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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Lunar Search & Rescue Applications of Lunar GNSS

Accurate lunar navigation and timing knowledge provides for the development of safety-critical services in the cislunar and lunar surface domain. Currently under development, the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Search and Rescue Mission Office is investigating and integrating search and rescue (SAR) capability into planned and future lunar communication and navigation interfaces. Lunar Search and Rescue (LunaSAR) development has a stated end-goal for assured, reliable, and timely indication of distress events for a wide variety of lunar surface users, including government-sponsored, commercial, and international users. LunaSAR performance requirements are modelled after the current terrestrial Cospas-Sarsat distress notification system, leveraging an internationally robust global navigation satellite system (GNSS) ecosystem as a core element of survivor locating capability. This presentation will discuss NASA’s work to develop user-focused distress messaging capabilities including infusion of example sensor data for triggering of automated distress alerts coupled with location-tagging. Additionally, the presentation will examine overall message structures, rotating fields for use in bi-directional distress messaging, and specific use cases based on NASA’s lunar exploration and lunar communication relay architectures. Modelling and simulation of LunaSAR use by individual lunar explorers will be discussed, based on notional industry and government design reference missions and mission considerations. Results from GSFC-funded Internal Research and Development (IRAD) efforts will be detailed, including successful distress message formulation simulating the ingestion of example legacy space suit telemetry fields. Hardware-in-the-loop testing using high-reliability software defined radio (SDR) modules serve as an example of IRAD successes and the framework for technical requirements. Architectural development and technical evolution from 2020 to 2021 included alignment of LunaSAR distress waveforms with ongoing NASA LunaNet interoperability development, as well as engagement with NASA Lunar Spectrum authorities for allocation of UHF-band distress frequencies on the lunar surface. S-Band and UHF-band transmission characteristics will be detailed, along with band-specific applications of each emission type. Additionally, examples of ingestion and formatting of GNSS signals (using historical terrestrial National Marine Electronics Association-formatted GNSS data) will be detailed, underscoring lunar user needs for a common lunar GNSS receiver output message framework. Maturity and ability to support evolving lunar exploration goals has been demonstrated and will be detailed, with maturity gaps such as position, navigation, and timing (PNT) and lunar reference frames identified within the context of distress message generation. Provision of LunaSAR services for lunar surface users represents a new era of ensured safety for lunar explorers and builds off of forty years of the Cospas-Sarsat program, underscoring the importance of lunar GNSS for safety-critical applications and growing interest in safe, reliable lunar surface operations. Enabled by new GNSS systems being developed by government and industry partners, NASA will continue to evolve and integrate lunar GNSS types into distress message generation, with a focus on compact and efficient message transmission over various lunar communication links. When fielded, LunaSAR will be the first dedicated search and rescue notification system employed on another celestial body. Robust lunar navigation and timing services form the core of LunaSAR capabilities, allowing for system syncing with time-dominant sensors, and high-accuracy location of those in distress while engaged in lunar surface activities.

Search and Rescue↗
NASA NTRS1978

Design approaches to more energy efficient engines

In 1976 NASA initiated the Aircraft Energy Efficiency (ACEE) Program to assist in the development of technology for more fuel-efficient aircraft for commercial airline use. The Energy Efficient Engine (EEE) Project of the ACEE program is intended to lay the advanced-technology foundation for a new generation of turbofan engines. This project, planned as a seven-year cooperative government-industry effort, is aimed at developing and demonstrating advanced component and systems technologies for engines that could be introduced into airline service by the late 1980s or early 1990s. In addition to fuel savings, new engines must offer potential for being economically attractive to the airline users and environmentally acceptable. A description is presented of conceptual energy-efficient engine designs which offer potential for achieving all of the goals established for the EEE Project.

