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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 397 records · Page 22
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1990

MIT-NASA/KSC space life science experiments - A telescience testbed

Experiments performed at MIT to better define Space Station information system telescience requirements for effective remote coaching of astronauts by principal investigators (PI) on the ground are described. The experiments were conducted via satellite video, data, and voice links to surrogate crewmembers working in a laboratory at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Teams of two PIs and two crewmembers performed two different space life sciences experiments. During 19 three-hour interactive sessions, a variety of test conditions were explored. Since bit rate limits are necessarily imposed on Space Station video experiments surveillance video was varied down to 50 Kb/s and the effectiveness of PI controlled frame rate, resolution, grey scale, and color decimation was investigated. It is concluded that remote coaching by voice works and that dedicated crew-PI voice loops would be of great value on the Space Station.

Oman, Charles M.↗
NASA NTRS2005

Performance Assessment of Refractory Concrete Used on the Space Shuttle's Launch Pad

The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) maintains several facilities for launching space vehicles. During recent launches it has been observed that the refractory concrete materials that protect the steel-framed flame duct are breaking away from this base structure and are being projected at high velocities. There is significant concern that these projected pieces can strike the launch complex or space vehicle during the launch, jeopardizing the safety of the mission. A qualification program is in place to evaluate the performance of different refractory concretes and data from these tests have been used to assess the performance of the refractory concretes. However, there is significant variation in the test results, possibly making the existing qualification test program unreliable. This paper will evaluate data from past qualification tests, identify potential key performance indicators for the launch complex, and will recommend a new qualification test program that can be used to better qualify refractory concrete.

Trejo, David↗
NASA NTRS1979

Lunar laser ranging data deposited in the National Space Science Data Center normal points, filtered observations, and unfiltered photon detections

The lunar laser ranging project at McDonald Observatory provides the unique opportunity to acquire successfully precise range data for the earth-moon system. From the experiment's inception, the obligation was recognized to make these data available to the general scientific community in a reasonably useable form and in a realistic time frame. The documentation to be used in conjunction with the 1979 April deposit into the National Space Science Data Center which contains normal points, filtered observations and unfiltered photon stops for the months July through December, 1978 are reported.

Shelus, P. J.↗
NASA NTRS1982

PPM demodulation for Reed-Solomon decoding for the optical space channel

The use of Reed-Solomon (RS) block codes over the pulse position modulated (PPM) frames to obtain the largest degree of error correction is considered. Since RS codes can correct both symbol errors and symbol erasures, a question arises as to the best way to demodulate the PPM laser fields in order to generate the input symbols for the RS decoder. The method selected for demodulating (converting the received laser field to digital symbols) defines the erasure and transmitted symbols of the laser link, and therefore determines the work error probabilities of the system. Several demodulating schemes are considered, and the effect of each on RS decoding performance computed. This computation was carried out for various optical receiver models. It is shown that simple threshold decisioning of pulse slots produces performance that degrades as the background noise increases. This is caused by the generation of too many erasures for the RS decoder to handle. A decision scheme, delta-max demodulation which offers improvement over threshold decisioning by redefining the generation of an erasure is proposed.

Divsalar, D.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Space environment robot vision system

A prototype twin-camera stereo vision system for autonomous robots has been developed at Goddard Space Flight Center. Standard charge coupled device (CCD) imagers are interfaced with commercial frame buffers and direct memory access to a computer. The overlapping portions of the images are analyzed using photogrammetric techniques to obtain information about the position and orientation of objects in the scene. The camera head consists of two 510 x 492 x 8-bit CCD cameras mounted on individually adjustable mounts. The 16 mm efl lenses are designed for minimum geometric distortion. The cameras can be rotated in the pitch, roll, and yaw (pan angle) directions with respect to their optical axes. Calibration routines have been developed which automatically determine the lens focal lengths and pan angle between the two cameras. The calibration utilizes observations of a calibration structure with known geometry. Test results show the precision attainable is plus or minus 0.8 mm in range at 2 m distance using a camera separation of 171 mm. To demonstrate a task needed on Space Station Freedom, a target structure with a movable I beam was built. The camera head can autonomously direct actuators to dock the I-beam to another one so that they could be bolted together.

