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At least 469 records · Page 26

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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

1235 Preparing for TEMPO: A Review of Planned Metadata, Data Structure, and Distribution by NASA’s Atmospheric Science Data Center

The Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) is in the Science Directorate located at the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC), in Hampton, Virginia. The ASDC is one of NASA’s Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAAC) and supports over 60 projects and provides access to more than 1,000 archived collections. These datasets were created from satellite measurements, field experiments, and modeled data products. ASDC projects focus on the following Earth science disciplines: Radiation Budget, Clouds, Aerosols, and Tropospheric Composition. The ASDC is the official Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) of record for the upcoming Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument.. The instrument will share a ride on a commercial satellite as a hosted payload and will be launched to an orbit about 22,000 miles above Earth's equator. The investigation will, for the first time, use a space-based instrument to make accurate observations of tropospheric pollution concentrations of ozone, nitrogen dioxide, formaldehyde, and aerosols with high resolution and frequency over the U.S, Canada, and Mexico.

Ashlee Autore↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Atmospheric Science Data Center’s Approach to a Cloud-Based Model of Ingest, Archival, and Distribution of TEMPO Data: Methods, Challenges, and Best Practices

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Atmospheric Science Data Center (ASDC) at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA provides atmospheric science data products and services to the science community, including enhanced search and subsetting capabilities for numerous datasets. The ASDC is the official Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC) of record for the upcoming Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) instrument. TEMPO will be situated on a geostationary satellite positioned at a longitude near the center of the conterminous United States and focused on North America, making hourly swaths of its field of regard from east to west. ASDC’s data products are currently hosted locally and services (e.g., spatial and temporal subsetting) are managed on premises. The ASDC is planning to provide TEMPO data and services in the cloud through the Earthdata Search platform. This presentation will discuss the ASDC’s approach to a cloud-based model of ingest, archival, and distribution of TEMPO data. Methods, challenges, best practices, lessons learned, and future plans will be discussed.

Iman Nasif↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

1235 Preparing for TEMPO: A Review of Planned Metadata, Data Structure, and Distribution by NASA’s Atmospheric Science Data Center

Ashlee Autore↗

NASA NTRS2023

Safety Case for Small Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (sUAS) Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Operations at NASA Langley Research Center

This Technical Memorandum (TM) is written to provide for dissemination of the methods and safety considerations for operations of small Uncrewed Aerial Systems (sUAS) Beyond Visual Line-of-Sight (BVLOS)at NASA Langley Research Center. It includes the Safety Case used to acquire a BVLOS Certificate of Authorization (COA) from the FAA and is being published to enable others to benefit from this work. The intended operations, subject to approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), will include a combination of Within Visual Line of Sight (WVLOS) and Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flights, comprising of at most five sUAS operating concurrently, with no more than three operating BVLOS. Flights will occur in a subset of the Langley Air Force Base (LAFB) Class D airspace (KLFI) at a maximum altitude of 400 ft AGL. Most operations within this subset will take place in the City Environment Range Testing for Autonomous Integrated Navigation (CERTAIN) Range. The CERTAIN Range includes airspace inside the borders of NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC). Additional airspace over the northern section of CERTAIN will be requested as part of the Certificate of Authorization (COA). NASA LaRC BVLOS operations on the CERTAIN Range can be broken down into five critical components needed to meet the 14 CFR § 91.113 see and avoid requirement: 1) procedural deconfliction with LAFB for UAS operations at or below 400 ft and manned aircraft at or above 900’ AGL; 2) ground equipment for detection of intruder aircraft and to support communications between crewmembers ; 3) sUAS vehicles with advanced onboard automation capable of autonomously maintaining safe separation; 4) BVLOS standardized operating procedures (SOPs); 5) and personnel to execute the flight operations in accordance with the SOPs and respond to airborne contingencies. The introduction of new ground equipment includes the use of the Remote Operations for Autonomous Missions (ROAM) UAS Operations Center, development and use of an Integrated Airspace Display (IAD), use of the L-STAR and GA-9120 radars, and the incorporation of standardized Vertiports. The ROAM Operations Center will be the central point for all BVLOS sUAS operations. All command and control (C2), voice communications and airspace awareness displays will reside inside ROAM. The IAD will provide raw data from ADS-B, FLARM, radar tracks and telemetered GPS vehicle positions for interpretation by an Airspace Monitor. The radars will search the class D airspace around the CERTAIN Range and serve as a backup to procedural deconfliction procedures coordinated with LAFB. In the event of a procedural deconfliction breakdown, radar detections of non-participating aircraft will be available so that the 91.113 see and avoid requirement can still be safely met. Finally, the incorporation of Vertiports will have video and network connectivity that enables large numbers of sUAS launches and recoveries from a single location. This is a continuation of the remote command and control of unpiloted aircraft component focused on evaluating unpiloted aircraft flight crew roles and responsibilities, control interfaces and the associated data links needed to operate a fleet of aircraft within a UAM Ecosystem. This work supports the development of future aviation operational concepts based on an Urban Air Mobility Maturity Level (UML) 4 environment (Patterson, 2020). It is assumed that future airspace will include hundreds of simultaneous aircraft operations within the airspace, therefore scalable operations are essential for enabling this future airspace to become a reality. Follow on work includes envisioned flights that expand operations beyond the CERTAIN range and lead to an effective Maritime Surveillance capability.

