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NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Assessing the Needs of NASA's Near Real-Time Earth Observation Products

"The 2017-2027 Decadal Survey for Earth Science and Applications from Space stated that NASA's Earth Science with planned implementation of applications provides sustained earth observations for societal benefits [1]. The Decadal Survey indicated that data latency is invaluable for time-sensitive applications including disaster risk reduction, wildland fire carbon emissions quantification, real-time measurements of the state of the hydrologic systems and many more. Data latency refers to the time between earth observation and data products available to users. During the past 13 years, NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near Real-Time Capability for Earth Observing Systems (LANCE) continues to provide free access to earth observation products that are made available much quicker than routine processing allows. The latency of most LANCE data products is Near Real-time (NRT) which is defined as less than three hours from satellite observations [2]. LANCE is managed by the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Project at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center [3], and a User Working Group (UWG) is responsible for providing guidance to LANCE. LANCE data are used by direct users and brokers who add value to the data [4]. NASA Earth Applied Sciences Program (ASP) is one of the primary users of LANCE, which collaborates with partner organizations and provides support to scientists to solve problems in applications of earth observations. ASP promotes the use of LANCE NRT data products to demonstrate applications in decision making, facilitates end-user feedback to the science team to improve data products, and provides information on future demands for research. LANCE supports applications that need a rapid response including detecting wildland fires and volcanic eruptions, tracking smoke, ash and dust plumes, monitoring air quality and tracking extreme weather events such as hurricanes, landslides, and floods. To gather feedback regarding the availability, accessibility and actionability of NASA's NRT data products for societal benefit, three surveys and a few discussions with experts involved in the topic within ASP were conducted from the perspective of users. Feedback has been collected from users who are interested in using low latency NASA data within application communities of agriculture, disasters, water resources, health and air quality, ecological conservation, wildland fires and capacity building. Analysis-ready NRT data products in a variety of formats have been mentioned many times in the collected feedback, especially for applied users with little to no experience using research-grade earth observation products. Users prefer to have products that can be easily integrated into their existing workflows and take their analysis to the data. HDF5 is a commonly used data format for research, but typically requires some conversion to a more friendly format for applications and regular use in decision-making. Users prefer the GeoTIFF data format that can be directly ingested into a GIS mapping software and platform for data analysis and visualization. For example, LANCE’s fire, flood, SO2 and Black Marble Nighttime Blue/Yellow Composite data products have been integrated into NASA Disasters Mapping Portal, which is an GIS-based open data portal, for users in the disaster management community. There are 291 LANCE NRT layers available through GIBS and Worldview, where users can download a snapshot in GeoTIFF format. Operational users expect data to be processed as close to the user as possible. The collected feedback indicates that LANCE fire products within 3 hours latency would meet the needs of the wildland fire community. The ideal latency for volcanic application is 10-15 minutes. Users in Volcanic Ash Advisory Centers (VAAC) reported that the first forecast volcanic product should be issued within 75 minutes from the volcano eruption [5]. Overall, for disaster applications, data latency within 3 hours is useful while latency greater than 12 hours is not timely enough for operational use. Capacity building and training are critical for users to be able to access, interpret and use data products and tools for their decision making, especially for applied users with limited experience using earth observation products. LANCE data products have been used in a number of capacity building projects domestically and internationally [6]. As LANCE continues to bring new products into the system, users request training to utilize LANCE new and upcoming data products and capabilities in their applications. Due to the limitation of bandwidth and downstream flow paths, users in some developing countries need tools to select and download data for a specific area of interest instead of bulk downloads. The collected feedback also shows the lack of available SAR satellite low latency data products. The advantages of SAR to monitor conditions and changes on the ground through darkness, clouds, volcanic ash, and other atmospheric conditions, are appealing to low latency users. For example, terabytes of low latency but cloudy optical images are not helpful in rapidly identifying the extent of flood or fire impacts. LANCE could be complemented with low latency measurements via the upcoming NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) mission [7]. Requests for higher spatial resolution products are expressed. A user from the wildland fire management community reported that products with 30-m spatial resolution could be used to detect small fires. The 30-m Landsat OLI fire data is now part of NASA’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) US/Canada [8]. Within the open and free NASA resources, LANCE disseminates NRT data products in a manner that allows them to be accessible and understandable to both scientific and applied users. In many application areas, latency plays an important or even decisive role where low latency earth observations help people to observe areas of interest, detect and track changes in the environment and make timely decisions. NASA’s Earth Applied Sciences Program promotes the use of LANCE NRT products and builds a bridge between application users and research teams. The collected feedback indicates data latency within 3 hours is useful for most of the applications, and shows the needs of user-friendly, analysis-ready products, and requests training on LANCE’s new and upcoming data products. User feedback has been provided to LANCE UWG for guidance and recommendations, and for translating findings into something actionable.

