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At least 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1987

Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research, 1983

The research conducted during 1983 under the NASA/FAA sponsored Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research is summarized. The material was presented at a conference held at the Federal Aviation Administration Technical Center, Altantic City, New Jersey, December 16, 1983. The Joint University Program is a coordinated set of three grants sponsored by NASA Langley Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration, one each with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio University, and Princeton University. Completed works, status reports, and bibliographies are presented for research topics, which include navigation, guidance, control, and display concepts. An overview of the year's activities for each of the universities is also presented.

Morrell, Frederick R.↗
NASA NTRS1986

Plasma universe

Traditionally the views on the cosmic environent have been based on observations in the visual octave of the electromagnetic spectrum, during the last half-century supplemented by infrared and radio observations. Space research has opened the full spectrum. Of special importance are the X-ray-gamma-ray regions, in which a number of unexpected phenomena have been discovered. Radiations in these regions are likely to originate mainly from magnetised cosmic plasmas. Such a medium may also emit synchrotron radiation which is observable in the radio region. If a model of the universe is based on the plasma phenomena mentioned it is found that the plasma universe is drastically different from the traditional visual universe. Information about the plasma universe can also be obtained by extrapolation of laboratory experiments and magnetospheric in situ measurements of plasmas. This approach is possible because it is likely that the basic properties of plasmas are the same everywhere. In order to test the usefulness of the plasma universe model it is applied to cosmogony. Such an approach seems to be rather successful. For example, the complicated structure of the Saturnian C ring can be accounted for. It is possible to reconstruct certain phenomena 4 to 5 billions of years ago with an accuracy of better than 1%.

Alfven, H.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research, 1988-1989

The research conducted during 1988 to 1989 under the NASA/FAA-sponsored Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research is summarized. The Joint University Program is a coordinated set of three grants sponsored by NASA Langley Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration, one each with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Ohio University, and Princeton University. Completed works, status reports, and annotated bibliographies are presented for research topics, which include computer science, guidance and control theory and practice, aircraft performance, flight dynamics, and applied experimental psychology. An overview of the year's activities for each university is also presented.

Morrell, Frederick R.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Gravitational lensing limits on the cosmological constant in a flat universe

Inflationary cosmological theories predict, and some more general aesthetic criteria suggest, that the large-scale spatial curvature of the universe k should be accurately zero (i.e., flat), a condition which is satisfied when the universe's present mean density and the value of the cosmological constant Lambda have certain pairs of values. Available data on the frequency of multiple image-lensing of high-redshift quasars by galaxies suggest that the cosmological constant cannot make a dominant contribution to producing a flat universe. In particular, if the mean density of the universe is as small as the baryon density inferred from standard cosmic nucleosynthesis calculations or as determined from typical dynamical studies of galaxies and galaxy clusters, then a value of Lambda large enough to produce a k = 0 universe would result in a substantially higher frequency of multiple-image lensing of quasars than has been observed so far. Shortcomings of the available lens data and uncertainties concerning galaxy properties allow some possibility of escaping this conclusion, but systematic searches for a gravitational lenses and continuing investigations of galaxy mass distributions should soon provide decisive information. It is also noted that nonzero-curvature cosmological models can account for the observed frequency of galaxy-quasar lens systems and for a variety of other constraints.

Turner, Edwin L.↗
NASA NTRS1992

The double universal joint wrist on a manipulator: Solution of inverse position kinematics and singularity analysis

This paper presents three methods to solve the inverse position kinematics position problem of the double universal joint attached to a manipulator: (1) an analytical solution for two specific cases; (2) an approximate closed form solution based on ignoring the wrist offset; and (3) an iterative method which repeats closed form position and orientation calculations until the solution is achieved. Several manipulators are used to demonstrate the solution methods: cartesian, cylindrical, spherical, and an anthropomorphic articulated arm, based on the Flight Telerobotic Servicer (FTS) arm. A singularity analysis is presented for the double universal joint wrist attached to the above manipulator arms. While the double universal joint wrist standing alone is singularity-free in orientation, the singularity analysis indicates the presence of coupled position/orientation singularities of the spherical and articulated manipulators with the wrist. The cartesian and cylindrical manipulators with the double universal joint wrist were found to be singularity-free. The methods of this paper can be implemented in a real-time controller for manipulators with the double universal joint wrist. Such mechanically dextrous systems could be used in telerobotic and industrial applications, but further work is required to avoid the singularities.

