineering experts were brought together to synthesize the current "best practices" both at the spacecraft system and subsystems levels. The objective of this paper is to summarize, for the larger Community of Practice, the initial set of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) engineering Best Practices as identified by this NESC assessment process.

Dennehy, Cornelius J.↗
NASA NTRS2008

GN&C Engineering Best Practices for Human-Rated Spacecraft System

The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) recently completed an in-depth assessment to identify a comprehensive set of engineering considerations for the Design, Development, Test and Evaluation (DDT&E) of safe and reliable human-rated spacecraft systems. Reliability subject matter experts, discipline experts, and systems engineering experts were brought together to synthesize the current "best practices" both at the spacecraft system and subsystems levels. The objective of this paper is to summarize, for the larger Community of Practice, the initial set of Guidance, Navigation and Control (GN&C) engineering Best Practices as identified by this NESC assessment process.

Dennehy, Cornelius J.↗
DOE OSTI2024

WETO Software Stack Best Practices

Wind energy researchers typically share one key characteristic: a passion for increasing wind energy in the global energy mix. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) supports this mission in a number of ways including allocating funding directly to various aspects of wind energy research through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) via the Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO). While the traditional output of research is academic publication, software development efforts are increasingly a major focus. Software tools in the research environment allow researchers to describe an idea and quickly increase the scope and scale as they study it further. As a product of research, these tools represent a direct pipeline from researcher to industry practitioners since they are the implementation of ideas described in academic publications. Given this vital role in wind energy research and commercial development, the broad research software portfolio supported by WETO must maintain a minimum level of quality to support the wind energy field in the growing transition to renewable energy. This report outlines a series o f best practices to be adopted by all WETO-supported software projects, as well as expectations that the communities interacting with these projects should have of the developers and tools themselves. Wind energy research software has a unique standing in the field of scientific software. The stakeholders are varied with a subset being: (1) DOE EERE leadership, (2) DOE WETO leadership and program managers, (3) National lab leadership, (4) Associated project principle investigators, (5) Research software engineers, (6) Wind energy researchers in academia (including graduate students, post docs, and national lab staff), (7) Industry researchers and practitioners, (8) Commercial software developers, and (9) The general public interested in wind energy. These software are typically the end-user of other generic software libraries, so the funding cycles are often tied to applied research rather than the development of the software itself. Since the developers are also wind energy researchers, these tools are typically designed in a way that closely resembles the application in which they're used. Additionally, the expertise and incentives for the developers have a high variability, and often neither are aligned with software engineering or computer science. Given the unique environment in which wind energy research software is produced and consumed, it is critical for model owners to understand the context of their software. A framework for developing this understanding is to answer the following questions of a given software project: What is it's purpose? What is its role in the field of wind energy? What is the profile of the expected users? For how long will it be relevant? What is the expected impact? These questions allow model owners to identify the appropriate methods for the design, development, and long term maintenance of their software. Additionally, the answer provide context for future planners to understand why particular decisions were made and discern the consequences of changing course. The information is aggregated from experience within WETO-supported software development groups as well as external organizations and efforts to define the craft of research software engineering. These best practices aim to make the collaborative development process efficient and effective while improving the model understanding across stakeholders. Additionally, the general adoption of a common framework for software quality ensures that the end users of WETO software can trust these tools and accurately understand the risks to workflow integration.

17 WIND ENERGY↗
DOE OSTI2025

Best Practices for Grid Communications

As the grid evolves, the communications architecture will need to evolve with it. That architecture affords a structured means by which the evolving complexities of the modern electric grid can be managed. This document provides best practices that can be implemented in the grid of today and evolve towards the grid and grid architecture of the future. The evolving grid and its control communications increasingly rely on commercial communications providers and a variety of technologies, from wireless (e.g., 5G, microwave, Wi-Fi) to wireline (fiber, copper) to radio communications (P25, other repeater-based systems), and all these communications systems rely on electric power. A reliable and resilient grid must account for this complex set of interdependencies in its planning activities, especially those involving restoration and recovery. The participation of all relevant parties in both planning and exercising of plans can prevent unexpected conditions that impede the reliable operation and recovery of the grid. Best practices for grid communications include using a Network Management System to document the operational state, define and monitor baselines, detect changes, and accelerate response to abnormalities. If transitioning from SONET to IP/packet-based systems, translating grid requirements into communications requirements for latency, bandwidth and throughput, IP packet delay variation, packet loss, and availability should inform and drive technology planning and selection as well as that communication system’s Quality of Service (QoS) policies and Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Secure and reliable timing is another key component of a reliable and resilient grid that can operate through adverse events. A trusted internal NTP configuration, an integrated and diverse timing delivery system, optimizing the timing architecture based on the transport technologies of the communications system, and using established standards can deliver the level of timing accuracy required by a range of time-sensitive power system applications.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