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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 NTRSDate not supplied

Playing with DIRT: Building the Framework for a Comprehensive In-Situ Soil Materials Testing Database

Long-term, sustainable planetary exploration will require the ability to "live off the land," relying on In-Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) and In-Situ Construction as core capabilities. Reduction of both risk and launch mass for lunar construction will require evaluating and comparing regolith materials for use as feedstocks suitable for in-situ beneficiation and fabrication of building components. These material assessment capabilities will inform lunar infrastructure design decisions, with co-benefits for terrestrial construction using in-situ materials. Current planetary construction technology development relies on lunar mapping and orbital data, Apollo-era sample analyses, current simulant inventories, and tests conducted using analog site soils. Requirements for lunar infrastructure design decisions and construction systems will be determined based on specific environmental conditions, mission architectures, and the materials available within traverse range of lunar feedstock processing depots. Critical for success is the capability to identify, evaluate and make effective use of a wide range of materials as they are found in-situ on the lunar surface. This paper discusses the development of a digital repository for data on soil and regolith properties, beginning with their structural performance in both cementitious and non-cementitious building material formulations. The Database for In-situ Resource Testing (DIRT) compiles a catalog of raw materials, additives, and formulations, with notations pertaining to material sources and preparation techniques entered via a web-based user interface. Design of consistent data schemas for site-sourced materials evaluation will facilitate linkage with relevant terrestrial and planetary materials databases while enabling guided data input via templates for participation by broader groups of collaborators. Results of these analyses are compiled in a centralized repository to generate insights applicable for regolith resources and landing sites yet to be precisely defined. Collection of thorough records of material characteristics, applications and performance will support innovative construction solutions not only for space infrastructure but for sustainable, resilient design in the terrestrial built environment.

Sarah Joey Seitz↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Recovering from On-orbit Anomalies on the Astrobee Free Flyers and its Systems

Since 2019, NASA has been operating three Astrobee free flying robots on board the International Space Station (ISS) providing an autonomous and flexible research platform for national and international payload developers in microgravity and serving as a robotic assistant for astronauts on the ISS. During its use on the ISS, in particular with over 750 hours of free-flyer operation as of March 2022, Astrobee and its Docking Station have encountered multiple software and hardware anomalies. These anomalies were either resolved remotely via software and firmware updates, or, where not possible, with hardware replacements on orbit or by the return of the faulty unit to NASA’s ground facilities for its repair. Despite being inherently designed to be repaired or replaced on orbit, Astrobee and its systems can still suffer anomalies that would be complex enough to disassemble, cause risks of hardware damage, or use excessive crew time to perform the repair in orbit. That was the case for the anomaly the Astrobee unit ‘Honey’ encountered, reason why it needed to be down-massed for repair. One of the most common points of failure was found to be the SD card, which is used for the different Astrobee processors and for the Dock Station. Other comparable SD card anomalies were found also on the Astrobee ground units, which provided useful data in the effort of upgrading their systems. This presentation will focus on 1) The overview of the different faults and anomalies on Astrobee and its systems on orbit and on the ground 2) The processes and procedures implemented to resolve the anomalies 3) The implementation of software updates and hardware upgrades in order to reduce the risk on returning anomalies 4) The lessons learned in increasing Astrobee’s robustness and resilience to such anomalies.

International Space Station↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

FAA – NASA PNT* Workshop

Addressing the Need for -> Resilient PNT Services in Challenging and Under-Served Airspace to -> Enable New Capabilities. *PNT=Positioning Navigation and Timing

GPS↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Sustaining Human Presence with Plasma Technologies in the Final Frontier

Earth is the cradle of civilization and humankind is looking to the stars to colonize other planets, growing beyond the fragile, blue planet. In order to sustain human presence off-planet, compact, efficient, and versatile systems are demanded for success. Plasma research and technology development is enabling for human resiliency off-planet. At NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, plasma-based research efforts are underway for plasma-assisted closed loop agriculture, oxygen extraction from lunar regolith, and toxic gas abatement to name a few. We aim to present an overview of plasma work at Kennedy Space Center as efforts towards space-rated platforms are being developed. We report on the impacts for each topic as well as the economics of launching current state-of-the-art practices or technologies. Using low temperature plasmas for human-rated, space applications represents an exciting new endeavor.

