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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 379 records · Page 21
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2023

Huntsville Urban Development II: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Map the Urban Heat Island and Evaluate Vulnerability in Huntsville, Alabama

Huntsville, Alabama has seen a boom in growth over recent years. One consequence of this urban expansion is the exacerbation of the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect across the city. This project identified the areas within Huntsville the greatest potential for heat reduction and community health benefits from tree-planting efforts. The team created maps of land surface temperature (LST), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and the normalized difference built-up index (NDBI) over June through August from 2019 to 2022 using data from ECOsystem Spaceborne Thermal Radiometer Experiment on Space Station, Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), Landsat 9 OLI-2 and TIRS-2. The team identified areas with high LST, low NDVI, and high NDBI as areas with the greatest potential for heat reduction via tree-planting. Social factors relating to age, race, income, and self-reported health were adapted from Tree Equity Score to map community need for tree cover. When combining social with environmental factors, the team determined areas with the greatest potential for UHI mitigation: west-central and north downtown Huntsville. The team’s partner organization, the City of Huntsville, can use this priority map to guide their future tree-planting, and weigh the factors assessed according to their preference.

James Karroum↗
NASA NTRS1988

The Shuttle Imaging Radar B (SIR-B) experiment report

The primary objective of the SIR-B experiment was to acquire multiple-incidence-angle radar imagery of a variety of Earth's surfaces to better understand the effects of imaging geometry on radar backscatter. A complementary objective was to map extensive regions of particular interest. Under these broad objectives, many specific scientific experiments were defined by the 43 SIR-B Science Team members, including studies in the area of geology, vegetation, radar penetration, oceanography, image analysis, and calibration technique development. Approximately 20 percent of the planned digital data were collected, meeting 40 percent of the scientific objectives. This report is an overview of the SIR-B experiment and includes the science investigations, hardware design, mission scenario, mission operations, events of the actual missions, astronaut participation, data products (including auxiliary data), calibrations, and a summary of the actual coverage. Also included are several image samples.

Cimino, Jo Bea↗
NASA NTRS2008

Technical Progress on the Ares I-X Flight Test

Ares I-X will be NASA's first test flight for a new human-rated launch vehicle since 1981, and the team is well on its way toward completing the vehicle's design and hardware fabrication for an April 2009 launch. This uncrewed suborbital development test flight gives NASA its first opportunities to: gather critical data about the flight dynamics of the integrated launch vehicle; understand how to control its roll during flight; better characterize the stage separation environments during future flight; and demonstrate the first stage recovery system. The Ares I-X Flight Test Vehicle (FTV) incorporates a mix of flight and mockup hardware. It is powered by a four-segment solid rocket booster, and will be modified to include a fifth, spacer segment; the upper stage, Orion crew exploration vehicle, and launch abort system are simulator hardware to make the FTV aerodynamically similar to the same size, shape, and weight of Ares I. The Ares IX first stage includes an existing Shuttle solid rocket motor and thrust vector control system controlled by an Ascent Thrust Vector Controller (ATVC) designed and built by Honeywell International. The avionics system will be tested in a dedicated System Integration Laboratory located at Lockheed Martin Space Systems (LMSS) in Denver, Colorado. The Upper Stage Simulator (USS) is made up of cylindrical segments that will be stacked and integrated at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) for launch. Glenn Research Center is already building these segments, along with their internal access structures. The active Roll Control System (RoCS) includes two thruster units harvested from Peacekeeper missiles. Duty cycle testing for RoCS was conducted, and fuel tanking and detanking tests will occur at KSC in early 2008. This important flight will provide valuable experience for the ground operations team in integrating, stacking, and launching Ares I. Data from Ares I-X will ensure the safety and reliability of America's newest launch vehicle.

