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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 739 records · Page 41
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2011

NIRCam: Development and Testing of the JWST Near-Infrared Camera

The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is one of the four science instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Its high sensitivity, high spatial resolution images over the 0.6 - 5 microns wavelength region will be essential for making significant findings in many science areas as well as for aligning the JWST primary mirror segments and telescope. The NIRCam engineering test unit was recently assembled and has undergone successful cryogenic testing. The NIRCam collimator and camera optics and their mountings are also progressing, with a brass-board system demonstrating relatively low wavefront error across a wide field of view. The flight model?s long-wavelength Si grisms have been fabricated, and its coronagraph masks are now being made. Both the short (0.6 - 2.3 microns) and long (2.4 - 5.0 microns) wavelength flight detectors show good performance and are undergoing final assembly and testing. The flight model subsystems should all be completed later this year through early 2011, and NIRCam will be cryogenically tested in the first half of 2011 before delivery to the JWST integrated science instrument module (ISIM).

Greene, Thomas↗
NASA NTRS1999

Chemical Analysis and Water Recovery Testing of Shuttle-Mir Humidity Condensate

Humidity condensate collected and processed in-flight is an important component of a space station drinking water supply. Water recovery systems in general are designed to handle finite concentrations of specific chemical components. Previous analyses of condensate derived from spacecraft and ground sources showed considerable variation in composition. Consequently, an investigation was conducted to collect condensate on the Shuttle while the vehicle was docked to Mir, and return the condensate to Earth for testing. This scenario emulates an early ISS configuration during a Shuttle docking, because the atmospheres intermix during docking and the condensate composition should reflect that. During the STS-89 and STS-91 flights, a total volume of 50 liters of condensate was collected and returned. Inorganic and organic chemical analyses were performed on aliquots of the fluid. Tests using the actual condensate were then conducted with scaled-down elements of the Russian condensate recovery system to determine the quality of water produced. The composition and test results are described, and implications for ISS are discussed.

Mudgett, Paul D.↗
NASA NTRS2011

The Orion Pad Abort 1 Flight Test A Highly Successful Test

The Orion Pad Abort 1 (PA-1) flight test was designed as an early demonstration of the Launch Abort System (LAS) for the Orion capsule. The LAS was designed developed and manufactured by the Lockheed Martin/Orbital Sciences team. At inception it was realized that recovery of the Orion Capsule simulator would be useful from an engineering analysis and data recovery point of view. Additionally this test represented a flight opportunity for the Orion parachute system, which in a real abort would provide final landing deceleration. The Orion parachute program is named CPAS (CEV Parachute Assembly System). Thus CPAS became a part of the PA-1 flight, as a secondary test objective. At program kick off, the CPAS system was in the design state described below. Airbag land landing of the spacecraft was the program baseline. This affected the rigging of the parachutes. The system entry deployment conditions and vehicle mass have both evolved since that original design. It was decided to use the baseline CPAS Generation 1 (Gen 1) parachute system for the recovery of the PA-1 flight. As CPAS was a secondary test objective, the system would be delivered in its developmental state. As the PA-1 program evolved, the parachute recovery system (CPAS) moved from a secondary objective to a more important portion of the program. Tests were added, weights and deployment conditions changed and some hardware portions of the CPAS configuration were not up to the new challenges. Additional tests were added to provide confidence in the developmental system. This paper will review a few of these aspects with the goal of showing some preliminary and qualitative results from what we believe was a highly successful test.

Sinclair, Robert↗
NASA NTRS1960

The Influence of Low Wall Temperature on Boundary-Layer Transition and Local Heat Transfer on 2-Inch-Diameter Hemispheres at a Mach Number of 4.95 and a Reynolds Number per Foot of 73.2 x 10(exp 6)