Saunders, N. T.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Operationally Efficient Propulsion System Study (OEPPS)

A description is presented, through view graphs, of the problems encountered in today's launch vehicles and how these problems have adversely affected the ability to achieve serviceability, reliability, and operability. The need is emphasized to recognize and understand the operations problems and the effort that must be made to avoid them in future designs. Technology areas that will enhance operations requirements are also presented.

Wong, G. S.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Near-term Persistent Platform Orbital Testbed: Three Candidate Architecture Options

On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) will revolutionize the space industry by transforming the concept of operations of space systems and enabling new, radically different system implementations. These new implementations will benefit from a novel persistent asset design paradigm which focuses on evolvable designs that are tailored to the operational environment, not the launch environment. In addition, the ability to launch sub-systems independently enable future persistent assets to economically expand in capability and size, achieving cost effective and productive operations lasting for decades like terrestrial observatories. With few exceptions (International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Extension Vehicle customers), current space systems are not visited once they are operational. Leveraging emerging low cost commercial launch provides the ability to repeatedly and routinely revisit space systems. Thus, revolutionary new approaches for space system design are possible, creating completely new opportunities for small businesses and accelerating the growth of already established space industries. To usher in the revolutionary new operational paradigm, two things are needed. First, to build confidence in the technology and new paradigm, there must be a leading example, a bellwether persistent asset, that demonstrates the reliability and maturity of the new persistent asset paradigm (where repeated visits are common). Second, in order to rapidly advance and validate OSAM capabilities, an efficient means is required to conduct tests in the space environment. A persistent platform testbed satisfies both these needs. The space environment exhibits a plethora of characteristics that are difficult and costly to accurately simulate for a full system in a terrestrial laboratory, such as near zero gravity, a wide range of ionizing radiation types, atomic oxygen, and micro-meteoroids and space debris traveling at high velocity. In addition, since persistent assets range in mass from a few grams to several metric tons, it is difficult to accurately simulate interactions between these systems and visiting vehicles (that also exhibit a wide range of varying masses and capabilities). These interactions include the transmission of forces and/or exchanging mass (in the form of instruments, fuel, robotic assets, etc.). Thus, a rapid, versatile and cost efficient in-space testing capability that includes a persistent test platform and a surrounding in-space test zone is needed to mature technologies through experimentation. The testbed can provide common services, such as: power, thermal control, vibration isolation, data transmission between experiments and terrestrial experimenters, station-keeping, pointing, and robotic agents that can be leveraged by customer experiments. The onboard robotic agents can be used to provide payload handling services, such as: assembly, change out or upgrade, relocation, connecting/disconnecting utilities, inspection, repair or servicing, etc. Since the persistent platform cost will be amortized over many hosted payloads, its services can eventually be offered at a price much lower than if one were to design a unique and dedicated spacecraft and mission for those few experiments. The key to achieving an effective testbed is providing efficient cost effective access and infrastructure to a variety of commercial, academic and government customers coupled with extensibility, in the capability of an individual persistent platform test bed or replication of the test bed in a different operational regime. Three potential options for implementing a test bed were developed and evaluated in this study.

Persistent Platform↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Near-term Persistent Platform Orbital Testbed: Three Candidate Architecture Options

