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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Coolant Leak from ISS External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) – An Examination of Most Probable

The Port (P1) and Starboard (S1) External Active Thermal Control Systems (EATCS) are single phase, mechanically pumped ammonia loops that operate independently to cool the majority of the hardware and payloads onboard the International Space Station (ISS). A slow ammonia leak was detected using pressure and quantity telemetry five years after the P1 EATCS was activated. The leak gradually accelerated to a rate that locating and isolating the leak became imperative to maintain cooling capability. Partial pressure measurements from the Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) scan surveys narrowed the search to the supply and return jumpers connecting one of three radiators to the system. Subsequently, the ISS crew performed high definition video surveys during an Extravehicular Activity (EVA), or spacewalk, and ammonia flakes were observed projecting from the jumpers. Thus, the ground teams were confident that the culprit for the ammonia leak was the jumpers. The ammonia leak stopped after ground teams remotely isolated and vented those jumpers and associated radiator. Both jumpers were removed and returned to the ground, and a root cause investigation was conducted. A calibrated leak test determined the bulk of the ammonia leaked through a pair of seals in a Quick Disconnect (QD), or connector, on one end of the return jumper. The return jumper QD was dissected, visually inspected, chemically tested and evaluated. The results indicated the most probable cause of the accelerating ammonia leak was due to defective seals, plating delamination underneath the seals, and on-orbit thermal cycles exacerbating the delamination. Both jumpers were refurbished, relaunched to the ISS, and scheduled to be reinstalled during an EVA in 2022. It appeared the issue was unique, but recently the S1 EATCS is showing signs of an accelerating ammonia leak, and RELL scans narrowed the source to a similar pair of radiator jumpers.

Thermal Control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Coolant Leak from ISS External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) – An Examination of Most Probable

The Port (P1) and Starboard (S1) External Active Thermal Control Systems (EATCS) are single phase, mechanically pumped ammonia loops that operate independently to cool majority of the hardware and payloads onboard the International Space Station (ISS). A slow ammonia leak was detected using pressure and quantity telemetry five years after the P1 EATCS was activated. The leak gradually accelerated to a rate that locating and isolating the leak became imperative to maintain cooling capability. Partial pressure measurements from the Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) scan surveys narrowed the search to the supply and return jumpers connecting one of three radiators to the system. Subsequently, the ISS crew performed high definition video surveys during an Extravehicular Activity (EVA), or spacewalk, and ammonia flakes were observed projecting from the jumpers. Thus, the ground teams were confident that the culprit of the ammonia leak were the jumpers. The ammonia leak stopped after ground teams remotely isolated and vented those jumpers and associated radiator. Both jumpers were removed and returned to the ground, and a root cause investigation was conducted. A calibrated leak test determined the bulk of the ammonia leaked through a pair of seals in a Quick Disconnect (QD), or connector, on one end of the return jumper. The return jumper QD was dissected, visually inspected, chemically tested and evaluated. The results indicated the most probable cause of the accelerating ammonia leak was due to defective seals, plating delamination underneath the seals, and on-orbit thermal cycles exacerbating the delamination. Both jumpers were refurbished, relaunched to the ISS, and scheduled to be reinstalled during an EVA in 2022. It appeared the issue was unique, but recently the S1 EATCS is showing signs of an accelerating ammonia leak, and RELL scans narrowed the source to a similar pair of radiator jumpers.

Thermal Control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Coolant Leak from ISS External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) – An Examination of Most Probable

