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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 487 records · Page 27
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2008

Beagle 2 the Moon: An Experimental Package to Measure Polar Ice and Volatiles in Permanently Shadowed Areas or Beneath the Lunar Surface

NASA has announced the selection of several Lunar Science Sortie Concept Studies for potential scientific payloads with future Lunar Missions. The Beagle 2 scientific package was one of those chosen for study. Near the beginning of the next decade will see the launch of scientific payloads to the lunar surface to begin laying the foundations for the return to the moon in the Vision for Space Exploration. Shortly thereafter, astronauts will return to the lunar surface with the ability to place scientific packages on the surface that will provide information about lunar resources and compositions of materials in permanently shadowed regions of the moon (1). One of the important questions which must be answered early in the program is whether there are lunar resources which would facilitate "living off the land" and not require the transport of resources and consumables from Earth (2). The Beagle science package developed to seek the signatures of life on Mars is the ideal payload (3) to use on the lunar surface for determining the nature of hydrogen, water and lunar volatiles found in the polar regions which could support the Vision for Space Exploration.

Gibson, E. K.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Task Adaptive Walking Robots for Mars Surface Exploration

There are exciting opportunities for robot science that lie beyond the reach of current manipulators, rovers, balloons, penetrators, etc. Examples include mobile explorations of the densely cratered Mars highlands, of asteroids, and of moons. These sites are believed to be rich in geologic history and mineralogical detail, but are difficult to robotically access and sample. The surface terrains are rough and changeable, with variable porosity and dust layering; and the small bodies present further challenges of low-temperature, micro-gravity environments. Even the more benign areas of Mars are highly variegated in character (>VL2 rock densities), presenting significant risk to conventional rovers. The development of compact walking robots would have applications to the current mission set for Mars surface exploration, as well as enabling future Mars Outpost missions, asteroid rendezvous missions for the Solar System Exploration Program (SSE) and the mechanical assembly/inspection of large space platforms for the Human Exploration and Development of Spaces (HEDS).

Huntsberger, Terry↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Artemis Internal Science Team Update: Deployed Payloads

Artemis will reestablish human presence on the Moon and lead to a new era of scientific discovery and exploration. Led by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Artemis effort includes a collaboration of space agencies and companies from around the world [1]. In support of Artemis, a cross-disciplinary effort of science, engineering, operations, and human factors personnel is currently developing the best methods, facilities, and field locations to test hardware, train astronauts, and evaluate concepts of operations. This abstract, as part of the Artemis Internal Science Team (AIST) [2], provides an update to NASA’s plans for the solicitation, development, and operations of deployed surface payloads. In calendar year 2023, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate will solicit proposals for instruments to be deployed by crew on the surface of the Moon (Fig. 1), beginning with Artemis III [3]. The Artemis III mission will land in the south polar region of the Moon, within 6º of latitude from the south pole, in the vicinity of both persistently illuminated and permanently shadowed areas of the Moon, with potential access to surface-accessible volatile deposits [4]. Several of the proposed landing regions are located among some of the oldest parts of the Moon, and together with the permanently shadowed regions, provide the opportunity to learn about the history of the Moon through previously unexplored lunar regions [5]. Deployed payloads will be a critical part of a notional program that captures the highest-priority science for Artemis III and provides the greatest feedforward to follow-on missions and the build-up to the Artemis Base Camp

R. C. Weber↗
NASA NTRS2003

The Mars Exploration Rovers Entry Descent and Landing and the Use of Aerodynamic Decelerators

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) project, the next United States mission to the surface of Mars, uses aerodynamic decelerators in during its entry, descent and landing (EDL) phase. These two identical missions (MER-A and MER-B), which deliver NASA s largest mobile science suite to date to the surface of Mars, employ hypersonic entry with an ablative energy dissipating aeroshell, a supersonic/subsonic disk-gap-band parachute and an airbag landing system within EDL. This paper gives an overview of the MER EDL system and speaks to some of the challenges faced by the various aerodynamic decelerators.

