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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 73 records · Page 4
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2023

CESO 22-4: Parabolic and Suborbital Glovebox in Support of Space Crop Production

Space crop production research approaches and technologies can be validated for microgravity using parabolic or suborbital flight opportunities, and this will save considerable risk, time, and money for implementing new strategies in spaceflight. While the durations of microgravity in these tests are insufficient to grow crops, there are numerous examples of the value of microgravity testing for subsystems such as plant water and nutrient delivery, where multiphase fluid flow can be elucidated in short durations, and horticultural operations, such as harvesting and produce sanitation where containment and contamination can be assessed. Containment in any operational test is essential, as crop operations involve fluids and biological samples, which are potential hazards. This project consists of designing, developing, and constructing a parabolic/suborbital glovebox for experiment containment. The design involves modifications and upgrades to an existing glovebox developed at the University of Louisville. The University of Louisville glovebox was used by KSC researchers for space crop parabolic flight tests in 2021, and lessons learned from that testing have driven design modifications and improvements in the KSC-generated glovebox. Requirements were identified, parts were ordered, an operational science glovebox was fabricated, and a detailed materials specification list was generated. Analyses that are required for flight, remain to be performed to meet airworthiness requirements, and that work will have to be conducted in the future before use in flight.

Food Production↗
NASA NTRS2024

Snow4Flow: Concept Paper for a NASA Earth Venture Suborbital-4 Investigation

Snow4Flow was proposed as a large ($30M cost cap) Earth Venture Suborbital (EVS-4) mission in April 2023 and selected as such in April 2024. It will commence pending an Investigation Confirmation Review in 2025. Its airborne and ground campaigns are presently expected to occur in March–May 2027–2029. Quantifying the ongoing retreat of glaciers and ice sheets – and projecting their futures – are major societal concerns due to their contribution to sea-level rise and influence on water resources, natural hazards, and associated socioeconomic impacts. The ability to confidently project glacier and ice-sheet mass change is limited by a severe lack of observations that reliably constrain both their input (Snow) and output (Flow) mass fluxes. Snow4Flow will capture the spatial variability in snow accumulation and ice volume across 4 Northern Hemisphere (NH) regions containing hundreds of rapidly changing glaciers to deliver more reliable, societally relevant projections of land-ice change. This major advance requires spatially extensive radar-sounding surveys that are not possible from orbit (Fig. 1). This EVS-4 mission will drive foundational improvements to NH land-ice boundary conditions and forcing data – including orographic precipitation patterns in alpine environments, ice thickness and subglacial topography – and directly leverages them into state-of-the-art models and projections. Our key science questions are: 1. How will NH glaciers respond to climate change through the end of the 21st century? 2. How does snow accumulation vary in regions of high topographic relief?

Jack W Holt↗
NASA NTRS2014

Operations of Suborbital Research Platforms to Obtain Remote Sensing Data

The Armstrong Flight Research Center (AFRC) operates six highly modified aircraft in support the NASA science mission.These include two ER-2 aircraft, a DC-8, a G-III, and two Global Hawks. The NASA science missions demands that these aircraft be deployed around the globe while carrying a variety of science instruments. The ER-2 reconnaissance aircraft provides routine access to altitudes over 70,000 ft (20km) for large payloads and with an endurance of over 10hours. Recently the ER-2s have conducted convective storm research missions in the mid-western United States and supported the development of new instruments. The DC-8 is a four-engine jetliner that operates for up to 12 hours ataltitudes that range from the surface to 42,000 ft (13 km). Although its flight envelope is equivalent to conventional.

unmanned aerial platforms↗
DOE OSTI2025

Orbital-Radar v1.0.0: a tool to transform suborbital radar observations to synthetic EarthCARE cloud radar data