Plasma↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Behavioral Medicine Risks and Mitigations in Isolated, Confined, and Extreme Environments

Human spaceflight beyond low Earth orbit will present unique environmental challenges to astronauts’ operational performance and well-being. Crews will need to work and live in confined and hazardous environments for prolonged missions that involve variable workloads and limitations to privacy, food options, exercise capabilities, leisure outlets, and communication with ground support personnel and loved ones. Currently, behavioral and cognitive risks of spaceflight are mitigated by selecting exceptionally resilient crews and providing extensive individual and team skills training pre-mission, as well as in-mission crew support via a suite of countermeasures targeting sleep and performance optimization, stress management, family support, and team cohesion. However, current countermeasures are difficult or impossible to implement in long-distance exploration as they require real-time communication with Earth and routine resupply. New countermeasure approaches are needed to adapt and enhance the current complement for the new challenges ahead. NASA therefore conducts research at ground-based spaceflight analogs to aid in characterizing the behavioral and cognitive risks of living and working in isolated, confined, and extreme (ICE) operational environments. Antarctic research stations are among the few long-duration ICE analogs in existence and are therefore uniquely positioned to support behavioral medicine research to enable human exploration beyond Earth. In this review, we will discuss previous and ongoing efforts to better understand spaceflight behavioral medicine risks, as well as validate new countermeasure approaches for future missions to the moon and Mars.

Behavioral Health↗
NASA NTRS2022

Megadroughts in the Common Era and the Anthropocene

Megadroughts, often lasting multiple decades, have caused major ecological and societal disturbances in the past. While most research has focused on megadroughts in North America, the concept has gained increased international attention in recent years. In this Review, we discuss shared causes and features of Common Era and future megadroughts. Paleoclimate reconstructions spanning the last 2,000 years document the occurrence of megadroughts on every continent, save Antarctica. Megadroughts are often linked to decadal variations in sea surface temperatures, with radiative forcing and land-atmosphere interactions acting as secondary factors. Anthropogenic climate change has already contributed to recent megadroughts in southwestern North America and Chile-Argentina and will likely increase future megadrought risk and severity in many regions. Notably, future megadroughts will be differentiated from past events through higher temperatures, which act as the main driver of increased risk, severity, and impacts. Major deficiencies in our understanding of natural and anthropogenic megadrought processes remain, however. These include 1) sparse high-resolution paleoclimate information over some regions, 2) incomplete representations of internal variability and land-surface processes in climate models, and 3) the undetermined capacity of water-resource management systems to manage megadrought impacts. Resolving these key uncertainties will be necessary to increase confidence in projections of future megadrought risk and resiliency planning.

Droughts↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview of Cognitive Communications and AI/ML Applications

This presentation provides an overview of the Cognitive Communications project and several key technology areas that are being developed. Artificial intelligence applications for networking, adaptive and resilient links, RF interference mitigation, and system-level optimization and cognition are discussed.

Rachel Dudukovich↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

SafeMAP: Safe Multi-Agent Planning framework based on Dynamic Probabilistic Risk Assessment

This paper proposes a risk-aware framework for Safe Multi-Agent Planning (SafeMAP) that unifies disparate models for multi-agent systems in a Markovian process that allows for simultaneous system health monitoring, decision making under uncertainty, and multi-agent system collaboration. As operations beyond low earth orbit mature, there is an increased need for autonomous cyber-physical systems with onboard decision making capabilities. Multi-agent cyber-physical systems in particular offer the potential of increased efficiency, resiliency, and mission capabilities for future applications such as multi-rover terrain operations, distributed satellite operations, and management of smart lunar habitats. SafeMAP utilizes physics-based models of each agent and the relevant components, probability models of the environment and component operational states, and reward models for mission-specific objectives such as scientific task completion or resource consumption. The output of SafeMAP is a set of mission plans that satisfy the mission objective under specified risk/reward constraints. A readable interpretation of each of these generated mission plans is provided as an additional output. SafeMAP has been demonstrated on a simulated case study involving a four-rover system performing surface mapping operations and science tasks. Results of this paper demonstrate SafeMAP’s ability to generate explainable mission plans that satisfy the mission objective while minimizing risk under nominal and off-nominal conditions.