On-orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) will revolutionize the space industry by transforming the concept of operations of space systems and enabling new, radically different system implementations. These new implementations will benefit from a novel persistent asset design paradigm which focuses on evolvable designs that are tailored to the operational environment, not the launch environment. In addition, the ability to launch sub-systems independently enable future persistent assets to economically expand in capability and size, achieving cost effective and productive operations lasting for decades like terrestrial observatories. With few exceptions (International Space Station, Hubble Space Telescope, Mission Extension Vehicle customers), current space systems are not visited once they are operational. Leveraging emerging low cost commercial launch provides the ability to repeatedly and routinely revisit space systems. Thus, revolutionary new approaches for space system design are possible, creating completely new opportunities for small businesses and accelerating the growth of already established space industries. To usher in the revolutionary new operational paradigm, two things are needed. First, to build confidence in the technology and new paradigm, there must be a leading example, a bellwether persistent asset, that demonstrates the reliability and maturity of the new persistent asset paradigm (where repeated visits are common). Second, in order to rapidly advance and validate OSAM capabilities, an efficient means is required to conduct tests in the space environment. A persistent platform testbed satisfies both these needs. The space environment exhibits a plethora of characteristics that are difficult and costly to accurately simulate for a full system in a terrestrial laboratory, such as near zero gravity, a wide range of ionizing radiation types, atomic oxygen, and micro-meteoroids and space debris traveling at high velocity. In addition, since persistent assets range in mass from a few grams to several metric tons, it is difficult to accurately simulate interactions between these systems and visiting vehicles (that also exhibit a wide range of varying masses and capabilities). These interactions include the transmission of forces and/or exchanging mass (in the form of instruments, fuel, robotic assets, etc.). Thus, a rapid, versatile and cost efficient in-space testing capability that includes a persistent test platform and a surrounding in-space test zone is needed to mature technologies through experimentation. The testbed can provide common services, such as: power, thermal control, vibration isolation, data transmission between experiments and terrestrial experimenters, station-keeping, pointing, and robotic agents that can be leveraged by customer experiments. The onboard robotic agents can be used to provide payload handling services, such as: assembly, change out or upgrade, relocation, connecting/disconnecting utilities, inspection, repair or servicing, etc. Since the persistent platform cost will be amortized over many hosted payloads, its services can eventually be offered at a price much lower than if one were to design a unique and dedicated spacecraft and mission for those few experiments. The key to achieving an effective testbed is providing efficient cost effective access and infrastructure to a variety of commercial, academic and government customers coupled with extensibility, in the capability of an individual persistent platform test bed or replication of the test bed in a different operational regime. Three potential options for implementing a test bed were developed and evaluated in this study.

Persistent Platform↗
NASA NTRS1995

Straw man trade between multi-junction, gallium arsenide, and silicon solar cells

Multi-junction (MJ), gallium arsenide (GaAs), and silicon (Si) solar cells have respective test efficiencies of approximately 24%, 18.5% and 14.8%. Multi-junction and gallium arsenide solar cells weigh more than silicon solar cells and cost approximately five times as much per unit power at the cell level. A straw man trade is performed for the TRMM spacecraft to determine which of these cell types would have offered an overall performance and price advantage to the spacecraft. A straw man trade is also performed for the multi-junction cells under the assumption that they will cost over ten times that of silicon cells at the cell level. The trade shows that the TRMM project, less the cost of the instrument, ground systems and mission operations, would spend approximately $552 thousand dollars per kilogram to launch and service science in the case of the spacecraft equipped with silicon solar cells. If these cells are changed out for gallium arsenide solar cells, an additional 31 kilograms of science can be launched and serviced at a price of approximately $90 thousand per kilogram. The weight reduction is shown to derive from the smaller area of the array and hence reductions in the weight of the array substrate and supporting structure. If the silicon solar cells are changed out for multi-junction solar cells, an additional 45 kilograms of science above the silicon base line can be launched and serviced at a price of approximately $58 thousand per kilogram. The trade shows that even if the multi-junction arrays are priced over ten times that of silicon cells, a price that is much higher than projected, that the additional 45 kilograms of science are launched and serviced at $182 thousand per kilogram. This is still much less than original $552 thousand per kilogram to launch and service the science. Data and qualitative factors are presented to show that these figures are subject to a great deal of uncertainty. Nonetheless, the benefit of the higher efficiency solar cells for TRMM is far greater than the uncertainties in the analysis.

Gaddy, Edward M.↗
NASA NTRS1992

Destination directed packet switch architecture for a geostationary communication satellite network

A major effort at NASA/Lewis is to identify and develop critical digital technologies and components that enable new commercial missions or significantly improve the performance, cost efficiency, and/or reliability of existing and planned space comunications systems. NASA envisions the need for low data rate, direct to the user communications services, for data, facsimile, voice, and video conferencing. A report that focuses on destination directed packet switching architectures for geostationary communication satellites is presented.

