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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 541 records · Page 30

All sources NASA NTRS DOE OSTI

NASA NTRS1987

A cost analysis for the implementation of commonality in the family of commuter airplanes, revised

The acquisition costs determined for the NASA family of commute airplanes are presented. The costs of the baseline designs are presented along with the calculated savings due to the commonality in the family. A sensitivity study is also presented to show the major drivers in the acquisition cost calculations. The baseline costs are calculated with the Nicolai method. A comparison is presented of the estimated costs for the commuter family with the actual price for existing commuters. The cost calculations for the engines and counter-rotating propellers are reported. The effects of commonality on acquisition costs are calculated. The sensitivity calculations of the cost to various costing parameters are shown. The calculations for the direct operating costs, with and without commonality are presented.

Creighton, Tom↗

NASA NTRS1997

An Assessment of Smallsat Technology to Future Exploration Missions

This reports the results of a general study for NASA Lewis in relation to the use of small satellites for a Mars Relay Satellite (MRS) that supports communications between Mars and Earth: commands to, and telemetry from, Mars Landers and Rover. The scope of the study encompasses a survey of small satellites, those that are lower than 800 kg in mass, by NASA, DoD, and commercial companies. Additionally, surveys in advanced technologies in the area of composite materials, propulsion subsystems, battery subsystems, communications components and subsystems, and ground operations are also provided, A summary of NASA Mars Programs and their status as relevant to MRS is also included. Attempts to draw detailed cost conclusion is generally not possible due to its proprietary nature. In any event, cost is driven by market demands rather than new technologies. A preliminary comparison with the cost estimate of the S-Tel/OSC report did suggest the possibility of cost savings for the MRS by the use of production busses. On the other hand, cost savings in normalized terms from the use of automated ground systems were obtained with some degree of details.

Chan, Steve↗

NASA NTRS2009

An Analysis of Rocket Propulsion Testing Costs

The primary mission at NASA Stennis Space Center (SSC) is rocket propulsion testing. Such testing is generally performed within two arenas: (1) Production testing for certification and acceptance, and (2) Developmental testing for prototype or experimental purposes. The customer base consists of NASA programs, DOD programs, and commercial programs. Resources in place to perform on-site testing include both civil servants and contractor personnel, hardware and software including data acquisition and control, and 6 test stands with a total of 14 test positions/cells. For several business reasons there is the need to augment understanding of the test costs for all the various types of test campaigns. Historical propulsion test data was evaluated and analyzed in many different ways with the intent to find any correlation or statistics that could help produce more reliable and accurate cost estimates and projections. The analytical efforts included timeline trends, statistical curve fitting, average cost per test, cost per test second, test cost timeline, and test cost envelopes. Further, the analytical effort includes examining the test cost from the perspective of thrust level and test article characteristics. Some of the analytical approaches did not produce evidence strong enough for further analysis. Some other analytical approaches yield promising results and are candidates for further development and focused study. Information was organized for into its elements: a Project Profile, Test Cost Timeline, and Cost Envelope. The Project Profile is a snap shot of the project life cycle on a timeline fashion, which includes various statistical analyses. The Test Cost Timeline shows the cumulative average test cost, for each project, at each month where there was test activity. The Test Cost Envelope shows a range of cost for a given number of test(s). The supporting information upon which this study was performed came from diverse sources and thus it was necessary to build several intermediate databases in order to understand, validate, and manipulate data. These intermediate databases (validated historical account of schedule, test activity, and cost) by themselves are of great value and utility. For example, for the Project Profile, we were able to merged schedule, cost, and test activity. This kind of historical account conveys important information about sequence of events, lead time, and opportunities for improvement in future propulsion test projects. The Product Requirement Document (PRD) file is a collection of data extracted from each project PRD (technical characteristics, test requirements, and projection of cost, schedule, and test activity). This information could help expedite the development of future PRD (or equivalent document) on similar projects, and could also, when compared to the actual results, help improve projections around cost and schedule. Also, this file can be sorted by the parameter of interest to perform a visual review of potential common themes or trends. The process of searching, collecting, and validating propulsion test data encountered a lot of difficulties which then led to a set of recommendations for improvement in order to facilitate future data gathering and analysis.

