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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 685 records · Page 38

Space-Based Gravitational-Wave Observations as Tools for Testing General Relativity

We continued a project, to analyse the ways in which detection and study of gravitational waves could provide quantitative tests of general relativity, with particular emphasis on waves that would be detectable by space-based observatories, such as LISA. This work had three foci: 1) Tests of scalar-tensor theories of gravity that, could be done by analyzing gravitational waves from neutron stars inspiralling into massive black holes, as detectable by LISA; 2) Study of alternative theories of gravity in which the graviton could be massive, and of how gravitational-wave observations by space-based detectors, solar-system tests, and cosmological observations could constrain such theories; and 3) Study of gravitational-radiation back reaction of particles orbiting black holes in general relativity, with emphasis on the effects of spin.

Will, Clifford M.↗

Modular Avionics Concept Developed for Microgravity Space Experiments: FEANICS

The Flow Enclosure Accommodating Novel Investigations in Combustion of Solids (FEANICS) is a facility being developed at the NASA Glenn Research Center that will be integrated into the Combustion Integrated Rack onboard the International Space Station. FEANICS will support various experimental studies of solid combustion in a microgravity environment. The experiments will vary, and the FEANICS facility hardware combined with the Combustion Integrated Rack hardware is designed to meet the science requirements of the individual experiments.

Hausmann, Clifford R.↗

Mars chronology: assessing techniques for quantifying surficial processes

Currently, the absolute chronology of Martian rocks, deposits and events is based mainly on crater counting and remains highly imprecise with epoch boundary uncertainties in excess of 2 billion years. Answers to key questions concerning the comparative origin and evolution of Mars and Earth will not be forthcoming without a rigid Martian chronology, enabling the construction of a time scale comparable to Earth's. Priorities for exploration include calibration of the cratering rate, dating major volcanic and fluvial events and establishing chronology of the polar layered deposits. If extinct andor extant life is discovered, the chronology of the biosphere will be of paramount importance. Many radiometric and cosmogenic techniques applicable on Earth and the Moon will apply to Mars after certain baselines (e.g. composition of the atmosphere, trace species, chemical and physical characteristics of Martian dust) are established. The high radiation regime may pose a problem for dosimetry-based techniques (e.g. luminescence). The unique isotopic composition of nitrogen in the Martian atmosphere may permit a Mars-specific chronometer for tracing the time-evolution of the atmosphere and of lithic phases with trapped atmospheric gases. Other Mars-specific chronometers include measurement of gas fluxes and accumulation of platinum group elements (PGE) in the regolith. Putting collected samples into geologic context is deemed essential, as is using multiple techniques on multiple samples. If in situ measurements are restricted to a single technique it must be shown to give consistent results on multiple samples, but in all cases, using two or more techniques (e.g. on the same lander) will reduce error. While there is no question that returned samples will yield the best ages, in situ techniques have the potential to be flown on multiple missions providing a larger data set and broader context in which to place the more accurate dates.

Doran, Peter T.↗

Terrestrial analogs to Mars

It is well recognized that interpretations of Mars must begin with the Earth as a reference. The most successful comparisons have focused on understanding geologic processes on the Earth well enough to extrapolate to Mars' environment. Several facets of terrestrial analog studies have been pursued and are continuing.

Mars↗

Wild2 approach maneuver strategy used for Stardust spacecraft (extended abstract)

Stardust, NASA's first dedicated sample return mission to a comet, successfully flew through the comet dust around Wold2 on January 2, 2004. The spacecraft flew within 236 km of the comet, meeting the mission requirement of 250+/- 50 km on flyby distance. Stardust collected dust particles and took several images of the comet while flying close to Wild2. The spacecraft will return to earth with the comet samples on January 15, 2006. To accomplish the above objective, a large Deep Space Maneuver (DSM#) was implemented during June 17 and 18, 2003 and a series of Trajectory Correction Maneuvers (TCMs) were also implemented during the 30 days prior to encounter. Both maneuver design and executions were influenced by number of factors including the small body ephemeris uncertainty, predictability of small forces arising from 3-axis attitude limit cycling and spacecraft slews. Maneuver design processes, including contingency plans, and maneuver performance characteristics, are discussed in this paper.

