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NASA NTRS1991

The environment workbench: A design tool for Space Station Freedom

The environment workbench (EWB) is being developed for NASA by S-CUBED to provide a standard tool that can be used by the Space Station Freedom (SSF) design and user community for requirements verification. The desktop tool will predict and analyze the interactions of SSF with its natural and self-generated environments. A brief review of the EWB design and capabilities is presented. Calculations using a prototype EWB of the on-orbit floating potentials and contaminant environment of SSF are also presented. Both the positive and negative grounding configurations for the solar arrays are examined to demonstrate the capability of the EWB to provide quick estimates of environments, interactions, and system effects.

Jongeward, Gary A.↗

NASA NTRS1993

Knowledge From Pictures (KFP)

The old maxim goes: 'A picture is worth a thousand words'. The objective of the research reported in this paper is to demonstrate this idea as it relates to the knowledge acquisition process and the automated development of an expert system's rule base. A prototype tool, the Knowledge From Pictures (KFP) tool, has been developed which configures an expert system's rule base by an automated analysis of and reasoning about a 'picture', i.e., a graphical representation of some target system to be supported by the diagnostic capabilities of the expert system under development. This rule base, when refined, could then be used by the expert system for target system monitoring and fault analysis in an operational setting. Most people, when faced with the problem of understanding the behavior of a complicated system, resort to the use of some picture or graphical representation of the system as an aid in thinking about it. This depiction provides a means of helping the individual to visualize the bahavior and dynamics of the system under study. An analysis of the picture augmented with the individual's background information, allows the problem solver to codify knowledge about the system. This knowledge can, in turn, be used to develop computer programs to automatically monitor the system's performance. The approach taken is this research was to mimic this knowledge acquisition paradigm. A prototype tool was developed which provides the user: (1) a mechanism for graphically representing sample system-configurations appropriate for the domain, and (2) a linguistic device for annotating the graphical representation with the behaviors and mutual influences of the components depicted in the graphic. The KFP tool, reasoning from the graphical depiction along with user-supplied annotations of component behaviors and inter-component influences, generates a rule base that could be used in automating the fault detection, isolation, and repair of the system.

Truszkowski, Walt↗

NASA NTRS2018

Tactical Surface Metering Procedures for Charlotte Douglas International Airport

NASA has been collaborating with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and aviation industry partners to develop and demonstrate new concepts and technologies for the Integrated Arrival, Departure, and Surface (IADS) traffic management capabilities under the Airspace Technology Demonstration 2 (ATD-2) project. The primary goal of the ATD-2 project is to improve the predictability and the operational efficiency of the air traffic system in metroplex environments while maintaining or improving throughput by enhancing and integrating arrival, departure and surface prediction, scheduling, and management systems. In the Phase 1 Baseline IADS Demonstration, the tactical surface scheduling capability and the user interfaces for ramp controllers and ramp traffic managers were implemented for ramp operations. The purpose of the tactical surface scheduling capability is to provide the airline ramp controller with aircraft pushback advisories that prevent surface congestion and to respond to surface and airspace constraints that become known over relatively short time horizons. For this purpose, the tactical surface metering tool first estimates the capacity of current and near-future runway resources from flight schedule and surveillance data. With demand forecasts and predicted taxi trajectories, this tool computes an efficient runway schedule of aircraft in the planning horizon based on their readiness, Earliest Off-Block Times (EOBTs), and a ration by schedule (RBS) rule. Details on the implementation of the Tactical Surface Metering tool will be provided in the full paper. Both pushback and recommended hold times advisories provided by this surface metering tool are shown on the user interfaces for the ramp controller and the ramp traffic manager, called Ramp Traffic Console (RTC) and Ramp Manager Traffic Console (RMTC), respectively. There is excess queue time in the system due to demand capacity imbalance, this time can be taken as a hold on the runway queue or at the gate and was referred to as the Metering Value. This metering value can be adjusted by the Ramp Manager in collaboration with Air Traffic Controller-Tower Traffic Management Coordinator (TMC). They selected a set of metering values as default values for the tool during human-in-the-loop simulation. As the metering value increases, there is a decrease in the gate hold and increase in the queue time at the runway. Procedures and Information needs related to managing the surface metering procedures were researched in the simulated environment. These procedures will be compared to the procedures adopted at Charlotte Douglas International Airport when the tools were deployed and adopted in November 2017 for one departure push bank per day. Feedback regarding initial issues, information needs such as the need to see EOBTs on the flight data tags and how they compare to scheduled times will also be discussed in the full paper. Initial results will be provided regarding the choice of the metering value and how it was adjusted on a daily basis and what procedures evolved will also be presented in the paper.