Ramirez-Pagan, Carmen P.↗

NASA NTRS2019

Exo-C: A Dedicated Probe-scale Space Mission for Coronagraphic Imaging and Spectroscopy of Exoplanetary Systems

"Exo-C", the Exoplanet Coronagraph, is a concept for a dedicated probe-scale (< $1B) space mission optimized for direct imaging of exoplanetary systems. It was the product of a detailed mission study carried in 2013-2015 under the sponsorship of the NASA Astrophysics Division. Exo-C was designed to be capable of spectrally characterizing 1-2 dozen nearby exoplanets in reflected visible light, discovering previously undetected planets, and imaging structure in hundreds of circumstellar disks. It would obtain unique science results on planets down to super-Earth size and serve as a technology pathfinder toward an eventual flagship-class mission to find and characterize habitable Earth-like exoplanets. Key design elements are an unobscured telescope aperture, an internal coronagraph with deformable mirrors for precise wavefront control, and an orbit and observatory design chosen for high thermal stability. ExoC’s telescope aperture, orbit, mission lifetime, and spacecraft bus are all comparable to those of the highly successful Kepler mission. Much of the needed technology development (precision pointing, wavefront sensing and correction, high contrast integral field spectroscopy, detector flight readiness) has been advanced by the WFIRST Coronagraph Instrument (CGI) project over the past several years. Mission performance, mass, power, and cost estimates have also benefited from detailed work by the WFIRST CGI team. A Cost and Technical Evaluation (CATE) was performed in 2015 by the Aerospace Corporation. Today Exo-C is a backup option to WFIRST CGI. It could nominally be implemented within seven years from project start. This white paper summarizes the study final report, with updates on performance and technical readiness as of spring 2019.

Karl R. Stapelfeldt↗

NASA NTRS2005

Operations and Modeling Analysis

The Reliability and Maintainability Analysis Tool (RMAT) provides NASA the capability to estimate reliability and maintainability (R&M) parameters and operational support requirements for proposed space vehicles based upon relationships established from both aircraft and Shuttle R&M data. RMAT has matured both in its underlying database and in its level of sophistication in extrapolating this historical data to satisfy proposed mission requirements, maintenance concepts and policies, and type of vehicle (i.e. ranging from aircraft like to shuttle like). However, a companion analyses tool, the Logistics Cost Model (LCM) has not reached the same level of maturity as RMAT due, in large part, to nonexistent or outdated cost estimating relationships and underlying cost databases, and it's almost exclusive dependence on Shuttle operations and logistics cost input parameters. As a result, the full capability of the RMAT/LCM suite of analysis tools to take a conceptual vehicle and derive its operations and support requirements along with the resulting operating and support costs has not been realized.

Ebeling, Charles↗

NASA NTRS2004

Advanced Technology Lifecycle Analysis System (ATLAS)

Developing credible mass and cost estimates for space exploration and development architectures require multidisciplinary analysis based on physics calculations, and parametric estimates derived from historical systems. Within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), concurrent engineering environment (CEE) activities integrate discipline oriented analysis tools through a computer network and accumulate the results of a multidisciplinary analysis team via a centralized database or spreadsheet Each minute of a design and analysis study within a concurrent engineering environment is expensive due the size of the team and supporting equipment The Advanced Technology Lifecycle Analysis System (ATLAS) reduces the cost of architecture analysis by capturing the knowledge of discipline experts into system oriented spreadsheet models. A framework with a user interface presents a library of system models to an architecture analyst. The analyst selects models of launchers, in-space transportation systems, and excursion vehicles, as well as space and surface infrastructure such as propellant depots, habitats, and solar power satellites. After assembling the architecture from the selected models, the analyst can create a campaign comprised of missions spanning several years. The ATLAS controller passes analyst specified parameters to the models and data among the models. An integrator workbook calls a history based parametric analysis cost model to determine the costs. Also, the integrator estimates the flight rates, launched masses, and architecture benefits over the years of the campaign. An accumulator workbook presents the analytical results in a series of bar graphs. In no way does ATLAS compete with a CEE; instead, ATLAS complements a CEE by ensuring that the time of the experts is well spent Using ATLAS, an architecture analyst can perform technology sensitivity analysis, study many scenarios, and see the impact of design decisions. When the analyst is satisfied with the system configurations, technology portfolios, and deployment strategies, he or she can present the concepts to a team, which will conduct a detailed, discipline-oriented analysis within a CEE. An analog to this approach is the music industry where a songwriter creates the lyrics and music before entering a recording studio.