Measurements of the location of boundary-layer transition and the local heat transfer have been made on 2-inch-diameter hemispheres in the Langley gas dynamics laboratory at a Mach number of 4.95, a Reynolds number per foot of 73.2 x 10(exp 6), and a stagnation temperature of approximately 400 F. The transient-heating thin-skin calorimeter technique was used, and the initial values of the wall-to-stream stagnation- temperature ratios were 0.16 (cold-model tests) and 0.65 (hot-model test). During two of the four cold tests, the boundary-layer flow changed from turbulent to laminar over large regions of the hemisphere as the model heated. On the basis of a detailed consideration of the magnitude of roughness possibly present during these two cold tests, it appears that this destabilizing effect of low wall temperatures (cooling) was not caused by roughness as a dominant influence. This idea of a decrease in boundary-layer stability with cooling has been previously suggested. (See, for example, NASA Memorandum 10-8-58E.) For the laminar data obtained during the early part of the hot test, the correlation of the local-heating data with laminar theory was excellent.

Cooper, Morton↗
DOE OSTI2017

Assimilation of Wave Imaging Radar Observations for Real-time Wave-by-Wave Forecasting

This project addressed Topic 3: “Wave Measurement Instrumentation for Feed Forward Controls” under the FOA number DE-FOA-0000971. The overall goal of the program was to develop a phase-resolving wave forecasting technique for application to the active control of Wave Energy Conversion (WEC) devices. We have developed an approach that couples a wave imaging marine radar with a phase-resolving linear wave model for real-time wave field reconstruction and forward propagation of the wave field in space and time. The scope of the project was to develop and assess the performance of this novel forecasting system. Specific project goals were as follows: Develop and verify a fast, GPU-based (Graphical Processing Unit) wave propagation model suitable for phase-resolved computation of nearshore wave transformation over variable bathymetry; Compare the accuracy and speed of performance of the wave model against a deep water model in their ability to predict wave field transformation in the intermediate water depths (50 to 70 m) typical of planned WEC sites; Develop and implement a variational assimilation algorithm that can ingest wave imaging radar observations and estimate the time-varying wave conditions offshore of the domain of interest such that the observed wave field is best reconstructed throughout the domain and then use this to produce model forecasts for a given WEC location; Collect wave-resolving marine radar data, along with relevant in situ wave data, at a suitable wave energy test site, apply the algorithm to the field data, assess performance, and identify any necessary improvements; and Develop a production cost estimate that addresses the affordability of the wave forecasting technology and include in the Final Report. The developed forecasting algorithm (“Wavecast”) was evaluated for both speed and accuracy against a substantial synthetic dataset. Early in the project, performance tests definitively demonstrated that the system was capable of forecasting in real-time, as the GPU-based wave model backbone was very computationally efficient. The data assimilation algorithm was developed on a polar grid domain in order to match the sampling characteristics of the observation system (wave imaging marine radar). For verification purposes, a substantial set of synthetic wave data (i.e. forward runs of the wave model) were generated to be used as ground truth for comparison to the reconstructions and forecasts produced by Wavecast. For these synthetic cases, Wavecast demonstrated very good accuracy, for example, typical forecast correlation coefficients were between 0.84-0.95 when compared to the input data. Dependencies on shadowing, observational noise, and forecast horizon were also identified. During the second year of the project, a short field deployment was conducted in order to assess forecast accuracy under field conditions. For this, a radar was installed on a fishing vessel and observations were collected at the South Energy Test Site (SETS) off the coast of Newport, OR. At the SETS site, simultaneous in situ wave observations were also available owing to an ongoing field project funded separately. Unfortunately, the position and heading information that was available for the fishing vessel were not of sufficient accuracy in order to validate the forecast in a phase-resolving sense. Instead, a spectral comparison was made between the Wavecast forecast and the data from the in situ wave buoy. Although the wave and wind conditions during the field test were complex, the comparison showed a promising reconstruction of the wave spectral shape, where both peaks in the bimodal spectrum were represented. However, the total reconstructed spectral energy (across all directions and frequencies) was limited to 44% of the observed spectrum. Overall, wave-by-wave forecasting using a data assimilation approach based on wave imaging radar observations and a physics-based wave model shows promise for short-term phase-resolved predictions. Two recommendations for future work are as follows: first, we would recommend additional focused field campaigns for algorithm validation. The field campaign should be long enough to capture a range of wave conditions relevant to the target application and WEC site. In addition, it will be crucial to make sure the vessel of choice has high accuracy position and heading instrumentation (this instrumentation is commercially available but not standard on commercial fishing vessels). The second recommendation is to expand the model physics in the wave model backbone to include some nonlinear effects. Specifically, the third-order correction to the wave speed due to amplitude dispersion would be the next step in order to more accurately represent the phase speeds of large amplitude waves.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
NASA NTRS2011

