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29 records · Page 2
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2000

Geographical Database Integrity Validation

Airport Safety Modeling Data (ASMD) was developed at the request of a 1997 White House Conference on Aviation Safety and Security. Politicians, military personnel, commercial aircraft manufacturers and the airline industry attended the conference. The objective of the conference was to study the airline industry and make recommendations to improve safety and security. One of the topics discussed at the conference was the loss of situational awareness by aircraft pilots. Loss of situational awareness occurs when a pilot loses his geographic position during flight and can result in crashes into terrain and obstacles. It was recognized at the conference that aviation safety could be improved by reducing the loss of situational awareness. The conference advised that a system be placed in the airplane cockpit that would provide pilots with a visual representation of the terrain around airports. The system would prevent airline crashes during times of inclement weather and loss of situational awareness. The system must be based on accurate data that represents terrain around airports. The Department of Defense and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) released ASMD to be used for the development of a visual system for aircraft pilots. ASMD was constructed from NIMA digital terrain elevation data (DTED).

Jacobs, Derya↗
NASA NTRS2019

Flexible Modem Interface (FMI) in Space - Extending Standardized Commercial Satellite Communications Services to Space Users

Recent innovations are producing a multitude of advanced commercial satellite communications (COMSATCOM) systems that could deliver massive amounts of SATCOM capacity at a fraction of current cost while also offering reliability and availability that is critical to achieving mission success for orbiting assets. Recognizing the alignment of commercial capabilities with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) diverse mission requirements, the agency is proactively engaging industry to formulate strategies leading towards a NASA communications architecture that includes advanced commercial capabilities. To fully leverage the expanded space resources, NASA must also address the integration of commercial waveforms into its space terminals. In pursuit of similar goals, the United States Department of Defense (DoD) is leading the standardization of the flexible modem interface (FMI) to address service integration for their tactical terminals in pursuit of a DoD Wideband SATCOM Enterprise.This paper describes how NASA is adapting this FMI standard to work with the Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) software-defined radio (SDR) framework to address the challenging size, weight, and power resource requirements for terminals in space. A full adaptation would include waveform compatibility with modular baseband processing, frequency compatibility with a wideband front end, and radiated beam control with an electronically steerable antenna to enable multi-provider commercial service capability in a feasible package for space terminals. Security is also a key aspect to be addressed for this integration since data will flow through commercial networks, commercial service providers have their own security mechanisms, and space terminals must be able to securely load proprietary software and firmware needed to access the commercial networks on demand. Success of this effort means commercial partners will be able to allow network-compliant implementations to be hosted on STRS-compliant SDRs in space for reliable and capable network access.

COMSATCOM↗
NASA NTRS2001

Making Sense of Remotely Sensed Ultra-Spectral Infrared Data

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Pasadena, California, Earth Observing System (EOS) programs, the Deep Space Network (DSN), and various Department of Defense (DOD) technology demonstration programs, combined their technical expertise to develop SEASCRAPE, a software program that obtains data when thermal infrared radiation passes through the Earth's atmosphere and reaches a sensor. Licensed by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), SEASCRAPE automatically inverts complex infrared data and makes it possible to obtain estimates of the state of the atmosphere along the ray path. Former JPL staff members created a small entrepreneurial firm, Remote Sensing Analysis Systems, Inc., of Altadena, California, to commercialize the product. The founders believed that a commercial version of the software was needed for future U.S. government missions and the commercial monitoring of pollution. With the inversion capability of this software and remote sensing instrumentation, it is possible to monitor pollution sources from safe and secure distances on a noninterfering, noncooperative basis. The software, now know as SEASCRAPE_Plus, allows the user to determine the presence of pollution products, their location and their abundance along the ray path. The technology has been cleared by the Department of Commerce for export, and is currently used by numerous research and engineering organizations around the world.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2008

A Common Communications, Navigation and Surveillance Infrastructure for Accommodating Space Vehicles in the Next Generation Air Transportation System

