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At least 559 records · Page 31
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1972

Geographic applications of ERTS-A imagery to rural landscape change

There are no author-identified significant results in this report. The study area, centered on Knoxville, Tennessee, encompasses nearly 20,000 square miles. The Knoxville Test Site, an 11 x 21 mile area over the city of Knoxville and the western portion of Knox County, has been chosen for the analysis of landscape change detection associated with urban growth. The second area, the Cumberland Plateau Test Site, exhibits landscape change through forest alterations and landform disturbances associated with strip mining in the area and was so chosen for its sharp contrasts in physical and human phenomena as well as its change dynamics. Accomplishments since reception of ERTS-1 imagery include: (1) basic cataloging and classifying of the data into a filling system; (2) a densitometer analysis; (3) first look analysis; and (4) preparation of results from the project. Examples of all four bands of the MSS have been received and analyses reveal distinctive positive and negative reactions. Band 5 has been found to be best for landscape analysis of contrasts between urban and rural landscapes, and band 7 for topographic features and water surfaces. Preliminary results are summarized.

Rehder, J. B.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Natural resource inventories and management applications in the Great Basin

ERTS-1 resolution capabilities and repetitive coverage have allowed the acquisition of several statewide inventories of natural resource features not previously completed or that could not be completed in any other way. Familiarity with landform, tone, pattern and other converging factors, along with multidate imagery, has been required. Nevada's vegetation has been mapped from ERTS-1. Dynamic characteristics of the landscape have been studied. Sequential ERTS-1 imagery has proved its usefulness for mapping vegetation, following vegetation phenology changes, monitoring changes in lakes and reservoirs (including water quality), determining changes in surface mining use, making fire fuel estimates and determining potential hazard, mapping the distribution of rain and snow events, making range readiness determinations, monitoring marshland management practices and other uses. Feasibility has been determined, but details of incorporating the data in management systems awaits further research and development. The need is to accurately define the steps necessary to extract required or usable information from ERTS imagery and fit it into on-going management programs.

Tueller, P. T.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Maintenance-optimized Modular Robotic Concepts for Planetary Surface ISRU Excavators

Modular robotic concepts are identified and evaluatedover the design and operations/maintenance lifecycle forautonomous Lunar, Mars, and partial gravity planetary surfaceexcavation and in-situ earthworks equipment. In-Situ ResourceUtilization (ISRU) is the exploitation of available resources at thesite of a landed spacecraft on the surface of another planetary body.It is intended that this ISRU excavator concept be capable ofmaterial extraction from native regolith, and will be able to operatein a variety of planetary surface environments after initial shakedownon the moon. Using heritage from highly multi-functional,reconfigurable robotic systems like the All-Terrain Hex-LimbedExtra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE), Regolith AdvancedSurface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR), and Marsexploration rovers, we propose a flexible maintenance-optimizedmobility platform concept with quick-connect/disconnect featuresfor robotically swappable excavation implements. Dust toleranttorque transmission, power & data docking, thermal fluidconnectors, and modular avionics and instrumentation will allow forautonomous swapping of tools, replacement of spares, and longtermmaintenance of robotic excavators. The architecture includesmodular tools for conventional excavate / scoop / haul / dump /process functions of a terrestrial mining operation on Earth, but alsowill have the capability to operate and robotically maintain itselfwithout human intervention. The concepts described in this studywill provide a suite of technologies, configurations, and operationsready for inclusion into a final flight-ready excavator system.

Schuler, Jason↗
NASA NTRS1983

Mineralogic information from a new airborne thermal infrared multispectral scanner

The thermal IR multispectral scanner (TIMS) has been developed for airborne geologic surveys. The resststrahlen band between 8-11 microns is exhibited by interatomic stretching vibrations of Si and oxygen bound up in the crystal lattice of silicate rocks. The crystal structure of the component minerals influence the depth and position of the detected band. The TIMS has six channels, an 80 deg field of view, and a sensitivity sufficient to detect a noise equivalent change in spectral emissivity of 0.002-0.006. The six bands measured are 8.2-8.6, 8.6-9.0, 9.4-10.2, 10.2-11.2, and 11.2-12.2 microns, using HgCdTe detectors. The data are analyzed with respect to emissivity variations as a function of wavelength, using the component transformation technique called a decorrelation stretch, with spectral differences being displayed as different colors. Sample scenes from Death Valley and the Nevada Cuprite mining district are compared with visible and near-IR color composites of the same areas, revealing the superior distinctions that are available with the TIMS.