Davis, S.R.↗
NASA NTRS1998

Insight into mechanisms of reduced orthostatic performance after exposure to microgravity: comparison of ground-based and space flight data

Since the beginning of human spaceflight, the value of understanding mechanisms of physiological adaptation to microgravity became apparent to life scientists who were interested in maintining crew health and developing countermeasures agains adverse effects of the mission. However, several characteristics associated the the logistics of spaceflight presented significant limitations to the scientific study of human adaptation to microgravity. Because space missions are so infrequent and involve minimal numbers of crewmembers, meaninful statistical analysis of data are limited. Reproducibility of results from spaceflight experiments is difficult to assess since there are few repeated space missions involving the same crewmembers. Since the emphasis of space missions is placed on operations, experiments are compromised without adequate control over various factors (e.g., time, diet, physical activities, etc.) that can impact measured responses. With the mimimal opportunity to collect spaceflight data, there is a high risk of experiments that simultaneously interfere with other experiments by the increasing demand on the crewmembers to participate in mumerous experiments proposed by multiple investigators. The technology and ability to measure physiological functions necessary to test specific hypotheses can be severely limited by physical space and power constraints of the space enviroment. Finally, technical and logistical aspects of space missions such as launch delays, extended missions, and inflight operational emergencies can significantly compromise the timing and control of experiments. These limitations have stimulated scientists to develop ground-based analogs of microgravity in an effort to investigate the effects of spaceflight on physiological function in a controlled experimental setting. The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected comparison of data collected from ground-based experiments with those obtained from spaceflight in an effort to assess the adequacy of ground analogs of actual flight for the study of human physiological adaptation to microgravity. Specifically, results from ground and spaceflight will be used to provide insight into mechanisms underlying adaptations of blood pressure regulation and reduced orthostatic performance to the microgravity environment.

Non-NASA Center↗
NASA NTRS1999

Pre-Flight Testing of Spaceborne GPS Receivers using a GPS Constellation Simulator

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Global Positioning System (GPS) applications test facility has been established within the GSFC Guidance Navigation and Control Center. The GPS test facility is currently housing the Global Simulation Systems Inc. (GSSI) STR2760 GPS satellite 40-channel attitude simulator and a STR4760 12-channel navigation simulator. The facility also contains a few other resources such as an atomic time standard test bed, a rooftop antenna platform and a radome. It provides a new capability for high dynamics GPS simulations of space flight that is unique within the aerospace community. The GPS facility provides a critical element for the development and testing of GPS based technologies i.e. position, attitude and precise time determination used on-board a spacecraft, suborbital rocket balloon. The GPS simulation system is configured in a transportable rack and is available for GPS component development as well as for component, spacecraft subsystem and system level testing at spacecraft integration and tests sites. The GPS facility has been operational since early 1996 and has utilized by space flight projects carrying GPS experiments, such as the OrbView-2 and the Argentine SAC-A spacecrafts. The SAC-A pre-flight test data obtained by using the STR2760 simulator and the comparison with preliminary analysis of the GPS data from SAC-A telemetry are summarized. This paper describes pre-flight tests and simulations used to support a unique spaceborne GPS experiment. The GPS experiment mission objectives and the test program are described, as well as the GPS test facility configuration needed to verify experiment feasibility. Some operational and critical issues inherent in GPS receiver pre-flight tests and simulations using this GPS simulation, and test methodology are described. Simulation and flight data are presented. A complete program of pre-flight testing of spaceborne GPS receivers using a GPS constellation simulator is detailed.

Kizhner, Semion↗
NASA NTRS2004

Hyper-X Hot Structures Comparison of Thermal Analysis and Flight Data

The Hyper-X (X-43A) program is a flight experiment to demonstrate scramjet performance and operability under controlled powered free-flight conditions at Mach 7 and 10. The Mach 7 flight was successfully completed on March 27, 2004. Thermocouple instrumentation in the hot structures (nose, horizontal tail, and vertical tail) recorded the flight thermal response of these components. Preflight thermal analysis was performed for design and risk assessment purposes. This paper will present a comparison of the preflight thermal analysis and the recorded flight data.

Amundsen, Ruth M.↗
NASA NTRS1999

Pre-Flight Testing of Spaceborne GPS Receivers Using a GPS Constellation Simulator