The Earth Cloud, Aerosol and Radiation Explorer (EarthCARE) satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched in May 2024 carries a novel 94 GHz cloud profiling radar (CPR) with Doppler capability. This work describes the open-source instrument simulator Orbital-Radar, which transforms high-resolution radar data from field observations or forward simulations of numerical models to CPR primary measurements and uncertainties. The transformation accounts for sampling geometry and surface effects. We demonstrate Orbital-Radar's ability to provide realistic CPR views of typical cloud and precipitation scenes. The presented case studies show small-scale convection, marine stratus clouds, and Arctic mixed-phase cloud cases. These results provide valuable insights into the capabilities and challenges of the EarthCARE CPR mission and its advantages over the CloudSat CPR. Finally, Orbital-Radar allows for evaluating kilometre-scale numerical weather prediction models with EarthCARE CPR observations. So, Orbital-Radar can generate calibration and validation (Cal/Val) data sets already pre-launch. Nevertheless, an evaluation of synthetic CPR output data to accurate EarthCARE CPR data is missing.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1973

Stream network analysis from orbital and suborbital imagery, Colorado River Basin, Texas

The author has identified the following significant results. Orbital SL-2 imagery (earth terrain camera S-190B), received September 5, 1973, was subjected to quantitative network analysis and compared to 7.5 minute topographic mapping (scale: 1/24,000) and U.S.D.A. conventional black and white aerial photography (scale: 1/22,200). Results can only be considered suggestive because detail on the SL-2 imagery was badly obscured by heavy cloud cover. The upper Bee Creek basin was chosen for analysis because it appeared in a relatively cloud-free portion of the orbital imagery. Drainage maps were drawn from the three sources digitized into a computer-compatible format, and analyzed by the WATER system computer program. Even at its small scale (1/172,000) and with bad haze the orbital photo showed much drainage detail. The contour-like character of the Glen Rose Formation's resistant limestone units allowed channel definition. The errors in pattern recognition can be attributed to local areas of dense vegetation and to other areas of very high albedo caused by surficial exposure of caliche. The latter effect caused particular difficulty in the determination of drainage divides.

Baker, V. R.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Selection of artificial gravity by animals during suborbital rocket flights

White rats selected preferred artificial gravity levels by locomotion in centrifuges consisting of two runways mounted in the nose of sounding rockets. Roll rate of the Aerobee 150A rocket was designed to produce an angular velocity of 45 rpm during 5 min of free-fall, providing a gravity range from 0.3 to 1.5 G depending on a subject's runway position. One animal was released at the high and one at the low gravity position in each flight. Animal positions were continuously recorded. Locomotion patterns during these flights were similar. All four animals explored the entire available G-range. One rat settled at 0.4 G after 2 min; the others crossed the 1-G location in progressively narrower excursions and were near earth gravity at the end of the test period. Tentatively, the data suggest that normal earth-reared rats select earth gravity when available magnitudes include values above and below 1 G. Modification of gravity preference by prolonged exposure to higher or lower levels remains a possibility.

Lange, K. O.↗
NASA NTRS1975

Flood hazard studies in Central Texas using orbital and suborbital remote sensing machinery

Central Texas is subject to infrequent, unusually intense rainstorms which cause extremely rapid runoff from drainage basins developed on the deeply dissected limestone and marl bedrock of the Edwards Plateau. One approach to flood hazard evaluation in this area is a parametric model relating flood hydrograph characteristics to quantitative geomorphic properties of the drainage basins. The preliminary model uses multiple regression techniques to predict potential peak flood discharge from basin magnitude, drainage density, and ruggedness number. After mapping small catchment networks from remote sensing imagery, input data for the model are generated by network digitization and analysis by a computer assisted routine of watershed analysis. The study evaluated the network resolution capabilities of the following data formats: (1) large-scale (1:24,000) topographic maps, employing Strahler's "method of v's," (2) standard low altitude black and white aerial photography (1:13,000 and 1:20,000 scales), (3) NASA - generated aerial infrared photography at scales ranging from 1:48,000 to 1:123,000, and (4) Skylab Earth Resources Experiment Package S-190A and S-190B sensors (1:750,000 and 1:500,000 respectively).

Baker, V. R.↗
NASA NTRS1987

Future plans for the NASA suborbital program

The development of more reliable heavy-lift balloons and a fine pointed gondola; the development of the Black Brant-12 rocket for auroral research; and the development of a collaborative Orbiting Payload Using Scout program are outlined. Through 1989 NASA will conduct a comprehensive program of aircraft, balloon, and rocket campaigns in conjunction with Shuttle and satellite measurements on the Supernovae 1987a.