Mohammad Hejase↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA's Implementation of Cloud Services for Human Space Flight

Cloud is a tried-and-true technology used throughout United States government agencies, including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). With reliable results and infrequent downtimes, cloud allows for secure remote access, customizability, and streamlined monitoring options, creating an environment for better data integrity and availability. As NASA increasingly migrates functions to the cloud, the Space Communications and Navigation Program (SCaN) program has been investigating how this capability can be leveraged to provide communication services to its users and customers. Currently, missions such as NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR), Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE), and Roman Space Telescope (RST) are planned to incorporate cloud into their data delivery architecture. However, SCaN is looking to expand further. This conversion to using cloud services allows for greater availability of mission data for both robotic and human space flight (HSF)missions. The SCaN program and the Near Space Network (NSN) are working to consolidate resources and create a cloud environment suitable for the entirety of the SCaN program network architecture. SCaN is in the process of finalizing its cloud architecture and soon will be implementing cloud services. The new services used will adhere to federal regulations including Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP), which is built upon National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)documentation. While keeping in mind these security requirements, an auxiliary objective of the cloud integration is to ensure the most cost-efficient solution; providing a scalable, robust and resilient system. Using cloud services, NASA will gain access to better centralized monitoring and management features, along with customizable services on a pay-per-use plan. With the ever-growing NASA mission data volume needs, maintaining ample storage space is another major constraint. Processing and storing such large amounts of data, on the order of terabytes a day, requires dynamic processing capability which is inherently a strength of cloud computing. By routing this data from ground stations through the cloud, there will be greater ease of access for both SCaN and the user community. Artificial intelligence and other built-in cloud functions can also enhance efficiency, improving data processing time. Thereby also allowing for better data availability. As we look to the future of cloud services, NASA will continue to leverage capabilities that will benefit NASA’s ability to provide cost-effective communication services. This paper further outlines the evolution of cloud use by SCaN in the context of Human Space Flight.

cloud storage↗
NASA NTRS2022

In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) State of Play 2022 Edition

The future of spaceflight will yield increasingly more ambitious missions to support civil, national security, and commercial space sectors. Achieving these ambitious missions is not feasible using the traditional paradigm of launching an integrated, fully functioning system on a single launch vehicle. For example, science and human exploration missions will desire payloads that are larger than any foreseeable launch vehicle fairing, national security missions will require persistent assets that are mobile and resilient, and commercial space missions will require cost-effective ways to update to the latest technology on orbit. In-space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) can vastly expand the performance, availability, and lifetime of space systems compared to the traditional paradigm of launching an asset with no intent to ever touch it again. ISAM capabilities foster an ecosystem that changes the space operations paradigm, creating the foundation for sustainable exploration and serving as a multiplier for other capabilities like space logistics, power generation, and reusability. Previous achievements in ISAM have enabled ambitious human and robotic space missions. NASA’s International Space Station (ISS) operations and maintenance, servicing missions of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and Northrop Grumman’s Mission Extension Vehicle (MEV) demonstrate the dramatic operational missions that can be achieved using ISAM capabilities. Many current and upcoming flight demonstrations are advancing areas that will enable the next generation of civil, national security, and commercial space missions. This document describes the current state of ISAM missions, capabilities, and developments. Compiling and organizing the available ISAM capabilities will help mission designers incorporate ISAM technologies into their concepts, create the starting point for technology development plans and roadmaps, and provide technologists a survey of the field they are developing. This document divides the ISAM capabilities into 11 capability areas that describe the functions or activities that would be performed in space using ISAM. This version of the ISAM State of Play is part of a continuing journey to encourage the use of ISAM capabilities in space. Compiling and organizing the current state of ISAM provides a simple resource for those working in the ISAM ecosystem to ensure that the advancements being made build upon the investments of the past. The state of play is ever changing as new capabilities are developed, and this document will be periodically updated to ensure that it is relevant to those who need it in the future.