Tian Yao↗

NASA NTRS2000

New Compressor Added to Glenn's 450- psig Combustion Air System

In September 1999, the Central Process Systems Engineering Branch and the Maintenance and the Central Process Systems Operations Branch, released for service a new high pressure compressor to supplement the 450-psig Combustion Air System at the NASA Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field. The new compressor, designated C-18, is located in Glenn s Central Air Equipment Building and is remotely operated from the Central Control Building. C-18 can provide 40 pounds per second (pps) of airflow at pressure to our research customers. This capability augments our existing system capacity (compressors C 4 at 38 pps and C-5 at 32 pps), which is generated from Glenn's Engine Research Building. The C-18 compressor was originally part of Glenn's 21-Inch Hypersonic Tunnel, which was transferred from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to Glenn in the mid-1980's. With the investment of construction of facilities funding, the compressor was modified, new mechanical and electrical support equipment were purchased, and the unit was installed in the basement of the Central Air Equipment Building. After several weeks of checkout and troubleshooting, the new compressor was ready for long-term, reliable operations. With a total of 110 pps in airflow now available, Glenn is well positioned to support the high-pressure air test requirements of our research customers.

Swan, Jeffrey A.↗

DOE OSTI2024

Design of a Meso-Scale Test of a Fracture Thermal Energy Storage (FTES) System

This paper will present the characterization, scaling, and design of an intermediate-scale field test of a fracture thermal energy storage system (FTES). Seasonal storage of thermal energy has the potential to both significantly reduce the total energy requirements for heating and cooling of buildings, but also allow for the flexibility to store thermal energy from intermittent sources. With approximately half of global energy consumption currently being used for heating and cooling, this represents an important path to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The concept of FTES is to drill two or more wells into a low permeability formation, generally at a depth of less than a few hundred meters, and then generate hydraulic fractures to create flow paths for water to circulate between the wells. Hot or cold thermal energy can then be stored in the surrounding rock mass by circulating hot or cold water through the fractures, which will heat or cool the rock mass. To recover the stored energy, ambient temperature water can be then circulated through the fractures, which will then be heated or cooled by the rock mass. Fractures inherently have a very large ratio of surface area to volume. This allows for very high heat fluxes to and from the rock mass to be achieved despite the relatively low thermal conductivity of most geologic formations. Because large fractures can be made with low-cost equipment and with only inexpensive and environmentally safe materials such as water and sand, the cost to construct even large FTES systems is expected to be quite low. This paper will present what the performance requirements, size, and operating conditions of a full-scale system to operate a commercial building. The paper will describe how these full-scale system characteristics will be used as a design basis for an intermediate-scale FTES test to be conducted at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD.

Burghardt, Jeffrey A.↗

DOE OSTI2023

A Field Study of Nonintrusive Load Monitoring Devices and Implications for Load Disaggregation

Evaluations of nonintrusive load monitoring (NILM) algorithms and technologies have mostly occurred in constrained, artificial environments. However, few field evaluations of NILM products have taken place in actual buildings under normal operating conditions. This paper describes a field evaluation of a state-of-the-art NILM product, tested in eight homes. The match rate metric—a technique recommended by a technical advisory group—was used to measure the NILM’s success in identifying specific loads and the accuracy of the energy consumption estimates. A performance assessment protocol was also developed to address common issues with NILM mislabeling and ground-truth comparisons that have not been sufficiently addressed in past evaluations. The NILM product’s estimates were compared to the submetered consumption of eight major appliances. Overall, the product had good performance in disaggregating the energy consumption of the electric water heaters, which included both electric resistance and heat-pump water heaters, but only a fair accuracy with refrigerators, dryers, and air conditioners. The performance was poor for cooking equipment, furnace fans, clothes washers, and dishwashers. Moreover, the product was often unable to detect major loads in homes. Typically, two or more appliances were not detected in a home. At least two dryers, furnace fans, and air conditioners went undetected across the eight homes. On the other hand, the dishwasher was detected in all homes where available or monitored. The key findings were qualitatively compared to those of past field evaluations. Potential areas for improvement in NILM product performance were determined along with areas where complementary technologies may be able to aid in load-disaggregation applications.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