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Global Positioning System (GPS) applications test facility has been established within the GSFC Guidance Navigation and Control Center. The GPS test facility is currently housing the Global Simulation Systems Inc. (GSSI) STR2760 GPS satellite 40-channel attitude simulator and a STR4760 12-channel navigation simulator. The facility also contains a few other resources such as an atomic time standard test bed, a rooftop antenna platform and a radome. It provides a new capability for high dynamics GPS simulations of space flight that is unique within the aerospace community. The GPS facility provides a critical element for the development and testing of GPS based technologies i.e. position, attitude and precise time determination used on-board a spacecraft, suborbital rocket or balloon. The GPS simulator system is configured in a transportable rack and is available for GPS component development as well as for component, spacecraft subsystem and system level testing at spacecraft integration and test sites. The GPS facility has been operational since early 1996 and has been utilized by space flight projects carrying GPS experiments, such as the OrbView-2 and the Argentine SAC-A spacecrafts. The SAC-A pre-flight test data obtained by using the STR2760 simulator and the comparison with preliminary analysis of the GPS data from SAC-A telemetry are summarized. This paper describes pre-flight tests and simulations used to support a unique spaceborne GPS experiment. The GPS experiment mission objectives and the test program are described, as well as the GPS test facility configuration needed to verify experiment feasibility. Some operational and critical issues inherent in GPS receiver pre-flight tests and simulations using this GPS simulator, and test methodology are described. Simulation and flight data are presented. A complete program of pre-flight testing of spaceborne GPS receivers using a GPS constellation simulator is detailed.

Kizhner, Semion↗
NASA NTRS2005

Public Outreach and Archiving of Data from the High Resolution Stereo Camera Onboard Mars Express: 2004 The First Year

During the first year of operation, corresponding to the calendar year 2004, the HRSC imaging experiment onboard ESA's Mars Express mission recorded 23 Gigabyte of 8-bit compressed raw data. After processing, the amount of data increased to more than 344 Gigabyte of decompressed and radiometrically calibrated scientifically useable image products. Every six months these HRSC Level 2 data are fed into ESA's Planetary Science Archive (PSA) that sends all data also to the Planetary Data System (PDS) to ensure easy availability to the interested user. On their respective web portals, the European Space Agency published in cooperation with the Principal Investigator-Group at Freie Universitat Berlin and the German Space Agency (DLR) almost 40 sets of high-level image scenes and movies for PR needs that have been electronically visited many hundred thousand times.

Koehler, U.↗
NASA NTRS1976

AAFE RADSCAT data reduction programs user's guide

Theory, design and operation of the computer programs which automate the reduction of joint radiometer and scatterometer observations are presented. The programs reduce scatterometer measurements to the normalized scattering coefficient; whereas the radiometer measurements are converted into antenna temperatures. The programs are both investigator and user oriented. Supplementary parameters are provided to aid in the interpretation of the observations. A hierarchy of diagnostics is available to evaluate the operation of the instrument, the conduct of the experiments and the quality of the records. General descriptions of the programs and their data products are also presented. This document therefore serves as a user's guide to the programs and is therefore intended to serve both the experimenter and the program operator.

Claassen, J. P.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Data catalog of satellite experiments

This catalog is divided into three sections: data description contains descriptions of data available at or through NSSDC as well as descriptions of the experiments and spacecraft from which the data originated; and supporting data contains brief descriptions of space environment models and programs distributed by NSSDC. Section 3 is a series of indexes that contain: (1) a listing of all spacecraft, experiment, and data descriptions presented in Section 1 plus tables indicating the period for which each spacecraft was operational; (2) an index of all spacecraft described here, identified by common names and alternate names; (3) a listing of the original experiment institutions for all experiments described; (4) a listing of the investigators associated with the experiments and their current affiliations; and (5) an index of all experiments sorted by phenomenon measured.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1990

Conceptual design of the subscale orbital fluid transfer experiment (SOFTE)

The Subscale Orbital Fluid Transfer Experiment is a planned space experiment with the objective of obtaining video and numerical data on fluid dynamics and thermal physics pertinent to on-orbit liquid acquisition and tank filling operations, particularly with cryogens. These data have significant application to space-based transportation systems, Space Station Freedom, and space defense systems. This paper presents the rationale for the experiment and a description of its design. The experiment will mount in two Get Away Special canisters that are connected to each other by an electrical umbilical. It involves transferring Freon 113 between two transparent plexiglass tanks. Axial and tangential no-vent fills will be done over a range of flow rates. The apparatus includes a screened-channel liquid acquisition device with plexiglass channels for examining vapor breakthrough and channel refill processes. Video cameras will monitor the transfer operations.