ISAM↗
NASA NTRS2022

Adaptations of Endolithic Communities to Abrupt Environmental Changes in A Hyper-Arid Desert

The adaptation mechanisms of microbial communities to natural perturbations remain relatively unexplored, particularly in extreme environments. The extremophilic communities of halite (NaCl) nodules from the hyper-arid core of the Atacama Desert are self-sustained and represent a unique opportunity to study functional adaptations and community dynamics with changing environmental conditions. We transplanted halite nodules to different sites in the desert and investigated how their taxonomic, cellular, and biochemical changes correlated with water availability, using environmental data modeling and metagenomic analyses. Salt-in strategists, mainly represented by haloarchaea, significantly increased in relative abundance at sites characterized by extreme dryness, multiple wet/dry cycles, and colder conditions. The functional analysis of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) revealed site-specific enrichments in archaeal MAGs encoding for the uptake of various compatible solutes and for glycerol utilization. These findings suggest that opportunistic salt-in strategists took over the halite communities at the driest sites. They most likely benefited from metabolites newly released in the environment by the death of microorganisms least adapted to the new conditions. The observed changes were consistent with the need to maximize cellular bioenergetics when confronted with lower water availability and higher salinity, providing valuable information on microbial community adaptations and resilience to climate change.

Atacama↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Wichita Climate: Using Satellite Data to Identify Neighborhoods Vulnerable to Extreme Heat for Equitable Climate Mitigation and Planning

Wichita, Kansas is facing a host of climate threats, one being extreme heat that is manifested through the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The uneven distribution of heat risk in Wichita across socioeconomic status is an environmental justice issue. We worked with the City of Wichita to map heat exposure, tree canopy, and heat risk in order to support the City's climate resilience initiatives. To visualize heat exposure, we quantified and mapped average summer heat from 2013–2021 using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) night-time LST. To understand tree canopy cover gaps, we created a tree canopy map using 2021 PlanetScope imagery, which identified 20% more trees than the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD) tree canopy coverage estimates for Wichita. To characterize high risk areas, we used socioeconomic census data and existing social vulnerability indices, highlighting populations that were exposed and vulnerable to extreme heat. The spatial analyses demonstrated that heat exposure is concentrated in the city center and southwest Wichita, areas that are also low in tree canopy coverage. The three census block groups and 17 census tracts with the highest heat risk primarily circle the city center, in areas home to more socially vulnerable populations and near enough to the dense urban center to feel significant urban heat island effects.

Brooke Laird↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Envisioned Future Priorities for In-Space Transportation

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America (US) has ambitious objectives for robust logistics solutions to commercialization of geocentric space, sustainable presence in Cislunar space and on the Lunar Surface, Human Mars exploration and expanded deep space robotic exploration. Critical to all these objectives are robust and affordable in-space transportation solutions. Resilient logistics is a precursor to sustained development and leveraging commercial investments. A range of near-term priority investments are required to enable the future envisioned state for In-Space Transportation. Advanced technology components and integrated system demonstrations for cryogenic fluid management are appropriate for viable human class propulsion and future leverage of In-Situ Resources Utilization propellant products. Space Nuclear Propulsion, both thermal and electric, investments enable human Mars exploration with reduced earth launches. Advanced propulsion investments enable lower cost development cycles and operations in addition to higher performance solutions for future robotic and extreme environment exploration. This paper provides a high-level overview of NASA’s plans for the development of in-space transportation capabilities, a description of the state-of-the-art, capability goals, technical challenges and gaps, and options for partnerships with industry and other agencies towards developing a robust power logistics infrastructure to support NASA’s objectives.

Propulsion↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Envisioned Future Priorities for In-Space Transportation

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of the United States of America (US) has ambitious objectives for robust logistics solutions to commercialization of geocentric space, sustainable presence in Cislunar space and on the Lunar Surface, Human Mars exploration and expanded deep space robotic exploration. Critical to all these objectives are robust and affordable in-space transportation solutions. Resilient logistics is a precursor to sustained development and leveraging commercial investments. A range of near-term priority investments are required to enable the future envisioned state for In-Space Transportation. Advanced technology components and integrated system demonstrations for cryogenic fluid management are appropriate for viable human class propulsion and future leverage of In-Situ Resources Utilization propellant products. Space Nuclear Propulsion, both thermal and electric, investments enable human Mars exploration with reduced earth launches. Advanced propulsion investments enable lower cost development cycles and operations in addition to higher performance solutions for future robotic and extreme environment exploration. This paper provides a high-level overview of NASA’s plans for the development of in-space transportation capabilities, a description of the state-of-the-art, capability goals, technical challenges and gaps, and options for partnerships with industry and other agencies towards developing a robust power logistics infrastructure to support NASA’s objectives.