dust↗

Acoustic Efficiency of Azimuthal Modes in Jet Noise Using Chevron Nozzles

The link between azimuthal modes in jet turbulence and in the acoustic sound field has been examined in cold, round jets. Chevron nozzles, however, impart an azimuthal structure on the jet with a shape dependent on the number, length and penetration angle of the chevrons. Two particular chevron nozzles, with 3 and 4 primary chevrons respectively, and a round baseline nozzle are compared at both cold and hot jet conditions to determine how chevrons impact the modal structure of the flow and how that change relates to the sound field. The results show that, although the chevrons have a large impact on the azimuthal shape of the mean axial velocity, the impact of chevrons on the azimuthal structure of the fluctuating axial velocity is small at the cold jet condition and smaller still at the hot jet condition. This is supported by results in the azimuthal structure of the sound field, which also shows little difference in between the two chevron nozzles and the baseline nozzle in the distribution of energy across the azimuthal modes measured.

Brown, Clifford A.↗

Review of Cranked-Arrow Wing Aerodynamics Project: Its International Aeronautical Community Role

This paper provides a brief history of the F-16XL-1 aircraft, its role in the High Speed Research (HSR) program and how it was morphed into the Cranked Arrow Wing Aerodynamics Project (CAWAP). Various flight, wind-tunnel and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) data sets were generated during the CAWAP. These unique and open flight datasets for surface pressures, boundary-layer profiles and skinfriction distributions, along with surface flow data, are described and sample data comparisons given. This is followed by a description of how the project became internationalized to be known as Cranked Arrow Wing Aerodynamics Project International (CAWAPI) and is concluded by an introduction to the results of a 4 year CFD predictive study of data collected at flight conditions by participating researchers.

Lamar, John E.↗

SpaceWire Plug and Play

The ability to rapidly deploy inexpensive satellites to meet tactical goals has become an important goal for military space systems. In fact, Operationally Responsive Space (ORS) has been in the spotlight at the highest levels. The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has identified that the critical next step is developing the bus standards and modular interfaces. Historically, satellite components have been constructed based on bus standards and standardized interfaces. However, this has not been done to a degree, which would allow the rapid deployment of a satellite. Advancements in plug-and-play (PnP) technologies for terrestrial applications can serve as a baseline model for a PnP approach for satellite applications. Since SpaceWire (SpW) has become a de facto standard for satellite high-speed (greater than 200Mbp) on-board communications, it has become important for SpW to adapt to this Plug and Play (PnP) environment. Because SpW is simply a bulk transport protocol and lacks built-in PnP features, several changes are required to facilitate PnP with SpW. The first is for Host(s) to figure out what the network looks like, i.e., how pieces of the network, routers and nodes, are connected together; network mapping, and to receive notice of changes to the network. The second is for the components connected to the network to be understood so that they can communicate. The first element, network topology mapping & change of status indication, is being defined (topic of this paper). The second element describing how components are to communicate has been defined by ARFL with the electronic data sheets known as XTEDS. The first element, network mapping, is recent activities performed by Air Force Research Lab (ARFL), Naval Research Lab (NRL), NASA and US industry (Honeywell, Clearwater, FL, and others). This work has resulted in the development of a protocol that will perform the lower level functions of network mapping and Change Of Status (COS) indication required by Plug 'n' Play over SpaceWire. This work will be presented to the SpaceWire working group for standardization under European Cooperation for Space Standardization (ECSS) and to obtain a permanent Protocol ID (see SpaceWire Protocol ID: What Does it Mean to You; IEEE Aerospace Conference 2006). The portion of the Plug 'n' Play protocol that will be described in this paper is how the Host(s) of a SpaceWire network map the network and detect additions and deletions of devices on a SpaceWire network.