Steltzner, Adam↗
NASA NTRS2020

Compass Final Report: Venus Bridge Orbiter and Surface Study (V-BOSS)

The Venus Bridge Orbiter and Surface Study (V-BOSS) Compass concurrent engineering design team study shows that new, high-priority Venus science can be achieved using a linked Orbiter + Surface Element (Lander) mission concept within a $200M cost cap with assumptions. This is feasible through optimizing investment in early technologies and platforms, such as the Long-Lived In-Situ Solar System Explorer (LLISSE), leveraging known and flight-ready technology, and the overall use of simple, small, robust systems in innovative approaches to Venus exploration. This architecture allows a range of science investigations through modification of Orbiter-Lander platforms in this study through choice of other instruments (often sensors), science themes, or operational modes. In particular, a fundamental strength of this approach is to provide science not available in other ways by using simplified architectures including rugged systems operable in-situ on the Venus surface. Such investigations would be pathfinders for more complex, and more expensive, future missions. Additionally, the results of this study can be used to further champion the need, value and return of early investment technology programs for the hard problem of in-situ investigations at Venus.

Venus Bridge↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Selection and Characterization of the Landing Site for NASA CLPS PRISM1 Lunar Lander Mission CP-11

The NASA Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program delivery known as "CP-11" will carry multiple payloads to the lunar surface in 2024. The payloads include (a) Lunar Vertex, the first science suite sponsored by the NASA Science Mission Directorate's Payloads and Research Investigations on the Surface of the Moon (PRISM) program, (b) JPL's CADRE (Cooperative Autonomous Distributed Robotic Explorers), a project from the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate's Game Changing Development Program, (c) the Lunar Space Environment Monitor (LUSEM), a high-energy particle detector from the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI) and funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea (MSIT), and (d) MPAc (MoonLIGHT Pointing Actuator), a laser retro-reflector developed by the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN-LNF) and funded by the European Space Agency.

David T. Blewett↗
NASA NTRS1999

Preliminary Planning for NEAR's Low-Altitude Operations at 433 Eros

On February 14, 2000, an orbit insertion burn will place NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft (S/C) into orbit around asteroid 433 Eros. NEAR will initially orbit Eros with distances ranging from 500 to 100 km in order to characterize the shape, gravity and spin of Eros. Once the physical parameters of Eros are determined reasonably well, the plan is to establish an orbit of the NEAR S/C with increasingly lower altitudes as the one year orbital mission progresses while further characterizing the gravity and shape of Eros. Towards the end of the NEAR mission, after the shape, gravity and spin of Eros have been well characterized, the scientific interest of obtaining very close observations (< 5 km) can be realized. The navigation during this phase relies on a combination of NASA's Deep Space Network (DSN) radio metric tracking, laser ranging (LIDAR) data from the S/C to the surface of Eros, and onboard optical imaging of landmarks on Eros. This paper will provide preliminary plans for mission design and navigation during the last two months of the orbit phase, where several close passes to the surface will be incorporated to enhance the science return. The culmination of these close passes will result in the eventual landing of the S/C on the surface of Eros. Several considerations for these plans are given by Antreasian, et at. [1998]. The objective for the end of the mission will be to land the S/C autonomously using the surface relative information obtained from the onboard LIDAR instrument. The goal will be to soft land the S/C in such a way as to keep it operational. With the use of an onboard LIDAR landing algorithm as discussed by Antreasian et at. [1998], it is believed that the S/C impact velocity can be kept well under 7 m/s which is a requirement for allowing the S/C to remain operational.