Shawhan, S. D.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Workshop on the Suborbital Science Sounding Rocket Program, Volume 1

The unique characteristics of the sounding rocket program is described, with its importance to space science stressed, especially in providing UARS correlative measurements. The program provided opportunities to do innovative scientific studies in regions not other wise accessible; it was a testbed for developing new technologies; and its key attributes were flexibility, reliability, and economy. The proceedings of the workshop are presented in viewgraph form, including the objectives of the workshop and the workshop agenda.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS1993

Cellular responses to low-gravity: Pilot studies on suborbital rockets and orbiting spacecraft

The allocated funding supported, in part, experiments conducted on two Consort sounding rockets and five Shuttle flights. The primary parameters investigated were signal transduction in response to various mediators, cellular differentiation and metabolism in microgravity, and effect of microgravity on cytoskeletal morphology. Achievements include: demonstration of effect of spaceflight on the actin cytoskeleton in mouse osteoblasts and frog cells; confirmation that the T cell receptor-mediated signal transduction pathway in T lymphocytes is not affected by low-gravity compared to non-TCR-mediated stimulation (Con-A) which classically does not promote proliferative response; indication that microgravity may allow separation of proliferative signaling and secretory function in lymphocytes; demonstration that T lymphocytes and bone cells utilized less glucose indicating a shift in metabolism and confirming Spacelab results with WI-38 cells which used significantly less glucose, during spaceflight; confirmation that activation of human splenic B cells with a number of different mediators is not affected during spaceflight; demonstration of increased prostaglandin synthesis during reduced bone cell growth suggesting an effect of microgravity on prostaglandin-induced mitogenesis. The funding contributed significantly to the database described above and resulted in submission of six collaborative abstracts in 1993 (five to the ASGSB Annual Meeting and one to the ASCB Annual Meeting). Two abstracts were presented at the 1992 ASGSB Annual Meeting in Tucson. In addition, several peer reviewed papers are being generated and data will be included as background in preparation of future proposals, which hopefully will allow us to continue this type of extremely productive collaborative research.

Lewis, Marian L.↗
NASA NTRS2001

Airborne Sunphotometer Studies of Aerosol Properties and Effects, Including Closure Among Satellite, Suborbital Remote, and In situ Measurements

Airborne sunphotometry has been used to measure aerosols from North America, Europe, and Africa in coordination with satellite and in situ measurements in TARFOX (1996), ACE-2 (1997), PRIDE (2000), and SAFARI 2000. Similar coordinated measurements of Asian aerosols are being conducted this spring in ACE-Asia and are planned for North American aerosols this summer in CLAMS. This paper summarizes the approaches used, key results, and implications for aerosol properties and effects, such as single scattering albedo and regional radiative forcing. The approaches exploit the three-dimensional mobility of airborne sunphotometry to access satellite scenes over diverse surfaces (including open ocean with and without sunglint) and to match exactly the atmospheric layers sampled by airborne in situ measurements and other radiometers. These measurements permit tests of the consistency, or closure, among such diverse measurements as aerosol size-resolved chemical composition; number or mass concentration; light extinction, absorption, and scattering (total, hemispheric back and 180 deg.); and radiative fluxes. In this way the airborne sunphotometer measurements provide a key link between satellite and in situ measurements that helps to understand any discrepancies that are found. These comparisons have led to several characteristic results. Typically these include: (1) Better agreement among different types of remote measurements than between remote and in situ measurements. (2) More extinction derived from transmission measurements than from in situ measurements. (3) Larger aerosol absorption inferred from flux radiometry than from in situ measurements. Aerosol intensive properties derived from these closure studies have been combined with satellite-retrieved fields of optical depth to produce fields of regional radiative forcing. We show results for the North Atlantic derived from AVHRR optical depths and aerosol intensive properties from TARFOX and ACE-2. Companion papers show analogous, preliminary results for Asian-Pacific aerosols and results of SAFARI-2000 closure studies on African aerosols.

Russlee, Philip B.↗