Matthew W Coldsnow↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

From CMS to the U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center – Improved Tracking of Recent Changes in Co 2 and Ch 4 From NASA’s Quasi-Operational Modeling Systems

Reliable, low latency delivery of high quality global flux and concentration information is a growing but still unmet need to advance expanding measurement, monitoring, reporting, and verification efforts that underpin federal climate mitigation strategies. Here we present on progress toward developing space-based greenhouse gas (GHG) monitoring systems that can provide comprehensive information trailing real time by a matter of weeks to a few months. Through support from its Carbon Monitoring System (CMS) program, NASA has developed the capability to assimilate XCO 2 retrievals from the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, 2 (OCO 2 ) into the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) Constituent Data Assimilation System (CoDAS) to create gap-filled, three-dimensional (3D) estimates of CO 2 mixing ratio. When observations are unavailable, concentration fields are further informed by observationally-informed bottom-up flux packages that incorporate remotely sensed fire, nighttime lights, and vegetation observations combined with estimates of atmospheric growth rate based on surface in situ data. The 3D nature of these datasets supports evaluation with independent aircraft data to improve confidence in satellite data, development of new regional modeling approaches, and quantification of the climate impacts of GHGs. The system has recently been expanded to assimilate XCH 4 from ESA’s TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) instrument and is supported by companion efforts to improve delivery of estimates of bottom-up land and ocean fluxes. The quasi-operational GEOS-GHG system is contributing to the recently announced U.S. Greenhouse Gas Center (GHG Center) by delivering information on recent changes in CO 2 and CH 4 emissions and concentrations to support stakeholder and research communities. In this presentation, we provide an overview of the current system configured to support the GHG Center. We highlight examples of how this data contributes to broader NASA initiatives including the Earth Information Center, an innovative virtual and physical exhibit designed to show how NASA data helps the nation combat climate change. We conclude by discussing how innovations in CMS research can address remaining data gaps and modeling challenges to advance operational GHG monitoring in the future.

Lesley Ott↗

DOE OSTI2026

Integrating AI Data Centers with the Power Grid

The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) has triggered an unprecedented surge in electricity demand, with US data center energy use projected to double or triple 2023 levels by 2028. This exponential growth places strain on grid infrastructure, which can hinder timely construction of desired computing capacity. To bridge this supply-demand gap, utilities and AI developers are increasingly turning to demand flexibility, a strategy that incentivizes shifting or reducing power use during peak periods of grid stress. Data centers are uniquely equipped for flexible operations due to their digital workloads, built-in redundancy, and onsite energy assets. This article outlines four primary mechanisms to enable data center flexibility: computational load flexibility (shifting tasks temporally or geographically), flexible use of core facility infrastructure adjustments, energy storage utilization, and onsite electricity generation. To encourage adoption, utilities are deploying new tariff designs, including voluntary interruptible service riders, mandated flexibility requirements, and streamlined interconnection processes for flexible loads. For the highly capitalized and rapidly growing AI industry, the primary motivators for embracing these strategies are expediting facility interconnection, satisfying emerging regulatory mandates, and mitigating community resistance. While demand flexibility cannot substitute the long-term need for new bulk power generation, it serves as an essential, immediate solution for enabling near-term deployment. By transforming data centers from grid stressors into stabilizing assets, flexible operations can ensure reliable grid integration, ease market pressures, and support a resilient power system.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2025