Ivancic, W. D.↗
NASA NTRS1993

The MSAT spacecraft of Telesat Mobile Inc.

The MSAT spacecraft of the Canadian mobile satellite operator, Telesat Mobile Inc. (TMI) is described. When launched in 1994, the large geostationary MSAT spacecraft which is currently under construction by Hughes Aircraft Co. and Spar Aerospace Ltd. will enable TMI to provide mobile and transportable communications services to its customers even in the most remote parts of the North American continent. The main elements of TMI's mobile satellite system (described in a companion paper) are the space segment and the ground segment. TMI's space segment will employ one of two nearly identical satellites, one of which will be owned and operated by TMI, the other by the U.S. mobile satellite operator, American Mobile Satellite Corporation (AMSC). The two companies are participating in a joint spacecraft procurement in order to reduce the nonrecurring costs and to ensure system compatibility between the two systems; and they have also agreed to provide in-orbit backup to each other in the event of a catastrophic satellite failure. The program status, performance requirements, main parameters, and configuration of the MSAT spacecraft are reviewed. The major features of the communications subsystem are discussed in some detail, and a brief summary is presented of the spacecraft service module. Key technology items include the L-band RF power amplifier, which must operate with a high DC to RF power efficiency and generate low intermodulation when loaded with multi-carrier signals; and the large diameter deployable L-band antenna. The development status and expected performance of these spacecraft components is examined.

Bertenyi, E.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Space Technology for the Iron Foundry

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) initiated development of a plasma melter intended to solve a major problem in the U.S. foundry industry. EPRI is a non-profit organization that manages research and development for some 600 electric utility member companies. For the plasma melter program, EPRI enlisted as co-sponsors Westinghouse Electric's Environmental Systems and Services Division, General Motors Corporation, and Modern Equipment Company, supplier of equipment and services to the foundry industry. General Motor's plasma melter, first in the U.S., is an advanced technology system designed to improve the efficiency of coke-burning cupolas that melt iron to produce automotive castings. The key elements are six Westinghouse plasma torches. Electrically-powered plasma torch creates an ionized gas that superheats air entering the cupola to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit. That great heat, three times higher than that attainable by oil or natural gas systems, is the key to making iron cheaper, cleaner, and faster. System offers an environmental bonus in reduced cupola emissions. Plasma torches increase GM's electric bill at Defiance, but that cost is more than compensated by the savings in charge material. The EPRI-sponsored Center for Materials Production (CMP) is evaluating the potential of plasma cupola technology.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2004

The Montage architecture for grid-enabled science processing of large, distributed datasets

Montage is an Earth Science Technology Office (ESTO) Computational Technologies (CT) Round III Grand Challenge investigation to deploy a portable, compute-intensive, custom astronomical image mosaicking service for the National Virtual Observatory (NVO). Although Montage is developing a compute- and data-intensive service for the astronomy community, we are also helping to address a problem that spans both Earth and Space science, namely how to efficiently access and process multi-terabyte, distributed datasets. In both communities, the datasets are massive, and are stored in distributed archives that are, in most cases, remote from the available Computational resources. Therefore, state of the art computational grid technologies are a key element of the Montage portal architecture. This paper describes the aspects of the Montage design that are applicable to both the Earth and Space science communities.

virtual observatory↗
NASA NTRS2005

Remotely Operated Aircraft (ROA) Impact on the National Airspace System (NAS) Work Package, 2005: Composite Report on FAA Flight Plan and Operational Evaluation Plan. Version 7.0