O'Neil, Daniel A.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Q1 2023 U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System and Energy Storage Cost Benchmarks With Minimum Sustainable Price Analysis Data File

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) aims to accelerate the advancement and deployment of solar technology in support of an equitable transition to a decarbonized economy no later than 2050, starting with a decarbonized power sector by 2035. Its approach to achieving this goal includes driving innovations in technology, hardware, and soft cost reductions to make solar affordable and accessible for all. As part of this effort, SETO must track solar cost trends so it can focus its research and development (R&D) on the highest-impact activities. The benchmarks in this report are bottom-up cost estimates of all major inputs to PV and energy storage system installations. Bottom-up costs are based on national averages and do not necessarily represent typical costs in all local markets. Like last year's report, this year's report includes two distinct sets of benchmarks: minimum sustainable price (MSP) benchmarks and modeled market price (MMP) benchmarks. MSP benchmarks can be interpreted as the minimum price a company needs to charge to remain financially solvent in the long term based on the minimum sustainable prices of all inputs including minimum sustainable profit margins. MMP benchmarks can be interpreted as the actual cash sales price a company charges in the given benchmark period. These simplified estimates are useful for tracking technological progress, but they do not reflect all experiences. In fact, no individual estimate under any approach can reflect the diversity of the PV and storage manufacturing and installation industries.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS1978

SPS cost considerations

Recent solar power satellite (SPS) system definition studies have emphasized cost estimation for the operational phase of an SPS program, in order to assess economic practicality of SPS. A cost analysis approach is described. Cost results for a silicon photovoltaic SPS are reported, showing SPS costs from $1700 to $2700 per kilowatt and busbar power costs from 3 cents to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour. Rationales behind the estimates are discussed.

Woodcock, G. R.↗

DOE OSTI2023

Demonstration of ACCERT Software for Nuclear Power Plant Techno-Economics

In the past few years, there has been a renewed interest in the deployment of nuclear power for decarbonizing the electricity grid as well as a range of industrial applications. As the demonstrations of advanced nuclear power plants start to begin, there will likely be a further increase in this interest. As nuclear is being considered as a part of the energy mix, understanding the cost of nuclear energy becomes increasingly important for all stakeholders including advanced reactor vendors (for making design decisions and marketing their designs), users of nuclear energy (e.g., to estimate the cost of decarbonization of other industries using nuclear), and government (e.g., in capacity expansion models that are used in framing policy). In this summary, we demonstrate a software tool called ACCERT that is currently being developed with funding from the Systems Analysis and Integration (SA&I) program under the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy (DOE NE). ACCERT is a cost estimation and techno-economics tool for nuclear power plant applications that includes a database of (a) cost estimates of various ‘reference’ nuclear power plant designs gathered from existing literature, and (b) algorithms developed from these costs that can be used extrapolate the existing costs and perform a bottom-up cost estimation of other designs. A companion summary describes the software and its design in more detail and this summary presents a demonstration for four different nuclear power plant designs: a pressurized water reactor (PWR), high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR), sodium fast reactor (SFR), and a heat-pipe microreactor. The demonstrations include the reference cost estimates and the cost estimates of a modified design for each reference case.