Suborbital space flight and space tourism are new potential markets that could significantly impact the National Airspace System (NAS). Numerous private companies are developing space flight capabilities to capture a piece of an emerging commercial space transportation market. These entrepreneurs share a common vision that sees commercial space flight as a profitable venture. Additionally, U.S. space exploration policy and national defense will impose significant additional demands on the NAS. Air traffic service providers must allow all users fair access to limited airspace, while ensuring that the highest levels of safety, security, and efficiency are maintained. The FAA's Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) will need to accommodate spacecraft transitioning to and from space through the NAS. To accomplish this, space and air traffic operations will need to be seamlessly integrated under some common communications, navigation and surveillance (CNS) infrastructure. As part of NextGen, the FAA has been developing the Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) which utilizes the Global Positioning System (GPS) to track and separate aircraft. Another key component of NextGen, System-Wide Information Management/ Network Enabled Operations (SWIM/NEO), is an open architecture network that will provide NAS data to various customers, system tools and applications. NASA and DoD are currently developing a space-based range (SBR) concept that also utilizes GPS, communications satellites and other CNS assets. The future SBR will have very similar utility for space operations as ADS-B and SWIM has for air traffic. Perhaps the FAA, NASA, and DoD should consider developing a common space-based CNS infrastructure to support both aviation and space transportation operations. This paper suggests specific areas of research for developing a CNS infrastructure that can accommodate spacecraft and other new types of vehicles as an integrated part of NextGen.

VanSuetendael, RIchard↗
NASA NTRS1994

The Space Communications Protocol Standards Program

In the fall of 1992 NASA and the Department of Defense chartered a technical team to explore the possibility of developing a common set of space data communications standards for potential dual-use across the U.S. national space mission support infrastructure. The team focused on the data communications needs of those activities associated with on-lined control of civil and military aircraft. A two-pronged approach was adopted: a top-down survey of representative civil and military space data communications requirements was conducted; and a bottom-up analysis of available standard data communications protocols was performed. A striking intersection of civil and military space mission requirements emerged, and an equally striking consensus on the approach towards joint civil and military space protocol development was reached. The team concluded that wide segments of the U.S. civil and military space communities have common needs for: (1) an efficient file transfer protocol; (2) various flavors of underlying data transport service; (3) an optional data protection mechanism to assure end-to-end security of message exchange; and (4) an efficient internetworking protocol. These recommendations led to initiating a program to develop a suite of protocols based on these findings. This paper describes the current status of this program.

Jeffries, Alan↗
NASA NTRS1991

NSI customer service representatives and user support office: NASA Science Internet

The NASA Science Internet, (NSI) was established in 1987 to provide NASA's Offices of Space Science and Applications (OSSA) missions with transparent wide-area data connectivity to NASA's researchers, computational resources, and databases. The NSI Office at NASA/Ames Research Center has the lead responsibility for implementing a total, open networking program to serve the OSSA community. NSI is a full-service communications provider whose services include science network planning, network engineering, applications development, network operations, and network information center/user support services. NSI's mission is to provide reliable high-speed communications to the NASA science community. To this end, the NSI Office manages and operates the NASA Science Internet, a multiprotocol network currently supporting both DECnet and TCP/IP protocols. NSI utilizes state-of-the-art network technology to meet its customers' requirements. THe NASA Science Internet interconnects with other national networks including the National Science Foundation's NSFNET, the Department of Energy's ESnet, and the Department of Defense's MILNET. NSI also has international connections to Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, and several European countries. NSI cooperates with other government agencies as well as academic and commercial organizations to implement networking technologies which foster interoperability, improve reliability and performance, increase security and control, and expedite migration to the OSI protocols.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2011

Flying Unmanned Aircraft: A Pilot's Perspective

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is pioneering various Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) technologies and procedures which may enable routine access to the National Airspace System (NAS), with an aim for Next Gen NAS. These tools will aid in the development of technologies and integrated capabilities that will enable high value missions for science, security, and defense, and open the door to low-cost, extreme-duration, stratospheric flight. A century of aviation evolution has resulted in accepted standards and best practices in the design of human-machine interfaces, the displays and controls of which serve to optimize safe and efficient flight operations and situational awareness. The current proliferation of non-standard, aircraft-specific flight crew interfaces in UAS, coupled with the inherent limitations of operating UAS without in-situ sensory input and feedback (aural, visual, and vestibular cues), has increased the risk of mishaps associated with the design of the "cockpit." The examples of current non- or sub- standard design features range from "annoying" and "inefficient", to those that are difficult to manipulate or interpret in a timely manner, as well as to those that are "burdensome" and "unsafe." A concerted effort is required to establish best practices and standards for the human-machine interfaces, for the pilot as well as the air traffic controller. In addition, roles, responsibilities, knowledge, and skill sets are subject to redefining the terms, "pilot" and "air traffic controller", with respect to operating UAS, especially in the Next-Gen NAS. The knowledge, skill sets, training, and qualification standards for UAS operations must be established, and reflect the aircraft-specific human-machine interfaces and control methods. NASA s recent experiences flying its MQ-9 Ikhana in the NAS for extended duration, has enabled both NASA and the FAA to realize the full potential for UAS, as well as understand the implications of current limitations. Ikhana is a Predator-B/Reaper UAS, built by General Atomics, Aeronautical Systems, Inc., and modified for research. Since 2007, the aircraft has been flown seasonally with a wing-mounted pod containing an infrared scanner, utilized to provide real-time wildfire geo-location data to various fire-fighting agencies in the western U.S. The multi-agency effort included an extensive process to obtain flight clearance from the FAA to operate under special provisions, given that UAS in general do not fully comply with current airspace regulations (e.g. sense-and-avoid requirements).

