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At least 451 records · Page 25

An Earth System Digital Twin for Flood Prediction and Analysis

An Earth System Digital Twin (ESDT) is a dynamic, interactive, digital replica of the state and temporal evolution of Earth systems. It integrates multiple models along with observation data, and connecting them with analysis, AI, and visualization tools. Together, these enable users to explore the current state of the Earth system, predict future conditions, and run hypothetical scenarios to understand how the system would evolve under various assumptions. The NASA’s Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST)’s Integrated Digital Earth Analysis System (IDEAS) project is to establish an extensible architectural solution to develop digital twins of our physical environment for Earth Science. IDEAS delivers a formal system architecture with mechanisms for the outputs of one model to feed into others; for driving models with observation data; and for harmonizing observation data and model outputs for analysis. To validate and demonstrate the IDEAS architecture, this project collaborates with the Space Climate Observatory (SCO)’s FloodDAM project and the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES) to focus on floods detection, prediction and their impacts.

Kettig, Peter↗

Brillouin Asymmetric Spatial Heterodyne Oceanographic Lidar Receiver for Profiling Temperature, Salinity, and Sound Velocity

No sensor today is capable of remotely sensing temperature and salinity at depth in oceanic waters, yet the physics to do so exists. Blue-green light (450-550 nm) can penetrate 10’s of meters into the water and interacts with water by the Brillouin scatter process. Temperature and salinity can be determined by analyzing the spectrum of Brillouin scatter. A host of scientific and operational drivers exist for such a sensor, from improved hurricane and red tide forecasting to studies of ocean fronts, eddies, and freshwater lenses. A low flying airborne light detection and ranging (lidar) instrument concept that exploits this physics is presented, along with simulation tools that potential data users can use to model its measurement performance, determine suitability for their application, and assess its implications.

John Anthony Smith↗

Novel Problem Solving - The NASA Solution Mechanism Guide

Over the past five years, the Human Health and Performance (HH&P) Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) has conducted a number of pilot and ongoing projects in collaboration and open innovation. These projects involved the use of novel open innovation competitions that sought solutions from "the crowd", non-traditional problem solvers. The projects expanded to include virtual collaboration centers such as the NASA Human Health and Performance Center (NHHPC) and more recently a collaborative research project between NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF). These novel problem-solving tools produced effective results and the HH&P wanted to capture the knowledge from these new tools, to teach the results to the directorate, and to implement new project management tools and coursework. The need to capture and teach the results of these novel problem solving tools, the HH&P decided to create a web-based tool to capture best practices and case studies, to teach novice users how to use new problem solving tools and to change project management training/. This web-based tool was developed with a small, multi-disciplinary group and named the Solution Mechanism Guide (SMG). An alpha version was developed that was tested against several sessions of user groups to get feedback on the SMG and determine a future course for development. The feedback was very positive and the HH&P decided to move to the beta-phase of development. To develop the web-based tool, the HH&P utilized the NASA Tournament Lab (NTL) to develop the software with TopCoder under an existing contract. In this way, the HH&P is using one new tool (the NTL and TopCoder) to develop the next generation tool, the SMG. The beta-phase of the SMG is planed for release in the spring of 2014 and results of the beta-phase testing will be available for the IAC meeting in September. The SMG is intended to disrupt the way problem solvers and project managers approach problem solving and to increase the use of novel and more cost and time effective problem solving tools such as open innovation, collaborative research, and virtual collaborative project centers. The HH&P envisions changing project management coursework by including the SMG in the teaching of project management problem solving tools.

Keeton, Kathryn E.↗

Computational Controls Workstation: Algorithms and hardware

The Computational Controls Workstation provides an integrated environment for the modeling, simulation, and analysis of Space Station dynamics and control. Using highly efficient computational algorithms combined with a fast parallel processing architecture, the workstation makes real-time simulation of flexible body models of the Space Station possible. A consistent, user-friendly interface and state-of-the-art post-processing options are combined with powerful analysis tools and model databases to provide users with a complete environment for Space Station dynamics and control analysis. The software tools available include a solid modeler, graphical data entry tool, O(n) algorithm-based multi-flexible body simulation, and 2D/3D post-processors. This paper describes the architecture of the workstation while a companion paper describes performance and user perspectives.

Venugopal, R.↗

User interface for integrated computer aided design systems

The purpose was the development of a user interface and other appropriate tools to be used in Computer Aided Design systems which can integrate a wide variety of independently developed design and analysis tools. The interface was intended for the integration of programs to be used in the conceptual design of aerospace systems. A user's manual is included.

