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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 613 records · Page 34

Improvement of Risk Assessment from Space Radiation Exposure for Future Space Exploration Missions

Protecting astronauts from space radiation exposure is an important challenge for mission design and operations for future exploration-class and long-duration missions. Crew members are exposed to sporadic solar particle events (SPEs) as well as to the continuous galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). If sufficient protection is not provided the radiation risk to crew members from SPEs could be significant. To improve exposure risk estimates and radiation protection from SPEs, detailed variations of radiation shielding properties are required. A model using a modern CAD tool ProE (TM), which is the leading engineering design platform at NASA, has been developed for this purpose. For the calculation of radiation exposure at a specific site, the cosine distribution was implemented to replicate the omnidirectional characteristic of the 4 pi particle flux on a surface. Previously, estimates of doses to the blood forming organs (BFO) from SPEs have been made using an average body-shielding distribution for the bone marrow based on the computerized anatomical man model (CAM). The development of an 82-point body-shielding distribution at BFOs made it possible to estimate the mean and variance of SPE doses in the major active marrow regions. Using the detailed distribution of bone marrow sites and implementation of cosine distribution of particle flux is shown to provide improved estimates of acute and cancer risks from SPEs.

Kim, Myung-Hee Y.↗

In-situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and Lunar Surface Systems

This viewgraph presentation reviews the benefits of In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) on the surface of the moon. Included in this review is the commercialization of Lunar ISRU. ISRU will strongly influence architecture and critical technologies. ISRU is a critical capability and key implementation of the Vision for Space Exploration (VSE). ISRU will strongly effects lunar outpost logistics, design and crew safety. ISRU will strongly effect outpost critical technologies. ISRU mass investment is minimal compared to immediate and long-term architecture delivery mass and reuse capabilities provided. Therefore, investment in ISRU constitutes a commitment to the mid and long term future of human exploration.

Sanders, Jerry↗

In-Service Evaluation of the Turbulence Auto-PIREP System and Enhanced Turbulence Radar Technologies

From August 2003 to December 2006, In-Service Evaluations (ISE) of the Turbulence Auto-PIREP System (TAPS) and Enhanced Turbulence (E-Turb) Radar, technologies developed in NASA's Turbulence Prediction and Warning System (TPAWS) element of its Aviation Safety and Security Program (AvSSP), were conducted. NASA and AeroTech Research established an industry team comprising AeroTech, Delta Air Lines, Rockwell Collins, and ARINC to conduct the ISEs. The technologies were installed on Delta aircraft and their effectiveness was evaluated in day-to-day operations. This report documents the establishment and conduct of the ISEs and presents results and feedback from various users.

Prince, Jason B.↗

Exploring Hypersonic, Unstructured-Grid Issues through Structured Grids

Pure-tetrahedral unstructured grids have been shown to produce asymmetric heat transfer rates for symmetric problems. Meanwhile, two-dimensional structured grids produce symmetric solutions and as documented here, introducing a spanwise degree of freedom to these structured grids also yields symmetric solutions. The effects of grid skewness and other perturbations of structured-grids are investigated to uncover possible mechanisms behind the unstructured-grid solution asymmetries. By using controlled experiments around a known, good solution, the effects of particular grid pathologies are uncovered. These structured-grid experiments reveal that similar solution degradation occurs as for unstructured grids, especially for heat transfer rates. Non-smooth grids within the boundary layer is also shown to produce large local errors in heat flux but do not affect surface pressures.

Mazaheri, Ali R.↗

Initial Performance Assessment of CALIOP

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP, pronounced the same as "calliope") is a spaceborne two-wavelength polarizatio n lidar that has been acquiring global data since June 2006. CALIOP p rovides high resolution vertical profiles of clouds and aerosols, and has been designed with a very large linear dynamic range to encompas s the full range of signal returns from aerosols and clouds. CALIOP is the primary instrument carried by the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrar ed Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite, which was l aunched on April, 28 2006. CALIPSO was developed within the framework of a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES. I nitial data analysis and validation intercomparisons indicate the qua lity of data from CALIOP meets or exceeds expectations. This paper presents a description of the CALIPSO mission, the CALIOP instrument, an d an initial assessment of on-orbit measurement performance.