Purcell-Enhanced Emissions from Diamond Color Centers in Slow Light Photonic Crystal Waveguides

Diamond color centers are promising candidates for optically addressable quantum memories, which motivates the development of efficient photonic interfaces, often using nanophotonic cavities with narrow spectral line widths and small mode volumes. However, they require perfect spectral and spatial overlap between the cavity mode and quantum emitter, which is challenging. This is especially true for solid-state quantum emitters that are often randomly positioned and suffer from inhomogeneous broadening. Another approach to enhance light-matter interaction across large optical bandwidths and areas is using slow light waveguides. Here, in this study, we demonstrate diamond slow light photonic crystal (PhC) waveguides optically coupled to embedded silicon-vacancy (SiV) color centers. We use the recently developed thin-film diamond approach to fabricate fully suspended two-dimensional PhC waveguides. We demonstrate waveguide modes with high group indices up to 70 and observe Purcell-enhanced emissions of the SiVs. Our approach represents a practical diamond platform for robust spin-photon interfaces with color centers.

2D photonic crystal waveguide↗

DOE OSTI2023

Neutral Silicon Vacancy Centers in Undoped Diamond via Surface Control

Neutral silicon vacancy centers (SiV 0 ) in diamond are promising candidates for quantum applications; however, stabilizing SiV 0 requires high-purity, boron-doped diamond, which is not a readily available material. Here, we demonstrate an alternative approach via chemical control of the diamond surface. We use low-damage chemical processing and annealing in a hydrogen environment to realize reversible and highly stable charge state tuning in undoped diamond. The resulting SiV 0 centers display optically detected magnetic resonance and bulklike optical properties. Controlling the charge state tuning via surface termination offers a route for scalable technologies based on SiV 0 centers, as well as charge state engineering of other defects.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2023

FINAL TECHINICAL REPORT THUNDERING BUFFALO HEALTH AND WELLNESS CENTER

This U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Indian Energy supported project consists of energy conservation measures (ECMs) and a solar photovoltaic (PV) system to reduce cost of utility bills in a newly constructed Fort Peck Wellness Center, for use by tribal members in improving their physical and mental wellness. Construction of the building was outside the scope of the DOE supported project. A new 2-story wellness center was designed and constructed in Poplar, Montana. The wellness center is comprised of fitness areas, gymnasium, pool and spa, offices, and BOH support areas. The building was completed and has been operational for more than a year. A final measurement and verification of energy savings was completed after one year of operation and the results are presented herein, showing an energy savings 20% higher than the originally models indicated.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS1993

Time-resolved tryptophan fluorescence in photosynthetic reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides

Tryptophan fluorescence of reaction centers isolated from Rhodobacter sphaeroides, both stationary and time-resolved, was studied. Fluorescence kinetics were found to fit best a sum of four discrete exponential components. Half of the initial amplitude was due to a component with a lifetime of congruent to 60 ps, belonging to Trp residues, capable of efficient transfer of excitation energy to bacteriochlorophyll molecules of the reaction center. The three other components seem to be emitted by Trp ground-state conformers, unable to participate in such a transfer. Under the influence of intense actinic light, photooxidizing the reaction centers, the yield of stationary fluorescence diminished by congruent to 1.5 times, while the number of the kinetic components and their life times remained practically unchanged. Possible implications of the observed effects for the primary photosynthesis events are considered.