Propulsion↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview of Nasa's Watts on the Moon Challenge Phase 1

As NASA works to extend human exploration of the solar system, unprecedented capacity for electrical and thermal energy will be needed to support sustained human presence and the beginning of industrial activity on the Moon. Solar energy is abundant on the lunar surface but extended night hours (up to 350 consecutive hours) and extreme temperature change from daylight to nighttime operation creates complexity for solar power use. Analogous issues arise on Earth, where demand for additional renewable energy generation, including solar, is rising, but better power management, distribution, and energy storage solutions are needed to address intermittency and resiliency, among other issues. To accelerate the development of technologies for power distribution and energy storage that can operate in extreme lunar conditions, NASA’s Centennial Challenges Program launched the Watts on the Moon Challenge in September 2020. Submissions for Phase 1 of the challenge were due in March 2021 and winners were announced in May 2021. This paper provides an overview of the challenge, key technical requirements, outcomes from Phase 1, and an update on Phase 2 of the challenge, which is currently ongoing.

Denise P. Morris↗
NASA NTRS2022

Wichita Climate: Using Satellite Data to Identify Neighborhoods Vulnerable to Extreme Heat for Equitable Climate Mitigation and Planning

Wichita, Kansas is facing a host of climate threats, one being extreme heat that is manifested through the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The uneven distribution of heat risk in Wichita across socioeconomic status is an environmental justice issue. We worked with the City of Wichita to map heat exposure, tree canopy, and heat risk in order to support the City's climate resilience initiatives. To visualize heat exposure, we quantified and mapped average summer heat from 2013–2021 using Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) and Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Aqua Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) night-time LST. To understand tree canopy cover gaps, we created a tree canopy map using 2021 PlanetScope imagery, which identified 20% more trees than the US Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Land Cover Database (NLCD) tree canopy coverage estimates for Wichita. To characterize high risk areas, we used socioeconomic census data and existing social vulnerability indices, highlighting populations that were exposed and vulnerable to extreme heat. The spatial analyses demonstrated that heat exposure is concentrated in the city center and southwest Wichita, areas that are also low in tree canopy coverage. The three census block groups and 17 census tracts with the highest heat risk primarily circle the city center, in areas home to more socially vulnerable populations and near enough to the dense urban center to feel significant urban heat island effects.

Brooke Laird↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Kennedy Space Center’s Energy and Water Conservation Program

America Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Space Coast Section - Our presenter will be Jennifer Hill, PE, LEED AP, Energy Manager for NASA at Kennedy Space Center. Ms. Hill will present on the NASA KSC Energy Program, providing an overview of KSC’s energy program and of projects that have been implemented to reduce energy and water intensity, increase renewable energy usage, and to improve resilience in support of the NASA KSC Mission.

Jennifer Hill↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Human-Autonomy Teaming Research in Support of m:N Operations

Since 2019, the NASA and industry partners have been involved in research focused on a novel paradigm for operations of remotely piloted aircraft. This paradigm involves multiple people sharing a fleet of multiple vehicles between them. Referred to as m:N (pronounced “em-to-en”), this configuration describes a ratio where m is the number of operators and N is the number of vehicles. Through force and asset multiplication, the m:N concept seeks to enable a scalable and resilient operation of remotely crewed vehicles. The primary means of obtaining such a robust operation is through allowing a flexible crew of variable size to dynamically attend to the needs of assets in while performing real-time operator workload management. It is in that sense that assets are shared between operators: as needed (such as in events of elevated workload) an operator in an m:N context can “handoff” the responsibility for some amount of assets, nh < N, to be absorbed by the m – 1 crew members on staff. At some time later, these nh assets could be returned to their original owner or they may be further distributed to other crew if called for by the mission. During this panel, I will elaborate on the research activity undertaken by the Human-Autonomy Teaming (HAT) Laboratory at NASA Ames Research Center over the previous three years. The studies conducted by the HAT Lab range from interviews with subject matter experts, a cognitive walkthrough, a task analysis, and two simulation experiments to-date. During experimentation, pilots made use of an advanced Ground Control Station developed by the HAT Lab and industry partners to simulate m:N operations in two large, metropolitan areas of Southern California: Los Angeles and San Diego. Further experimentation planned over the next few years. Results from our research to-date indicates that pilots of a moderately sized fleet of about a dozen remotely crewed aircraft adequately maintained safety performance and situation awareness of their aircraft, even when presented with unexpected situations of heightened workload.

multi-vehicle control↗