The purpose of this document is to present the findings that resulted from a high-level analysis and evaluation of the following documents: (1) The OEP (Operational Evolution Plan) Version 7 -- a 10-year plan for operational improvements to increase capacity and efficiency in U.S. air travel and transport and other use of domestic airspace. The OEP is the FAA commitment to operational improvements. It is outcome driven, with clear lines of accountability within FAA organizations. The OEP concentrates on operational solutions and integrates safety, certification, procedures, staffing, equipment, avionics and research; (2) The Draft Flight Plan 2006 through 2010 -- a multi-year strategic effort, setting a course for the FAA through 2001, to provide the safest and most efficient air transportation system in the world; (3) The NAS System Architecture Version 5 -- a blueprint for modernizing the NAS and improving NAS services and capabilities through the year 2015; and (4) The NAS-SR-1000 System Requirements Specification (NASSRS) -- a compilation of requirements which describe the operational capabilities for the NAS. The analysis is particularly focused on examining the documents for relevance to existing and/or planned future UAV operations. The evaluation specifically focuses on potential factors that could materially affect the development of a commercial ROA industry, such as: (1) Design limitations of the CNS/ATM system, (2) Human limitations, The information presented was taken from program specifications or program office lead personnel.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2014

A Future with Hybrid Electric Propulsion Systems: A NASA Perspective

The presentation highlights a NASA perspective on Hybrid Electric Propulsion Systems for aeronautical applications. Discussed are results from NASA Advance Concepts Study for Aircraft Entering service in 2030 and beyond and the potential use of hybrid electric propulsion systems as a potential solution to the requirements for energy efficiency and environmental compatibility. Current progress and notional potential NASA research plans are presented.

Aircraft Design↗
NASA NTRS2017

Prototype Tool and Focus Group Evaluation for an Advanced Trajectory-Based Operations Concept

Trajectory-based operations (TBO) is a key concept in the Next Generation Air Transportation System transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS) that will increase the predictability and stability of traffic flows, support a common operational picture through the use of digital data sharing, facilitate more effective collaborative decision making between airspace users and air navigation service providers, and enable increased levels of integrated automation across the NAS. NASA has been developing trajectory-based systems to improve the efficiency of the NAS during specific phases of flight and is now also exploring Advanced 4-Dimensional Trajectory (4DT) operational concepts that will integrate these technologies and incorporate new technology where needed to create both automation and procedures to support gate-to-gate TBO. A TBO Prototype simulation toolkit has been developed that demonstrates initial functionality of an Advanced 4DT TBO concept. Pilot and controller subject matter experts (SMEs) were brought to the Air Traffic Operations Laboratory at NASA Langley Research Center for discussions on an Advanced 4DT operational concept and were provided an interactive demonstration of the TBO Prototype using four example scenarios. The SMEs provided feedback on potential operational, technological, and procedural opportunities and concerns. This paper describes an Advanced 4DT operational concept, the TBO Prototype, the demonstration scenarios and methods used, and the feedback obtained from the pilot and controller SMEs in this focus group activity.

Guerreiro, Nelson M.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center “GMSEC” Overview

In today's changing satellite mission operations landscape, the need for mission automation and interoperability while containing costs is more important than ever. Enter GMSEC – a flexible and extendible set of software automation tools designed to automate repetitive processes and off-hours alerting, among others. GMSEC is also an API that is open source and supports the OMG C2MS message specification, allowing dissimilar components to communicate with each other. Attendees will learn about the possible use cases for automation that the GMSEC architecture and suite of components enable. The presentation will provide an overview of specific GMSEC software products that provide these automation features such as the GMSEC Generic Extendible Message Utility (GEMU) that enables automation, and GMSEC Services Suite OpenMCT (GSS) that offers enhanced telemetry visualization. This presentation will outline how GMSEC can enable and enhance mission operations automation, enabling efficiencies that can help bring down costs.