Schwing, James L.↗

Wikipedia for SmallSats: The SSRI Knowledge Base

The Small Satellite Reliability Initiative (SSRI), in conjunction with NASA’s Small Spacecraft Systems Virtual Institute (S3VI), has developed the SSRI Knowledge Base: a comprehensive, publicly available online tool that aims to improve mission confidence for future small spacecraft. This tool provides vetted, high-quality sources of information on key elements of a successful mission. This content includes best practices and lessons learned from previous missions and Knowledge Base “resources”. These resources include publicly available SSRI-generated content in addition to existing guides, publications, standards, software tools, websites, and books. Acknowledging the constant increase and varied sources of small spacecraft knowledge, along with the value and depth of experience that exists beyond any single development team, the SSRI Knowledge Base is designed to be an open, collaborative platform. User participation is essential to the refinement and growth of this tool. Therefore, users are encouraged to rate resources and to contribute content. The SSRI Knowledge Base is hosted at https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute/ssri-knowledge-base. This webinar will discuss the motivation for and development of the SSRI Knowledge Base, demonstrate the existing tool, and outline plans for further development.

SmallSats↗

Air Traffic Management TestBed Simulation Architect: User's Guide

The Air Traffic Management (ATM) TestBed is a Platform as a Service that is being developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to help design, configure, integrate, run, and monitor air traffic simulations. The platform provides cloud services including back-end big-data analytics tools, on-demand computing resource management, data storage, and communication middleware. The ATM TestBed reduces the time to test concepts and technologies, supports interactions among various concepts such as human-in-the-loop and automation-in-the-loop simulations, and enables collaborative simulations by sharing technologies and tools in the ATM community. The Simulation Architect application provides a graphical user interface tool for designing traffic scenarios and simulations using blocks representing components and links representing message channels linking them. This guide describes a high-level user interface design of Simulation Architect and provides information for a new user to compose traffic scenarios and simulations.

Software User Guide↗

Independent Verification and Validation of Complex User Interfaces: A Human Factors Approach

The Usability Testing and Analysis Facility (UTAF) at the NASA Johnson Space Center has identified and evaluated a potential automated software interface inspection tool capable of assessing the degree to which space-related critical and high-risk software system user interfaces meet objective human factors standards across each NASA program and project. Testing consisted of two distinct phases. Phase 1 compared analysis times and similarity of results for the automated tool and for human-computer interface (HCI) experts. In Phase 2, HCI experts critiqued the prototype tool's user interface. Based on this evaluation, it appears that a more fully developed version of the tool will be a promising complement to a human factors-oriented independent verification and validation (IV&V) process.

Whitmore, Mihriban↗

The MY NASA DATA Project

On the one hand, locating the right dataset, then figuring out how to use it, is a daunting task that is familiar to almost any scientist or graduate student in the fields of Earth system science. On the other hand, the ability to explore authentic Earth system science data, through inquiry-based education, is an important goal in US national education standards. Fortunately, in the digital age, tools are emerging that can make such data exploration commonplace at all educational levels. This paper describes the conception and development of one project that aims to bridge this gap: Mentoring and inquiry using NASA Data on Atmospheric and Earth science for Teachers and Amateurs (MY NASA DATA; mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov). With funding from NASA's Science Mission Directorate, this project was launched in early 2004 with the aim of developing microsets and identifying other enablers for making data accessible. A key feature of the project is a Live Access Server, the first educational implementation of this open source software, developed by NOAA, that makes it possible to explore multiple data formats through a single interface. This powerful tool is made more useful to the primary target audiences (K-12 and amateur scientists) through careful selection of the data offered, user-friendly explanations of the tool itself, and age-appropriate explanations of the parameters. However experience already shows that graduate students and even practicing scientists can also make use of this resource. The website also hosts teacher-contributed lesson plans, and seeks to feature reports of research projects that use the data.

Chambers, Lin H.↗

MOD Tool (Microwave Optics Design Tool)