Jones, O. S.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Telescience operations with the solar array module plasma interaction experiment

The Solar Array Module Plasma Interactions Experiment (SAMPIE) is a flight experiment that flew on the Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-62) in March 1994, as part of the OAST-2 mission. The overall objective of SAMPIE was to determine the adverse environmental interactions within the space plasma of low earth orbit (LEO) on modern solar cells and space power system materials which are artificially biased to high positive and negative direct current (DC) voltages. The two environmental interactions of interest included high voltage arcing from the samples to the space plasma and parasitic current losses. High voltage arcing can cause physical damage to power system materials and shorten expected hardware life. parasitic current losses can reduce power system efficiency because electric currents generated in a power system drain into the surrounding plasma via parasitic resistance. The flight electronics included two programmable high voltage DC power supplies to bias the experiment samples, instruments to measure the surrounding plasma environment in the STS cargo bay, and the on-board data acquisition system (DAS). The DAS provided in-flight experiment control, data storage, and communications through the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) Hitchhiker flight avionics to the GSFC Payload Operations Control Center (POCC). The DAS and the SAMPIE POCC computer systems were designed for telescience operations; this paper will focus on the experiences of the SAMPIE team regarding telescience development and operations from the GSFC POCC during STS-62. The SAMPIE conceptual development, hardware design, and system verification testing were accomplished at the NASA Lewis Research Center (LeRC). SAMPIE was developed under the In-Space Technology Experiment Program (IN-STEP), which sponsors NASA, industry, and university flight experiments designed to enable and enhance space flight technology. The IN-STEP Program is sponsored by the Office of Space Access and Technology (OSAT).

Wald, Lawrence W.↗
NASA NTRS1984

Documentation for the machine-readable version of the Revised S210 Catalog of Far-Ultraviolet Objects (Page, Carruthers and Heckathorn 1982)

A detailed description of the machine-readable revised catalog as it is currently being distributed from the Astronomical Data Center is given. This catalog of star images was compiled from imagery obtained by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Far-Ultraviolet Camera/Spectrograph (Experiments S201) operated from 21 to 23 April 1972 on the lunar surface during the Apollo 16 mission. The documentation includes a detailed data format description, a table of indigenous characteristics of the magnetic tape file, and a sample listing of data records exactly as they are presented in the machine-readable version.

Warren, W. H., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Software for Managing Parametric Studies

The Information Power Grid Virtual Laboratory (ILab) is a Practical Extraction and Reporting Language (PERL) graphical-user-interface computer program that generates shell scripts to facilitate parametric studies performed on the Grid. (The Grid denotes a worldwide network of supercomputers used for scientific and engineering computations involving data sets too large to fit on desktop computers.) Heretofore, parametric studies on the Grid have been impeded by the need to create control language scripts and edit input data files painstaking tasks that are necessary for managing multiple jobs on multiple computers. ILab reflects an object-oriented approach to automation of these tasks: All data and operations are organized into packages in order to accelerate development and debugging. A container or document object in ILab, called an experiment, contains all the information (data and file paths) necessary to define a complex series of repeated, sequenced, and/or branching processes. For convenience and to enable reuse, this object is serialized to and from disk storage. At run time, the current ILab experiment is used to generate required input files and shell scripts, create directories, copy data files, and then both initiate and monitor the execution of all computational processes.

Yarrow, Maurice↗
NASA NTRS2017

Saffire: A Novel Approach to Study of Spacecraft Fire Safety Using Un-Manned Spacecraft

The Saffire Experiment represents the first test of spacecraft fires at a scale relevant to real spacecraft. Although large-scale fire tests on Earth are conducted for every type of habitable structure (buildings, planes, trains, automobiles, ships and mines) they had never been attempted in a space experiment for obvious reasons of practicality and safety. This is despite the fact that fire is a catastrophic hazard for spaceflight where the crew has very limited or no escape options. The spread and growth of a fire, combined with its interactions with the vehicle cannot be expected to scale linearly from small-scale test data, and so there is a substantial gap in our ability to predict the behavior of spacecraft fire and also its impact on the spacecraft habitability and operability. The experiments were performed aboard the Cygnus vehicle, a large unmanned resupply spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS). The experiment was installed in the Cygnus vehicle, and remained dormant during docked operations. Once the vehicle was reloaded with ISS trash, it unberthed and moved to a separate orbit. The Saffire experiment was initiated by ground command and downlinked the data before the vehicle re-entered into the earth's atmosphere. The downloaded test data show resolved the question of whether flame growth will achieve a steady size and demonstrated that the size of the enclosure surrounding the sample has more impact on the flame spread than anticipated.

