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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 667 records · Page 37

International Space Station Payload Operations Integration Center (POIC) Overview

Objectives and Goals: Maintain and operate the POIC and support integrated Space Station command and control functions. Provide software and hardware systems to support ISS payloads and Shuttle for the POIF cadre, Payload Developers and International Partners. Provide design, development, independent verification &validation, configuration, operational product/system deliveries and maintenance of those systems for telemetry, commanding, database and planning. Provide Backup Control Center for MCC-H in case of shutdown. Provide certified personnel and systems to support 24x7 facility operations per ISS Program. Payloads CoFR Implementation Plan (SSP 52054) and MSFC Payload Operations CoFR Implementation Plan (POIF-1006).

Ijames, Gayleen N.↗

Hayabusa: Navigation Challenges for Earth Return

Hayabusa was a JAXA sample-return mission to Itokawa navigated, in part, by JPL personnel. Hayabusa survived several near mission-ending failures at Itokawa yet returned to Earth with an asteroid regolith sample on June 13, 2010. This paper describes NASA/JPL's participation in the Hayabusa mission during the last 100 days of its mission, wherein JPL provided tracking data and orbit determination, plus verification of maneuver design and entry, descent and landing.

Itokawa↗

Internal NASA Study: NASAs Protoflight Research Initiative

The NASA Protoflight Research Initiative is an internal NASA study conducted within the Office of the Chief Engineer to better understand the use of Protoflight within NASA. Extensive literature reviews and interviews with key NASA members with experience in both robotic and human spaceflight missions has resulted in three main conclusions and two observations. The first conclusion is that NASA's Protoflight method is not considered to be "prescriptive." The current policies and guidance allows each Program/Project to tailor the Protoflight approach to better meet their needs, goals and objectives. Second, Risk Management plays a key role in implementation of the Protoflight approach. Any deviations from full qualification will be based on the level of acceptable risk with guidance found in NPR 8705.4. Finally, over the past decade (2004 - 2014) only 6% of NASA's Protoflight missions and 6% of NASA's Full qualification missions experienced a publicly disclosed mission failure. In other words, the data indicates that the Protoflight approach, in and of it itself, does not increase the mission risk of in-flight failure. The first observation is that it would be beneficial to document the decision making process on the implementation and use of Protoflight. The second observation is that If a Project/Program chooses to use the Protoflight approach with relevant heritage, it is extremely important that the Program/Project Manager ensures that the current project's requirements falls within the heritage design, component, instrument and/or subsystem's requirements for both the planned and operational use, and that the documentation of the relevant heritage is comprehensive, sufficient and the decision well documented. To further benefit/inform this study, a recommendation to perform a deep dive into 30 missions with accessible data on their testing/verification methodology and decision process to research the differences between Protoflight and Full Qualification missions' Design Requirements and Verification & Validation (V&V) (without any impact or special request directly to the project).

Protoflight↗

Dormancy Should Be Avoided for Mars and Deep Space Recycling Life Support

Mars is the crucial goal of human exploration beyond the Earth-moon system. The Mars round trip transit vehicle has been expected to use a regenerative Life Support System (LSS) similar to the one on the International Space Station (ISS). It often assumed that the Mars transit LSS will be operated on the outward trip to Mars, placed in dormancy while the full crew explores the surface, and then restored to operation for the return trip to Earth. The major difference between Mars missions and operations in the Earth-moon system is the need for much higher reliability for Mars missions, since rapid resupply of parts and materials or a quick crew return to Earth are not possible. Mars systems must achieve intrinsic high reliability by design, test, failure analysis, and redesign and then increase operational robustness by providing spare parts and redundant systems. Further requiring the LSS to be capable of dormancy and restoration to operation greatly increases the difficulty of design, test, and verification. The process of implementing dormancy and then restoring operation would add significant risk to the mission. Dormancy should be avoided for Mars and can be avoided several ways. First and most obvious, some crew can remain continually on board. If no crew can remain onboard, dormancy can still be avoided if an unused spare LSS is activated for the return trip, rather than restarting the used out bound system. Systems similar to the ISS LSS would have a significant probability of failure on a Mars trip and therefore would require two or three spares. Another full spare LSS could be provided as the return trip system, rather than refurbishing a used LSS.