Reliability Evaluation of Base-Metal-Electrode Multilayer Ceramic Capacitors for Potential Space Applications

Base-metal-electrode (BME) ceramic capacitors are being investigated for possible use in high-reliability spacelevel applications. This paper focuses on how BME capacitors construction and microstructure affects their lifetime and reliability. Examination of the construction and microstructure of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) BME capacitors reveals great variance in dielectric layer thickness, even among BME capacitors with the same rated voltage. Compared to PME (precious-metal-electrode) capacitors, BME capacitors exhibit a denser and more uniform microstructure, with an average grain size between 0.3 and 0.5 m, which is much less than that of most PME capacitors. BME capacitors can be fabricated with more internal electrode layers and thinner dielectric layers than PME capacitors because they have a fine-grained microstructure and do not shrink much during ceramic sintering. This makes it possible for BME capacitors to achieve a very high capacitance volumetric efficiency. The reliability of BME and PME capacitors was investigated using highly accelerated life testing (HALT). Most BME capacitors were found to fail with an early avalanche breakdown, followed by a regular dielectric wearout failure during the HALT test. When most of the early failures, characterized with avalanche breakdown, were removed, BME capacitors exhibited a minimum mean time-to-failure (MTTF) of more than 105 years at room temperature and rated voltage. Dielectric thickness was found to be a critical parameter for the reliability of BME capacitors. The number of stacked grains in a dielectric layer appears to play a significant role in determining BME capacitor reliability. Although dielectric layer thickness varies for a given rated voltage in BME capacitors, the number of stacked grains is relatively consistent, typically around 12 for a number of BME capacitors with a rated voltage of 25V. This may suggest that the number of grains per dielectric layer is more critical than the thickness itself for determining the rated voltage and the life expectancy of the BME capacitor. The leakage current characterization and the failure analysis results suggest that most of these early avalanche failures are due to the extrinsic minor construction defects introduced during fabrication of BME capacitors. The concentration of the extrinsic defects must be reduced if the BME capacitors are considered for high reliability applications. There are two approaches that can reduce or prevent the occurrence of early failure in BME capacitors: (1) to reduce the defect concentration with improved processing control; (2) to prevent the use of BME capacitors under harsh external stress levels so that the extrinsic defects will never be triggered for a failure. In order to do so appropriate dielectric layer thickness must be determined for a given rated voltage.

Liu, David (Donhang)↗
DOE OSTI2019

Effect of Microstructure Refinement on Hardness Homogeneity of Aluminum Alloy 1100 Processed by Accumulative Roll Bonding

This work examines the effect of grain refinement via accumulative roll bonding (ARB) on the homogeneity of microstructure and hardness through the thickness of commercially pure aluminum AA1100 sheets. The use of 7 cycles of ARB was shown to produce homogeneous ultrafine-grained microstructure, reducing the grain size to 0.46 and 1.03 µm in normal direction and rolling direction, respectively. Examination by electron backscattered diffraction indicates that continuous dynamic recrystallization was the main mechanism for the formation of submicron equiaxed grains bounded with high-angle grain boundaries (HAGBs). The fraction of HAGBs increased gradually reaching a maximum of 71.6% after 7 cycles. Through-thickness hardness measurements using Vickers and nanoindentation tests show an increase from 43.5 Hv (0.85 GPa) for as-received sample to 63 Hv (1.1 GPa) after 7 cycles. The heterogeneity in hardness through the thickness of the as-received material was shown to restrain the evolution of uniform hardness across the sheet thickness with increasing ARB cycles. Tensile tests showed that the tensile strength is increased to 250 MPa, which is about 2 times its initial value. Owing to the high stacking fault energy of AA1100, strong dynamic recovery occurred with increasing ARB strain which was balanced with the strain hardening property of the material. This resulted in plastic instability at small strains and thus early necking during the tensile test.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Geochronology of Cambrian Sedimentary and Volcanic Rocks in the Illinois Basin: Defining the Illinois Aulacogen