Wood, H. John↗
NASA NTRS1986

The Venus Balloon Project telemetry processing

The peculiarities of the Venus Balloon telemetry system required the development of a new methodology for the telemetry processing, since the capabilities of the Deep Space Network (DSN) telemetry system do not include burst processing of short frames with two different bit rates and first bit acquisition. A software package was produced for the non-real time detection, demodulation, and decoding of the telemetry streams obtained from an open loop recording utilizing the DSN spectrum processing subsystem-radio science (DSP-RS). A general description of the resulting software package (DMO-5539-SP) and its adaptability to the real mission's variations is contained.

Urech, J. M.↗
NASA NTRS2004

Fuselage Structure Response to Boundary Layer, Tonal Sound, and Jet Noise

Experiments have been conducted to study the response of curved aluminum and graphite-epoxy fuselage structures to flow and sound loads from turbulent boundary layer, tonal sound, and jet noise. Both structures were the same size. The aluminum structure was reinforced with tear stoppers, while the graphite-epoxy structure was not. The graphite-epoxy structure weighed half as much as the aluminum structure. Spatiotemporal intermittence and chaotic behavior of the structural response was observed, as jet noise and tonal sound interacted with the turbulent boundary layer. The fundamental tone distributed energy to other components via wave interaction with the turbulent boundary layer. The added broadband sound from the jet, with or without a shock, influenced the responses over a wider range of frequencies. Instantaneous spatial correlation indicates small localized spatiotemporal regions of convected waves, while uncorrelated patterns dominate the larger portion of the space. By modifying the geometry of the tear stoppers between panels and frame, the transmitted and reflected waves of the aluminum panels were significantly reduced. The response level of the graphite-epoxy structure was higher, but the noise transmitted was nearly equal to that of the aluminum structure. The fundamental shock mode is between 80 deg and 150 deg and the first harmonic is between 20 deg and 80 deg for the underexpanded supersonic jet impinging on the turbulent boundary layer influencing the structural response. The response of the graphite-epoxy structure due to the fundamental mode of the shock impingement was stabilized by an externally fixed oscillator.

Maestrello, L.↗
NASA NTRS2010

Theory and Realization of Global Terrestrial Reference Systems

Comparison of realizations of the terrestrial reference frame. IGN and DGFI both generated realizations of the terrestrial reference frame under the auspices of the IERS from combination of the same space geodetic data. We examined both results for VLBI sites using the full geodetic VLBI data set with respect to site positions and velocities and time series of station positions, baselines and Earth orientation parameters. One of the difficulties encountered was matching episodic breaks and periods of non-linear motion of the two realizations with the VLBI models. Our analysis and conclusions will be discussed.

Ma, C.↗
NASA NTRS2014

Smooth Pursuit of Flicker-Defined Motion

We examined the pursuit response to stimuli defined by space-variant flicker of a dense random dot carrier pattern. On each frame, every element of the pattern could change polarity, with a probability given by a two-dimensional Gaussian distribution. A normal distribution produces a circular region of twinkle, while inverting the distribution results in a spot of static texture in a twinkling surround. In this latter case, the carrier texture could be stationary, or could move with the twinkle modulator, thereby producing first-order motion in the region of the spot. While the twinkle-defined spot produces a strong sensation of motion, the complementary stimulus defined by the absence of twinkle does not, when viewed peripherally, it appears to move in steps even when the generating distribution moves smoothly. We examined pursuit responses to these stimuli using two techniques: 1) the eye movement correlogram, obtained by cross-correlating eye velocity with the velocity of a randomly-moving stimulus; and 2) delayed visual feedback, where transient stabilization of a target can produce spontaneous oscillations of the eye, with a period empirically observed to vary linearly with the applied delay. Both techniques provide an estimate of the internal processing time, which can be as short as 100 milliseconds for a first-order target. Assessed by the correlogram method, the response to flicker-defined motion is delayed by more than 100 milliseconds, and significantly weaker (especially in the vertical dimension). When initially presented in the delayed feedback condition, purely saccadic oscillation is observed. One subject eventually developed smooth oscillations (albeit with significant saccadic intrusions), showing a period-versus-delay slope similar to that observed for first-order targets. This result is somewhat surprising, given that we interpret the slope of the period-versus-delay-function as reflecting the balance between position- and velocity-sensitive inputs to pursuit.