Rakow, Glenn↗

Maneuver Analysis and Targeting Strategy for the Stardust Re-Entry Capsule

Stardust employed biased maneuvers to limit turns and minimize execution errors. Biased maneuvers also addressed planetary protection and safety issues. Stardust utilized a fixed-direction burn for the final maneuver to match the prevailing attitude so no turns were needed. Performance of the final burn was calibrated in flight.

targeting↗

Offset Stream Technology Test-Summary of Results

Statistical jet noise prediction codes that accurately predict spectral directivity for both cold and hot jets are highly sought both in industry and academia. Their formulation, whether based upon manipulations of the Navier-Stokes equations or upon heuristic arguments, require substantial experimental observation of jet turbulence statistics. Unfortunately, the statistics of most interest involve the space-time correlation of flow quantities, especially velocity. Until the last 10 years, all turbulence statistics were made with single-point probes, such as hotwires or laser Doppler anemometry. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) brought many new insights with its ability to measure velocity fields over large regions of jets simultaneously; however, it could not measure velocity at rates higher than a few fields per second, making it unsuitable for obtaining temporal spectra and correlations. The development of time-resolved PIV, herein called TR-PIV, has removed this limitation, enabling measurement of velocity fields at high resolution in both space and time. In this paper, ground-breaking results from the application of TR-PIV to single-flow hot jets are used to explore the impact of heat on turbulent statistics of interest to jet noise models. First, a brief summary of validation studies is reported, undertaken to show that the new technique produces the same trusted results as hotwire at cold, low-speed jets. Second, velocity spectra from cold and hot jets are compared to see the effect of heat on the spectra. It is seen that heated jets possess 10 percent more turbulence intensity compared to the unheated jets with the same velocity. The spectral shapes, when normalized using Strouhal scaling, are insensitive to temperature if the stream-wise location is normalized relative to the potential core length. Similarly, second order velocity correlations, of interest in modeling of jet noise sources, are also insensitive to temperature as well.

Brown, Clifford A.↗

Detectors for the James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Spectrograph I: Readout Mode, Noise Model, and Calibration Considerations

We describe how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Near-Infrared Spectrograph's (NIRSpec's) detectors will be read out, and present a model of how noise scales with the number of multiple non-destructive reads sampling-up-the-ramp. We believe that this noise model, which is validated using real and simulated test data, is applicable to most astronomical near-infrared instruments. We describe some non-ideal behaviors that have been observed in engineering grade NIRSpec detectors, and demonstrate that they are unlikely to affect NIRSpec sensitivity, operations, or calibration. These include a HAWAII-2RG reset anomaly and random telegraph noise (RTN). Using real test data, we show that the reset anomaly is: (1) very nearly noiseless and (2) can be easily calibrated out. Likewise, we show that RTN affects only a small and fixed population of pixels. It can therefore be tracked using standard pixel operability maps.

Rauscher, Bernard J.↗

Insect abatement system

An insect abatement system prevents adhesion of insect debris to surfaces which must be kept substantially free of insect debris. An article is coated with an insect abatement coating comprising polyorganosiloxane with a Shore A hardness of less than 50 and a tensile strength of less than 4 MPa. A method for preventing the adhesion of insect debris to surfaces includes the step of applying an insect abatement coating to a surface which must be kept substantially free of insect debris.

Spiro, Clifford Lawrence↗

Aircraft anti-insect system

Insect debris is removed from or prevented from adhering to insect impingement areas of an aircraft, particularly on an inlet cowl of an engine, by heating the area to 180.degree.-500.degree. C. An apparatus comprising a means to bring hot air from the aircraft engine to a plenum contiguous to the insect impingement area provides for the heating of the insect impingement areas to the required temperatures. The plenum can include at least one tube with a plurality of holes contained in a cavity within the inlet cowl. It can also include an envelope with a plurality of holes on its surface contained in a cavity within the inlet cowl.