The Port (P1) and Starboard (S1) External Active Thermal Control Systems (EATCS) are single phase, mechanically pumped ammonia loops that operate independently to cool majority of the hardware and payloads onboard the International Space Station (ISS). A slow ammonia leak was detected using pressure and quantity telemetry five years after the P1 EATCS was activated. The leak gradually accelerated to a rate that locating and isolating the leak became imperative to maintain cooling capability. Partial pressure measurements from the Robotic External Leak Locator (RELL) scan surveys narrowed the search to the supply and return jumpers connecting one of three radiators to the system. Subsequently, the ISS crew performed high-definition video surveys during an Extravehicular Activity (EVA), or spacewalk, and ammonia flakes were observed projecting from the jumpers. Thus, the ground teams were confident that the culprit of the ammonia leak were the jumpers. The ammonia leak stopped after ground teams remotely isolated and vented those jumpers and associated radiator. Both jumpers were removed and returned to the ground, and a root cause investigation was conducted. A calibrated leak test determined the bulk of the ammonia leaked through a pair of seals in a Quick Disconnect (QD), or connector, on one end of the return jumper. The return jumper QD was dissected, visually inspected, chemically tested and evaluated. The results indicated the most probable cause of the accelerating ammonia leak was due to defective seals, plating delamination underneath the seals, and on-orbit thermal cycles exacerbating the delamination. Both jumpers were refurbished, relaunched to the ISS, and scheduled to be reinstalled during an EVA in 2022. It appeared the issue was unique, but recently the S1 EATCS is showing signs of an accelerating ammonia leak, and RELL scans narrowed the source to a similar pair of radiator jumpers.

Darnell Cowan↗
NASA NTRS2005

Protective effect of apigenin on radiation-induced chromosomal damage in human lymphocytes

The potential use of flavonoids as a radioprotector is of increasing interest because of their high antioxidant activity and abundance in the diet. The aim of this study is to examine genotoxic and radioprotective effects of one of the most common flavonoids, apigenin, on radiation-induced chromosome aberrations in human lymphocytes. The cytokinesis-block micronucleus (CBMN) assay was used to evaluate such effects of apigenin. Blood samples were collected from two non-smoking healthy male volunteers who had no history of previous exposure to other clastogenic agents. Isolated lymphocytes were cultured. There were two tubes per concentration for all treatments. To evaluate the genotoxicity of apigenin, cells were first treated with different concentrations of apigenin (0, 2.5, 5, 10 and 25 microg/mL) at 24 h after culture initiation, followed by cytochalasin-B (Cyt-B) treatment (3 microg/mL) and cell harvest at 44 and 72 h, respectively. Secondly, to investigate the radioprotective effect, cell cultures were exposed to different concentrations of apigenin as described above for 30 min before being irradiated to 2 Gy of 137Cs gamma rays (at a dose rate of 0.75 Gy/min). In all instances, the frequency of MN was scored in binucleated (BN) cells. The nuclear proliferation index also was calculated. We did not detect an increase in the frequency of MN in non-irradiated human lymphocyte cultures treated with 2.5, 5.0 or 10 microg/mL apigenin; although, we did observe an increase in cultures treated with 25 microg/mL apigenin (the highest concentration of apigenin used in our study). We also observed a significant increase in the frequency of MN in irradiated cells overall; however, the frequency was decreased as the concentration of apigenin increased, suggesting a radioprotective effect. These findings provide a basis for additional studies to help clarify the potential use and benefit of apigenin as a radioprotector.

NASA Discipline Radiation Health↗
NASA NTRS2007

Condition Assessment of Kevlar Composite Materials Using Raman Spectroscopy

This viewgraph presentation includes the following main concepts. Goal: To evaluate Raman spectroscopy as a potential NDE tool for the detection of stress rupture in Kevlar. Objective: Test a series of strand samples that have been aged under various conditions and evaluate differences and trends in the Raman response. Hypothesis: Reduction in strength associated with stress rupture may manifest from changes in the polymer at a molecular level. If so, than these changes may effect the vibrational characteristics of the material, and consequently the Raman spectra produced from the material. Problem Statement: Kevlar composite over-wrapped pressure vessels (COPVs) on the space shuttles are greater than 25 years old. Stress rupture phenomena is not well understood for COPVs. Other COPVs are planned for hydrogen-fueled vehicles using Carbon composite material. Raman spectroscopy is being explored as an non-destructive evaluation (NDE) technique to predict the onset of stress rupture in Kevlar composite materials. Test aged Kevlar strands to discover trends in the Raman response. Strength reduction in Kevlar polymer will manifest itself on the Raman spectra. Conclusions: Raman spectroscopy has shown relative changes in the intensity and FWHM of the ~1613 cm(exp -1) peak. Reduction in relative intensity for creep, fleet leader, and SIM specimens compared to the virgin strands. Increase in FWHM has been observed for the creep and fleet leader specimens compared to the virgin strands. Changes in the Raman spectra may result from redistributing loads within the material due to the disruption of hydrogen bonding between crystallites or defects in the crystallites from aging the Kevlar strands. Peak shifting has not been observed to date. Analysis is ongoing. Stress measurements may provide a tool in the short term.