surface metering↗

NASA NTRS2005

Chimera Grid Tools

Chimera Grid Tools (CGT) is a software package for performing computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis utilizing the Chimera-overset-grid method. For modeling flows with viscosity about geometrically complex bodies in relative motion, the Chimera-overset-grid method is among the most computationally cost-effective methods for obtaining accurate aerodynamic results. CGT contains a large collection of tools for generating overset grids, preparing inputs for computer programs that solve equations of flow on the grids, and post-processing of flow-solution data. The tools in CGT include grid editing tools, surface-grid-generation tools, volume-grid-generation tools, utility scripts, configuration scripts, and tools for post-processing (including generation of animated images of flows and calculating forces and moments exerted on affected bodies). One of the tools, denoted OVERGRID, is a graphical user interface (GUI) that serves to visualize the grids and flow solutions and provides central access to many other tools. The GUI facilitates the generation of grids for a new flow-field configuration. Scripts that follow the grid generation process can then be constructed to mostly automate grid generation for similar configurations. CGT is designed for use in conjunction with a computer-aided-design program that provides the geometry description of the bodies, and a flow-solver program.

Chan, William M.↗

NASA NTRS2012

Plug-in Plan Tool v3.0.3.1

The role of PLUTO (Plug-in Port UTilization Officer) and the growth of the International Space Station (ISS) have exceeded the capabilities of the current tool PiP (Plug-in Plan). Its users (crew and flight controllers) have expressed an interest in a new, easy-to-use tool with a higher level of interactivity and functionality that is not bound by the limitations of Excel. The PiP Tool assists crewmembers and ground controllers in making real-time decisions concerning the safety and compatibility of hardware plugged into the UOPs (Utility Outlet Panels) onboard the ISS. The PiP Tool also provides a reference to the current configuration of the hardware plugged in to the UOPs, and enables the PLUTO and crew to test Plug-in locations for constraint violations (such as cable connector mismatches or amp limit violations), to see the amps and volts for an end item, to see whether or not the end item uses 1553 data, and the cable length between the outlet and the end item. As new equipment is flown or returned, the database can be updated appropriately as needed. The current tool is a macroheavy Excel spreadsheet with its own database and reporting functionality. The new tool captures the capabilities of the original tool, ports them to new software, defines a new dataset, and compensates for ever-growing unique constraints associated with the Plug-in Plan. New constraints were designed into the tool, and updates to existing constraints were added to provide more flexibility and customizability. In addition, there is an option to associate a "Flag" with each device that will let the user know there is a unique constraint associated with it when they use it. This helps improve the safety and efficiency of real-time calls by limiting the amount of "corporate knowledge" overhead that has to be trained and learned through use. The tool helps save time by automating previous manual processes, such as calculating connector types and deciding which cables are required and in what order.

Andrea-Liner, Kathleen E.↗

NASA NTRS2020

What Can We Learn from One Billion Ground System Log Messages?

Shortage of log-based data in a ground system they have traditionally been the under achievers in a satellite ground system. This is due to several factors: Once log messages scroll out of view on the TTC event console window they are soon forgotten. Application and system log files are scattered across directories within a system, across a multitude of servers, and across one or more databases making access cumbersome. Typical tools to perform log file content searching are generally crude and typically only employed as part of trouble-shooting exercises.As we move towards satellite constellations and fleets and add even more status information, the number of messages keeps growing. One mission now estimates that they could generate 3,000,000 messages per day 1 billion per year - for the life of their mission. What to do with those 1 billion messages? That is the challenge. With the recent technological advances in the management of large data sets, text-based processing, and data analytics, there are now capabilities that we can provide to the ground system engineers and satellite operators to address what we postulate are missed opportunities. Advanced real-time log analysis can allow us to be less reactionary in favor of being more proactive. Analytics goals include the ability to: Identify root cause of unexpected events, failures or error conditions enabled by correlating disparate data. Detect security breaches attempts before they are successful. Help admins ensure IT resources continue running optimally. Identify trends and patterns that may indicate impending failures or error conditions for valuable assets before they happen. Compare satellites in a fleet or constellation in terms of number of alarms, number of command sent to them, etc.. Answer questions like "Are the operations support needs increasing over the past year?" or "Have we seen this combination of alarm conditions before?" But really, once the tools are readily available the users will start realizing what can be done with their new powers. In this presentation we will show the results of analyzing millions of actual mission operations log messages, how the results can be displayed to the user, and how new products now available as open source can be applied to the challenges of large scale time-tagged text-based mission operations messages. Flight operations team members believe that this is a powerful new option for how they assess overall system and space asset health. Technical descriptions of the design, tools, and storage will be provided. One billion messages? Bring'em on!