eye movements↗
NASA NTRS2014

Smooth Pursuit of Flicker-Defined Motion

We examined the pursuit response to stimuli defined by space-variant flicker of a dense random dot carrier pattern. On each frame, every element of the pattern could change polarity, with a probability given by a two-dimensional Gaussian distribution. A normal distribution produces a circular region of twinkle, while inverting the distribution results in a spot of static texture in a twinkling surround. In this latter case, the carrier texture could be stationary, or could move with the twinkle modulator,thereby producing first-order motion in the region of the spot. While the twinkle-defined spot produces a strong sensation of motion, the complementary stimulus defined by the absence of twinkle does not;when viewed peripherally, it appears to move in steps even when the generating distribution moves smoothly. We examined pursuit responses to these stimuli using two techniques: 1) the eye movement correlogram, obtained by cross-correlating eye velocity with the velocity of a randomly-moving stimulus; and 2) delayed visual feedback, where transient stabilization of a target can produce spontaneous oscillations of the eye, with a period empirically observed to vary linearly with the applied delay. Both techniques provide an estimate of the internal processing time, which can be as short as100 milliseconds for a first-order target. Assessed by the correlogram method, the response to flicker defined motion is delayed by more than 100 milliseconds, and significantly weaker (especially in the vertical dimension). When initially presented in the delayed feedback condition, purely saccadic oscillation is observed. One subject eventually developed smooth oscillations (albeit with significant saccadic intrusions), showing a period-versus-delay slope similar to that observed for first-order targets. This result is somewhat surprising, given that we interpret the slope of the period-versus-delayfunction as reflecting the balance between position- and velocity-sensitive inputs to pursuit.

smooth pursuit↗
NASA NTRS2021

Novel Ways to use the International Spacer Station as an Exploration Analog: International Progress in Planning "ISS4Mars"

In October 2020, International Space Station (ISS) Partner Agencies held a set of international workshops to solicit and develop creative and forward-looking ideas for using the ISS as an analog for preparation for Mars missions during its 3rd decade of operations. The workshops brought together participants from nine international space agencies or organizations, with stakeholders consisting of research managers, discipline experts, technology developers, flight physicians, flight operators, and astronauts. Breakout meetings and brainstorming sessions were conducted focusing on the following topics: Critical hazards and countermeasures for the transit to Mars; gravity transitions and early surface operations; environmental control and life support systems; food systems; human microbiome, microbial monitoring, and planetary protection; medical operations for Mars missions; isolation and confinement; autonomous systems and crew-centered autonomy; and communications delay effects on operations. In many cases the scenarios and approaches identified were compelling but challenging to implement under the current utilization structure used to manage the ISS for experiments. Following the series of workshops, a team of utilization leaders across the ISS partnership worked to compile the workshop recommendations and extract a set of use-cases with their prerequisites and constraints. The work considered the following aspects: what can be effectively done on ISS; which new technologies, approaches and scenarios are feasible; what alternatives could be considered; and what steps should be taken to enable integrated testing and future use of ISS as an analog for Mars missions. The final report will be published so that the use cases can be considered in each agency’s strategic planning processes. This paper will cover the process of international assessment in detail and how this process has influenced and broadened the vision of ISS utilization beyond single experiments to integrated studies and testing for future Mars missions. This approach to international collaboration informs both the next decade of international exploration research on the ISS and advancement of its utilization as an analog for deep space missions. For many of the participating partners, it also helps to frame the strategy for human research in Artemis as we begin planning for human missions to the moon. We conclude with a summary of the progress on the actions in the report and the additional implementation discussions that have occurred across the partnership.

Julie A Robinson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Spectral Proper Orthogonal Decomposition of uPSP Measurements in Recent NASA Ames Wind Tunnel Test

This paper discusses Spectral Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (SPOD) of the Unsteady Pressure-Sensitive Paint (uPSP) measurements in recent NASA Ames wind tunnel test. The uPSP measurements were collected using Innovative Scientific Solutions, Inc. (ISSI) Porous, Fast-Response Pressure-Sensitive Paint (FP-XXX), 40 ISSI four-inch air-cooled Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs), and 8 Phantom v2512 high-speed cameras at 10,000 frames per second in the Launch Vehicle Demo Test (LVDT) of the Space Launch System (SLS) Block 1B crew vehicle in the 11-by 11-foot transonic test section of the Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT) at NASA Ames Research Center in April 2024. Fig. 1 shows the scale model of the SLS launch vehicle installed in the wind tunnel during the test.