The Wabash #1 well, drilled for the Wabash CarbonSAFE Project and located in Vigo County, Indiana, USA, was drilled in early 2020 as a stratigraphic test well to characterize and evaluate the basal Cambrian Mt. Simon Sandstone for carbon dioxide storage (TD=8750 ft; 2667 m). The Wabash #1 well is located along the eastern flank of a newly interpreted Cambrian aulacogen that occurs in western Indiana and eastern Illinois. Here we present 938 new detrital zircon U-Pb ages (LA-ICPMS) from early Cambrian sandstones sampled near the base of the well. A basalt lava flow was penetrated at ~8530 ft (2600 m) and has an 40 Ar/ 39 Ar age of 525.03 +/- 1.10 Ma, which represents the first known Cambrian crust in the Illinois Basin. The two sandstone samples from beneath the basalt are dominated by zircons derived from the Midcontinent Granite-Rhyolite terrane. The sandstone samples from above the basalt reflect a mixture of these locally derived Mazatzal and Granite-Rhyolite terrane zircons, but also distal Archean, Grenville, and Yavapai zircons. Each sample has small numbers of Cambrian zircons, which is consistent with those in basal Cambrian sandstones in other deep wells to the west. These early Cambrian detrital zircons and early Cambrian age of the basalt, combined with sediment thickness patterns permit the interpretation of the Illinois aulacogen, which formed during the final stage of Rodinian rifting.

58 GEOSCIENCES↗
NASA NTRS1992

Environmental qualification testing of payload G-534, the Pool Boiling Experiment

Payload G-534, the prototype Pool Boiling Experiment (PBE), is scheduled to fly on the STS-47 mission in September 1992. This paper describes the purpose of the experiment and the environmental qualification testing program that was used to prove the integrity of the hardware. Component and box level vibration and thermal cycling tests were performed to give an early level of confidence in the hardware designs. At the system level, vibration, thermal extreme soaks, and thermal vacuum cycling tests were performed to qualify the complete design for the expected shuttle environment. The system level vibration testing included three axis sine sweeps and random inputs. The system level hot and cold soak tests demonstrated the hardware's capability to operate over a wide range of temperatures and gave wider latitude in determining which shuttle thermal attitudes were compatible with the experiment. The system level thermal vacuum cycling tests demonstrated the hardware's capability to operate in a convection free environment. A unique environmental chamber was designed and fabricated by the PBE team and allowed most of the environmental testing to be performed within the hardware build laboratory. The completion of the test program gave the project team high confidence in the hardware's ability to function as designed during flight.

Sexton, J. Andrew↗
NASA NTRS1992

Environmental qualification testing of the prototype pool boiling experiment

The prototype Pool Boiling Experiment (PBE) flew on the STS-47 mission in September 1992. This report describes the purpose of the experiment and the environmental qualification testing program that was used to prove the integrity of the prototype hardware. Component and box level vibration and thermal cycling tests were performed to give an early level of confidence in the hardware designs. At the system level, vibration, thermal extreme soaks, and thermal vacuum cycling tests were performed to qualify the complete design for the expected shuttle environment. The system level vibration testing included three axis sine sweeps and random inputs. The system level hot and cold soak tests demonstrated the hardware's capability to operate over a wide range of temperatures and gave the project team a wider latitude in determining which shuttle thermal altitudes were compatible with the experiment. The system level thermal vacuum cycling tests demonstrated the hardware's capability to operate in a convection free environment. A unique environmental chamber was designed and fabricated by the PBE team and allowed most of the environmental testing to be performed within the project's laboratory. The completion of the test program gave the project team high confidence in the hardware's ability to function as designed during flight.