Washer, Glenn↗
NASA NTRS2021

Deriving Deformable Mirror Performance Requirements in Simulation with Experimental Verification

Coronagraph instruments rely on predictable and stable deformable mirror (DM) surface displacement to achieve the contrast required to detect Earth-sized exoplanets orbiting nearby Solar-type stars. Anomalous DM behavior, such as unstable or pinned actuators, can limit contrast in coronagraphs. Simulating how these undesired behaviors affect the performance of a high contrast imaging architecture is important for developing requirements on their associated hardware. Simulating a vortex coronagraph (VC) with two deformable mirrors, this study quantifies how the number of pinned actuators affect the performance of Focal Plane Wavefront Sensing and Control algorithms using both Grid Search Electric Field Conjugation (EFC) and Planned EFC, which uses Beta-Bumping. The simulation also quantifies how various types of voltage noise such as zero-mean Gaussian noise, zero-mean periodic noise, and drift can affect the contrast of a VC during an observation run. A tolerance of a change in the Mean Normalized Intensity of ${1\times10^{-11}}$ is allocated to both types of error. If Planned EFC is used, only 1 pinned actuator on both DMs can be tolerated. If only pure Grid Search EFC is used the DMs cannot have any pinned actuators. For the case of zero-mean Gaussian noise and zero-mean periodic noise, one can tolerate a noise standard deviation of no more than ${\sigma = 0.45 \text{ mV}}$. For drift, we can only tolerate ${\sigma = 0.30 \text{ mV}}$ or less. These results show that the DM electronics and the DM themselves need to be nearly defect free to avoid having more than 1 pinned actuator. The electronics need to be tested for different types of noise statistics and that both the average and standard deviation of the noise should be measured.

Dean L. Palmer↗
NASA NTRS1994

Develop advanced nonlinear signal analysis topographical mapping system

The Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) has been undergoing extensive flight certification and developmental testing, which involves some 250 health monitoring measurements. Under the severe temperature, pressure, and dynamic environments sustained during operation, numerous major component failures have occurred, resulting in extensive engine hardware damage and scheduling losses. To enhance SSME safety and reliability, detailed analysis and evaluation of the measurements signal are mandatory to assess its dynamic characteristics and operational condition. Efficient and reliable signal detection techniques will reduce catastrophic system failure risks and expedite the evaluation of both flight and ground test data, and thereby reduce launch turn-around time. The basic objective of this contract are threefold: (1) develop and validate a hierarchy of innovative signal analysis techniques for nonlinear and nonstationary time-frequency analysis. Performance evaluation will be carried out through detailed analysis of extensive SSME static firing and flight data. These techniques will be incorporated into a fully automated system; (2) develop an advanced nonlinear signal analysis topographical mapping system (ATMS) to generate a Compressed SSME TOPO Data Base (CSTDB). This ATMS system will convert tremendous amount of complex vibration signals from the entire SSME test history into a bank of succinct image-like patterns while retaining all respective phase information. High compression ratio can be achieved to allow minimal storage requirement, while providing fast signature retrieval, pattern comparison, and identification capabilities; and (3) integrate the nonlinear correlation techniques into the CSTDB data base with compatible TOPO input data format. Such integrated ATMS system will provide the large test archives necessary for quick signature comparison. This study will provide timely assessment of SSME component operational status, identify probable causes of malfunction, and indicate feasible engineering solutions. The final result of this program will yield an ATMS system of nonlinear and nonstationary spectral analysis software package integrated with the Compressed SSME TOPO Data Base (CSTDB) on the same platform. This system will allow NASA engineers to retrieve any unique defect signatures and trends associated with different failure modes and anomalous phenomena over the entire SSME test history across turbo pump families.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2007

