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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

Implementation of an Online Database for Chemical Propulsion Systems

The Johns Hopkins University, Chemical Propulsion Information Analysis Center (CPIAC) has been working closely with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC); NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC); the University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH); The Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Laboratory (APL); and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to capture satellite and spacecraft propulsion system information for an online database tool. The Spacecraft Chemical Propulsion Database (SCPD) is a new online central repository containing general and detailed system and component information on a variety of spacecraft propulsion systems. This paper only uses data that have been approved for public release with unlimited distribution. The data, supporting documentation, and ability to produce reports on demand, enable a researcher using SCPD to compare spacecraft easily, generate information for trade studies and mass estimates, and learn from the experiences of others through what has already been done. This paper outlines the layout and advantages of SCPD, including a simple example application with a few chemical propulsion systems from various NASA spacecraft.

David B. Owen, II↗

Online Simulations of Global Aerosol Distributions in the NASA GEOS-4 Model and Comparisons to Satellite and Ground-Based Aerosol Optical Depth

We have implemented a module for tropospheric aerosols (GO CART) online in the NASA Goddard Earth Observing System version 4 model and simulated global aerosol distributions for the period 2000-2006. The new online system offers several advantages over the previous offline version, providing a platform for aerosol data assimilation, aerosol-chemistry-climate interaction studies, and short-range chemical weather forecasting and climate prediction. We introduce as well a methodology for sampling model output consistently with satellite aerosol optical thickness (AOT) retrievals to facilitate model-satellite comparison. Our results are similar to the offline GOCART model and to the models participating in the AeroCom intercomparison. The simulated AOT has similar seasonal and regional variability and magnitude to Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET), Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, and Multiangle Imaging Spectroradiometer observations. The model AOT and Angstrom parameter are consistently low relative to AERONET in biomass-burning-dominated regions, where emissions appear to be underestimated, consistent with the results of the offline GOCART model. In contrast, the model AOT is biased high in sulfate-dominated regions of North America and Europe. Our model-satellite comparison methodology shows that diurnal variability in aerosol loading is unimportant compared to sampling the model where the satellite has cloud-free observations, particularly in sulfate-dominated regions. Simulated sea salt burden and optical thickness are high by a factor of 2-3 relative to other models, and agreement between model and satellite over-ocean AOT is improved by reducing the model sea salt burden by a factor of 2. The best agreement in both AOT magnitude and variability occurs immediately downwind of the Saharan dust plume.

Colarco, Peter↗

Online Assessment of Satellite-Derived Global Precipitation Products

Precipitation is difficult to measure and predict. Each year droughts and floods cause severe property damages and human casualties around the world. Accurate measurement and forecast are important for mitigation and preparedness efforts. Significant progress has been made over the past decade in satellite precipitation product development. In particular, products' spatial and temporal resolutions as well as timely availability have been improved by blended techniques. Their resulting products are widely used in various research and applications. However biases and uncertainties are common among precipitation products and an obstacle exists in quickly gaining knowledge of product quality, biases and behavior at a local or regional scale, namely user defined areas or points of interest. Current online inter-comparison and validation services have not addressed this issue adequately. To address this issue, we have developed a prototype to inter-compare satellite derived daily products in the TRMM Online Visualization and Analysis System (TOVAS). Despite its limited functionality and datasets, users can use this tool to generate customized plots within the United States for 2005. In addition, users can download customized data for further analysis, e.g. comparing their gauge data. To meet increasing demands, we plan to increase the temporal coverage and expanded the spatial coverage from the United States to the globe. More products have been added as well. In this poster, we present two new tools: Inter-comparison of 3B42RT and 3B42 Inter-comparison of V6 and V7 TRMM L-3 monthly products The future plans include integrating IPWG (International Precipitation Working Group) Validation Algorithms/statistics, allowing users to generate customized plots and data. In addition, we will expand the current daily products to monthly and their climatology products. Whenever the TRMM science team changes their product version number, users would like to know the differences by inter-comparing both versions of TRMM products in their areas of interest. Making this service available to users will help them to better understand associated changes. We plan to implement this inter-comparison in TRMM standard monthly products with the IPWG algorithms. The plans outlined above will complement and accelerate the existing and ongoing validation activities in the community as well as enhance data services for TRMM and the future Global Precipitation Mission (GPM).