NASA Program Exobiology↗

DOE OSTI2026

Unlocking Synergistic Benefits of Colocation of Data Centers at Airports

This white paper evaluates the potential of a new energy system configuration: Strategic colocation of data centers - on airport property or adjacent to airports - in order to realize significant operational, economic, and environmental benefits to airports, data centers, and the communities they serve. While increasing demand from both airports and data centers requires both parties to make significant infrastructure investments, colocation can mitigate some of the energy, land use, permitting, and connectivity challenges of siting and powering these industries.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

DOE OSTI2025

Wide-field microwave magnetic field imaging with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

Non-invasive imaging of microwave (MW) magnetic fields with microscale lateral resolution is pivotal for various applications, such as MW technologies and integrated circuit failure analysis. Diamond nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center magnetometry has emerged as an ideal tool, offering micrometer-scale resolution, millimeter-scale field of view, high sensitivity, and non-invasive imaging compatible with diverse samples. However, up until now, it has been predominantly used for imaging of static or low-frequency magnetic fields or, concerning MW field imaging, to directly characterize the same microwave device used to drive the NV spin transitions. In this work, we leverage an NV center ensemble in diamond for wide-field imaging of MW magnetic fields generated by a test device employing a differential measurement protocol. The microscope is equipped with a MW loop to induce Rabi oscillations between NV spin states, and the MW field from the device-under-test is measured through local deviations in the Rabi frequency. This differential protocol yields magnetic field maps of a 2.57 GHz MW field with a sensitivity of ∼9 μT Hz −1/2 for a total measurement duration of T=357 s, covering a 340 × 340 μm 2 field of view with a micrometer-scale spatial resolution and a device-under-test input power dynamic range of 30 dB. This work demonstrates a novel NV magnetometry protocol, based on differential Rabi frequency measurement, that extends NV wide-field imaging capabilities to imaging of weak MW magnetic fields that would be difficult to measure directly through standard NV Rabi magnetometry.

crystallographic defects↗

DOE OSTI2024

Human readiness levels and Human Views as tools for user-centered design

The Human Readiness Level (HRL) scale is a simple nine-level scale that brings structure and consistency to the real-world application of user-centered design. It enables multidisciplinary consideration of human-focused elements during the system development process. Use of the standardized set of questions comprising the HRL scale results in a single human readiness number that communicates system readiness for human use. The Human Views (HVs) are part of an architecture framework that provides a repository for human-focused system information that can be used during system development to support the evaluation of HRL levels. Here, this paper illustrates how HRLs and HVs can be used in combination to support user-centered design processes. A real-world example for a U.S. Army software modernization program is described to demonstrate application of HRLs and HVs in the context of user-centered design.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2023

Organizational and psychological measures for data center energy efficiency: barriers and mitigation strategies

Abstract It was last estimated that in 2020, data centers comprised approximately 2% of total US electricity consumption, with an estimated annual growth rate of 4%. As our country increasingly relies on information technology (IT), our data centers (DCs) will need to increase their energy efficiency (EE) to stabilize their energy consumption. The task of studying EE in DCs is complicated by the interconnected nature of humans and mission-critical technical systems. Moreover, the literature tends to focus on technology solutions such as improvements to IT equipment, cooling infrastructure, and software, without addressing organizational and psychological drivers. Our research demystifies the complex interactions between humans and DCs, by asking What non-technical barriers impede EE investment decision-making and/or implementing energy management strategies? To begin to answer this question, we perform a literature review of 86 resources, ranging from peer-reviewed journal publications to handbooks. We also consider related fields such as organizational behavioral management and energy intensive buildings. We develop a public Zotero library, perform content coding, and complete a rudimentary network analysis. Our findings from the literature review suggest that (1) technological solutions are abundant in the literature but fall short of providing practical guidance on the pitfalls of implementation, (2) making energy efficiency a priority at the executive level of organizations will be largely ineffective if the IT and facilities staff are not directly incentivized to increase EE, and (3) there is minimal current understanding of how the individual psychologies of IT and facilities staff affect EE implementation in DCs. In the next phase of our research, we plan to interview data center operators/experts to ground-truth our literature findings and collaboratively design decarbonization policy solutions that target organizational structure, empower individual staff, and foster a supportive external market.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2024