dormancy↗

Simulation and Testing of the Range of Motion of a Six Degree of Freedom Docking System

The soft capture system of the NASA Docking System (NDS) is a mechanism with six-degrees of freedom (6DOF). Although the nominal motion of the system is simple and largely in a single degree of freedom, complex movement is permissible within the requirements for docking. As such it is critical in the design, test, and verification of the docking system to fully understand the range of possible movement of the mechanism. This range of motion (ROM) must be large enough to accommodate all permitted docking sequences without internal collisions. This paper will discuss the methods used to perform these analysis for the NDS. Additionally, the testing sequences derived from this analysis will be presented, as illustrated in Figure 1. Finally, lessons learned from the analysis and test program will be discussed.

Docking System↗

NASA's Exploration and In-Space Services (NExIS) Division OSAM-1 Propellant Transfer Subsystem Progress 2020

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Exploration and In-Space Services (NExIS) Division of Goddard Space Flight Center has been developing technology for the On-orbit Servicing, Assembly and Manufacturing Mission 1 (OSAM-1) to robotically refuel heritage and new satellites on-orbit. OSAM-1, formerly known as Restore-L, successfully passed an important NASA milestone called Key Decision Point-C (KDP-C), receiving agency-level approval for its implementation. The decision point also establishes the mission’s official schedule and budget. The OSAM-1 spacecraft, Servicing Payload and the Space Infrastructure Dexterous Robot (SPIDER) payload will refuel a satellite in space, assemble a communications antenna and manufacture a beam. By demonstrating these capabilities, the mission is advancing never-before tested technologies for use in future missions (by NASA and other government organizations and private industry). The mission is funded by the Technology Demonstration Missions program within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. This paper covers a review of servicing extensibility and critical technologies that are being developed within NExIS with a focus on the fluid transfer refueling technology within the framework of the Propellant Transfer Subsystem (PTS). An overview of the planned initial technology demonstration servicing mission via the OSAM-1 Space Vehicle is provided as an extension of the technology development progress reported in 20181, and 20192. The general objectives, challenges, and key technologies are presented as an introduction to the context of the OSAM-1 mission, and a precursor to the OSAM-1 PTS specific development status. Development and progress of the Hose Management Assembly (HMA) and Propellant Transfer Assembly (PTA) are discussed. HMA risk reduction test results including those of thermal vacuum testing are presented. Important analytical results are discussed and progress of drawings and procedures developed for the fabrication and testing phase are shown. A summary of the PTS overall verification status and design activities prepared for the critical design peer review are presented. Procurement progress is shown with status on long, medium, and short term efforts to acquire the hardware required to support the mission objectives. Technology development, challenges, and testing status are discussed with particular regard to the OSAM-1 specific key assemblies including the PTA and HMA along with the overall integrated flight mockup of the spacecraft to client fluid transfer testing conducted in the servicing testbeds. The paper concludes with key milestones leading to the goal of on-orbit refueling to be demonstrated in 2024. The overall mission Launch Readiness Date (LRD) has been realigned to accommodate budget profiles and incorporation of additional on-orbit assembly and manufacturing demonstration efforts.

Propellant transfer, satellite servicing↗

When the Eyes Don't Have It: Autonomous Control of Deep Space Vehicles for Human Spaceflight

NASA has been charged with expanding human presence into the solar system. The next phase of exploration will focus on learning how to develop and sustain habitats on the moon for eventual missions to Mars. The Gateway Lunar Orbiting Platform (G-LOP) is a modular spacecraft being built for cis-lunar orbit and offers a true deep space environment for gaining experience for human missions to Mars. The mission concept for Gateway involves long uncrewed periods between missions; therefore, Gateway requires increased self-reliance to separate the spacecraft from Earth-bound control and oversight. This complicates the human-in-the-loop (HITL) concept and requires major adjustments to the traditional automation human-computer interaction paradigm. This paper discusses the design, development, and verification of complex human-computer interactions with the autonomous systems managers which will control the Gateway spacecraft.