Antreasian, P. G.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

ICESat-2 Mission: Status, Outlook, and Contributions to Polar Science

The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission carries the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS) lidar to measure the changing height of Earth surface. After more than 3 years of science data collection, ATLAS has emitted well over a trillion laser pulses and continues to operate nominally. The ICESat-2 data products were initially released in May 2019, and have been used in over 150 peer-reviewed publications to date. Recent community white papers have noted the importance of ice elevation measurements for the coming decades, and as CryoSat-2 has entered it’s second decade and future missions are uncertain, ICESat-2 will be a critical part of the Earth System Observatory for the 2020s. In the polar regions, ICESat-2 has enabled year-round sea ice freeboard measurements as well as ice sheet elevation changes on seasonal, annual, and decadal time scales when combined with other missions. These data enable measurement of change at fine spatial and temporal scales to help understand or characterize the processes driving these observations. As of this presentation, Release 005 is the current version of the along-track data products, including surface-specific products for sea ice, land ice, ground and canopy height, ocean, and inland water heights. In addition, first versions of gridded data products for land ice, sea ice, and ocean are all available. Data spans the start of the mission (14 October 2018) through early 2022. The ICESat-2 project has also begun to produce and distribute QuickLook products with a nominal 3-day latency (as opposed to the ~45-day latency of the final data products). Initial versions of these QuickLook products have elevation accuracy of ~3 meters, and geolocation accuracy of ~50 meters. All products are available through the National Snow and Ice Data Center (nsidc.org). This presentation will summarize the current state and health of the observatory, current state of the ICESat-2 data products, data product quality assessment, and outlook for the future.

ICESat-2↗
NASA NTRS1993

A Remote Laser-mass Spectrometer for Determination of Elemental Composition

Determination of the elemental composition of lunar, asteroid, and planetary surfaces is a major concern for science and resource utilization of space. The science associated with the development of a satellite or lunar rover laser-mass spectrometer instrument is presented here. The instrument would include a pulsed laser with sufficient energy to create a plasma on a remote surface. Ions ejected from this plasma travel back to the spacecraft or rover, where they are analyzed by a time-of-flight mass spectrometer, giving the elemental and isotope composition. This concept is based on the LIMA-D instrument on board the former Soviet Union Phobos-88 spacecraft sent to Mars. A laser-mass spectrometer placed on a rover or satellite would substantially improve the data return over alternative techniques. The spatial resolution would be centimeters, and a complete mass spectrum could be achieved in one laser shot. An experiment is described that demonstrates these features. A 400 mj Nd:YAG laser is focused, to an intensity of 10(exp 11) w/sq cm, onto a Al, Ag, Cu, Ge, or lunar simulant target. A plasma forms from which ions are ejected. Some of these ions travel down an 18-m evacuated flight tube to a microchannel plate detector. Alternatively, the ions are captured by an ion trap where they are stored until pulsed into a 1-m time-of-flight mass spectrometer, giving the elemental composition of the remote surface. A television camera monitors the plasma plume shape, and a photodiode monitors the temporal plasma emission . With this system, ions of Al, Ag, Cu, Ge, and lunar simulant have been detected at 18 m. The mass spectrum from the ion trap and 1-m time-of-flight tube will be presented.

Deyoung, R. J.↗
NASA NTRS2000

Future Applications Using Return-Pulse Correlation from Imaging Laser Altimeters

The Laser Vegetation Imaging Sensor (LVIS) is an airborne, wide-swath, digitization-only laser altimeter capable of collecting full return waveforms (i.e. echoes) from laser footprints ranging in diameter from 1 to 80 m across up to a 1 km wide data swath. The return waveform can be used to enhance the accuracy of laser ranging and to provide information about the vertical structure of vegetation and topography within each laser footprint. Although extremely small laser footprints (< 1 0 cm diameter) generally return simple, impulse responses to their target surface, larger footprints typically exhibit complex returns representing the diverse vertical distributions of surfaces contained in each footprint. Only a handful of airborne and spaceborne laser altimeters record the return echo or return pulse that is reflected from the Earth's surface (i.e. NASA's LVIS, SLA, VCL, and GLAS laser altimeters). Waveforms are currently interpreted to extract a timing or ranging point or points to represent the mean ground elevation or the vertical height of vegetation. But, recent progress using pulse shape correlation techniques shows promise for a variety of science applications involving change detection of surface topography and vegetation as well as potential for improving data processing by correlating images or crossovers to solve systematic biases. We show example correlation images from LVIS and discuss instrument design implications and potential science applications.