DOE OSTI2022

The field of human building interaction for convergent research and innovation for intelligent built environments

Human-Building Interaction (HBI) is a convergent field that represents the growing complexities of the dynamic interplay between human experience and intelligence within built environments. This paper provides core definitions, research dimensions, and an overall vision for the future of HBI as developed through consensus among 25 interdisciplinary experts in a series of facilitated workshops. Three primary areas contribute to and require attention in HBI research: humans (human experiences, performance, and well-being), buildings (building design and operations), and technologies (sensing, inference, and awareness). Three critical interdisciplinary research domains intersect these areas: control systems and decision making, trust and collaboration, and modeling and simulation. Finally, at the core, it is vital for HBI research to center on and support equity, privacy, and sustainability. Compelling research questions are posed for each primary area, research domain, and core principle. State-of-the-art methods used in HBI studies are discussed, and examples of original research are offered to illustrate opportunities for the advancement of HBI research.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2020

OpenStudio-Variability-Gem v1.0

This gem contains methods to introduce variability to extend core OpenStudio SDK. The term "variability" refers to changes in building systems efficiency, operation, or controls, which are non-routine events.

Li, Han↗

DOE OSTI2021

Computational Offload with BlueField Smart NICs

The recent introduction of a new generation of "smart NICs" have provided new accelerator platforms that include CPU cores or reconfigurable fabric in addition to traditional networking hardware and packet offloading capabilities. While there are currently several proposals for using these smartNICs for low-latency, in-line packet processing operations, there remains a gap in knowledge as to how they might be used as computational accelerators for traditional high-performance applications. This work aims to look at benchmarks and mini-applications to evaluate possible benefits of using a smartNIC as a compute accelerator for HPC applications. We investigate NVIDIA's current-generation BlueField-2 card, which includes eight Arm CPUs along with a small amount of storage, and we test the networking and data movement performance of these cards compared to a standard Intel server host. We then detail how two different applications, YASK and miniMD can be modified to make more efficient use of the BlueField-2 device with a focus on overlapping computation and communication for operations like neighbor building and halo exchanges. Our results show that while the overall compute performance of these devices is limited, using them with a modified miniMD algorithm allows for potential speedups of 5 to 20% over the host CPU baseline with no loss in simulation accuracy.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Reducing the Overnight Capital Cost of Advanced Reactors Using Equipment-Level Seismic Protective Systems

Consideration of the effects of earthquake shaking on the design and construction of nuclear power plants adds substantially to the overnight capital cost, with anecdotal estimates as high as 35+%, attributed to additional construction materials, need for one-off and sub-optimal designs of equipment due to conflicting design choices, the high cost of seismic qualification of equipment, and regulatory review. Safety-critical equipment in large light water reactors is designed and qualified for seismic demands imposed by the supporting reactor building, optimal mechanical designs are not possible, and designs of a given piece of equipment may vary with height above grade. Similar negative impacts are expected for advanced reactors unless the seismic design paradigm is changed. The overarching goal of this transformational MEITNER project, which involved a multidisciplinary engineering team and designers of three fundamentally different advanced reactors, was to adapt proven seismic isolation and damping technologies to operationalize modular protective systems for safety-class equipment inside advanced reactor buildings. Such seismic protective systems would be tightly integrated into design development for reactor support systems and balance-of-plant construction. The adoption of the technology, which is widely used in non-nuclear sectors, would simplify plant design, enable the use of standardized equipment and buildings, optimized for operational performance, and reduce plant size and weight. The need for site-specific equipment would be eliminated, enabling identical equipment to be used across multiple plants sited across the US and economies of scale, and catalyzing new interest and investment. The equipment-based protective systems would allow siting of advanced reactors in regions of high seismic hazard.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Retrofittable Advanced Combined Cycle Integration for Flexible Decarbonized Generation

This is the final scientific / technical report for Front End Engineering Design (FEED) study “Retrofittable Advanced Combined Cycle Integration for Flexible Decarbonized Generation” funded by the US Department of Energy (DOE), Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management (FECM), Carbon Capture R&D Program under award DE-FE0032131. The prime recipient is General Electric Company working through its Gas Power division (GEGP) with subrecipients Southern Company and Linde Engineering plus subcontractor Kiewit. Southern Company’s Plant Barry, a 2x1 7F.04 CCGT, is the host site. GEGP led the overall integration of the carbon capture system (CCS) with the existing natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) facility. Linde provided the detailed process engineering and equipment costing for the carbon capture island. Kiewit focused on plant layout, constructability, and installation. With the FEED study finished, the engineering is approximately 50% complete towards the detailed design package needed to proceed to procure, install, build, commission, and operate the integrated NGCC+CCS facility. This FEED study focuses on retrofitting a 95% CO 2 capture system with attention on plant integration. The study was particularly challenging due to unique and substantial cost impacts related to global sourcing challenges associated with COVID. Additional incentives, regulatory support, and dispatch certainty are needed to move forward with implementing CCS at this or other sites in the US. This FEED study highlights the value of integrating NGCC+CCS and is a template for future CCS retrofit studies.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