21 SPECIFIC NUCLEAR REACTORS AND ASSOCIATED PLANTS↗

DOE OSTI2021

Development of a Regional Roadmap for Source Network and Storage Deployment for CarbonSAFE Illinois - Macon County (Task 10)

Research documented in this report includes (1) resource estimates for the Lower Mt. Simon Sandstone in the Illinois Basin, including storage and cost estimates, and (2) regional roadmaps for carbon capture and storage (CCS) deployment using five capture facilities throughout the Illinois Basin: Archer Daniels Midland Decatur (ADM Decatur), Abbott Power Plant, City Water, Light, and Power (CWLP), One Earth Energy, and Prairie State Energy Campus (PSEC). Resource estimates were developed using the Sequestration of CO 2 Tool (SCO2T) and data provided by the Illinois State Geological Survey (ISGS), and regional roadmaps for CCS deployment were developed in SimCCS Gateway, a decision-support tool for designing CCS infrastructure.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

NASA NTRS1969

Monte Carlo simulation by computer for life-cycle costing

Prediction of behavior and support requirements during the entire life cycle of a system enables accurate cost estimates by using the Monte Carlo simulation by computer. The system reduces the ultimate cost to the procuring agency because it takes into consideration the costs of initial procurement, operation, and maintenance.

Gralow, F. H.↗

NASA NTRS1980

REDOX electrochemical energy storage

Reservoirs of chemical solutions can store electrical energy with high efficiency. Reactant solutions are stored outside conversion section where charging and discharging reactions take place. Conversion unit consists of stacks of cells connected together in parallel hydraulically, and in series electrically. Stacks resemble fuel cell batteries. System is 99% ampere-hour efficient, 75% watt hour efficient, and has long projected lifetime. Applications include storage buffering for remote solar or wind power systems, and industrial load leveling. Cost estimates are $325/kW of power requirement plus $51/kWh storage capacity. Mass production would reduce cost by about factor of two.

Thaller, L. H.↗

NASA NTRS1979

Air Brayton Solar Receiver, phase 1

A six month analysis and conceptual design study of an open cycle Air Brayton Solar Receiver (ABSR) for use on a tracking, parabolic solar concentrator are discussed. The ABSR, which includes a buffer storage system, is designed to provide inlet air to a power conversion unit. Parametric analyses, conceptual design, interface requirements, and production cost estimates are described. The design features were optimized to yield a zero maintenance, low cost, high efficiency concept that will provide a 30 year operational life.

Zimmerman, D. K.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Evaluation of propellent tank insulation concepts for low-thrust chemical propulsion systems: Executive summary

Cryogenic propellant tank insulations or liquid oxygen/liquid hydrogen low-thrust 2224N (500 lbf) propulsion systems (LTPS) were assessed. The insulation studied consisted of combinations of N2-purged foam and multilayer insulation (MLI) as well as He-purged MLI-only. Heat leak and payload performance predictions were made for three shuttle-launched LTPS designed for shuttle bay packaged payload densities of 56 kg cu/m (3.5 lbm/cu ft), 40 kg/cu m (2.5 lbm/cu ft) and 24 kg/cu m (1.5 lbm/cu ft). Foam/MLI insulations were found to increase LTPS payload delivery capability when compared with He-purged MLI-only. An additional benefit of foam/MLI was reduced operational complexity because orbiter cargo bay N2 purge gas could be used for MLI purging. Maximum payload mass benefit occurred when an enhanced convection, rather than natural convection, heat transfer was specified for the insulation purge enclosure. The enhanced convection environment allowed minimum insulation thickness to be used for the foam/MLI interface temperature selected to correspond to the moisture dew point in the N2 purge gas. Experimental verification of foam/MLI benefits was recommended. A conservative program cost estimate for testing a MLI-foam insulated tank was 2.1 million dollars. This cost could be reduced significantly without increasing program risk.

Kramer, T.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Directions for future Earth-to-orbit vehicles

NASA is currently assessing several programmatic possibilities. The desire is to maintain the current capability for transportation to orbit provided by the Space Shuttle and the existing fleet of commercial vehicles, develop the Space Station Freedom, and initiate a new program of exploration of the Moon and Mars, called the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI). At the same time, the NASA budget is likely to be held to current levels. Cost estimates indicate that it will not be possible to satisfy all the goals without cost reductions. One of the concepts being considered for cost reduction is to replace the Space Shuttle and existing commercial vehicles with a new set of vehicles called the National Launch System (NLS). Several concepts have been studied, but none of the concepts studied to date provides the desired combination of cost/flight reduction, acceptable development cost, and technology readiness. An additional goal is to provide a path to grow the NLS capability into a heavy-lift capability for SEI missions.