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is currently designing and building a number of instruments that operate in the microwave and millimeter-wave bands. These include MIRO (Microwave Instrument for the Rosetta Orbiter), MLS (Microwave Limb Sounder), and IMAS (Integrated Multispectral Atmospheric Sounder). These instruments must be designed and built to meet key design criteria (e.g., beamwidth, gain, pointing) obtained from the scientific goals for the instrument. These criteria are frequently functions of the operating environment (both thermal and mechanical). To design and build instruments which meet these criteria, it is essential to be able to model the instrument in its environments. Currently, a number of modeling tools exist. Commonly used tools at JPL include: FEMAP (meshing), NASTRAN (structural modeling), TRASYS and SINDA (thermal modeling), MACOS/IMOS (optical modeling), and POPO (physical optics modeling). Each of these tools is used by an analyst, who models the instrument in one discipline. The analyst then provides the results of this modeling to another analyst, who continues the overall modeling in another discipline. There is a large reengineering task in place at JPL to automate and speed-up the structural and thermal modeling disciplines, which does not include MOD Tool. The focus of MOD Tool (and of this paper) is in the fields unique to microwave and millimeter-wave instrument design. These include initial design and analysis of the instrument without thermal or structural loads, the automation of the transfer of this design to a high-end CAD tool, and the analysis of the structurally deformed instrument (due to structural and/or thermal loads). MOD Tool is a distributed tool, with a database of design information residing on a server, physical optics analysis being performed on a variety of supercomputer platforms, and a graphical user interface (GUI) residing on the user's desktop computer. The MOD Tool client is being developed using Tcl/Tk, which allows the user to work on a choice of platforms (PC, Mac, or Unix) after downloading the Tcl/Tk binary, which is readily available on the web. The MOD Tool server is written using Expect, and it resides on a Sun workstation. Client/server communications are performed over a socket, where upon a connection from a client to the server, the server spawns a child which is be dedicated to communicating with that client. The server communicates with other machines, such as supercomputers using Expect with the username and password being provided by the user on the client.

Katz, Daniel S.↗

Web Audio/Video Streaming Tool

In order to promote NASA-wide educational outreach program to educate and inform the public of space exploration, NASA, at Kennedy Space Center, is seeking efficient ways to add more contents to the web by streaming audio/video files. This project proposes a high level overview of a framework for the creation, management, and scheduling of audio/video assets over the web. To support short-term goals, the prototype of a web-based tool is designed and demonstrated to automate the process of streaming audio/video files. The tool provides web-enabled users interfaces to manage video assets, create publishable schedules of video assets for streaming, and schedule the streaming events. These operations are performed on user-defined and system-derived metadata of audio/video assets stored in a relational database while the assets reside on separate repository. The prototype tool is designed using ColdFusion 5.0.

Guruvadoo, Eranna K.↗

Software For Graphical Representation Of A Network

System Visualization Tool (SVT) computer program developed to provide systems engineers with means of graphically representing networks. Generates diagrams illustrating structures and states of networks defined by users. Provides systems engineers powerful tool simplifing analysis of requirements and testing and maintenance of complex software-controlled systems. Employs visual models supporting analysis of chronological sequences of requirements, simulation data, and related software functions. Applied to pneumatic, hydraulic, and propellant-distribution networks. Used to define and view arbitrary configurations of such major hardware components of system as propellant tanks, valves, propellant lines, and engines. Also graphically displays status of each component. Advantage of SVT: utilizes visual cues to represent configuration of each component within network. Written in Turbo Pascal(R), version 5.0.

Mcallister, R. William↗

User's guide to the Mission Analysis Evaluation and Space Trajectory Operations program (MAESTRO)

The MAESTRO system is a mission analysis tool designed to present to the user information necessary to make the various decisions required in the design and execution of a spaceflight mission. The system was designed so that it can be used in both the pre-launch mission planning phase of a mission and during the flight as an in-flight decision making tool. A description of each of the following modes is presented: (1) trajectory propagation mode; (2) retro-fire determination mode; (3) midcourse analysis determination mode; (4) Monte Carlo mode; (5) verification mode; (6) orbit stability mode; and (7) post injection trim mode. A description of the inputs necessary to run the program mode is given along with a sample case.

Lutzky, D.↗

Space Weather Forecasting Capabilities at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC)

The Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC) provides a variety of services to the space science community. The mission for the CCMC's Space Weather Forecasting team is to address the space weather needs of NASA's robotic mission by conducting customized space weather services to NASA end-users. The team leverages CCMC tools/resources, carries out prototyping activities for the next generation space weather tools and follows communications/interactions with the users. We provide space weather forecasts, notifications, analysis and also education. This presentation will describe the team's concepts of operations, notification processes, anomaly analysis, and the tools used for space weather forecasting. The tools include a system that are completely open and available to the public's use like the Integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) tool and the Database of Notifications, Knowledge and Information (DONKI). We will also discuss the education and training activities and how events like solar eclipses are important for the improvement and validation of different space weather models.

Collado-Vega, Yaireska↗

Integrating Cache Performance Modeling and Tuning Support in Parallelization Tools

With the resurgence of distributed shared memory (DSM) systems based on cache-coherent Non Uniform Memory Access (ccNUMA) architectures and increasing disparity between memory and processors speeds, data locality overheads are becoming the greatest bottlenecks in the way of realizing potential high performance of these systems. While parallelization tools and compilers facilitate the users in porting their sequential applications to a DSM system, a lot of time and effort is needed to tune the memory performance of these applications to achieve reasonable speedup. In this paper, we show that integrating cache performance modeling and tuning support within a parallelization environment can alleviate this problem. The Cache Performance Modeling and Prediction Tool (CPMP), employs trace-driven simulation techniques without the overhead of generating and managing detailed address traces. CPMP predicts the cache performance impact of source code level "what-if" modifications in a program to assist a user in the tuning process. CPMP is built on top of a customized version of the Computer Aided Parallelization Tools (CAPTools) environment. Finally, we demonstrate how CPMP can be applied to tune a real Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) application.