Williams, Robert L., III↗
NASA NTRS1998

NASA University Research Centers Technical Advances in Aeronautics, Space Sciences and Technology, Earth Systems Sciences, Global Hydrology, and Education

This volume chronicles the proceedings of the 1998 NASA University Research Centers Technical Conference (URC-TC '98), held on February 22-25, 1998, in Huntsville, Alabama. The University Research Centers (URCS) are multidisciplinary research units established by NASA at 11 Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCU's) and 3 Other Minority Universities (OMU's) to conduct research work in areas of interest to NASA. The URC Technical Conferences bring together the faculty members and students from the URC's with representatives from other universities, NASA, and the aerospace industry to discuss recent advances in their fields.

T L Coleman↗
NASA NTRS2001

University Program Management Information System

As basic policy, NASA believes that colleges and universities should be encouraged to participate in the nation's space and aeronautics program to the maximum extent practicable. Indeed, universities are considered as partners with government and industry in the nation's aerospace program. NASA' objective is to have them bring their scientific, engineering, and social research competence to bear on aerospace problems and on the broader social, economic, and international implications of NASA's technical and scientific programs. It is expected that, in so doing, universities will strengthen both their research and their educational capabilities to contribute more effectively to the national well being. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA's University Program. This report is consistent with agency accounting records, as the data is obtained from NASA's Financial and Contractual Status (FACS) System, operated by the Financial Management Division and the Procurement Office. However, in accordance with interagency agreements, the orientation differs from that required for financial or procurement purposes. Any apparent discrepancies between this report and other NASA procurement or financial reports stem from the selection criteria for the data.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1999

Interstellar Communication Channel Based on a Biological Universal

Cellular biosynthesis starts with sugar substrates and continues energetically downhill to yield amino acid, rapid, and nucleotide products. To understand the energetics of these processes, we calculated the energy for biosynthesis from sugars of E. cali's amino acids, nucleotides, and lipids. We found that the biosynthesis of amino acids and lipids from sugar substrates proceeds by redox disproportionation. of sugar carbon with a favorable energy of about -11 kcal/mole of carbon. Overall, redox disproportion of sugar carbon accounted for 84% and 96% (ATP only 6% and 1%) of the total biosynthetic energy of amino acids and lipids (the major cellular constituents). Next, we calculated for all 48 possible 3-carbon substrates the energy of maximal disproportionation to carbon dioxide and methane. We found no other carbon substrates than matched sugars in biosynthetic energy, efficiency, and simplicity. From this, we concluded that sugars are the optimal biosynthetic substrate. Since this conclusion is based on universal properties of carbon chemistry, other carbon-based life throughout the Universe would also use optimal sugar substrates. Furthermore, this rather obvious universal role of sugars as the optimal biosubstrate would probably be common knowledge of technological civilizations throughout the Universe. Since the elemental building block of all sugars is formaldehyde, the common knowledge that sugars are the universal optimal biosubstrate could reasonably lead to the selection of a line(s) in the microwave spectrum of formaldehyde as a frequency for interstellar communication.

Weber, Arthur L.↗
NASA NTRS2002

University Program Management Information System

As basic policy, NASA believes that colleges and universities should be encouraged to participate in the nation's space and aeronautics program to the maximum extent practicable. Indeed, universities are considered as partners with government and industry in the nation's aerospace program. NASA's objective is to have them bring their scientific, engineering, and social research competence to bear on aerospace problems and on the broader social, economic, and international implications of NASA's technical and scientific programs. It is expected that, in so doing, universities will strengthen both their research and their educational capabilities to contribute more effectively to the national well-being. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA's University Program. This report is consistent with agency accounting records, as the data is obtained from NASA's Financial and Contractual Status (FACS) System, operated by the Financial Management Division and the Procurement Office. However, in accordance with interagency agreements, the orientation differs from that required for financial or procurement purposes. Any apparent discrepancies between this report and other NASA procurement or financial reports stem from the selection criteria for the data. This report was prepared by the Education Division/FE, Office of Human Resources and Education.

Gans, Gary↗
NASA NTRS2004

University Program Management Information System

As basic policy, NASA believes that colleges and universities should be encouraged to participate in the nation's space and aeronautics program to the maximum extent practicable. Indeed, universities are considered as partners with government and industry in the nation's aerospace program. NASA's objective is to have them bring their scientific, engineering, and social research competence to bear on aerospace problems and on the broader social, economic, and international implications of NASA's technical and scientific programs. It is expected that, in so doing, universities will strengthen both their research and their educational capabilities to contribute more effectively to the national well being. This annual report is one means of documenting the NASA-university relationship, frequently denoted, collectively, as NASA's University Program. This report is consistent with agency accounting records, as the data is obtained from NASA's Financial and Contractual Status (FACS) System, operated by the Financial Management Division and the Procurement Office. However, in accordance with interagency agreements, the orientation differs from that required for financial or procurement purposes. Any apparent discrepancies between this report and other NASA procurement or financial reports stem from the selection criteria for the data.