High Fidelity Digital Twins for BWRX-300 Critical Systems

This project developed and demonstrated digital-twin technology for advanced nuclear systems under the ARPA-E GEMINA program, with a focus on the BWRX-300 small modular reactor. The primary objective was to reduce operation and maintenance (O&M) costs through predictive health monitoring and model-based fault detection. The project combined MIT’s high-fidelity physics models and machine-learning and digital-twin algorithms, and GE Hitachi’s digital-twin algorithms and operational expertise to build physics-based digital twins capable of real-time system monitoring and maintenance scheduling.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗

DOE OSTI2025

Advanced Modeling of Beam Physics and Performance Optimization for Nuclear Physics Colliders

High energy colliders provide a critical tool in nuclear physics study by probing the fundamental structure and dynamics of matter. To maximize the potential of scientific discovery in nuclear physics study, it is important to optimize the parameters of these colliders to attain the best performance. The performance of a collider is typically measured by its integrated luminosity of colliding beams since the probability of a new event is proportional to the integrated luminosity. However, the achievable luminosity is limited by the electromagnetic interactions (beam-beam effects) of two colliding beams at higher energy, and the interplay between the space-charge effects and the beam-beam effects at lower energy. To achieve the best performance of a collider means to attain the highest luminosity of the collider with optimized collider parameters. Optimizing the collider’s machine parameters is both computationally and experimentally expensive. A fast and robust computational framework including beam-beam and space-charge effects will be critical to attaining the best performance of the collider. In this project, we will study the beam dynamics challenges, specifically the interplay of the space-charge and the beam-beam effects, and the machine tuning models for maximizing the performance of RHIC experiments. We will develop an advanced modeling framework based on first-principles physical simulations, lattice models and the state-of-the-art machine learning methods and apply this framework to performance improvement of the RHIC in operation. We will build data manipulation packages to connect the simulation data and the experimental data with the framework, develop a self-consistent hybrid model of space-charge and beam-beam effects, study underlying physics mechanisms, build surrogate models using the labeled data, integrate the models into the advanced modeling framework, and apply the framework to RHIC luminosity (STAR and sPHENIX) optimization. The success of this project would substantially improve the performance of existing and future colliders and increase the opportunity for scientific discovery.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗

DOE OSTI2025

High y + Shear-Stress Turbulence Implementation for High Flux Isotope Reactor Narrow Channel Flows

The research objective of this work was to improve the engineering predictions of the turbulence characteristics of flows in curved narrow channels. Such channel flows are commonly encountered in nuclear research and test reactors, with one of them being the high-flux isotope reactor (HFIR). Research reactors bear high heat fluxes, and the proper computing of turbulence is paramount for safe and reliable reactor operation. The study builds on the results of a previous direct numerical simulation of turbulence to inform a well-known Reynolds-averaged Navier–Stokes shear-stress turbulence model and improves its accuracy in simulating parallel channel flows. A new formulation of the loss term in the dissipation conservation equation is suggested. Combined with high wall distance computational grids, the new implementation provides a fast-running flow solution, suitable for engineering purposes. Model generalization for parallel channel flows, in a broader range of frictional Reynolds numbers, is suggested by introducing a new form of the model constants.

CFD↗

NASA NTRS1972

Large-scale terrestrial solar cell power generation cost: A preliminary assessment

A cost study was made to assess the potential of the large-scale use of solar cell power for terrestrial applications. The incentive is the attraction of a zero-pollution source of power for wide-scale use. Unlike many other concepts for low-pollution power generation, even thermal pollution is avoided since only the incident solar flux is utilized. To provide a basis for comparison and a perspective for evaluation, the pertinent technology was treated in two categories: current and optimistic. Factors considered were solar cells, array assembly, power conditioning, site preparation, buildings, maintenance, and operation. The capital investment was assumed to be amortized over 30 years. The useful life of the solar cell array was assumed to be 10 years, and the cases of zero and 50-percent performance deg-radation were considered. Land costs, taxes, and profits were not included in this study because it was found too difficult to provide good generalized estimates of these items. On the basis of the factors considered, it is shown that even for optimistic projections of technology, electric power from large-sclae terrestrial use of solar cells is approximately two to three orders of magnitude more costly than current electric power generation from either fossil or nuclear fuel powerplants. For solar cell power generation to be a viable competitor on a cost basis, technological breakthroughs would be required in both solar cell and array fabrication and in site preparation.