Waheed, Abdul↗

User's Manual for FOMOCO Utilities-Force and Moment Computation Tools for Overset Grids

In the numerical computations of flows around complex configurations, accurate calculations of force and moment coefficients for aerodynamic surfaces are required. When overset grid methods are used, the surfaces on which force and moment coefficients are sought typically consist of a collection of overlapping surface grids. Direct integration of flow quantities on the overlapping grids would result in the overlapped regions being counted more than once. The FOMOCO Utilities is a software package for computing flow coefficients (force, moment, and mass flow rate) on a collection of overset surfaces with accurate accounting of the overlapped zones. FOMOCO Utilities can be used in stand-alone mode or in conjunction with the Chimera overset grid compressible Navier-Stokes flow solver OVERFLOW. The software package consists of two modules corresponding to a two-step procedure: (1) hybrid surface grid generation (MIXSUR module), and (2) flow quantities integration (OVERINT module). Instructions on how to use this software package are described in this user's manual. Equations used in the flow coefficients calculation are given in Appendix A.

Chan, William M.↗

Securing the User's Work Environment

High performance computing at the Numerical Aerospace Simulation Facility at NASA Ames Research Center includes C90's, J90's and Origin 2000's. Not only is it necessary to protect these systems from outside attacks, but also to provide a safe working environment on the systems. With the right tools, security anomalies in the user s work environment can be deleted and corrected. Validating proper ownership of files against user s permissions, will reduce the risk of inadvertent data compromise. The detection of extraneous directories and files hidden amongst user home directories is important for identifying potential compromises. The first runs of these utilities detected over 350,000 files with problems. With periodic scans, automated correction of problems takes only minutes. Tools for detecting these types of problems as well as their development techniques will be discussed with emphasis on consistency, portability and efficiency for both UNICOS and IRIX.

Cardo, Nicholas P.↗

NASA POWER: Providing Analysis-Ready, Cloud-Optimized Data for AI /ML Training and Applications in Earth Science

As global demand for sustainable development grows, the integration of Earth Observation (EO) data into decision making frameworks has become a primary objective for the scientific community. The NASA Prediction of Worldwide Energy Resources (POWER) project serves as a bridge between NASA EO data and the specialized needs of the renewable energy, sustainable infrastructure and agroclimatology communities. In this poster presentation we will present an overview of POWER data products and services along with its use in diverse research to decision-making workflows. By providing over 40 years of high-resolution historical, hourly and daily solar and meteorological data, POWER transforms satellite observations and global model reanalysis into actionable, Analysis-Ready Dataset (ARD). Currently, the project delivers over 250 industry-friendly parameters to the users from different NASA datasets like CERES SYN1Deg, MERRA-2, and IMERG alongside downscaled CMIP6 climate model data, fulfilling over 16 million requests from 50,000 unique users monthly. To ensure data quality and traceability, these parameters are rigorously validated against the ground-based observations from the Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) and the Global Surface Summary of the Day (GSOD) – these results will be discussed in the presentation. A newly introduced web-based PaRameter Uncertainty ViEwer (PRUVE) tool will be presented that provides an online validation platform to the users that benchmarks satellite-based and assimilation data products against these surface measurements. To reduce technical barriers to data adoption, POWER data is accessible through RESTful APIs, ESRI ArcGIS Image Services, a web-based Data Access Viewer tool, allowing users to visualize, validate and apply the dataset. For efficient data delivery POWER data is cloud-optimized into Zarr datastore accessible through NASA managed Amazon S3 ensures high-performance allowing users to integrate EO directly into operational pipelines. These customized services will be presented. Use cases from application will be presented from the energy sector - such as for design of generation systems, performance monitoring of solar power plants, in infrastructure sector- optimizing building energy efficiency and thermal comfort, in agriculture – such as driving crop simulation and yield forecasting models to enable climate resilient farming. Furthermore, the shift toward machine learning (ML) in EO research that has positioned POWER as a key provider for training datasets which will be discussed. Use-cases will be presented to showcase how NASA data is enabling the development of predictive tools for climate variability and resource management. The poster will present POWER’s future plans including technology development to enhance data traceability and reproducibility and improving I/O performance to support the rapid integration of new EO products, ensuring that POWER remains a robust scalable backend for the evolving landscape of AI-driven Earth Science. Additionally, POWER is developing an AI Agent and an MCP-Server to enable industry AI-Agentic workflows.

Neha Khadka↗