Blair, J. Bryan↗
NASA NTRS2021

Gravity Wave Observations by the Mars Science Laboratory REMS Pressure Sensor and Comparison with Mesoscale Atmospheric Modeling with MarsWRF

Surface pressure measurements on Mars have revealed a wide variety of atmospheric phenomena. The Mars Science Laboratory Rover Environmental Monitoring Station pressure sensor dataset is now the longest duration record of surface pressure on Mars. We use the first 2580 martian sols, nearly 4 Mars years,of measurements to identify atmospheric pressure waves with periods of tens of minutes to hours using wavelet analysis on residual pressure after the tidal harmonics are removed. We find these waves have a clear diurnal cycle with strongest activity in the early morning and late evening and a seasonal cycle with the strongest waves in the second half of the martian year (Ls= 180-360°). The strongest such waves of the entire mission occurred during the Mars Year 34 global dust storm. Comparable atmospheric waves are identified using atmospheric modeling with the MarsWRF general circulation model in a “nested” high spatial resolution mode. With the support of the modeling, we find these waves best fit the expected properties of inertia-gravity waves with horizontal wavelengths of O(100s) of km. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY Measuring air pressure from the surface of Mars has revealed a wide variety of atmospheric phenomena. The Curiosity rover's record or surface air pressure is now the longest yet made on Mars.We use the first ~8 years of Curiosity's pressure observations to look for atmospheric waves with periods of tens of minutes to hours. We find these waves have a clear pattern in their daily behavior with the strongest activity in the early morning and late evening and a seasonal cycle with the strongest waves in the second half of the martian year (Northern hemisphere fall and winter). The strongest such waves occurred in 2018 during a global dust storm. We find comparable waves in atmospheric modeling. With the support of modeling, we find these waves best fit the expected properties of buoyancy waves forced by airflow over topography with horizontal wavelengths of 100-1000 km.

Scott D Guzewich↗
NASA NTRS1990

The Spacelab J mission

This paper describes Spacelab J (SL-J), its mission characteristics, features, parameters and configuration, the unique nature of the shared reimbursable cooperative effort with the National Space Development Agency (NASDA) of Japan and the evolution, content and objectives of the mission scientific experiment complement. The mission is planned for launch in 1991. This long module mission has 35 experiments from Japan as well as 9 investigations from the United States. The SL-J payload consists of two broad scientific disciplines which require the extended microgravity or cosmic ray environment: (1) materials science such as crystal growth, solidification processes, drop dynamics, free surface flows, gas dynamics, metallurgy and semiconductor technology; and (2) life science including cell development, human physiology, radiation-induced mutations, vestibular studies, embryo development, and medical technology. Through an international agreement with NASDA, NASA is preparing to fly the first Japanese manned, scientific, cooperative endeavor with the United States.

Cremin, J. W.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Magnetopause Surface Reconstruction from Tangent Vector Observations

Entire fields of science, most notably in astrophysics, rely on line-of-sight observations. In planetary science and heliophysics, the techniques of soft X-ray and energetic neutral atom (ENA) imaging also produce line-of-sight measurements. An important question is whether the geometry of the surface, for example the magnetopause, can be reconstructed using only line-of-sight observations from a single spacecraft. Under a broad range of conditions, the peak emission corresponds to the tangent to the boundary surface, such as the planetary surface or magnetopause, the so-called "limb brightening" phenomenon. Thus, line-of-sight observations frequently provide information concerning the tangent to the surfaces being observed. We present an algorithm to reconstruct the cross-section of the magnetopause using line-of-sight soft X-ray observations (and, in principle, ENA observations). The algorithm successfully reconstructs the cross section of the magnetopause in the orbit plane. The threedimensional magnetopause structure can be recovered from observations by a spacecraft whose orbit precesses around the magnetosphere.

Tangent↗
NASA NTRS2008

Targeting and Localization for Mars Rover Operations

A design and a partially developed application framework were presented for improving localization and targeting for surface spacecraft. The program has value for the Mars Science Laboratory mission, and has been delivered to support the Mars Exploration Rovers as part of the latest version of the Maestro science planning tool. It also has applications for future missions involving either surface-based or low-altitude atmospheric robotic vehicles. The targeting and localization solutions solve the problem of how to integrate localization estimate updates into operational planning tools, operational data product generalizations, and flight software by adding expanded flexibility to flight software, the operations data product pipeline, and operations planning tools based on coordinate frame updates during a planning cycle.

Powell, Mark W.↗