Julia M. Badger↗

Design and Development Requirements for Mechanisms

This NASA Technical Standard is published by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to provide uniform engineering and technical requirements for processes, procedures, practices, and methods endorsed as standard for NASA programs and projects, including requirements for selection, application, and design criteria of an item. This Standard is approved for use by NASA Headquarters and NASA Centers, including Component Facilities and Technical and Service Support Centers; applicable technical requirements may be cited in contract, program, and other Agency documents. This language applies to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (a Federally Funded Research and Development Center), other contractors, recipients of grants, cooperative agreements, or other agreements only to the extent specified or referenced in the applicable contracts, grants, or agreements. This Standard establishes uniform design, development, and verification requirements for mechanisms and mechanism components whose correct operation is required for safety or mission success.

Mechanism↗

Development of PFLOTRAN Transport Capability for Use in the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Performance Assessment - 20545

Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) performance assessment (PA) calculations estimate the probability of radionuclide release from the repository to the land surface and across the land withdrawal boundary for a regulatory period of 10,000 years after facility closure. Simulations of flow and transport in the repository and the surrounding Salado Formation are foundational to the PA. Because proposed additional waste emplacement panels would result in an asymmetric repository layout, the US Department of Energy (DOE) is preparing to transition to use of a three-dimensional (3-D) model domain for simulation of flow and transport instead of the two-dimensional (2-D) flared grid domain currently used. DOE has charged Sandia National Laboratories with developing the capability necessary to simulate processes affecting flow and transport in the WIPP in PFLOTRAN, an open-source massively parallel multi-phase flow and reactive transport code. The new flow and transport capabilities developed in PFLOTRAN incorporate WIPP-specific process models and will replace the 2-D simulators (BRAGFLO and NUTS) that are currently utilized for Salado flow and transport calculations in WIPP PA. The focus of this paper is on the development of a new Nuclear Waste Transport (NWT) mode in PFLOTRAN that has all of the capabilities necessary for Salado transport simulations, including the ability to handle complete dry-out (100% gas saturation) of arbitrary cells in the model domain, radionuclide mass conservation at step changes in porosity associated with borehole intrusion, and the ability to calculate fluxes on a flared grid. The new PFLOTRAN transport capability and a suite of verification tests were designed around a list of functional requirements for WIPP PA calculations. (authors)

12 MANAGEMENT OF RADIOACTIVE AND NON-RADIOACTIVE W↗

AUTOMATIC GENERATION OF EVENT TREES AND FAULT TREES: A MODEL-BASED APPROACH

In the past few decades, increasing complexity in modern engineering systems has been driven by the integration of a large number of components and by the fact that the system operations involve many disciplines (e.g., thermal-hydraulics, plant operations, cyber-security). Current safety/reliability modeling approaches to such systems are labor intensive, difficult to learn, and rely heavily on simplistic Boolean logic to depict failure propagation and accident progression. While these methods serve well for simple systems (i.e., linear causal systems with limited small inter- and intra-system interactions), their results are difficult to verify when modeling complex systems (typically performed through the extensive use of modeling assumptions). The development of new methods is addressed to meet these challenges through a model-based system engineering (MBSE) lens. Under MBSE philosophy, every aspect of the system (form or function) is represented by a model that completely characterizes its architecture or behavior. MBSE approach greatly improves the management of design, analysis and verification of complex systems. An integration of Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment (DPRA) methods with MBSE models is proposed to perform safety/reliability analyses of engineering systems. In particular, MBSE representation of the system (performed using Systems Modeling Language [SysML]) is coupled with DPRA methods to automatically generate event trees and fault trees.

