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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 469 records · Page 26

Strategic Implications of Human Exploration of Near-Earth Asteroids

The current United States Space Policy [1] as articulated by the White House and later confirmed by the Congress [2] calls for [t]he extension of the human presence from low-Earth orbit to other regions of space beyond low-Earth orbit will enable missions to the surface of the Moon and missions to deep space destinations such as near-Earth asteroids and Mars. Human exploration of the Moon and Mars has been the focus of numerous exhaustive studies and planning, but missions to Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) has, by comparison, garnered relatively little attention in terms of mission and systems planning. This paper examines the strategic implications of human exploration of NEAs and how they can fit into the overall exploration strategy. This paper specifically addresses how accessible NEAs are in terms of mission duration, technologies required, and overall architecture construct. Example mission architectures utilizing different propulsion technologies such as chemical, nuclear thermal, and solar electric propulsion were formulated to determine resulting figures of merit including number of NEAs accessible, time of flight, mission mass, number of departure windows, and length of the launch windows. These data, in conjunction with what we currently know about these potential exploration targets (or need to know in the future), provide key insights necessary for future mission and strategic planning.

Drake, Bret G.↗

10 MWE CDCL Large Pilot Plant – pre-FEED Study

Coal Direct Chemical Looping (CDCL) is an advanced oxy-combustion technology that has the potential to substantially reduce the energy penalty and the cost of electricity (COE) for coal-fired power generation with CO₂ capture. The Babcock & Wilcox Company (B&W) and The Ohio State University (OSU) have been collaborating on the development of an iron oxide oxygen-carrier based chemical looping technology for clean power generation with inherent carbon capture. In this process, coal is dried and pulverized prior to being transported into a moving-bed reducer. In the reducer, coal reacts with the oxygen-carrier particles, forming combustion byproducts, predominantly CO₂ and H₂O, while reducing the iron oxide oxidation state from Fe₂O₃ to a mixture of FeO and Fe. The reduced state particles are then transported to a combustor reactor and re-oxidized with air. Following the oxidation, the oxygen-carrier particles are regenerated, and a large amount of heat is released for steam production. The produced steam is sent to a turbine for electricity generation. Meanwhile, the CO₂–rich stream leaving the reducer is cooled, cleaned, and compressed for subsequent pipeline transportation and sequestration. By combining air separation and fuel conversion into a single system, the CDCL technology enables the intensification of oxy-combustion processes by eliminating the energy and cost intensive cryogenic air separation unit and thereby results in higher overall plant efficiencies and lower COE’s. The use of a moving-bed reducer results in high conversions of volatile hydrocarbons and high CO₂ purity, which reduces the cost of downstream CO₂ purification for sequestration or utilization. The Babcock & Wilcox Company in collaboration with The Ohio State University, Johnson & Matthey, The Electric Power Research Institute, and Dover Light & Power completed a Preliminary Front-End Engineering and Design (Pre-FEED) study of a 10 MWe coal-direct chemical looping (CDCL) pilot plant. The planned system is a modular 10 MWe CDCL large pilot facility consisting in 4 modules of 2.5 MWe each, working in parallel and to be hosted within the current structure at the City of Dover’s Municipal Power Plant. The CDCL system can achieve auto-thermal operation and includes a sub-critical steam cycle for power generation. The pilot system was designed to demonstrate full commercial operation at a reduced scale. The coal distribution per plan area is a representative slice of larger commercial arrangements. The system includes a CO₂ recycle system, but it does not include a compression system. The large pilot includes all the environmental control equipment and oxygen carrier and ash handling systems. As part of the project, the Team performed laboratory testing and carried out multiple pilot test campaigns to obtain design and performance information at the 250 kWth CDCL pilot facility at the Babcock & Wilcox Company’s Research Center. The Team demonstrated sustained operations at designed coal inputs, high coal conversion, high CO₂ purity, heat generation on the combustor, low carbon carryover between reactors and low particle attrition. Emissions generated in the reducer reactor were identified as SO₂ and NO x . The commercial manufacturing cost of oxygen carrier particle was evaluated by JM. A particle manufacturing report was generated and submitted to the DOE. Based on the results from the pilot tests and the pre-FEED design efforts, a techno-economic analysis was performed. The study shows that the CDCL process is a promising carbon-friendly technology capable of producing electricity with high efficiency. The estimated COE of the supercritical CDCL plant is $83.3 / MWh, which meets DOE’s target of less than 30% increase in COE when compared to a supercritical PC plant without CO₂ capture. This is the lowest among the existing carbon capture technologies (post-combustion and oxy-combustion) for fossil fuel power plant. CDCL is evaluated to be the most promising technology for carbon capture from the economic aspect.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