Orsborne, Sharon↗

NASA NTRS1986

Intelligent user interface concept for space station

The space station computing system must interface with a wide variety of users, from highly skilled operations personnel to payload specialists from all over the world. The interface must accommodate a wide variety of operations from the space platform, ground control centers and from remote sites. As a result, there is a need for a robust, highly configurable and portable user interface that can accommodate the various space station missions. The concept of an intelligent user interface executive, written in Ada, that would support a number of advanced human interaction techniques, such as windowing, icons, color graphics, animation, and natural language processing is presented. The user interface would provide intelligent interaction by understanding the various user roles, the operations and mission, the current state of the environment and the current working context of the users. In addition, the intelligent user interface executive must be supported by a set of tools that would allow the executive to be easily configured and to allow rapid prototyping of proposed user dialogs. This capability would allow human engineering specialists acting in the role of dialog authors to define and validate various user scenarios. The set of tools required to support development of this intelligent human interface capability is discussed and the prototyping and validation efforts required for development of the Space Station's user interface are outlined.

Comer, Edward↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The NASA TEMPO Mission: Hourly Daytime Air Pollution Observations for Enhanced Health and Air Quality Applications

The Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution (TEMPO) mission was launched into Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) to 91°W longitude on April 7, 2023, and had a successful 3-day First Light period starting July 31 with TEMPO making its first hourly daytime scans across the TEMPO Field of Regard (FoR) covering greater North America on August 2. TEMPO will provide hourly daytime observations of aerosols and trace gases, including criteria pollutants of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and ozone (O3), at high spatial resolution (e.g., 2.0 x 4.75 km2) across the FoR. The hyperspectral ultraviolet-to-visible measurements from the TEMPO imaging grating spectrometer will enable an O3 profile product capable of monitoring the daytime diurnal evolution of O3 pollution in the planetary boundary layer and assessing related health impacts. The non-standard or special scan operations of TEMPO at sub-hourly frequency (e.g., 2-10 minutes) over selected slices of the FoR will further enhance air quality monitoring capabilities during disasters (e.g., wildfires, volcanic eruptions, dust storms, industrial accidents) and other episodic events for better understanding emission sources and the evolution of harmful air pollutants. A large diversity of stakeholders and end-users have been engaged in the TEMPO Early Adopters Program, supported by the NASA Applied Sciences Program, which aims to enhance health and air quality applications and maximize the societal benefit of TEMPO data. Key outcomes from the Early Adopters Program include enhanced knowledge and preparation for using TEMPO data, tailoring the data dissemination and visualization tools for TEMPO based on user needs, and broadening the health and air quality applications facet of the mission. This presentation will provide the latest TEMPO mission and Early Adopters Program updates, insight into the health and air quality applications enabled through TEMPO data, and showcase the First Light NO2 imagery and provisional data from the mission.

Remote Sensing↗

NASA NTRS2018

Improvements to Integrated Tradespace Analysis of Communications Architectures (ITACA) Network Loading Analysis Tool

NASA's SCENIC project aims to simplify and reduce the cost of space mission planning by replicating the analysis capabilities of commercially licensed software which are integrated with relevant analysis parameters specific to SCaN assets and SCaN supported user missions. SCENIC differs from current tools that perform similar analyses in that it 1) does not require any licensing fees, 2) will provide an all-in-one package for various analysis capabilities that normally requires add-ons or multiple tools to complete. As part of SCENIC's capabilities, the ITACA network loading analysis tool will be responsible for assessing the loading on a given network architecture and generating a network service schedule. ITACA will allow users to evaluate the quality of service of a given network architecture and determine whether or not the architecture will satisfy the mission's requirements. ITACA is currently under development, and the following improvements were made during the fall of 2017: optimization of runtime, augmentation of network asset pre-service configuration time, augmentation of Brent's method of root finding, augmentation of network asset FOV restrictions, augmentation of mission lifetimes, and the integration of a SCaN link budget calculation tool. The improvements resulted in (a) 25% reduction in runtime, (b) more accurate contact window predictions when compared to STK(Registered Trademark) contact window predictions, and (c) increased fidelity through the use of specific SCaN asset parameters.

analysis↗

NASA NTRS2005

Modeling and Analysis of Space Based Transceivers

This paper presents the tool chain, methodology, and initial results of a study to provide a thorough, objective, and quantitative analysis of the design alternatives for space Software Defined Radio (SDR) transceivers. The approach taken was to develop a set of models and tools for describing communications requirements, the algorithm resource requirements, the available hardware, and the alternative software architectures, and generate analysis data necessary to compare alternative designs. The Space Transceiver Analysis Tool (STAT) was developed to help users identify and select representative designs, calculate the analysis data, and perform a comparative analysis of the representative designs. The tool allows the design space to be searched quickly while permitting incremental refinement in regions of higher payoff.