High Resolution Millimeter Wave Inspecting of the Orbiter Acreage Heat Tiles of the Space Shuttle

Presence of defects such as disbonds, delaminations, impact damage, in thermal protection systems can significantly reduce safety of the Space Shuttle and its crew. The physical cause of Space Shuttle Columbia's catastrophic failure was a breach in its thermal protection system, caused by a piece of external tank insulating foam separating from the external tank and striking the leading edge of the left wing of the orbiter. There is an urgent need for a rapid, robust and life-circle oriented nondestructive testing (NDT) technique capable of inspecting the external tank insulating foam as well as the orbiter's protective (acreage) heat tiles and its fuselage prior and subsequent to a launch. Such a comprehensive inspection technique enables NASA to perform life-cycle inspection on critical components of the orbiter and its supporting hardware. Consequently, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center initiated an investigation into several potentially viable NDT techniques for this purpose. Microwave and millimeter wave NDT methods have shown great potential to achieve these goals. These methods have been successfully used to produce images of the interior of various complex, thick and thin external tank insulating foam structures for real focused reflectometer at operating frequency from 50-100 GHz and for synthetic aperture techniques at Ku-band (12-18 GHz) and K-band (18-26 GHz). Preliminary results of inspecting heat tile specimens show that increasing resolution of the measurement system is an important issue. This paper presents recent results of an investigation for the purpose of detecting anomalies such as debonds and corrosion in metal substrate in complex multi-sectioned protective heat tile specimens using a real focused 150 GHz (D-band) reflectometer and wide-band millimeter wave holography at 33-50, GHz (Q-band).

Case, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS2026

AC and DC Fault Management for Megawatt Electrified Aircraft Electrical Powertrains Task 3: Lifetime and Reliability of Electrical Insulators

This research project was a collaborative investigation between researchers at the RTX Technology Research Center (RTRC) and the University of Texas at Austin and made a significant contribution to enabling electric aircraft. The transport of electric power between the points of generation and use requires power cables. These cables must be smaller, lighter and provide a more predictable life than power cables used in stationary applications. Consequently, this investigation provided heretofore unavailable information supporting the safety and reliability of smaller lighter power cables for electrified aircraft. In addition, the research identified key additional engineering data needed to support quantitative reliability assessments. Important advances included: • Demonstrated that at least one manufacturer can make a novel, smaller, lighter power cable that is free from serious defects. • Developed and published an appropriate analytical construct to describe the life of this novel cable. This is a necessary step for use in aviation where the understanding of remaining life is critical. • Demonstrated thermal-mechanical aging that suggested 1000+ flights before the thermal-mechanical processes produced defects large enough that the defect growth was accelerated electrically. • Showed that electrical aging took place at two rates. The first possibly lasting weeks to months and the second possibly days to weeks. If robust, this provides a good diagnostic for cable replacement. • Demonstrated that the traditional electrical testing of cable materials using manufactured voids can be misleading due to the size of the voids. Emerging laser drilling technology permitted demonstration that the physics of failure in realistically small voids is different from that in the unrealistically large voids used in earlier research, which is very important for high-quality, high-performance, small aircraft cables. Although this project represents a significant contribution to the specifics of cable aging in the aircraft environment, important additional research remains to be completed, including: • Non-uniform thermal cycling by applying the heat from the center conductor to maximize thermal stress next to the core area where the electric gradient is the strongest. This builds on the uniform thermal cycling that has been completed. • The augmentation of the thermal-mechanical failure rate by electrical processes. Better understanding of these time constants strongly affects the ability to predict life. • Termination design: Terminations provide not only electrical reflection potential, but a location for a series arc fault and an area where ozone can diffuse into the center conductor and negatively affect cable insulation. • The abrasion and ozone resistance of the cable jacket. • Pressure cycling as an accelerant of thermal, mechanical, and/or electrical aging. • Possible methods for online PD detection and offline PD localization