Sexton, J. Andrew↗
NASA NTRS2012

ISRU Soil Mechanics Vacuum Facility: Soil Bin Preparation and Simulant Strength Characterization

Testing in relevant environments is key to exploration mission hardware development. This is true on both the component level (in early development) and system level (in late development stages). During ISRU missions the hardware will interface with the soil (digging, roving, etc) in a vacuum environment. A relevant test environment will therefore involve a vacuum chamber with a controlled, conditioned simulant bed. However, in earth-based granular media, such as lunar soil simulant, gases trapped within the material pore structures and water adsorbed to all particle surfaces will release when exposed to vacuum. Early vacuum testing has shown that this gas release can occur violently, which loosens and weakens the simulant, altering the consolidation state. The Vacuum Facility #13, a mid-size chamber (3.66m tall, 1.5m inner diameter) at the NASA Glenn Research Center has been modified to create a soil mechanics test facility. A 0.64m deep by 0.914m square metric ton bed of lunar simulant was placed under vacuum using a variety of pumping techniques. Both GRC-3 and LHT-3M simulant types have been used. An electric cone penetrometer was used to measure simulant strength properties at vacuum including: cohesion, friction angle, bulk density and shear modulus. Simulant disruptions, caused by off gassing, affected the strength properties, but could be mitigated by reducing pump rate. No disruptions were observed at pressures below 2.5Torr, regardless of the pump rate. However, slow off gassing of the soil lead to long test times, a full week, to reach 10-5Torr. This work highlights the need for robotic machine-simulant hardware and operations in vacuum to expeditiously perform (sub-)systems tests.

Kleinhenz, Julie↗
NASA NTRS1972

Completely modular thermionic reactor ion propulsion system /trips/.

Description of a nuclear reactor powered ion propulsion system which is an advanced completely modularized system lending itself to development of prototype and/or flight type components without the need for complete system tests until late in the development program. This modularity is achieved in all of the subsystems and components of the electric propulsion system, including the thermionic fuel elements, the heat rejection subsystem (head pipes), the power conditioning modules, and the ion thrusters. The use of heat pipes for cooling the collectors and as a means of heat transport to the radiator allows early prototype or flight configuration testing of a small module of the heat rejection subsystem as opposed to full scale liquid metal pumps and radiators in a large vacuum chamber. The power conditioner (p/c) is arranged in modules with passive cooling which allows complete prototype testing. The ion engines are typically matched with one or more p/c modules and are the same size for any power level propulsion system of interest.

Peelgren, M. L.↗
DOE OSTI2021

Silicon strip defects and their impact on electrical performance of readout electronics

Abstract In preparation for the High Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) runs, the ATLAS inner detector will be completely replaced with an all silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). Hybrid silicon pixel modules will be used for the innermost tracking layers, and silicon micro-strip detectors will be used the outer layers of the tracker. During the production of the detector, the sensors, readout electronics, and other components will undergo a series of quality control (QC) and quality assurance tests. Defects in the fabrication of the sensors will be flagged early in the manufacturer's and ATLAS QC tests. A study of the influence of sensor defects was performed to assess the characteristics of these defects in completed modules, and whether any defect posed a risk to the operation of the front-end readout electronics. All defects were found to have no impact on the performance of the front-end readout electronics for healthy amplifier channels, and defects that short the coupling between the strip implant and the metal readout electrode were only noticeable for strip leakage currents in excess of 250 nA, beyond the end-of-life currents expected for most sensors at the HL-LHC.

Instruments & Instrumentation↗
NASA NTRS1976

Multivariate normality

Sets of experimentally determined or routinely observed data provide information about the past, present and, hopefully, future sets of similarly produced data. An infinite set of statistical models exists which may be used to describe the data sets. The normal distribution is one model. If it serves at all, it serves well. If a data set, or a transformation of the set, representative of a larger population can be described by the normal distribution, then valid statistical inferences can be drawn. There are several tests which may be applied to a data set to determine whether the univariate normal model adequately describes the set. The chi-square test based on Pearson's work in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is often used. Like all tests, it has some weaknesses which are discussed in elementary texts. Extension of the chi-square test to the multivariate normal model is provided. Tables and graphs permit easier application of the test in the higher dimensions. Several examples, using recorded data, illustrate the procedures. Tests of maximum absolute differences, mean sum of squares of residuals, runs and changes of sign are included in these tests. Dimensions one through five with selected sample sizes 11 to 101 are used to illustrate the statistical tests developed.

