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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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The concept of a mechanically deploy- able hypersonic decelerator, developed initially for high mass (40 MT) human Mars missions, is currently funded by OCT for technology maturation. The ADEPT (Adaptive, Deployable Entry and Placement Technology) project has broad, game-changing applicability to in situ science missions to Venus, Mars, and the Outer Planets.
Analysis completed since the test suggests that all test objectives were met– This claim will be verified in the coming weeks as the data is examined further– Final disposition of test objective success will be documented in a final reportsubmitted to NASA stakeholders (early August 2015)– Expect conference paper in early 2016• Data products and observations made during testing will be used to refinecomputational models of Nano-ADEPT• Carbon fabric relaxed from its pre-test state during the test– System-level tolerance for relaxation will be driven by destination-specific andmission-specific aerothermal and aerodynamic requirements• Bonus experiment of asymmetric shape demonstrates that an asymmetricdeployable blunt body can be used to generate measureable lift– With a strut actuation system and a robust GN&C algorithm, this effect could beused to steer a blunt body at hypersonic speeds to aid precision landing
Overview of ADEPT Project status and recent accomplishments.
The Adaptable, Deployable, Entry and Placement Technology (ADEPT) mechanically deployable aeroshell uses a multi-layer carbon fabric as the primary drag surface during hypersonic entry. The Spiderweave was produced as part of an SBIR Phase II contract by Bally Ribbon Mills (BRM). The Spiderweave technique addresses challenges of simplified manufacturing and potentially stronger joints between gores with continuous fill fibers connecting each gore in a spiderweave pattern.
Drag Modulated Aerocapture (DMA) for Venus orbiter missions relies on the deployable aeroshell ADEPT to perform orbit insertion Delta-V
Overview of ADEPT technology for low ballistic coefficient mechanically deployable entry vehicles.
Adaptable Deployable Entry and Placement Technology (ADEPT) overview
GPU-BSW is a version of Smith-Waterman alignment algorithm which has been optimized to perform large number of sequence alignments on GPUs.
Seedling funding was secured through the ARPA-E program to develop a robust, utility-scale Power Converter Augmented Transformer (PCAT). The project designed, fabricated, and tested two 13 kV, 1 MW PCATs operating at an effective switching frequency of up to 50 kHz and at an efficiency of greater than 99%. Two versions of the PCAT were fabricated – one using an imputed DC link (IDCL) topology and the other using a back-to-back (BTB) topology. The IDCL avoids the use of electrolytic capacitors for bulk energy storage, thus improving the lifetime and decreasing the size of the converter, while the BTB topology uses an industry-proven topology that is more commercially viable in the short term. To give the PCAT a lifetime and maintenance profile compatible with typical existing utility assets, a novel Passive Thermal Management System (PTMS) was designed and integrated into both PCATs. The PTMS uses a thermosiphon to remove heat from the power electronic devices without forced cooling and reject it to the ambient environment. In addition, a fail-normal feature was implemented to ensure that in the event of PCAT failure the functionality of the underlying transformer is retained. Attainment of project objectives was verified through testing at the Georgia Tech National Electrical Energy Testing Research and Applications Center (NEETRAC). The IDCL-based PCAT had an efficiency of more than 99.10% and the BTB-based PCAT had an efficiency of more than 99.75%. During testing, the PTMS exceeded project requirements by rejecting the 5 kW output of the converters to a 40 °C environment while keeping devices junction temperatures within their tolerances.
The proposed presentation will give an overview of a mechanically deployable entry system concept development with a comprehensive summary of the ground tests and design development completed to-date, and current plans for a small-scale flight test in the near future.
The SR-1 flight experiment will demonstrate most of the primary end-to-end mission stages including: launch in a stowed configuration, separation and deployment in exo-atmospheric conditions, and passive ballistic re-entry of a 70-degree half-angle faceted cone geometry.
No abstract available
Conceptual Neptune orbiter was designed for the purpose of assessing mission feasibilityBuilt off of the 2017 Pre-Decadal Study, but adapted for drag modulation aerocapture.Science payload includes: Narrow Angle camera, Doppler Imager, Magnetometer, Atmospheric Probe (w/ ASI, Nephelometer, Mass Spectrometer). Baseline concept of operations releases probe prior to orbit insertion, but investigations are ongoing to assess the feasibility of bringing the probe to orbit before release.
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The Advanced Energetic Pair Telescope gamma-ray polarimeter uses a time projection chamber for measuring pair production events and is expected to generate a raw instrument data rate four orders of magnitude greater than is transmittable with typical satellite data communications. GammaNet, a convolutional neural network, proposes to solve this problem by performing event classification on-board for pair production and background events, reducing the data rate to a level that can be accommodated by typical satellite communication systems. In order to train GammaNet, a set of 1.1 × 10(exp 6) pair production events and 10(exp 6) background events were simulated for the Advanced Energetic Pair Telescope using the Geant4 Monte Carlo code. An additional set of 10(exp 6) pair production and 10 background events were simulated to test GammaNet’s capability for background discrimination. With optimization, GammaNet has achieved the proposed background rejection requirements for Galactic Cosmic Ray proton events. Given the best case assumption for downlink speeds, signal sensitivity for pair production ranged between 1.1 ± 0.5% to 69 ± 2% for 5 and 250 MeV incident gamma rays. This range became 0.1 ± 0.1% to 17 ± 2% for the worst case scenario of downlink speeds. The application of a feature visualization algorithm to GammaNet demonstrated decreased response to electronic noise and events exiting or entering the frame and increased response to parallel tracks that are close in proximity. GammaNet has been successfully implemented and shows promising results.