Advanced Free Flight Planner and Dispatcher's Workstation: Preliminary Design Specification

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has implemented the Advanced Air Transportation Technology (AATT) program to investigate future improvements to the national and international air traffic management systems. This research, as part of the AATT program, developed preliminary design requirements for an advanced Airline Operations Control (AOC) dispatcher's workstation, with emphasis on flight planning. This design will support the implementation of an experimental workstation in NASA laboratories that would emulate AOC dispatch operations. The work developed an airline flight plan data base and specified requirements for: a computer tool for generation and evaluation of free flight, user preferred trajectories (UPT); the kernel of an advanced flight planning system to be incorporated into the UPT-generation tool; and an AOC workstation to house the UPT-generation tool and to provide a real-time testing environment. A prototype for the advanced flight plan optimization kernel was developed and demonstrated. The flight planner uses dynamic programming to search a four-dimensional wind and temperature grid to identify the optimal route, altitude and speed for successive segments of a flight. An iterative process is employed in which a series of trajectories are successively refined until the LTPT is identified. The flight planner is designed to function in the current operational environment as well as in free flight. The free flight environment would enable greater flexibility in UPT selection based on alleviation of current procedural constraints. The prototype also takes advantage of advanced computer processing capabilities to implement more powerful optimization routines than would be possible with older computer systems.

Wilson, J.↗

Integrated Energy Systems Program Management Plan

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Nuclear Energy (NE) initiated the Nuclear Energy Enabling Technology Program, which includes the Crosscutting Technology Development (CTD) portfolio of subprograms, to conduct research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) to support existing, new and advanced reactor designs and fuel cycle technologies. This program plan describes the Integrated Energy Systems (IES) Program, an element of the CTD portfolio since 2016 that seeks to improve the economic competitiveness, efficiency and environmental performance of nuclear energy systems by expanding their potential application space beyond electricity and optimizing their utilization in the context of the larger U.S. electric and non-electric energy system.

08 HYDROGEN↗

Quantitative Metrics for Grid Resilience Evaluation and Optimization

Power system resilience has become a critical topic in recent years because of the increasing trend of extreme events and the growing integration of intermittent renewable energy sources. To enhance grid resilience against high-impact, low-frequency events, two questions should be answered: how to quantify the resilience of a given grid and how to incorporate the quantification into power system planning, operation, and restoration. Here this paper develops a new set of quantitative metrics with clear physical interpretation to comprehensively evaluate power system resilience. Using microgrids as an example, an event-based corrective scheduling (ECS) model and an online model predictive control (OMPC) model are developed to integrate the proposed quantitative resilience metrics into power system optimization models for resilience enhancement. The ECS model employs extreme event data to investigate the optimal restoration solution and to help microgrid operators prepare to respond to similar events. The OMPC model provides online decision-making support for operators to handle ongoing outages in the most resilient fashion. The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed quantitative resilience metrics and the resilience enhancement models are demonstrated through simulations and comparative studies on an IEEE test feeder and a real distribution feeder in Southern California.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗

Documentation for Python Automation in CYME for DER Hosting Capacity Analysis of Different Feeder Configurations

This file provides the documentation for several Python scripts that were developed by Sandia National Laboratories to enhance the automation and customization capabilities for performing various distribution system planning and analysis tasks in CYME. Specifically, these scripts (.py files detailed in Figure 1) enable the user to evaluate different distribution system configurations and the resulting impacts on hosting capacity results and other metrics. In general, these scripts—and the accompanying documentation—provide the foundation upon which future customized tools can be created. For example, the scripts show how to extract and modify parameters of various circuit components, set up and run analyses using built-in CYME tools (iteratively), and export reports for further evaluations and comparisons. Thus, the capabilities and syntaxes used in the scripts can be adapted and leveraged for countless other objectives.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

On the management and processing of earth resources information

The basic concepts of a recently completed large-scale earth resources information system plan are reported. Attention is focused throughout the paper on the information management and processing requirements. After the development of the principal system concepts, a model system for implementation at the state level is discussed.