Winker, David↗

TRL-6 for JWST Wavefront Sensing and Control

NASA's Technology Readiness Level (TRL)-6 is documented for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Wavefront Sensing and Control (WFSC) subsystem. The WFSC subsystem is needed to align the Optical Telescope Element (OTE) after all deployments have occurred, and achieves that requirement through a robust commissioning sequence consisting of unique commissioning algorithms, all of which are part of the WFSC algorithm suite. This paper identifies the technology need, algorithm heritage, describes the finished TRL-6 design platform, and summarizes the TRL-6 test results and compliance. Additionally, the performance requirements needed to satisfy JWST science goals as well as the criterion that relate to the TRL-6 Testbed Telescope (TBT) performance requirements are discussed

Feinberg, Lee↗

Liquid cooled helmet

Liquid cooled helmet comprising a cap of flexible material adapted to fit the head of a person, cooling panels mounted inside the cap forming passageways for carrying a liquid coolant, the panels being positioned to engage the cranium and neck of a person wearing the helmet, inlet and outlet lines communicating with the passageways, and releasable straps for securing the helmet about the neck of the wearer.

Elkins, William↗

Design and Performance of the Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph

Terrestrial Planet Finder Coronagraph, one of two potential architectures, is described. The telescope is designed to make a visible wavelength survey of the habitable zones of at least thirty stars in search of earth-like planets. The preliminary system requirements, optical parameters, mechanical and thermal design, operations scenario and predicted performance is presented. The 6-meter aperture telescope has a monolithic primary mirror, which along with the secondary tower, are being designed to meet the stringent optical tolerances of the planet-finding mission. Performance predictions include dynamic and thermal finite element analysis of the telescope optics and structure, which are used to make predictions of the optical performance of the system.

designs↗

Evaluation of a Pilot Surveillance System: Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange in Atlanta (HELIX-Atlanta)

CDC and its partners established the Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange, Atlanta (HELIX-Atlanta) demonstration project, to develop linking and analysis methods that could be used by the National Environmental Public Health Tracking (EPHT) Network. Initiated in October 2003, the Metropolitan Atlanta-based collaborative conducted four projects: asthma and particulate air pollution, birth defects and ozone and particulate air pollution, childhood leukemia and traffic emissions, and children's blood lead testing and neighborhood risk factors for lead poisoning. This report provides an overview of the HELIX-Atlanta projects' goals, methods and outcomes. We discuss priority attributes and common issues and challenges and offer recommendations for implementation of the nascent national environmental public health tracking network.

Meyer, P.↗

Health and Environment Linked for Information Exchange (HELIX)-Atlanta: A CDC-NASA Joint Environmental Public Health Tracking Collaborative Project

HELIX-Atlanta was developed to support current and future state and local EPHT programs to implement data linking demonstration projects which could be part of the CDC EPHT Network. HELIX-Atlanta is a pilot linking project in Atlanta for CDC to learn about the challenges the states will encounter. NASA/MSFC and the CDC are partners in linking environmental and health data to enhance public health surveillance. ~ The use of NASA technology creates value added geospatial products from existing environmental data sources to facilitate public health linkages. Proving the feasibility of the approach is the main objective

Al-Hamdan, Mohammad↗

Space Weather: What is it, and Why Should a Meteorologist Care?

"Space weather" is a term coined almost 15 years ago to describe environmental conditions ABOVE Earth's atmosphere that affect satellites and astronauts. As society has become more dependent on technology, we nave found that space weather conditions increasingly affect numerous commercial and infrastructure sectors: airline operations, the precision positioning industry, and the electric power grid, to name a few. Similar to meteorology where "weather" often refers to severe conditions, "space weather" includes geomagnetic storms, radiation storms, and radio blackouts. But almost all space weather conditions begin at the Sun--our middle-age, magnetically-variable star. At NASA, the science behind space weather takes place in the Heliophysics Division. The Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, is manned jointly by NCAA and US Air Force personnel, and it provides space weather alerts and warnings for disturbances that can affect people and equipment working in space and on Earth. Organizationally, it resides in NOAA's National Weather Service as one of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction. In this seminar we hope to give the audience a brief introduction to the causes of space weather, discuss some of the effects, and describe the state of the art in forecasting. Our goal is to highlight that meteorologists are increasingly becoming the "first responders" to questions about space weather causes and effects.

SaintCyr, Chris↗

Multi-Layer Insulation Debris Sightings on Orbit

I would like to discuss a topic that has affected many previous white-light coronagraphs as well as the HI1 instruments on STEREO. By design, all of these instruments are extremely sensitive to very faint sources including, unfortunately, those generated by scattering from flakes of multi-layer insulation (MLI) that has been shed by the spacecraft. We will describe a rich history of these MLI debris sightings, and we note that engineering considerations are required to minimize these deleterious effects in the future.