Crutcher, H. L.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Validation of a Cephalad Fluid Shift Countermeasure

INTRODUCTION: This project will provide critical data required to objectively determine how an optimized thigh cuff could be incorporated into the NASA integrated physiological countermeasure suite. This project will determine if thigh cuffs used during simulated spaceflight impact intracranial pressure (ICP), ocular structure and function, and intraocular pressure (IOP) using state of-the-art techniques. Additionally, some of the same methods, hardware, and protocols will be employed in the present investigation to enable direct comparisons to the International Space Station (ISS) "Fluid Shifts" experiment with Chibis-Lower Body Negative Pressure (LBNP). This study will determine the temporal physiological responses of thigh cuff application and removal on ocular and cerebral variables (including invasive ICP) in a microgravity analog. Furthermore, this proposed study will determine tissue pressure distribution applied by thigh cuffs in order to improve comfort, mobility, and efficacy of the countermeasure. Our specific aim is to determine the efficacy of a novel thigh cuff device to mitigate cephalad fluid shifts. We hypothesize that a thigh cuff countermeasure employed in a microgravity analog will temporarily reverse or attenuate ocular and cerebral-volume-pressure variables, approaching normal Earth-based seated posture, the most frequent posture assumed in daily life. In addition, we hypothesize that the magnitude of fluid and pressure redistribution using a thigh cuff countermeasure may require a longer exposure time than that of Chibis-LBNP (using ground-based data from our "Fluid Shifts" project). This project directly addresses Critical Path Roadmap Risks and Questions regarding "Risk of Spaceflight-Induced Intracranial Hypertension/Vision Alterations," and IRP Gap VIIP13: We need to identify preventative and treatment countermeasures to mitigate changes in ocular structure and function and intracranial pressure during spaceflight. METHODS: Noninvasive measures and tissue pressure distributions beneath thigh cuffs The objectives of this study are to: 1) determine the distribution of skin surface pressures beneath the advanced thigh cuff in ten subjects, 2) calibrate the built-in pressure measurement system of the advanced thigh cuff using an industry standard device, and 3) collect subjective feedback and data on the new cuff design to allow for further adjustments prior to invasive studies. A Tekscan Industrial Sensing (I-Scan) system will measure the pressure distribution of the advanced thigh cuff against the skin. In addition, we will measure blood pooling in the thigh and record the circumference of the thigh using Hokanson strain gauge plethysmography. The advanced thigh cuff will be adjusted to obtain a skin contact pressure of 30-50 mmHg as visualized on the Tekscan system. The built-in advanced thigh cuff pressure monitor will be recorded simultaneously to allow direct comparison to the Tekscan measurements. The volunteer will then remove the thigh cuff and remain at rest for five minutes with no legging applied. The thigh cuff will be donned again and pressure measurements will be taken in the same manner for up to 10 repetitions to show reproducibility of pressure after donning. At the conclusion of the study, subjects will be asked to flex their knee, stand, walk, and sit with the thigh cuff activated. During each of these maneuvers the subject will rate their pain/comfort using a modified Borg scale. Effect of thigh cuffs on ICP during simulated microgravity Ommaya reservoir patients will be recruited from the John Wayne Cancer Institute. Ommaya reservoirs provide safe and direct access for the measurement of ICP. Subjects will be instrumented for continuous blood pressure, ECG, and invasive ICP measures. The subjects will be positioned in the upright sitting posture for a 10-minute stabilization period. After the 10-minute stabilization period, imaging measures [ICP, Optical Coherence Tomography, IOP, ocular and vascular ultrasound] will be performed. Following baseline seated measures, the subject will be positioned randomly in the supine, 15deg head-down-tilt, and 15deg head-down-tilt with thigh cuffs and measures repeated. DISCUSSION: Tests to down-select thigh cuff designs will occur in early 2016. Invasive ICP and noninvasive eye imaging tests will begin in spring 2016. Supported by NSBRI through NCC 9-58.