Expert and operator perspectives on barriers to energy efficiency in data centers

Abstract It was last estimated in 2016 that data centers (DCs) comprise approximately 2% of total US electricity consumption. However, this estimate is currently being updated to account for the massive increase in computing needs due to streaming, cryptocurrency, and artificial intelligence (AI). To prevent energy consumption that tracks with increasing computing needs, it is imperative we identify energy efficiency strategies and investments beyond the low-hanging fruit solutions. In a two-phased research approach, we ask: What non-technical barriers still impede energy efficiency (EE) practices and investments in the data center sector, and what can be done to overcome these barriers? In particular, we are focused on social and organizational barriers to EE. In Phase I, we performed a literature review and found that technical solutions are abundant in the literature, but fail to address the top-down cultural shifts that need to take place in order to adapt new energy efficiency strategies. In Phase II, reported here, we interviewed 16 data center operators/experts to ground-truth our literature findings. Our interview protocols focus on three aspects of DC decision-making: procurement practices, metrics and monitoring, and perceived barriers to energy efficiency. We find that vendors are the key drivers of procurement decisions, advanced efficiency metrics are facility-specific, and there is convergence in the design of advanced facilities due to the heat density of parallelized infrastructure. Our ultimate goals for our research are to design DC decarbonization policies that target organizational structure, empower individual staff, and foster a supportive external market.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗

DOE OSTI2021

Slow manifolds of classical Pauli particle enable structure-preserving geometric algorithms for guiding center dynamics

Since variational symplectic integrators for the guiding center was proposed, structure-preserving geometric algorithms have become an active research field in plasma physics. We found that the slow manifolds of the classical Pauli particle enable a family of structure-preserving geometric algorithms for guiding center dynamics with long-term stability and accuracy. This discovery overcomes the difficulty associated with the unstable parasitic modes for variational symplectic integrators when applied to the degenerate guiding center Lagrangian. It is a pleasant surprise that Pauli's Hamiltonian for electrons, which predated the Dirac equation and marks the beginning of particle physics, reappears in classical physics as an effective algorithm for solving an important plasma physics problem. This technique is applicable to other degenerate Lagrangians reduced from regular Lagrangians.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗

DOE OSTI2025

The water use of data center workloads: A review and assessment of key determinants

The global importance of data center water use is increasing with the rapid growth of digitalization and artificial intelligence. This study analyzes the factors influencing workload-level water use, measured in liters consumed per workload, to guide water-saving strategies in data centers. Our findings reveal workload-level water use variations exceeding 10,000-fold, driven by over 1000-fold differences in water consumption per kilowatt hour of server electricity consumed and approximately 10-fold differences in server workload efficiency. Key determinants are ranked as server efficiency, electrical grid water consumption factors, server utilization, cooling system type, infrastructure efficiency, climate zone, inactive server percentage, and server refresh cycle. Notably, there is no single recipe for minimizing water use; instead, optimal outcomes depend on tailored combinations of these factors. This analysis addresses critical knowledge gaps by identifying the determinants of data center water use and exploring their achievable minima under diverse site-specific constraints.

Data centers↗

DOE OSTI2025

Broadband Light Extraction from Near-Surface NV Centers Using Crystalline-Silicon Antennas

We use crystalline silicon (Si) antennas to efficiently extract broadband single-photon fluorescence from shallow nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond into free space. Our design features relatively easy-to-pattern high-index Si resonators on the diamond surface to boost photon extraction by overcoming total internal reflection and Fresnel reflection at the diamond-air interface and providing modest Purcell enhancement, without etching or otherwise damaging the diamond surface. In simulations, ∼17 times more single photons are collected from a single NV center compared to the case without the antenna; in experiments, we observe an enhancement of ∼9 times, limited by spatial alignment between the NV and the antenna. Furthermore, our approach can be readily applied to other color centers in diamond, and more generally to the extraction of light from quantum emitters in wide-bandgap materials.

Antennas↗