James C. Hoffman↗
NASA NTRS2013

Development of an Indexing Media Filtration System for Long Duration Space Missions

The effective maintenance of air quality aboard spacecraft cabins will be vital to future human exploration missions. A key component will be the air cleaning filtration system which will need to remove a broad size range of particles derived from multiple biological and material sources. In addition, during surface missions any extraterrestrial planetary dust, including dust generated by near-by ISRU equipment, which is tracked into the habitat will also need to be managed by the filtration system inside the pressurized habitat compartments. An indexing media filter system is being developed to meet the demand for long-duration missions that will result in dramatic increases in filter service life and loading capacity, and will require minimal crew involvement. The filtration system consists of three stages: an inertial impactor stage, an indexing media stage, and a high-efficiency filter stage, packaged in a stacked modular cartridge configuration. Each stage will target a specific range of particle sizes that optimize the filtration and regeneration performance of the system. An 1/8th scale and full-scale prototype of the filter system have been fabricated and have been tested in the laboratory and reduced gravity environments that simulate conditions on spacecrafts, landers and habitats. Results from recent laboratory and reduce-gravity flight tests data will be presented. The features of the new filter system may also benefit other closed systems, such as submarines, and remote location terrestrial installations where servicing and replacement of filter units is not practical.

Filtration↗
NASA NTRS2012

Efficient Computation of Separation-Compliant Speed Advisories for Air Traffic Arriving in Terminal Airspace

A class of problems in air traffic management asks for a scheduling algorithm that supplies the air traffic services authority not only with a schedule of arrivals and departures, but also with speed advisories. Since advisories must be finite, a scheduling algorithm must ultimately produce a finite data set, hence must either start with a purely discrete model or involve a discretization of a continuous one. The former choice, often preferred for intuitive clarity, naturally leads to mixed-integer programs, hindering proofs of correctness and computational cost bounds (crucial for real-time operations). In this paper, a hybrid control system is used to model air traffic scheduling, capturing both the discrete and continuous aspects. This framework is applied to a class of problems, called the Fully Routed Nominal Problem. We prove a number of geometric results on feasible schedules and use these results to formulate an algorithm that attempts to compute a collective speed advisory, effectively finite, and has computational cost polynomial in the number of aircraft. This work is a first step toward optimization and models refined with more realistic detail.

Sadovsky, Alexander V.↗
NASA NTRS2018

More Efficient Precipitation Rate Data Acquisition with the STORM Swath-Based Analysis Tool

A multitude of locations exist for acquiring satellite-derived precipitation rate data. Because the volume of data exceeds what can reasonably be analyzed manually, online tools have been developed to help researchers make more informed data acquisition decisions. Some interfaces provide sample images generated from prioritized variables to enable efficient visual inspection, while others include the ability to subset geographically to reduce the volume of the data to the area of interest. Building upon such value-added services is the STORM (the NASA Precipitation Processing System (PPS) data product ordering system) Swath-Based Analysis Tool (https://storm.pps.eosdis.nasa.gov/storm/Analysis.jsp). With it, users can compare overflights of multiple precipitation satellites simultaneously and from this make determinations about which swaths will best serve their research. They can preview these overflights with two distinct visualization tools. Finally, they can then download geographically subset swaths that have precipitation rate characteristics matching their research needs. A user starts by making up to six selections. They then select their date range of interest going back to 1997. Finally, they select a geographical region either by inputting latitude-longitude corners of a rectangle or drawing that rectangle on an interactive map. The system processes each file, determining aggregate statistics about the precipitation rates within the selected region as observed by each instrument. These statistical values are added to a time series graph as a "time remaining" counter is continuously updated. The chart is fully interactive, with detailed values displayed upon mouseover, and numerous options available upon clicking each point. Since the user is likely to need the relevant files for their own research, they can generate an order from their request. All files are geographically subset to the region of interest, and the user can use the statistical values to limit which files are added to the order. This flexibility helps to ensure researchers are only downloading the files they need for their work, making for a more efficient process both from a time-consumption and a storage perspective. This paper will introduce the Swath-Based Analysis Tool and explore its numerous features. It will discuss several use cases for precipitation scientists.

remote sensing↗