Gans, Gary↗
NASA NTRS2010

Modified Universal Design Survey: Enhancing Operability of Launch Vehicle Ground Crew Worksites

Operability is a driving requirement for next generation space launch vehicles. Launch site ground operations include numerous operator tasks to prepare the vehicle for launch or to perform preflight maintenance. Ensuring that components requiring operator interaction at the launch site are designed for optimal human use is a high priority for operability. To promote operability, a Design Quality Evaluation Survey based on Universal Design framework was developed to support Human Factors Engineering (HFE) evaluation for NASA s launch vehicles. Universal Design per se is not a priority for launch vehicle processing however; applying principles of Universal Design will increase the probability of an error free and efficient design which promotes operability. The Design Quality Evaluation Survey incorporates and tailors the seven Universal Design Principles and adds new measures for Safety and Efficiency. Adapting an approach proven to measure Universal Design Performance in Product, each principle is associated with multiple performance measures which are rated with the degree to which the statement is true. The Design Quality Evaluation Survey was employed for several launch vehicle ground processing worksite analyses. The tool was found to be most useful for comparative judgments as opposed to an assessment of a single design option. It provided a useful piece of additional data when assessing possible operator interfaces or worksites for operability.

Blume, Jennifer L.↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA Lunabotics Mining Competition for Universities: Results and Lessons Learned

Space Mining for resources such as water ice, and regolith, which contain many elements in the form of metals, minerals, volatiles and other compounds, is a necessary step in Space Resource Utilization. One of the primary goals is to extract propellants from the regolith such as oxygen and hydrogen which could then be used for in-space transportation. In addition, the space mining system can be used for various construction tasks that can benefit human and robotic exploration as well as scientific investigations based on the exposed topography. The National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA) Lunabotics Mining Competition is a university-level competition designed to engage and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). NASA will directly benefit from the competition by encouraging the development of innovative lunar excavation concepts from universities which may result in clever ideas and solutions which could be applied to an actual lunar excavation device or payload. The challenge is for students to design and build a remote controlled or autonomous excavator, called a lunabot, that can collect and deposit a minimum of 10 kilograms of lunar simulant within 15 minutes. The complexities of the challenge include the abrasive characteristics of the lunar simulant, the weight and size limitations of the lunabot, and the ability to control the lunabot from a remote control center. This paper will present the results of the first and second annual Lunabotics Mining Competitions held in May 2010 and May 2011. In 2010, 22 United States (US) universities competed, and in May 2011 the competition was opened to international participation, with 46 Universities expected to attend. There are 12 international teams and 34 US teams. This combined total directly inspired an estimated 544 university students. More students and the public were engaged via internet broadcasting and social networking media. The various designs will be cataloged and categorized to provide information to future Lunabotics mining robot designers and competitors. It is also expected to be of value for actual future space missions, as knowledge is gained from testing many innovative prototypes in simulated lunar regolith.

Mueller, Robert P.↗
NASA NTRS2012

Listen; There's a Hell of a Good Universe Next Door; Let's Go

Scientific research is key to our nation's technological and economic development. One can attempt to focus research toward specific applications, but science has a way of surprising us. Think for example of the "charge-couple device", which was originally invented for memory storage, but became the modern digital camera that is used everywhere from camera phones to the Hubble Space Telescope. Using digital cameras, Hubble has taken pictures that reach back 12 billion light-years into the past, when the Universe was only 1-2 billion years old. Such results would never have been possible with the film cameras Hubble was originally supposed to use. Over the past two decades, Hubble and other telescopes have shown us much about the Universe -- many of these results are shocking. Our galaxy is swarming with planets; most of the mass in the Universe is invisible; and our Universe is accelerating ever faster and faster for unknown reasons. Thus, we live in a "hell of a good universe", to quote e.e. cummings, that we fundamentally don't understand. This means that you, as young scientists, have many worlds to discover

Rigby, Jane R.↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA Centers and Universities Collaborate Through Smallsat Technology Partnerships

The Small Spacecraft Technology (SST) Program within the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate is chartered develop and demonstrate the capabilities that enable small spacecraft to achieve science and exploration missions in "unique" and "more affordable" ways. Specifically, the SST program seeks to enable new mission architectures through the use of small spacecraft, to expand the reach of small spacecraft to new destinations, and to make possible the augmentation existing assets and future missions with supporting small spacecraft. The SST program sponsors smallsat technology development partnerships between universities and NASA Centers in order to engage the unique talents and fresh perspectives of the university community and to share NASA experience and expertise in relevant university projects to develop new technologies and capabilities for small spacecraft. These partnerships also engage NASA personnel in the rapid, agile and cost-conscious small spacecraft approaches that have evolved in the university community, as well as increase support to university efforts and foster a new generation of innovators for NASA and the nation.