97 - MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Mars Exploration Rover Entry, Descent, and Landing: A Thermal Perspective

Perhaps the most challenging mission phase for the Mars Exploration Rovers was the Entry, Descent, and Landing (EDL). During this phase, the entry vehicle attached to its cruise stage was transformed into a stowed tetrahedral Lander that was surrounded by inflated airbags through a series of complex events. There was only one opportunity to successfully execute an automated command sequence without any possible ground intervention. The success of EDL was reliant upon the system thermal design: 1) to thermally condition EDL hardware from cruise storage temperatures to operating temperature ranges; 2) to maintain the Rover electronics within operating temperature ranges without the benefit of the cruise single phase cooling loop, which had been evacuated in preparation for EDL; and 3) to maintain the cruise stage propulsion components for the critical turn to entry attitude. Since the EDL architecture was inherited from Mars Pathfinder (MPF), the initial EDL thermal design would be inherited from MPF. However, hardware and implementation differences from MPF ultimately changed the MPF inheritance approach for the EDL thermal design. With the lack of full inheritance, the verification and validation of the EDL thermal design took on increased significance. This paper will summarize the verification and validation approach for the EDL thermal design along with applicable system level thermal testing results as well as appropriate thermal analyses. In addition, the lessons learned during the system-level testing will be discussed. Finally, the in-flight EDL experiences of both MER-A and -B missions (Spirit and Opportunity, respectively) will be presented, demonstrated how lessons learned from Spirit were applied to Opportunity.

thermal↗

James Webb Space Telescope Integrated Science Instrument Module Thermal Vacuum Thermal Balance Test Campaign at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

The James Webb Space Telescope is a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror, designed as a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope when launched in 2018. Three of the four science instruments contained within the Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) are passively cooled to their operational temperature range of 36K to 40K with radiators, and the fourth instrument is actively cooled to its operational temperature of approximately 6K. Thermal-vacuum testing of the flight science instruments at the ISIM element level has taken place in three separate highly challenging and extremely complex thermal tests within a gaseous helium-cooled shroud inside Goddard Space Flight Centers Space Environment Simulator. Special data acquisition software was developed for these tests to monitor over 1700 flight and test sensor measurements, track over 50 gradients, component rates, and temperature limits in real time against defined constraints and limitations, and guide the complex transition from ambient to final cryogenic temperatures and back. This extremely flexible system has proven highly successful in safeguarding the nearly $2B science payload during the 3.5-month-long thermal tests. Heat flow measurement instrumentation, or Q-meters, were also specially developed for these tests. These devices provide thermal boundaries o the flight hardware while measuring instrument heat loads up to 600 mW with an estimated uncertainty of 2 mW in test, enabling accurate thermal model correlation, hardware design validation, and workmanship verification. The high accuracy heat load measurements provided first evidence of a potentially serious hardware design issue that was subsequently corrected. This paper provides an overview of the ISIM-level thermal-vacuum tests and thermal objectives; explains the thermal test configuration and thermal balances; describes special measurement instrumentation and monitoring and control software; presents key test thermal results; lists problems encountered during testing and lessons learned.

JWST ISIM Thermal↗

Test verification of LOX/RP-1 high-pressure fuel/oxidizer-rich preburner designs

Two fuel-rich and two oxidizer-rich preburner injectors are tested with LOX/RP-1 in an investigation of performance, stability and gas temperature uniformity over a chamber pressure range from 1292 to 2540 psia. Fuel-rich mixture ratios range from 0.238 to 0.367 and oxidizer-rich mixture ratios range from 27 to 48, and carbon deposition data are collected by measuring the pressure drop across a turbine simulator flow device. The oxidizer-rich testing demonstrates the feasibility of oxidizer-rich preburners, indicating equilibrium combustion as predicted, and the measured fuel-rich gas composition and C-asterisk performance are in excellent agreement with kinetic model predictions indicating kinetically-limited combustion.

Lawver, B. R.↗

Analysis, Verification, and Application of Equations and Procedures for Design of Exhaust-pipe Shrouds

Investigations were made to develop a simplified method for designing exhaust-pipe shrouds to provide desired or maximum cooling of exhaust installations. Analysis of heat exchange and pressure drop of an adequate exhaust-pipe shroud system requires equations for predicting design temperatures and pressure drop on cooling air side of system. Present experiments derive such equations for usual straight annular exhaust-pipe shroud systems for both parallel flow and counter flow. Equations and methods presented are believed to be applicable under certain conditions to the design of shrouds for tail pipes of jet engines.

HEAT EXCHANGERS, SHROUDED↗