Spiro, Clifford Lawrence↗

Payload deployment method and system

A method and apparatus for deploying the payload of space shuttle craft or the like. The payload rotated about an axis outside of the payload but approximately longitudinally of the cargo bay of the shuttle craft. The payload may thus be rotated, through ninety degrees. In this case, that is in its rotated position, the payload may or may not have a small portion located within the cargo bay. Alternatively, the payload may be located completely outside of the bay. According to the apparatus two separable hinge-like devices connect at one longitudinal side or edge of the payload to respective ones of the payload trunnions at different longitudinally spaced locations along the length of the payload. Separation of the payload from the cargo bay is made unlatching a latch and by the use of a repulsion spring at the position of each hinge-like device. Two four-link mechanisms allow movement between payload and bay. Such accoommodative movement is required especially during launch when considerable vibration is encountered.

Barnett, Clifford J.↗

Radar Soundings of the Subsurface of Mars

The martian subsurface has been probed to kilometer depths by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding instrument aboard the Mars Express orbiter. Signals penetrate the polar layered deposits, probably imaging the base of the deposits. Data from the northern lowlands of Chryse Planitia have revealed a shallowly buried quasi-circular structure about 250 kilometers in diameter that is interpreted to be an impact basin. In addition, a planar reflector associated with the basin structure may indicate the presence of a low-loss deposit that is more than 1 kilometer thick.

Mars Express orbiter↗

Low Frequency Noise Contamination in Fan Model Testing

Aircraft engine noise research and development depends on the ability to study and predict the noise created by each engine component in isolation. The presence of a downstream pylon for a model fan test, however, may result in noise contamination through pylon interactions with the free stream and model exhaust airflows. Additionally, there is the problem of separating the fan and jet noise components generated by the model fan. A methodology was therefore developed to improve the data quality for the 9 15 Low Speed Wind Tunnel (LSWT) at the NASA Glenn Research Center that identifies three noise sources: fan noise, jet noise, and rig noise. The jet noise and rig noise were then measured by mounting a scale model of the 9 15 LSWT model fan installation in a jet rig to simulate everything except the rotating machinery and in duct components of fan noise. The data showed that the spectra measured in the LSWT has a strong rig noise component at frequencies as high as 3 kHz depending on the fan and airflow fan exit velocity. The jet noise was determined to be significantly lower than the rig noise (i.e., noise generated by flow interaction with the downstream support pylon). A mathematical model for the rig noise was then developed using a multi-dimensional least squares fit to the rig noise data. This allows the rig noise to be subtracted or removed, depending on the amplitude of the rig noise relative to the fan noise, at any given frequency, observer angle, or nozzle pressure ratio. The impact of isolating the fan noise with this method on spectra, overall power level (OAPWL), and Effective Perceived Noise Level (EPNL) is studied.

Brown, Clifford A.↗

Scalability of Localized Arc Filament Plasma Actuators

Temporal flow control of a jet has been widely studied in the past to enhance jet mixing or reduce jet noise. Most of this research, however, has been done using small diameter low Reynolds number jets that often have little resemblance to the much larger jets common in real world applications because the flow actuators available lacked either the power or bandwidth to sufficiently impact these larger higher energy jets. The Localized Arc Filament Plasma Actuators (LAFPA), developed at the Ohio State University (OSU), have demonstrated the ability to impact a small high speed jet in experiments conducted at OSU and the power to perturb a larger high Reynolds number jet in experiments conducted at the NASA Glenn Research Center. However, the response measured in the large-scale experiments was significantly reduced for the same number of actuators compared to the jet response found in the small-scale experiments. A computational study has been initiated to simulate the LAFPA system with additional actuators on a large-scale jet to determine the number of actuators required to achieve the same desired response for a given jet diameter. Central to this computational study is a model for the LAFPA that both accurately represents the physics of the actuator and can be implemented into a computational fluid dynamics solver. One possible model, based on pressure waves created by the rapid localized heating that occurs at the actuator, is investigated using simplified axisymmetric simulations. The results of these simulations will be used to determine the validity of the model before more realistic and time consuming three-dimensional simulations are conducted to ultimately determine the scalability of the LAFPA system.

Brown, Clifford A.↗