SaintCyr, Chris↗

General Purpose Heat Source Simulator

The General Purpose Heat Source (GPHS) simulator project is designed to replicate through the use of electrical heaters, the form, fit, and function of actual GPHS modules which generate heat through the radioactive decay of Pu238. The use of electrically heated modules rather than modules containing Pu238 facilitates the testing of spacecraft subsystems and systems without sacrificing the quantity and quality of the test data gathered. Previous GPHS activities are centered around developing robust heater designs with sizes and weights that closely matched those of actual Pu238 fueled GPHS blocks. These efforts were successful, although their maximum temperature capabilities were limited to around 850 C. New designs are being pursued which also replicate the sizes and weights of actual Pu238 fueled GPHS blocks but will allow operation up to 1100 C.

Emrich, Bill↗

Optical Modeling of the Alignment and Test of the NASA James Webb Space Telescope

Optical modeling challenges of the ground alignment plan and optical test and verification of the NASA James Webb Space Telescope are discussed. Issues such as back-out of the gravity sag of light-weighted mirrors, as well as the use of a sparse-aperture auto-collimating flat system are discussed. A walk-through of the interferometer based alignment procedure is summarized, and sensitivities from the sparse aperture wavefront test are included as examples.'

Howard, Joseph M.↗

A Comparison of Probabilistic and Deterministic Campaign Analysis for Human Space Exploration

Human space exploration is by its very nature an uncertain endeavor. Vehicle reliability, technology development risk, budgetary uncertainty, and launch uncertainty all contribute to stochasticity in an exploration scenario. However, traditional strategic analysis has been done in a deterministic manner, analyzing and optimizing the performance of a series of planned missions. History has shown that exploration scenarios rarely follow such a planned schedule. This paper describes a methodology to integrate deterministic and probabilistic analysis of scenarios in support of human space exploration. Probabilistic strategic analysis is used to simulate "possible" scenario outcomes, based upon the likelihood of occurrence of certain events and a set of pre-determined contingency rules. The results of the probabilistic analysis are compared to the nominal results from the deterministic analysis to evaluate the robustness of the scenario to adverse events and to test and optimize contingency planning.

Merrill, R. Gabe↗

Geological Implications of a Physical Libration on Enceladus

Given the non-spherical shape of Enceladus (Thomas et al., 2007), the satellite will experience gravitational torques that will cause it to physically librate as it orbits Saturn. Physical libration would produce a diurnal oscillation in the longitude of Enceladus tidal bulge which, could have a profound effect on the diurnal stresses experienced by the surface of the satellite. Although Cassini ISS has placed an observational upper limit on Enceladus libration amplitude of F < 1.5deg (Porco et al., 2006), smaller amplitudes can still have geologically significant consequences. Here we present the first detailed description of how physical libration affects tidal stresses and how those stresses then might affect geological processes including crack formation and propagation, south polar eruption activity, and tidal heating. Our goal is to provide a framework for testing the hypothesis that geologic features on Enceladus are produced by tidal stresses from diurnal physical and optical librations of the satellite.

Hurford, T. A.↗

Hybrid Multifoil Aerogel Thermal Insulation

This innovation blends the merits of multifoil insulation (MFI) with aerogel-based insulation to develop a highly versatile, ultra-low thermally conductive material called hybrid multifoil aerogel thermal insulation (HyMATI). The density of the opacified aerogel is 240 mg/cm3 and has thermal conductivity in the 20 mW/mK range in high vacuum and 25 mW/mK in 1 atmosphere of gas (such as argon) up to 800 C. It is stable up to 1,000 C. This is equal to commercially available high-temperature thermal insulation. The thermal conductivity of the aerogel is 36 percent lower compared to several commercially available insulations when tested in 1 atmosphere of argon gas up to 800 C.

Sakamoto, Jeffrey↗

Embedded ESD Protection Proof of Concept

The purpose of this project is to characterize and correlate Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) sensitivity levels of an Integrated Circuit (IC) package using Transmission Line Pulse (TLP) and Human Body Model (HBM) methods. This characterization will be used as a baseline ESD sensitivity level to demonstrate improvement to the ESD sensitivity of the IC package through the use of EPI-FLO(Trade Mark) Polymer Voltage Suppression (PVS) protection devices developed and manufactured by Electronic Polymers, Inc. (EPI).

Human Body Model (HBM) methods↗