Pestana, Mark E.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Development of a Point of Care Technology for Military Medical Applications in Austere Environments

NASA, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the Department of Defense (DoD) share a common interest in compact medical diagnostic technologies—also known as “point of care testing” (POCT) technologies. For NASA, the need is to take care of astronauts on deep space missions. For LLNL, the focus is on technologies needed to support homeland security applications. For DoD, the need is to support warfighters in military theaters of operation, especially for prolonged field care and en route care. A recently patented technology, “Portable Medical Diagnosis Instrument” (U.S. Patent 9824870), co-invented by NASA and LLNL, is being developed further in a partnership between NASA, LLNL and Travis Air Force Base, with a focus on military applications. This instrument, the NASA-LLNL Medical Tricorder, can be used for a wide range of clinical samples including breath, saliva and blood. One component of the Tricorder is the NASA E-Nose, a carbon nanotube-based chemical sensor, integrated into a hand-held smart phone, that can detect and measure “breath biomarkers” in the gas phase of exhaled breath. The response of the NASA E-Nose is rapid, which makes it possible to detect various gas-phase substances in real time. The NASA E-Nose, with modification, can also be used for breath condensate analysis. Another component of the Tricorder is a miniaturized microfluidic analyzer, under development by LLNL, that does not require any pumps. The microfluidic analyzer can detect and measure biomarkers in liquid samples, such as blood, saliva and breath condensate. This microfluidic system requires small quantities of liquid sample and can perform analysis very rapidly (seconds to minutes), which makes it possible to detect relevant biomarkers in near real time in the field. The Clinical Investigation Facility (CIF) at Travis Air Force Base is currently conducting research with the goal to develop improved field-able technologies and procedures for the emergency response to life threatening injuries soldiers may receive in theater. This work includes experimental large animal systems and comprehensive collection of clinical specimens and physiological data. NASA and LLNL are partnering with Travis to test and further develop the Tricorder technology for high priority military applications, initially focused on lung injury models and traumatic brain injury.

Loftus, David J.↗
NASA NTRS2016

UAS-NAS Flight Test Series 3: Test Environment Report

The desire and ability to fly Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) is of increasing urgency. The application of unmanned aircraft to perform national security, defense, scientific, and emergency management are driving the critical need for less restrictive access by UAS to the NAS. UAS represent a new capability that will provide a variety of services in the government (public) and commercial (civil) aviation sectors. The growth of this potential industry has not yet been realized due to the lack of a common understanding of what is required to safely operate UAS in the NAS. NASA's UAS Integration in the NAS Project is conducting research in the areas of Separation Assurance/Sense and Avoid Interoperability (SSI), Human Systems Integration (HSI), and Communications (Comm), and Certification to support reducing the barriers of UAS access to the NAS. This research is broken into two research themes namely, UAS Integration and Test Infrastructure. UAS Integration focuses on airspace integration procedures and performance standards to enable UAS integration in the air transportation system, covering Detect and Avoid (DAA) performance standards, command and control performance standards, and human systems integration. The focus of Test Infrastructure is to enable development and validation of airspace integration procedures and performance standards, including integrated test and evaluation. In support of the integrated test and evaluation efforts, the Project will develop an adaptable, scalable, and schedulable relevant test environment capable of evaluating concepts and technologies for unmanned aircraft systems to safely operate in the NAS. To accomplish this task, the Project is conducting a series of human-in-the-loop (HITL) and flight test activities that integrate key concepts, technologies and/or procedures in a relevant air traffic environment. Each of the integrated events will build on the technical achievements, fidelity, and complexity of the previous tests and technical simulations, resulting in research findings that support the development of regulations governing the access of UAS into the NAS. The integrated events started with two initial flight test used to develop and test early integrations and components of the test environment. Test subjects and a relevant test environment were brought in for the integrated HITL (or IHITL) conducted in 2014. The IHITL collected data to evaluate the effectiveness of DAA Well Clear (DWC) algorithms and the acceptability of UAS concepts integrated into the NAS. The first integrated flight test (and the subject of this report) followed the IHITL by replacing the simulation components with live aircraft. The project finishes the integrated events with a final flight test to be conducted in 2016 that provides the researchers with an opportunity to collect DWC and Collision Avoidance (CA) interoperability data during flight encounters.