Kahle, A. B.↗
NASA NTRS1974

The Penn State ORSER system for processing and analyzing ERTS data

The Office for Remote Sensing of Earth Resources (ORSER) of the Space Science and Engineering Laboratory (SSEL) at The Pennsylvania State University has developed an extensive operational system for processing and analyzing ERTS-1 and similar multispectral data. Specific results obtained by using this system include a study of land use, discrimination between types of forest resources and vegetation, detection of previously unknown geologic faults and correlation of these with known mineral deposits and ground water, mapping of mine spoils in the anthracite region of eastern Pennsylvania, mapping of strip mines and acid mine drainage in Central Pennsylvania, agricultural land use mapping, and detection of gypsy moth infestation.

Mcmurtry, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS1976

Utility of a scanning densitometer in analyzing remotely sensed imagery

The utility of a scanning densitometer for analyzing imagery in the NASA Lewis Research Center's regional remote sensing program was evaluated. Uses studied include: (1) quick-look screening of imagery by means of density slicing, magnification, color coding, and edge enhancement; (2) preliminary category classification of both low- and high-resolution data bases; and (3) quantitative measurement of the extent of features within selected areas. The densitometer was capable of providing fast, convenient, and relatively inexpensive preliminary analysis of aerial and satellite photography and scanner imagery involving land cover, water quality, strip mining, and energy conservation.

Dooley, J. T.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Hierarchical Image Segmentation of Remotely Sensed Data using Massively Parallel GNU-LINUX Software

A hierarchical set of image segmentations is a set of several image segmentations of the same image at different levels of detail in which the segmentations at coarser levels of detail can be produced from simple merges of regions at finer levels of detail. In [1], Tilton, et a1 describes an approach for producing hierarchical segmentations (called HSEG) and gave a progress report on exploiting these hierarchical segmentations for image information mining. The HSEG algorithm is a hybrid of region growing and constrained spectral clustering that produces a hierarchical set of image segmentations based on detected convergence points. In the main, HSEG employs the hierarchical stepwise optimization (HSWO) approach to region growing, which was described as early as 1989 by Beaulieu and Goldberg. The HSWO approach seeks to produce segmentations that are more optimized than those produced by more classic approaches to region growing (e.g. Horowitz and T. Pavlidis, [3]). In addition, HSEG optionally interjects between HSWO region growing iterations, merges between spatially non-adjacent regions (i.e., spectrally based merging or clustering) constrained by a threshold derived from the previous HSWO region growing iteration. While the addition of constrained spectral clustering improves the utility of the segmentation results, especially for larger images, it also significantly increases HSEG s computational requirements. To counteract this, a computationally efficient recursive, divide-and-conquer, implementation of HSEG (RHSEG) was devised, which includes special code to avoid processing artifacts caused by RHSEG s recursive subdivision of the image data. The recursive nature of RHSEG makes for a straightforward parallel implementation. This paper describes the HSEG algorithm, its recursive formulation (referred to as RHSEG), and the implementation of RHSEG using massively parallel GNU-LINUX software. Results with Landsat TM data are included comparing RHSEG with classic region growing.

Tilton, James C.↗
NASA NTRS1985

A First Look at Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (AIS) Data in an Area of Altered Volcanic Rocks and Carbonate Formations, Hot Creek Range, South Central Nevada

Three flight lines of Airborne Imaging Spectrometer (AIS) data were collected in 128 bands between 1.2 and 2.4 microns in the Hot Creek Range, Nevada on July 25, 1984. The flight lines are underlain by hydrothermally altered and unaltered Paleozoic carbonates and Tertiary rhyolitic to latitic volcanics in the Tybo mining district. The original project objectives were to discriminate carbonate rocks from other rock types, to distinguish limestone from dolomite, and to discriminate carbonate units from each other using AIS imagery. Because of high cloud cover over the prime carbonate flight line and because of the acquisition of another flight line in altered and unaltered volcanics, the study has been extended to the discrimination of alteration products. In an area of altered and unaltered rhyolites and latites in Red Rock Canyon, altered and unaltered rock could be discriminated from each other using spectral features in the 1.16 to 2.34 micron range. The altered spectral signatures resembled montmorillonite and kaolinite. Field samples were gathered and the presence of montmorillonite was confirmed by X-ray analysis.

Feldman, S. C.↗
NASA NTRS1988

Economic geology of lunar Helium-3

Economic geology evaluation of lunar He-3 should answer the question: Can lunar He-3 be sold on Earth with sufficient profit margins and low enough risk to attract capital investment in the enterprise. Concepts that relate to economic geology of recovering He-3 from the lunar maria are not new to human experience. A parametric cost and technology evaluation scheme, based on existing and future data, is required to qualitatively and quantitatively assess the comprehensive economic feasibility and return on investment of He-3 recovery from the lunar maria. There are also many political issues which must be considered as a result of nuclear fusion and lunar mining.