microgravity↗
NASA NTRS1993

LDEF archival system plan

The Long Duration Exposure Facility (LDEF) has provided the first significant opportunity to extensively study the space environment and its effects upon spacecraft systems and materials. The long-term value of the data obtained from LDEF, which is applicable to a wide range of areas including space environment definition, space environmental effects, and spacecraft design, will depend upon the system developed to archive and retrieve the data. Therefore, in addition to the large effort undertaken to analyze LDEF data, a substantial effort is also necessary in order to retain and disseminate LDEF resources for future research and design. W. J. Schafer Associates, Inc., has a task subcontract to develop the LDEF archival system. The LDEF resources include data, hardware, photographic records, and publications which cover the 20-year history of LDEF from concept design through data analysis. Chronologically, prelaunch resources include documentation of facility and experiment development, testing integration, and operation. Post-retrieval resources are the observations, testing, analysis, and publications since the January 1990 retrieval of LDEF. A third set of resources is the experiment and facility hardware and specimens, including more than 10,000 test specimens flown on LDEF and subsequently divided and distributed among investigators at numerous laboratories. Many valuable science and technology investigations were undertaken with LDEF experiments and hardware, and many more investigations are being identified in areas not yet explored. LDEF data applications encompass primarily low-Earth orbit spacecraft and structures. The nearly six-year space exposure of LDEF has provided data to evaluate materials, systems, and living specimens exposed to radiation, meteoroids, debris, and other constituents of the low-Earth environment. Structural, mechanical, electrical, optical, and thermal systems were studied, and materials with applications in all aspects of space systems were exposed to the space environment. The objectives of the LDEF archival system are to maintain the existing LDEF hardware, data, analysis, publications, and photographs as a long term resource, and to provide a quick and simple mechanism by which LDEF resources can be identified, located, and applied.

Wilson, Brenda K.↗
NASA NTRS2006

Antarctic Iceberg Tracking Based on Time Series of Aqua AMSRE Microwave Brightness Temperature Measurements

Observations of icebergs are identified as one of the requirements for the GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems) in the area of reducing loss of life and property from natural and human-induced disasters. However, iceberg observations are not included among targets in the GEOSS 10-Year Implementation Plan, and thus there is an unfulfilled need for iceberg detection and tracking in the near future. Large Antarctic icebergs have been tracked by the National Ice Center and by the academic community using a variety of satellite sensors including both passive and active microwave imagers, such as SSM/I (Special Sensor Microwave/Imager) deployed on the DMSP (Defense Meteorological Satellite Program) spacecraft. Improvements provided in recent years by NASA and non-NASA satellite radars, scatterometers, and radiometers resulted in an increased number of observed icebergs and even prompted a question: Is The Number of Antarctic Icebergs Really Increasing? [D.G. Long, J. Ballantyne, and C. Bertoia, Eos, Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 83 (42): 469 & 474, 15 October 2002]. AMSR-E (Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for the Earth Observing System) represents an improvement over SSM/I, its predecessor. AMSR-E has more measurement channels and higher spatial resolution than SSM/I. For example, the instantaneous field of view of the AMSR-E s 89-GHz channels is 6 km by 4 km versus 16 km by 14 km for SSM/I s comparable 85-GHz channels. AMSR-E, deployed on the Aqua satellite, scans across a 1450-km swath and provides brightness temperature measurements with nearglobal coverage every one or two days. In polar regions, overlapping swaths generate coverage up to multiple times per day and allow for creation of image time series with high temporal resolution. Despite these advantages, only incidental usage of AMSR-E data for iceberg tracking has been reported so far, none in an operational environment. Therefore, an experiment was undertaken in the RPC (Rapid Prototyping Capability) of NASA s (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Applied Science Program to demonstrate that passive microwave brightness temperature measurements acquired by AMSR-E can be effectively used to track iceberg movement around Antarctica. The RPC s robust computation environment enabled processing of terabytes of data products available from the NASA Distributed Active Archive Center at the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Iceberg tracking based on the AMSR-E Level 2A data product was compared with records from the National Ice Center for currently existing icebergs. Some icebergs as small as roughly 10 km in size were easily observed, but tracking of many others, even larger ones, was obscured by presence of sea ice surrounding the icebergs. The best results, such as for the large iceberg A22A, were achieved when an iceberg was in open ocean.

Blonski, Slawomir↗