Partnerships↗
NASA NTRS2019

Preparing Students to Work in Diverse Settings and Across Distance: Inter-University, Interdisciplinary Capstone Teams

NASA's Psyche Mission is engaged with a growing number of capstone teams pursuing topics relevant to the mission, including partnering with four universities to trial cross-university teaming. Creating interdisciplinary capstone teams with students from different universities provides an opportunity to prepare students to engage with a diversity of disciplines and collaborate in remote teams in the workplace. Additionally, through such capstones, universities may gain access to non-local, specialized technical mentors and to disciplines not offered at their institutions. An added benefit is providing greater fidelity to NASA space missions, which involve teams working together at a distance. We discuss early lessons learned from the first three inter-university, interdisciplinary capstone teams participating with the Psyche mission and discuss plans for improvement and future expansion.

Bowman, C. D. D.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

2024 Nasa Lunabotics University Competition: Site Preparation With Bulk Regolith

Introduction: Lunabotics provides accredited institutions of higher learning students (vocational-technical, college, university) an opportunity to apply the NASA systems engineering process to design and build a prototype robot. This robot would be capable of performing the proposed operations on the Lunar surface in support of future Artemis mission goals. Lunabotics features a systems engineering design challenge to engage students in the next phase of hu-man space exploration supporting the Artemis missions. This two-semester event encourages students to design and build an autonomous or telerobotic robot designed to traverse the simulated Lunar surface and complete the assigned construction tasks. The number of teams accepted into this challenge is not predetermined but is based on the scores and overall quality of the Project Management Plans received and other factors. The culmination of the Lunabotics virtual challenge will be the design, build and operation of a functional prototype Lunar robot. Teams are required to submit the following: (1) Project Management Plan, (2) Systems Engineering Paper, a (3) STEM Engage-ment Report, and a (4) Proof of Life Video. This is an optional item, but to qualify for the grand prize a team must also submit a: (5) Presentation and Demonstration. Background: The NASA Lunabotics University Competition was first held in 2010 as a follow on to the NASA Regolith Excavation Challenge [1]. The high level of interest and participation from over 50 universities each year has led to a sustained annual competi-ion cadence: it has been held every May for the past 14 years [2,3]. Over 6,000 students have participated and been inspired to pursue Science, Technology, En-gineering and Mathematics careers (STEM). 2024 Competition: The necessary lunar surface tasks are evolving to meet the NASA Artemis Mission requirements. In the past Lunabotics challenges we gathered data to support Lunar mining for consuma-bles in the Lunar regolith. Now, in 2024, the task is to gather data on Lunar site preparation and construction by designing and building a robot that will traverse the chaotic Lunar terrain and construct a regolith-based berm. The goal is to build a berm structure which would be useful to the Artemis Mission for blast and ejecta protection during lunar landings and launches, shading cryogenic propellant tank farms, providing radiation protection around a nuclear power plant and other mission critical uses. Lunabotics will consist of three separate events this year. The first event is NASA’s Lunabotics Project Development Challenge, where teams submit various deliverables to be scored by judges. The second event will be the University of Central Florida (UCF) Lunabotics Qualification challenge, in the Exolith laboratory, where teams will put their de-signs to the test. The top ten scoring teams from the Qualification challenge are then invited to the third and final event, NASA’s Lunabotics On-Site Challenge at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This presentation will summarize the results and lessons learned from the NASA Lunabotics University Competition held in May 2024.

Lunabotics↗
NASA NTRS1965

Nasa university program review conference. summary report, mar. 1 - 3, 1965

The purpose of the NASA University Program Review Conference was to describe the nature of the Program, the manner in which it is being conducted, the results that it is producing, and the impact it may be having. The presentations, except for some expository papers by NASA offi- cials, were made by members of the university and nonprofit community. ference message as it has come to me, a university professor spending a year in making a study of NASA-University relations under a NASA contract with my institution. In preparing the report, my guiding principle has been to try to maximize its usefulness by making it accurate, brief, and prompt. These qualities are largely incompatible, and I am sure that the result of my search for an optimum compromise will please no one. Open editorializing is mainly confined to a brief section constituting my Evaluation of Program. The complete transcript will shortly be available, to stand as the authoritative source for statements that anyone may wish to attribute to the speakers.

EDUCATION↗
NASA NTRS1998

Exploring the Structure and Evolution of the Universe: Multi-Band Profiles of the Known Gamma-Ray Pulsars

As summarized in this pamphlet, some of the far-reaching underlying issues to be addressed include: What is the origin of the universe and its destiny; Why is the universe lumpy; How did the known structures of the universe evolve; How do galaxies evolve; How do massive black holes grow; How did the elemental composition of the universe evolve; What is the structure and behavior of matter in the extreme; and Is Einstein's general relativity theory right.

UNIVERSE↗