flight test↗
NASA NTRS2012

Towards Reliable Evaluation of Anomaly-Based Intrusion Detection Performance

This report describes the results of research into the effects of environment-induced noise on the evaluation process for anomaly detectors in the cyber security domain. This research was conducted during a 10-week summer internship program from the 19th of August, 2012 to the 23rd of August, 2012 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The research performed lies within the larger context of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) Smart Grid cyber security project, a Department of Energy (DoE) funded effort involving the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California/ Information Sciences Institute. The results of the present effort constitute an important contribution towards building more rigorous evaluation paradigms for anomaly-based intrusion detectors in complex cyber physical systems such as the Smart Grid. Anomaly detection is a key strategy for cyber intrusion detection and operates by identifying deviations from profiles of nominal behavior and are thus conceptually appealing for detecting "novel" attacks. Evaluating the performance of such a detector requires assessing: (a) how well it captures the model of nominal behavior, and (b) how well it detects attacks (deviations from normality). Current evaluation methods produce results that give insufficient insight into the operation of a detector, inevitably resulting in a significantly poor characterization of a detectors performance. In this work, we first describe a preliminary taxonomy of key evaluation constructs that are necessary for establishing rigor in the evaluation regime of an anomaly detector. We then focus on clarifying the impact of the operational environment on the manifestation of attacks in monitored data. We show how dynamic and evolving environments can introduce high variability into the data stream perturbing detector performance. Prior research has focused on understanding the impact of this variability in training data for anomaly detectors, but has ignored variability in the attack signal that will necessarily affect the evaluation results for such detectors. We posit that current evaluation strategies implicitly assume that attacks always manifest in a stable manner; we show that this assumption is wrong. We describe a simple experiment to demonstrate the effects of environmental noise on the manifestation of attacks in data and introduce the notion of attack manifestation stability. Finally, we argue that conclusions about detector performance will be unreliable and incomplete if the stability of attack manifestation is not accounted for in the evaluation strategy.

cyber defense↗
NASA NTRS2007

Emergency Flight Control of a Twin-Jet Commercial Aircraft using Manual Throttle Manipulation

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) created the PCAR (Propulsion-Controlled Aircraft Recovery) project in 2005 to mitigate the ManPADS (man-portable air defense systems) threat to the commercial aircraft fleet with near-term, low-cost proven technology. Such an attack could potentially cause a major FCS (flight control system) malfunction or other critical system failure onboard the aircraft, despite the extreme reliability of current systems. For the situations in which nominal flight controls are lost or degraded, engine thrust may be the only remaining means for emergency flight control [ref 1]. A computer-controlled thrust system, known as propulsion-controlled aircraft (PCA), was developed in the mid 1990s with NASA, McDonnell Douglas and Honeywell. PCA's major accomplishment was a demonstration of an automatic landing capability using only engine thrust [ref 11. Despite these promising results, no production aircraft have been equipped with a PCA system, due primarily to the modifications required for implementation. A minimally invasive option is TOC (throttles-only control), which uses the same control principles as PCA, but requires absolutely no hardware, software or other aircraft modifications. TOC is pure piloting technique, and has historically been utilized several times by flight crews, both military and civilian, in emergency situations stemming from a loss of conventional control. Since the 1990s, engineers at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) have studied TOC, in both simulation and flight, for emergency flight control with test pilots in numerous configurations. In general, it was shown that TOC was effective on certain aircraft for making a survivable landing. DHS sponsored both NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (Edwards, CA) and United Airlines (Denver, Colorado) to conduct a flight and simulation study of the TOC characteristics of a twin-jet commercial transport, and assess the ability of a crew to control an aircraft down to a survivable runway landing using TOC. The PCAR project objective was a set of pilot procedures for operation of a specific aircraft without hydraulics that (a) have been validated in both simulation and flight by relevant personnel, and (b) mesh well with existing commercial operations, maintenance, and training at a minimum cost. As a result of this study, a procedure has been developed to assist a crew in making a survivable landing using TOC. In a simulation environment, line pilots with little or no previous TOC experience performed survivable runway landings after a few practice TOC approaches. In-flight evaluations put line pilots in a simulated emergency situation where TOC was used to recover the aircraft, maneuver to a landing site, and perform an approach down to 200 feet AGL. The results of this research, including pilot observations, procedure comments, recommendations, future work and lessons learned, will he discussed. Flight data and video footage of TOC approaches may also be shown.

Cole, Jennifer H.↗