Schmitt, Harrison H.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Summary of the First AIAA Stability and Control Prediction Workshop

Results from the First AIAA Stability and Control Prediction Workshop are summarized in this paper. The workshop series was developed in support of three primary objectives: (1) to establish best practices for the prediction of stability and control derivatives using industry-standard Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solvers, (2) to provide an impartial forum for evaluating the effectiveness of Reynolds-averaged-Navier-Stokes- and Detached-Eddy-Simulation-based modeling techniques, and (3) to identify areas in need of additional research and development. To address these objectives, the inaugural workshop focused on generating computational aerodynamic predictions for the ONERA version of the NASA/Boeing Common Research Model. The configuration includes the wing, body, horizontal tail, and a vertical tail designed by ONERA. While longitudinal wind tunnel test data for the model had been previously documented, unpublished lateral test data at small sideslip angles provided a unique opportunity for participants to generate blind computational predictions for wind tunnel data comparisons. Additional test cases included assessments of the Mach number effect on static lateral/directional stability and the impact of the wind tunnel sting on longitudinal stability. Participants were invited to generate solutions using two workshop-provided series of structured overset and unstructured grids, in addition to any participant custom grids of interest. Total and component-level breakdowns for the force and moment coefficients for each test case are presented, as well as sectional pressure distribution data on the wing and tail components, to assess the agreement between several different Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes CFD solvers.

CFD↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Orbital Drag Near Small Bodies Due to Lofted Fines from Surface Activity

Recent exploratory missions have revealed that small bodies are more granular and dusty than previously expected. As a result of landings, mining, impacts, or other natural phenomena, bodies with negligible atmospheres such as moons and asteroids may experience an exospheric environment abundant in lofted fines. Significant quantities of these may interfere with the nominal trajectories of spacecraft in low orbits. This paper applies data collected from remote sensor and direct sample collection to approximate the density of atmospheric fines in three environments: high-velocity lunar fines generated during landings, the coma of active comets, and cryovolcanic plumes from the Saturnian moon Enceladus. It also investigates the threshold of activity that would induce concerns about a spacecraft's nominal mission. Coupled motion of spacecraft navigation and control is expressed in SE(3).

Fines↗
NASA NTRS1992

A Combined XRD/XRF Instrument for Lunar Resource Assessment

Robotic surface missions to the Moon should be capable of measuring mineral as well as chemical abundances in regolith samples. Although much is already known about the lunar regolith, our data are far from comprehensive. Most of the regolith samples returned to Earth for analysis had lost the upper surface, or it was intermixed with deeper regolith. This upper surface is the part of the regolith most recently exposed to the solar wind; as such it will be important to resource assessment. In addition, it may be far easier to mine and process the uppermost few centimeters of regolith over a broad area than to engage in deep excavation of a smaller area. The most direct means of analyzing the regolith surface will be by studies in situ. In addition, the analysis of the impact-origin regolith surfaces, the Fe-rich glasses of mare pyroclastic deposits, are of resource interest, but are inadequately known; none of the extensive surface-exposed pyroclastic deposits of the Moon have been systematically sampled, although we know something about such deposits from the Apollo 17 site. Because of the potential importance of pyroclastic deposits, methods to quantify glass as well as mineral abundances will be important to resource evaluation. Combined x ray diffraction (XRD) and x ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis will address many resource characterization problems on the Moon. XRF methods are valuable for obtaining full major-element abundances with high precision. Such data, collected in parallel with quantitative mineralogy, permit unambiguous determination of both mineral and chemical abundances where concentrations are high enough to be of resource grade. Collection of both XRD and XRF data from a single sample provides simultaneous chemical and mineralogic information. These data can be used to correlate quantitative chemistry and mineralogy as a set of simultaneous linear equations, the solution of which can lead to full characterization of the sample. The use of Rietveld methods for XRD data analysis can provide a powerful tool for quantitative mineralogy and for obtaining crystallographic data on complex minerals.

Vaniman, D. T.↗
NASA NTRS1977

Digital color analysis of color-ratio composite LANDSAT scenes

A method is presented that can be used to calculate approximate Munsell coordinates of the colors produced by making a color composite from three registered images. Applied to the LANDSAT MSS data of the Goldfield, Nevada, area, this method permits precise and quantitative definition of the limonitic areas originally observed in a LANDSAT color ratio composite. In addition, areas of transported limonite can be discriminated from the limonite in the hydrothermally altered areas of the Goldfield mining district. From the analysis, the numerical distinction between limonitic and nonlimonitic ground is generally less than 3% using the LANDSAT bands and as much as 8% in ratios of LANDSAT MSS bands.