Reinhart, Richard C.↗

NASA NTRS2007

Modeling and Analysis of Space Based Transceivers

Moore, Michael S.↗

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↗

NASA NTRS2006

Space-Based Ornithology: On the Wings of Migration and Biophysics

Understanding bird migration and avian biodiversity is one of the most compelling and challenging problems of modern biology with major implications for human health and conservation biology. Migration and conservation efforts cross national boundaries and are subject to numerous international agreements and treaties. Public interest is high with concerns about avian flu, Katrina and its impacts, and the recent sightings of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Space based technology gives us new opportunities to shed light on the distribution and movement of organisms on the planet and their sensitivity to human disturbances and environmental changes. Together with the USGS and other agencies, we are creating ecological forecasting tools for science and application users to address the consequences of loss of wetlands, flooding, drought or other natural disasters such as hurricanes on avian biodiversity and bird migration. In our work, we use individual organism biophysical models of energy and water balance and drive these models with satellite measurements of spatio-temporal gradients in climate and habitat. Dynamic state variable modeling provides an additional tool for studying bird migration across multiple scales and can be linked to our mechanistic models describing the time and energy budget states of migrating birds. Such models yield an understanding of how a migratory flyway and its component habitats function as a whole and link stop-over ecology with biological conservation and management. We also build upon the canopy done by the Environmental Laboratory over the past few years.

Smith, James A.↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

ExMC Systems Engineering Developments

The Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Element within the Human Research Program (HRP) applies systems engineering (SE) principles along with the use of Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE) tools to identify and communicate the requirements for medical and crew health and performance (CHP) systems. In the past fiscal year, the MBSE approach sought to advance the digital engineering toolset for medical and CHP system representation. These digital artifacts provide enhanced views of the relationships among requirements, standards, functions, and capabilities, to name a few, that is best suited for a user’s objectives. The MBSE tools and SE practices were applied to the development of the revised Earth Independent Medical Operations (EIMO) medical system and the Artemis III and IV CHP System models. In addition, a System of Systems concept was integrated into the EIMO model to facilitate the identification of system interfaces that interact with the medical system. Finally, the ExMC SE team has initiated several efforts to bring operationally relevant digital engineering practices to the Human Health and Performance Directorate (HHPD). This included the development of a pilot program within the directorate to help foster utilization of tools such as MagicDraw for system modeling and Power BI for visualizing extracted data in an easily accessible dashboard format. Additionally, with the increase in complexity of the integration effort for Artemis missions, ExMC has endeavored to bring digital engineering strategies to potentially increase efficiency in review processes. This talk will provide a high-level overview of the ExMC SE team accomplishments since the last Investigators’ Workshop, an introduction to upcoming SE talks, and the ongoing systems engineering work.

systems engineering↗

NASA NTRS2018

Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) report to the GHRSST Science Team

In 2017-2018 the Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) at NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) provided ingest, archive, distribution and user services for GHRSST operational data streams with improved and evolved tools, services, and tutorials and interfaced with the user community to address technical inquiries. The GDAC provided access to new GHRSST datasets as well retired a significant number of deprecated GHRSST datasets from its discovery services. The following sections summarize and document the specific achievements of the GDAC to the GHRSST community.

Finch, Chris↗

NASA NTRS2018

Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) Report to the GHRSST Science Team

Finch, Chris↗

NASA NTRS2020

Global Data Assembly Center (gdac) Report to the GHRSST Science Team

In 2019-2020 the Global Data Assembly Center (GDAC) at NASA’s Physical Oceanography Distributed Active Archive Center (PO.DAAC) provided ingest, archive, distribution and user services for GHRSST operational data streams with improved and evolved tools, services, and tutorials, and interfaced with the user community to address technical inquiries. Several new GHRSST datasets including reprocessed MODIS Aqua/Terra L2P with improved cloud screening were made available. The PO.DAAC participated in the evolving GHRSST data management re architecture and development activities. GHRSST Science Team member Edward Armstrong assumed the role of co-leader of the CEOS SST Virtual Constellation. The following sections summarize and document the specific achievements of the GDAC to the GHRSST community.

Finch, Chris↗

NASA NTRS1988

Variance and bias confidence criteria for ERA modal parameter identification

For the ERA system identification algorithm, perturbation methods are used to develop expressions for variance and bias of the identified modal parameters. Based on the statistics of the measurement noise, the variance results serve as confidence criteria by indicating how likely the true parameters are to lie within any chosen interval about their identified values. This replaces the use of expensive and time-consuming Monte Carlo computer runs to obtain similar information. The bias estimates help guide the ERA user in his choice of which data points to use and how much data to use in order to obtain the best results, performing the trade-off between the bias and scatter. Also, when the uncertainty in the bias is sufficiently small, the bias information can be used to correct the ERA results. In addition, expressions for the variance and bias of the singular values serve as tools to help the ERA user decide the proper modal order.

Longman, Richard W.↗