Liu, Zhong↗

Exploring Remote Sensing Products Online with Giovanni for Studying Urbanization

Recently, a Large amount of MODIS land products at multi-spatial resolutions have been integrated into the online system, Giovanni, to support studies on land cover and land use changes focused on Northern Eurasia and Monsoon Asia regions. Giovanni (Goddard Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure) is a Web-based application developed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES-DISC) providing a simple and intuitive way to visualize, analyze, and access Earth science remotely-sensed and modeled data. The customized Giovanni Web portals (Giovanni-NEESPI and Giovanni-MAIRS) are created to integrate land, atmospheric, cryospheric, and social products, that enable researchers to do quick exploration and basic analyses of land surface changes and their relationships to climate at global and regional scales. This presentation documents MODIS land surface products in Giovanni system. As examples, images and statistical analysis results on land surface and local climate changes associated with urbanization over Yangtze River Delta region, China, using data in Giovanni are shown.

Shen, Suhung↗

Exploiting Expertise and Knowledge Sharing Online for the Benefit of NASA's GN&C Community of Practice

In 2004, NASA faced major knowledge sharing challenges due to geographically isolated field centers that inhibited engineers from sharing their experiences, expertise, ideas, and lessons learned. The necessity to collaborate on complex development projects and the reality of constrained project resources together drove the need for ensuring that personnel at all NASA centers had comparable skill sets and that engineers could find resources in a timely fashion. Mission failures and new directions for the Agency also demanded better collaborative tools for NASA's engineering workforce. In response to these needs, the online NASA Engineering Network (NEN) was formed by the NASA Office of the Chief Engineer to provide a multi-faceted system for overcoming geographic and cultural barriers. NEN integrates communities of practice with a cross-repository search and the Lessons Learned Information System. This paper describes the features of the GN&C engineering discipline CoP site which went live on NEN in May of 2008 as an online means of gathering input and guidance from practitioners. It allows GN&C discipline expertise captured at one field center to be shared in a collaborative way with the larger discipline CoP spread across the entire Agency. The site enables GN&C engineers to find the information they need quickly, to find solutions to questions from experienced engineers, and to connect with other practitioners regardless of geographic location, thus increasing the probability of project success.

control↗

Online Visualization and Value Added Services of MERRA-2 Data at GES DISC

NASA climate reanalysis datasets from MERRA-2, distributed at the Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), have been used in broad research areas, such as climate variations, extreme weather, agriculture, renewable energy, and air quality, etc. The datasets contain numerous variables for atmosphere, land, and ocean, grouped into 95 products. The total archived volume is approximately 337 TB ( approximately 562K files) at the end of October 2017. Due to the large number of products and files, and large data volumes, it may be a challenge for a user to find and download the data of interest. The support team at GES DISC, working closely with the MERRA-2 science team, has created and is continuing to work on value added data services to best meet the needs of a broad user community. This presentation, using aerosol over Asia Monsoon as an example, provides an overview of the MERRA-2 data services at GES DISC, including: How to find the data? How many data access methods are provided? What are the best data access methods for me? How do download the subsetted (parameter, spatial, temporal) data and save in preferred spatial resolution and data format? How to visualize and explore the data online? In addition, we introduce a future online analytic tool designed for supporting application research, focusing on long-term hourly time-series data access and analysis.

Shen, Suhung↗

GeoDash: Assisting Visual Image Interpretation in Collect Earth Online by Leveraging Big Data on Google Earth Engine

Collect Earth Online (CEO) is a free and open online implementation of the FAO Collect Earth system for collaboratively collecting environmental data through the visual interpretation of Earth observation imagery. The primary collection mechanism in CEO is human interpretation of land surface characteristics in imagery served via Web Map Services (WMS). However, interpreters may not have enough contextual information to classify samples by only viewing the imagery served via WMS, be they high resolution or otherwise. To assist in the interpretation and collection processes in CEO, SERVIR, a joint NASA-USAID initiative that brings Earth observations to improve environmental decision making in developing countries, developed the GeoDash system, an embedded and critical component of CEO. GeoDash leverages Google Earth Engine (GEE) by allowing users to set up custom browser-based widgets that pull from GEE's massive public data catalog. These widgets can be quick looks of other satellite imagery, time series graphs of environmental variables, and statistics panels of the same. Users can customize widgets with any of GEE's image collections, such as the historical Landsat collection with data available since the 1970s, select date ranges, image stretch parameters, graph characteristics, and create custom layouts, all on-the-fly to support plot interpretation in CEO. This presentation focuses on the implementation and potential applications, including the back-end links to GEE and the user interface with custom widget building. GeoDash takes large data volumes and condenses them into meaningful, relevant information for interpreters. While designed initially with national and global forest resource assessments in mind, the system will complement disaster assessments, agriculture management, project monitoring and evaluation, and more.