Raines, G. L.↗
NASA NTRS1989

Decorrelation distance of snow in the Colorado River Basin

The problem of estimating areal averages from point measurement has been extensively studied by mining engineers and hydrologists. Its application to satellite measurements has recently been introduced. The semivariaogram has been used in many geostatistical applications to estimate spatial structures of observed properties, such as mineral distributions. An examination is made of snow variations in Colorado from daily snow data collected in 11 SNOTEL stations. The associated semivariogram is estimated. The objective is to estimate the spatial structure of the snow field so that the point data can be used for comparison with, and validation for, satellite measurements.

Chang, A. T. C.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Predicting Adverse Events and their Precursors in Aviation Using Multi-Class Multiple-Instance Learning

In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the application of machine learning techniques that leverage aviation data collected from commercial airline operations to improve safety. Anomaly detection and predictive maintenance have been the main targets for machine learning applications. However, this paper focuses on the identification of precursors, which is a relatively newer application. Precursors are events correlated with adverse events that happen prior to the adverse event itself. Therefore, precursor mining provides many benefits including understanding the reasons behind a safety incident and the ability to identify signatures, which can be tracked throughout a flight to alert the operators of an potential upcoming adverse event. This work proposes using the multiple-instance learning (MIL) framework, a weakly supervised learning task, combined with a carefully designed Multi-Head Convolutional Neural Networks-Recurrent Neural Networks (MHCNN-RNN) architecture to predict different type of adverse events for any given flights and identify their precursors with little to no post-processing.Results obtained show that the MHCNN-RNN is able to accurately forecast high speed and high path angle events during the approach, and that it is also capable of determining the aircraft’s parameters that are correlated to these events. These parameters can be considered precursors to the events.

multiple instance learning↗
NASA NTRS1990

Quantitative lithologic mapping in spectral ratio feature space - Volcanic, sedimentary and metamorphic terrains

The nature of spectral lithologic mapping is studied utilizing ratios centered around the wavelength means of TM imagery. Laboratory-derived spectra are analyzed to determine the two-dimensional relationships and distributions visible in spectral ratio feature space. The spectral distributions of various rocks and minerals in ratio feature space are found to be controlled by several spectrally dominant molecules. Three study areas were examined: Rawhide Mining District, Nevada; Manzano Mountains, New Mexico; and the Sevilleta Long Term Ecological Research site in New Mexico. It is shown that, in the comparison of two ratio plots of laboratory reflectance spectra, i.e., 0.66/0.485 micron versus 1.65/2.22 microns with those derived from TM data, several molecules spectrally dominate the reflectance characteristic of surface lithologic units. Utilizing the above ratio combination, two areas are successfully mapped based on their distribution in spectral ratio feature space.

Campos-Marquetti, Raul, Jr.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Interpretation of Pennsylvania agricultural land use from ERTS-1 data

The author has identified the following significant results. To study the complex agricultural patterns in Pennsylvania, a portion of an ERTS scene was selected for detailed analysis. Various photographic products were made and were found to be only of limited value. This necessitated the digital processing of the ERTS data. Using an unsupervised classification procedure, it was possible to delineate the following categories: (1) forest land with a northern aspect, (2) forest land with a southern aspect, (3) valley trees, (4) wheat, (5) corn, (6) alfalfa, grass, pasture, (7) disturbed land, (8) builtup land, (9) strip mines, and (10) water. These land use categories were delineated at a scale of approximately 1:20,000 on the line printer output. Land use delineations were also made using the General Electric IMAGE 100 interactive analysis system.

Mcmurtry, G. J.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Evaluation of geophysical properties of the lunar regolith for the design of precursor scientific missions for the space exploration initiative

The following topics are addressed: (1) the frequency of encountering boulders that represent hazards to lunar operations; (2) the ease of lunar soil excavation; (3) the use of explosives in excavation operation; (4) the trafficability of the regolith; (5) problems encountered in mining (probably strip mining) of the regolith; (6) the stable angle(s) of repose in excavation of the regolith; (7) the layering to be encountered in the subsurface; (8) knowledge of the regolith site and the possibility of its general application to any site on the lunar surface; (9) the data needed to characterize a site for a lunar base; (10) the influence of regolith properties on the design of geophysical experiments from the lunar base; and (11) terrestrial analogues for the geophysical properties of the lunar regolith.

Morgan, Paul↗