Skinner, C. W.↗

Integrating deliberative planning in a robot architecture

The role of planning and reactive control in an architecture for autonomous agents is discussed. The postulated architecture seperates the general robot intelligence problem into three interacting pieces: (1) robot reactive skills, i.e., grasping, object tracking, etc.; (2) a sequencing capability to differentially ativate the reactive skills; and (3) a delibrative planning capability to reason in depth about goals, preconditions, resources, and timing constraints. Within the sequencing module, caching techniques are used for handling routine activities. The planning system then builds on these cached solutions to routine tasks to build larger grain sized primitives. This eliminates large numbers of essentially linear planning problems. The architecture will be used in the future to incorporate in robots cognitive capabilites normally associated with intelligent behavior.

Elsaesser, Chris↗

Orbital servicing of space platforms

NASA-MSFC is planning systems for the orbital servicing and maintenance of large geosynchronous platforms. The goal is to devise methods to maintain, update, and/or replace the basic spacecraft housekeeping equipment as well as the onboard mission equipment. The planning has passed through the feasibility demonstration level. A hard engineering test unit of such an on-orbit servicing system, complete with control system, is being tested and evaluated by MSFC.

Turner, J. R.↗

The earth radiation budget satellite system of the early 1980's

The overall program objective of the Earth Radiation Budget Satellite System is to gather the required radiation budget data and apply these data for a better understanding and prediction of climate. The paper describes the planned system, including the instruments and the associated sampling strategies and data analysis methods. Examination of mission implications reveals the need for a multisensor, multisatellite system consisting of high- and mid-inclination orbits. Each spacecraft will carry wide and medium field-of-view sensors, a sensor for measuring the solar constant, and a narrow field-of-view cross-track scanner.

Cooper, J. E.↗

Using the SPICE System to Help Plan and Interpret Space Science Observations

A portable multimission information system named SPICE is used to assemble, archive, and provide easy access to viewing and other ancillary information needed by space scientists to interpret observations of bodies within our solar system. The modular nature of this system lends it to use in planning such observations as well. Since a successful proof of concept on Voyager, the SPICE system has been adapted to several recent JPL spacecraft missions and a variety of ground based operations. Other adaptations are underway. SPICE has been used to support observation planning for moving targets on the Hubble Space Telescope Project. Applications for SPICE on earth science, space physics, and other astrophysics missions are under consideration.

data↗

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 2

These proceedings contain papers presented at the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics held in Pasadena, January 31 to February 2, 1989. The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research.

Rodriguez, Guillermo↗

Proceedings of the NASA Conference on Space Telerobotics, volume 3

The theme of the Conference was man-machine collaboration in space. The Conference provided a forum for researchers and engineers to exchange ideas on the research and development required for application of telerobotics technology to the space systems planned for the 1990s and beyond. The Conference: (1) provided a view of current NASA telerobotic research and development; (2) stimulated technical exchange on man-machine systems, manipulator control, machine sensing, machine intelligence, concurrent computation, and system architectures; and (3) identified important unsolved problems of current interest which can be dealt with by future research.

Rodriguez, Guillermo↗

Replanning Using Hierarchical Task Network and Operator-Based Planning

In order to scale-up to real-world problems, planning systems must be able to replan in order to deal with changes in problem context. In this paper we describe hierarchical task network and operatorbased re-planning techniques which allow adaptation of a previous plan to account for problems associated with executing plans in real-world domains with uncertainty, concurrency, changing objectives.

HTN/operator-based planning↗

Using the SPICE system to help plan and interpret space science observations

A portable multimission information system named SPICE is used to assemble, archive, and provide easy user access to viewing geometry and other ancillary information needed by space scientists to interpret observations of bodies within our solar system. The modular nature of this system lends it to use in planning such observations as well. With a successful proof of concept on Voyager, the SPICE system has been adapted to the Magellan, Galileo and Mars Observer missions, and to a variety of ground based operations. Adaptation of SPICE for Cassini and the Russian Mars 94/96 projects is underway, and work on Cassini will follow, SPICE has been used to support observation planning for moving targets on the Hubble Space Telescope Project. Applications for SPICE on earth science, space physics and other astrophysics missions are under consideration.

Acton, Charles H., Jr.↗