SERVI↗

Titan Trek and IcyMoons Trek: Two New Online NASA Visualization and Analysis Portals for Saturn's Moons

Saturn’s moons are the focus of two new online visualization and analysis tools produced by NASA. The Solar System Treks family of online portals provides a suite of interactive visualization and analysis tools. These enable mission planners, lunar scientists, engineers, students, and the general public to access mapped data products from past and current missions for a growing number of planetary bodies. They integrate data from a variety of instruments aboard a number of missions. This presentation will introduce two new portals in the Solar System Trek suite. Titan Trek highlights Saturn’s largest moon, and IcyMoons Trek features a number of Saturn’s other moons as studied by the Cassini mission.

Law, E.↗

Online Visualization and Analysis of NASA Satellite-Based Global and Regional Precipitation Products Through Giovanni

Observational data are essential for Earth science research and applications. Traditional ground-based observations suffer from many limitations (e.g. costly deployment). As a result, data are often sparse and inconsistent, especially over vast oceans that cover nearly 71% of the Earth's surface, and for remote continents. Precipitation is one of the important physical parameters in the global hydrological cycle and other disciplines. Each year, severe floods and droughts happen in different parts of the world and cause significant damage to the economy, as well as human casualties (e.g. Hurricane Katrina, the Dust Bowl). Accurate and timely precipitation observations and predictions are important for research and applications. However, ground-based precipitation observations are quite limited, especially in remote and mountainous regions. Since the satellite era began, satellite-based precipitation products have gained popularity in Earth science research, applications, and education. Accessing satellite products can be a daunting task to many users, especially those who do not have prior experience or knowledge with satellite data. Recognizing this obstacle, the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences and Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC), home to data archives for the NASA-JAXA Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM), has developed data services including an online visualization and analysis tool, Giovanni (the Geospatial Interactive Online Visualization ANd aNalysis Infrastructure), enabling users at different levels to access, explore, and evaluate NASA satellite-based data products without downloading either data and software, or requiring coding. Currently, global and regional precipitation products from different satellite missions (TRMM, GPM) and projects (e.g. the Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications Version 2 (MERRA-2), and the North American Land Data Assimilation System (NLDAS)), ranging from half-hourly to monthly temporal resolution, are available in Giovanni. There are over 1900 variables in Giovanni, covering measurements in precipitation, hydrology, atmospheric dynamics, atmospheric chemistry, etc. In this poster presentation, we will provide a live demonstration of Giovanni and its latest development, including precipitation-related variables, and new basic features such as polar projections. The session will also provide a Q&A opportunity for attendees.

Giovanni↗

Planetary Spectrum Generator: An Accurate Online Radiative Transfer Suite for Atmospheres, Comets, Small Bodies and Exoplanets

We have developed an online radiative-transfer suite (https://psg.gsfc.nasa.gov) applicable to a broad range of planetary objects (e.g., planets, moons, comets, asteroids, TNOs, KBOs, exoplanets). The Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG) can synthesize planetary spectra (atmospheres and surfaces) for a broad range of wavelengths (UV/Vis/near-IR/IR/far-IR/THz/sub-mm/Radio) from any observatory (e.g., JWST, ALMA, Keck, SOFIA), any orbiter (e.g., ExoMars, Juno), or any lander (e.g., MSL). This is achieved by combining several state-of-the-art radiative transfer models, spectroscopic databases and planetary databases (i.e., climatological and orbital). PSG has a 3D (three-dimensional) orbital calculator for most bodies in the solar system, and all confirmed exoplanets, while the radiative-transfer models can ingest billions of spectral signatures for hundreds of species from several spectroscopic repositories. It integrates the latest radiative-transfer and scattering methods in order to compute high resolution spectra via line-by-line calculations, and utilizes the efficient correlated-k method at moderate resolutions, while for computing cometary spectra, PSG handles non-LTE and LTE excitation processes. PSG includes a realistic noise calculator that integrates several telescope/instrument configurations (e.g., interferometry, coronagraphs) and detector technologies (e.g., CCD, heterodyne detectors, bolometers). Such an integration of advanced spectroscopic methods into an online tool can greatly serve the planetary community, ultimately enabling the retrieval of planetary parameters from remote sensing data, efficient mission planning strategies, interpretation of current and future planetary data, calibration of spectroscopic data, and development of new instrument/spacecraft concepts.