model↗
NASA NTRS1993

Develop advanced nonlinear signal analysis topographical mapping system

The SSME has been undergoing extensive flight certification and developmental testing, which involves some 250 health monitoring measurements. Under the severe temperature pressure, and dynamic environments sustained during operation, numerous major component failures have occurred, resulting in extensive engine hardware damage and scheduling losses. To enhance SSME safety and reliability, detailed analysis and evaluation of the measurements signal are mandatory to assess its dynamic characteristics and operational condition. Efficient and reliable signal detection techniques will reduce catastrophic system failure risks and expedite the evaluation of both flight and ground test data, and thereby reduce launch turn-around time. The basic objective of this contract are threefold: (1) Develop and validate a hierarchy of innovative signal analysis techniques for nonlinear and nonstationary time-frequency analysis. Performance evaluation will be carried out through detailed analysis of extensive SSME static firing and flight data. These techniques will be incorporated into a fully automated system. (2) Develop an advanced nonlinear signal analysis topographical mapping system (ATMS) to generate a Compressed SSME TOPO Data Base (CSTDB). This ATMS system will convert tremendous amounts of complex vibration signals from the entire SSME test history into a bank of succinct image-like patterns while retaining all respective phase information. A high compression ratio can be achieved to allow the minimal storage requirement, while providing fast signature retrieval, pattern comparison, and identification capabilities. (3) Integrate the nonlinear correlation techniques into the CSTDB data base with compatible TOPO input data format. Such integrated ATMS system will provide the large test archives necessary for a quick signature comparison. This study will provide timely assessment of SSME component operational status, identify probable causes of malfunction, and indicate feasible engineering solutions. The final result of this program will yield an ATMS system of nonlinear and nonstationary spectral analysis software package integrated with the Compressed SSME TOPO Data Base (CSTDB) on the same platform. This system will allow NASA engineers to retrieve any unique defect signatures and trends associated with different failure modes and anomalous phenomena over the entire SSME test history across turbo pump families.

Jong, Jen-Yi↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Setting the Bar for the Replacement of the Probability of Collision Metric

To date, satellite conjunction assessment (CA) risk analysis has largely embraced the probability of collision (Pc) as the omnibus metric to evaluate collision likelihood, and its use in such assessments has mostly been straightforward: at the point at which a conjunction mitigation decision is required, the calculated Pc is compared to a threshold; and if the calculated Pc exceeds that threshold, then a mitigation action is warranted. With only minor variation, this approach is employed by major CA risk assessment centers (e.g., NASA, EUSST, CNES, JAXA) and is advanced as the preferred method in the published CA best practices handbooks. Despite this near unanimity of operational practice, there is a major strain of secondary literature critical of the Pc and willing to propose alternatives. Alfano (2005) pointed out the ability of the Pc to underrepresent the risk in certain situations and counselled a maximum Pc construct. Carpenter (2017, 2019) reiterated this criticism and proposed using instead a confidence interval on the miss distance. Balch et al. (2019) identified what they argued was a defect in the entire Bayesian Pc construct and believed that the use of a more conservative methodology based on covariance ellipsoid overlap was necessary. Delande (2022) introduced the framework of collision “plausibility” to the risk assessment process and sketched out how this might be used operationally. Elkantassi (2022) published a full development of the miss distance confidence interval approach and applied it to several worked examples. While these different approaches to collision risk assessment do differ in their details, they all converge on two central points: first, the Pc’s failure to give an adequate expression of the risk in dilution region situations is a fatal flaw; and second, a conjunction should be presumed risky and in need of mitigation until the evidence of the situation can establish otherwise. These criticisms, if correct, would counsel a number of modifications to current CA operational practice; as such, they force a re-examination of fundamental aspects of the CA problem, including the following: 1. Is the CA risk assessment a probability problem, a statistics problem, or something else? 2. If it is a statistics problem, does it lend itself naturally to a hypothesis test construction? 3. If it can be construed as a hypothesis test, what form should the null hypothesis take, to wit: what constraints exist on the choice of the null hypothesis, what selections are in best alignment with all of the attendant parameters of the problem, and what is implied philosophically by different choices? 4. What are the implications of using the different proposed risk assessment parameters for CA? This question should be answered both in determining how frequently the dilution region situation cited by the critics of the Pc actually appears in an operationally significant manner and the missed detection and false alarm rates of all of the proposed risk assessment metrics, compared both to the Pc and to each other. This paper explores and offers preliminary answers to the above questions, presenting a researched treatment of the philosophical nature of the CA problem and the null hypothesis choice that achieves the greatest consistency with all of the different aspects of operational CA conduct. It then profiles all of the different proposed risk assessment metrics enumerated in the earlier paragraph against an extremely large database of conjunction events at both the 550km and 700km altitudes. The combination of the philosophical exploration of the CA problem and the results of the profiling activity articulates what a risk assessment metric will need to demonstrate, in terms of both innate construction and performance, in order to be a true competitor to the Pc.