Aeroacoustics↗
NASA NTRS1985

Catalog of Space Shuttle Earth Observations Hand-Held Photography: Space Transportation System (STS) 41-6 Mission

This document catalogs Space Shuttle hand-held Earth observations photography which was collected on the Space Transportation System (STS) 41-G mission of October 1984. The catalog includes the following data for each of 2480 frames: geographical name, feature description, latitude and longitude, percentage of cloud cover, look direction and tilt, lens focal length, exposure evaluation, stereopairs, and orbit number. The catalog is a product of the Space Shuttle Earth Observations Project, Solar System Exploration Division, Space and Life Sciences Directorate, of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

Nowakowski, Barbara S.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Error control techniques for satellite and space communications

The performance anlaysis of NASA's telecommand systems was summarized. It is assumed that the decoded frames are scrambled prior to decoding by the outer code. The average decoded bit error rate are examined which allows the possibility of evaluating many different frame coding options. The capacity and cutoff rate of the outer channel formed by the combination of the actual physical channel and the inner encoder and decoder in a concatenated coding system were analyzed. The best combination of inner and outer codes to use in a concatenated coding system were determined. It was established that in general: (1) it is better not to interleave between the inner and outer codes; and (2) for a fixed overall code rate, it is better to use higher rate inner codes and lower rate outer codes. Inner convolutional codes are considered. The analysis is more difficult in this case because the inner decoder error events do not appear in blocks of fixed length but can be of many different lengths.

Costello, D. J., Jr.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Using CFD as Rocket Injector Design Tool: Recent Progress at Marshall Space Flight Center

The choice of tools used for injector design is in a transitional phase between exclusive reliance on the empirically based correlations and extensive use of computational fluid dynamics (CFD). The Next Generation Launch Technology (NGLT) Program goals emphasizing lower costs and increased reliability have produced a need to enable CFD as an injector design tool in a shorter time frame. This is the primary objective of the Staged Combustor Injector Technology Task currently under way at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The documentation of this effort begins with a very brief status of current injector design tools. MSFC's vision for use of CFD as a tool for combustion devices design is stated and discussed with emphasis on the injector. The concept of the Simulation Readiness Level (SRL), comprised of solution fidelity, robustness and accuracy, is introduced and discussed. This quantitative measurement is used to establish the gap between the current state of demonstrated capability and that necessary for regular use in the design process. MSFC's view of the validation process is presented and issues associated with obtaining the necessary data are noted and discussed. Three current experimental efforts aimed at generating validation data are presented. The importance of uncertainty analysis to understand the data quality is also demonstrated. First, a brief status of current injector design tools is provided as context for the current effort. Next, the MSFC vision for using CFD as an injector design tool is stated. A generic CFD-based injector design methodology is also outlined and briefly discussed. Three areas where MSFC is using injector CFD analyses for program support will be discussed. These include the Integrated Powerhead Development (IPD) engine which uses hydrogen and oxygen propellants in a full flow staged combustion (FFSC) cycle and the TR-107 and the RS84 engine both of which use RP-1 and oxygen in an ORSC cycle. Finally, an attempt is made to objectively summarize what progress has been made at MSFC in enabling CFD as an injector design tool.

Tucker, Kevin↗
NASA NTRS1989

Modeling and sensory feedback control for space manipulators

The positioning control problem of the endtip of space manipulators whose base are uncontrolled is examined. In such a case, the conventional control method for industrial robots based on a local feedback at each joint is not applicable, because a solution of the joint displacements that satisfies a given position and orientation of the endtip is not decided uniquely. A sensory feedback control scheme for space manipulators based on an artificial potential defined in a task-oriented coordinates is proposed. Using this scheme, the controller can easily determine the input torque of each joint from the data of an external sensor such as a visual device. Since the external sensor is mounted on the unfixed base, the manipulator must track the moving image of the target in sensor coordinates. Moreover the dynamics of the base and the manipulator are interactive. However, the endtip is proven to asymptotically approach the stationary target in an inertial coordinate frame by the Liapunov's method. Finally results of computer simulation for a 6-link space manipulator model show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

Masutani, Yasuhiro↗