Spakowski, A. E.↗

NASA NTRS1980

Space Shuttle cargo processing.

The spacecraft processing techniques to be used at the Kennedy Space Center for the assembly and check-out of Space Shuttle cargoes are discussed. The processing flow for vertically handled spacecraft, which are inserted into the Shuttle orbiter cargo bay while the orbiter is in the vertical position and often are attached to a separate solid booster stage, includes assembly into unified payloads in the Vertical Processing Facility, followed by Cargo Integration Test Equipment tests to ensure cargo bay compatibility, and transportation to the launch pad. Horizontally handled spacecraft such as Spacelab, which are inserted into the Orbiter cargo bay while it is in the Orbiter Processing Facility in the horizontal position, are assembled and checked out within the Operations and Checkout Building, where the CITE tests are performed and the Spacelab will be disassembled, and then transported to the Orbiter Processing Facility. It is pointed out that during the Space Shuttle era, when the number of spacecraft to be processed simultaneously at Kennedy will double or triple, all spacecraft processing facilities will be required to handle the workload.

Neilon, J. J.↗

NASA NTRS1984

Flight Experiment Demonstration System (FEDS) functional description and interface document

This document presents a functional description of the Flight Experiment Demonstration System (FEDS) and of interfaces between FEDS and external hardware and software. FEDS is a modification of the Automated Orbit Determination System (AODS). FEDS has been developed to support a ground demonstration of microprocessor-based onboard orbit determination. This document provides an overview of the structure and logic of FEDS and details the various operational procedures to build and execute FEDS. It also documents a microprocessor interface between FEDS and a TDRSS user transponder and describes a software simulator of the interface used in the development and system testing of FEDS.

Belcher, R. C.↗

NASA NTRS1986

Lunar power systems

The findings of a study on the feasibility of several methods of providing electrical power for a permanently manned lunar base are provided. Two fundamentally different methods for lunar electrical power generation are considered. One is the use of a small nuclear reactor and the other is the conversion of solar energy to electricity. The baseline goal was to initially provide 300 kW of power with growth capability to one megawatt and eventually to 10 megawatts. A detailed, day by day scenario for the establishment, build-up, and operational activity of the lunar base is presented. Also presented is a conceptual approach to a supporting transportation system which identifies the number, type, and deployment of transportation vehicles required to support the base. An approach to the use of solar cells in the lunar environment was developed. There are a number of heat engines which are applicable to solar/electric conversions, and these are examined. Several approaches to energy storage which were used by the electric power utilities were examined and those which could be used at a lunar base were identified.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS1987

The influence of the launch site operational environment on Space Shuttle scientific payloads

The effects of prelaunch assembly, testing, and integration activities on the scientific payload at the KSC are examined. The functions of the Shuttle and payload organizations of the KSC are discussed. The processing of the various types of pyaloads, and the amount of access to the payload during processing and after landing are described. The KSC facility contains: an Operations and Checkout Building, a Vertical Processing Facility, Cargo Integration and Test Equipment, an Orbiter Processing Facility, a Payload Changeout Room, payload transportation equipment, and Shuttle launch pads.

Schuiling, Roelof L.↗

NASA NTRS1987

Expert mission planning and replanning scheduling system for NASA KSC payload operations

EMPRESS (Expert Mission Planning and REplanning Scheduling System) is an expert system created to assist payload mission planners at Kennedy in the long range planning and scheduling of horizontal payloads for space shuttle flights. Using the current flight manifest, these planners develop mission and payload schedules detailing all processing to be performed in the Operations and Checkout building at Kennedy. With the EMPRESS system, schedules are generated quickly using standard flows that represent the tasks and resources required to process a specific horizontal carrier. Resources can be tracked and resource conflicts can be determined and resolved interactively. Constraint relationships between tasks are maintained and can be enforced when a task is moved or rescheduled. The domain, structure, and functionality of the EMPRESS system is briefly designed. The limitations of the EMPRESS system are described as well as improvements expected with the EMPRESS-2 development.

Pierce, Roger↗