conjunction assessment↗
NASA NTRS2017

UAV Inspection of Electrical Transmission Infrastructure with Path Conformance Autonomy and Lidar-Based Geofences NASA Report on UTM Reference Mission Flights at Southern Company Flights November 2016

Flights at low altitudes in close proximity to electrical transmission infrastructure present serious navigational challenges: GPS and radio communication quality is variable and yet tight position control is needed to measure defects while avoiding collisions with ground structures. To advance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation technology while accomplishing a task with economic and societal benefit, a high voltage electrical infrastructure inspection reference mission was designed. An integrated air-ground platform was developed for this mission and tested in two days of experimental flights to determine whether navigational augmentation was needed to successfully conduct a controlled inspection experiment. The airborne component of the platform was a multirotor UAV built from commercial off-the-shelf hardware and software, and the ground component was a commercial laptop running open source software. A compact ultraviolet sensor mounted on the UAV can locate 'hot spots' (potential failure points in the electric grid), so long as the UAV flight path adequately samples the airspace near the power grid structures. To improve navigation, the platform was supplemented with two navigation technologies: lidar-to-polyhedron preflight processing for obstacle demarcation and inspection distance planning, and trajectory management software to enforce inspection standoff distance. Both navigation technologies were essential to obtaining useful results from the hot spot sensor in this obstacle-rich, low-altitude airspace. Because the electrical grid extends into crowded airspaces, the UAV position was tracked with NASA unmanned aerial system traffic management (UTM) technology. The following results were obtained: (1) Inspection of high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure to locate 'hot spots' of ultraviolet emission requires navigation methods that are not broadly available and are not needed at higher altitude flights above ground structures. (2) The sensing capability of a novel airborne UV detector was verified with a standard ground-based instrument. Flights with this sensor showed that UAV measurement operations and recording methods are viable. With improved sensor range, UAVs equipped with compact UV sensors could serve as the detection elements in a self-diagnosing power grid. (3) Simplification of rich lidar maps to polyhedral obstacle maps reduces data volume by orders of magnitude, so that computation with the resultant maps in real time is possible. This enables real-time obstacle avoidance autonomy. Stable navigation may be feasible in the GPS-deprived environment near transmission lines by a UAV that senses ground structures and compares them to these simplified maps. (4) A new, formally verified path conformance software system that runs onboard a UAV was demonstrated in flight for the first time. It successfully maneuvered the aircraft after a sudden lateral perturbation that models a gust of wind, and processed lidar-derived polyhedral obstacle maps in real time. (5) Tracking of the UAV in the national airspace using the NASA UTM technology was a key safety component of this reference mission, since the flights were conducted beneath the landing approach to a heavily used runway. Comparison to autopilot tracking showed that UTM tracking accurately records the UAV position throughout the flight path.

Moore, Andrew J.↗