Macias, B.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Space-and Ground-Based Non-Accelerated Long Lifetime Data for Ruggedized Commercial Non-Planar Ring Oscillator (NPRO) Lasers

Lifetime data is presented for ruggedized commercial NPRO lasers used in the Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) Instrument on NASA’s Aura Earth-orbiting spacecraft, including 20 years of data from two life test units on the ground, 12 years of on-orbit data from TES Laser A, and 2 years of on-orbit data from TES Laser B. The TES lasers are diode-pumped Non-Planar Ring Oscillator (NPRO) lasers using Nd:YAG crystals. Since accelerated life testing was not possible on the complete laser, early prototype lasers that had gone through thermal cycling and vibration testing were placed on non-accelerated life tests with the hope of gathering at least a couple of years of data before launch. Long-term lifetime data for hybrid laser systems in space applications is not abundant, and out of necessity, accelerated reliability testing is usually done over a relatively short time with a large number of devices. The data presented in this paper is unique as it tracks the optical power output over time of a total of four lasers on the order of decades rather than months or years. Two of the lasers have each been on life test for over 20 years on the ground and are still operating, and the other two lasers have been on-orbit for 14 years. TES Laser A was still operating when the TES Instrument was decommissioned in January 2018. Therefore, the data presented covers over 450,000 non-accelerated device-hours, with 23% of those hours being in space.

Kane, T.J.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Ongoing Work: A Prototype Dataset for Low-flying Autonomous Medical UAS Operations

This paper presents ongoing work to create a dataset for low-flying autonomous medical UAS operations, focused on human stance recognition. This is an exploration of the viability of airborne classification for the Drone as a First Responder (DFR) concept in which a UAS arrives at the scene of an incident before emergency response personnel can get there and provides some level of situational awareness for the personnel arriving to the scene. Future incarnations could also see the UAS administer some level of care to injured parties at the scene. The data set, focused on detecting human stance, being developed here is the result of 30 test flights at NASA Langley Research Center in early 2024. In addition to flights where the participant (an anthropomorphic testing device or human) is alone in the viewing area holding a particular stance, two emergency scenes have been fabricated and collected through video - ``bike crash'' and ``difficult camping''. These test flights include four human participants. The contribution of this work upon completion will be a publicly available data set for the development of classification engines focused on human stance, and in the future, even triage.

Uncrewed Aerial Systems↗
NASA NTRS2018

Thermal Model Performance for the James Webb Space Telescope OTIS Cryo-Vacuum Test

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set to launch in early 2019, is currently undergoing a series of system-level environmental tests to verify its workmanship and end-to-end functionality. As part of this series, the Optical Telescope Element and Integrated Science Instrument Module (OTIS) Cryo-Vacuum (CV) test, the most complex cryogenic test executed to date by NASA, has recently been completed at the Johnson Space Center's Chamber A facility. The OTIS CV test was intended as a comprehensive test of the integrated instrument and telescope systems to fully understand its optical, structural, and thermal performance within its intended flight environment. Due to its complexity, extensive pre-test planning was required to ensure payload safety and compliance with all limits and constraints. A system-level pre-test thermal model was constructed which fully captured the behavior of the payload, ground support equipment, and surrounding test chamber. This thermal model simulated both the transient cooldown to and warmup from a 20K flight-like environment, as well as predicted the payload performance at cryo-stable conditions. The current work is a preliminary assessment of thermal model performance against actual payload response during the OTIS CV test. It examines both the benefits and shortcomings of assumptions made pre-test to simplify model execution when compared against test data. It explores in detail the role of temperature-dependent emissivities during transition to cryogenic temperatures, as well as the impact that model geometry simplifications have on tracking of critical hardware limits and constraints. This work concludes with a list of recommendations to improve the accuracy of thermal modeling for future large cryogenic tests. It is hoped that the insight gained from the OTIS CV test thermal modeling will benefit planning and execution for upcoming cryogenic missions.

JWST↗