Martin, James A.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Correlation, Cost Risk, and Geometry

The geometric viewpoint identifies the choice of a correlation matrix for the simulation of cost risk with the pairwise choice of data vectors corresponding to the parameters used to obtain cost risk. The correlation coefficient is the cosine of the angle between the data vectors after translation to an origin at the mean and normalization for magnitude. Thus correlation is equivalent to expressing the data in terms of a non orthogonal basis. To understand the many resulting phenomena requires the use of the tensor concept of raising the index to transform the measured and observed covariant components into contravariant components before vector addition can be applied. The geometric viewpoint also demonstrates that correlation and covariance are geometric properties, as opposed to purely statistical properties, of the variates. Thus, variates from different distributions may be correlated, as desired, after selection from independent distributions. By determining the principal components of the correlation matrix, variates with the desired mean, magnitude, and correlation can be generated through linear transforms which include the eigenvalues and the eigenvectors of the correlation matrix. The conversion of the data to a non orthogonal basis uses a compound linear transformation which distorts or stretches the data space. Hence, the correlated data does not have the same properties as the uncorrelated data used to generate it. This phenomena is responsible for seemingly strange observations such as the fact that the marginal distributions of the correlated data can be quite different from the distributions used to generate the data. The joint effect of statistical distributions and correlation remains a fertile area for further research. In terms of application to cost estimating, the geometric approach demonstrates that the estimator must have data and must understand that data in order to properly choose the correlation matrix appropriate for a given estimate. There is a general feeling by employers and managers that the field of cost requires little technical or mathematical background. Contrary to that opinion, this paper demonstrates that a background in mathematics equivalent to that needed for typical engineering and scientific disciplines at the masters or doctorate level is appropriate within the field of cost risk.

Dean, Edwin B.↗

DOE OSTI2023

U.S. Solar Photovoltaic System and Energy Storage Cost Benchmarks, With Minimum Sustainable Price Analysis: Q1 2023

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

NASA NTRS2010

Model for Simulating a Spiral Software-Development Process

A discrete-event simulation model, and a computer program that implements the model, have been developed as means of analyzing a spiral software-development process. This model can be tailored to specific development environments for use by software project managers in making quantitative cases for deciding among different software-development processes, courses of action, and cost estimates. A spiral process can be contrasted with a waterfall process, which is a traditional process that consists of a sequence of activities that include analysis of requirements, design, coding, testing, and support. A spiral process is an iterative process that can be regarded as a repeating modified waterfall process. Each iteration includes assessment of risk, analysis of requirements, design, coding, testing, delivery, and evaluation. A key difference between a spiral and a waterfall process is that a spiral process can accommodate changes in requirements at each iteration, whereas in a waterfall process, requirements are considered to be fixed from the beginning and, therefore, a waterfall process is not flexible enough for some projects, especially those in which requirements are not known at the beginning or may change during development. For a given project, a spiral process may cost more and take more time than does a waterfall process, but may better satisfy a customer's expectations and needs. Models for simulating various waterfall processes have been developed previously, but until now, there have been no models for simulating spiral processes. The present spiral-process-simulating model and the software that implements it were developed by extending a discrete-event simulation process model of the IEEE 12207 Software Development Process, which was built using commercially available software known as the Process Analysis Tradeoff Tool (PATT). Typical inputs to PATT models include industry-average values of product size (expressed as number of lines of code), productivity (number of lines of code per hour), and number of defects per source line of code. The user provides the number of resources, the overall percent of effort that should be allocated to each process step, and the number of desired staff members for each step. The output of PATT includes the size of the product, a measure of effort, a measure of rework effort, the duration of the entire process, and the numbers of injected, detected, and corrected defects as well as a number of other interesting features. In the development of the present model, steps were added to the IEEE 12207 waterfall process, and this model and its implementing software were made to run repeatedly through the sequence of steps, each repetition representing an iteration in a spiral process. Because the IEEE 12207 model is founded on a waterfall paradigm, it enables direct comparison of spiral and waterfall processes. The model can be used throughout a software-development project to analyze the project as more information becomes available. For instance, data from early iterations can be used as inputs to the model, and the model can be used to estimate the time and cost of carrying the project to completion.

Mizell, Carolyn↗