Villanueva, G. L.↗

Online Prediction of Battery Discharge and Estimation of Parasitic Loads for an Electric Aircraft

Predicting whether or not vehicle batteries contain sufficient charge to support operations over the remainder of a given flight plan is critical for electric aircraft. This paper describes an approach for identifying upper and lower uncertainty bounds on predictions that aircraft batteries will continue to meet output power and voltage requirements over the remainder of a flight plan. Battery discharge prediction is considered here in terms of the following components; (i) online battery state of charge estimation; (ii) prediction of future battery power demand as a function of an aircraft flight plan; (iii) online estimation of additional parasitic battery loads; and finally, (iv) estimation of flight plan safety. Substantial uncertainty is considered to be an irremovable part of the battery discharge prediction problem. However, high-confidence estimates of flight plan safety or lack of safety are shown to be generated from even highly uncertain prognostic predictions.

Battery Discharge Prediction↗

Online Rapid Analysis of Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (LHR) Data Using the Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG)

One of the biggest challenges in developing scientific instruments is not just the build and testing of an instrument, but the method for processing the data and producing a consistent, well characterized data product that can be confidently used by the public and scientific community. Raw data products are frequently an array of numbers that are a read-out of voltages. The challenge is to convert these arrays into meaningful information as well as remove noise and interferences. Because this can be a tedious and time-consuming, the goal is to automate the process so that data ca be processed rapidly and be available in real-time for event monitoring. Here we present a rapid analysis method for Laser Heterodyne Radiometer (LHR) data that can be used to analyze data taken from a range of LHR observation modes (column, limb, etc.). This online tool uses the versatile Planetary Spectrum Generator (PSG) and allows LHR users to quickly analyze their own data using a NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) monitored capability to ensure quality and reproducibility in the data products. Background: Development of a miniaturized LHR (mini-LHR) as a ground instrument for measuring carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) and methane (CH 4 ) in the atmospheric column started in 2009 with the commercial availability of distributive feedback lasers (DFB) in wavelengths that could measure absorption of gases in the near-IR. As new DFB lasers, detectors and hardware emerged at different wavelengths, additional gases were added to the capability. The mini-LHR was adapted into an occultation-viewing CubeSat with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) for observing CO 2 , CH 4 , and H 2 O in the limb and was launched in 2019. Other versions of the LHR technology have been designed for observation of water vapor in the lunar exosphere as well as observations of trace gases in planetary atmospheres and plumes from icy moons. The PSG is an online tool developed at GSFC that can be used for synthesizing Earth and planetary spectra (atmospheres and surfaces) over a broad range of wavelengths (0.1 μm to 100 mm) for any observatory, orbiter or lander. Spectra are simulated by combining several state-of-the-art radiative transfer models, spectroscopic databases, planetary databases, as well as modern-era retrospective analysis for research and applications, version 2 (MERRA-2) data set which provides meteorological inputs such as modeled surface pressure for calculating dry-air columns.

Emily Wilson↗

Online mass storage system detailed requirements document

The requirements for an online high density magnetic tape data storage system that can be implemented in a multipurpose, multihost environment is set forth. The objective of the mass storage system is to provide a facility for the compact storage of large quantities of data and to make this data accessible to computer systems with minimum operator handling. The results of a market survey and analysis of candidate vendor who presently market high density tape data storage systems are included.

Source record↗

Costs and benefits to industry of online literature searches

A description is given of a client survey conducted by the NASA Industrial Application Center, U.S.C., examining user-identified dollar costs and benefits of an online computerized literature search. Telephone interviews were conducted on a random sample of clients using a Denver Research Institute questionnaire. Of the total 159 clients surveyed, over 53% identified dollar benefits. A direct relationship between client dollars invested and benefits derived from the search was shown. The ratio of dollar benefit to investment dollar averaged 2.9 to 1. Precise data on the end user's evaluation of the dollar value of an information search are presented.

Jensen, R. J.↗

An intermediary's perspective of online databases for local governments

Numerous public administration studies have indicated that local government agencies for a variety of reasons lack access to comprehensive information resources; furthermore, such entities are often unwilling or unable to share information regarding their own problem-solving innovations. The NASA/University of Kentucky Technology Applications Program devotes a considerable effort to providing scientific and technical information and assistance to local agencies, relying on its access to over 500 distinct online databases offered by 20 hosts. The author presents a subjective assessment, based on his own experiences, of several databases which may prove useful in obtaining information for this particular end-user community.

Jack, R. F.↗

Methods for destriping Landsat Thematic Mapper images - A feasibility study for an online destriping process in the Thematic Mapper Image Processing System (TIPS)

Methods for destriping TM images and results of the application of these methods to selected TM scenes with sensor and scan striping, which was not removed by the radiometric correction during the TM Archive Generation Phase in TIPS, are presented. These methods correct only for gain and offset differences between detectors over many image lines and do not consider within-line effects. The feasibility of implementing a destriping process online in TIPS is also described.

Poros, D. J.↗