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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2015

Experimental Design for Pre-Clinical Animal Model Study in Microgravity

The Rodent Research program at NASAs Ames Research Center (ARC) has pioneered a new research capability on the International Space Station in less than four years and has progressed toward translating research to the ISS utilizing commercial rockets, collaborating with academia and science industry, and training crew for research purposes on-orbit. Animal models are the foundation of pre-clinical research to understand human diseases and evaluate new therapeutics. Advancement in alleviating ground diseases such as muscle atrophy and osteoporosis can come from the study of similar conditions that are known to occur as a result of exposure to the spaceflight environment. During the completion of the flight phase of two missions, our practices, hardware and operations evolved from tested to developed standards, which successfully translated the studies from ground to space. Results from these studies contribute to the science community via both the primary investigation and banked samples that are shared in publicly available data repository such as GeneLab. Every completed mission sets a foundation to build and design greater complexity into future research and answer questions about common human diseases on ground and in space. Here, we present methods developed for the translation of a rodent experiment to the ISS including a description of hardware and kits available for investigators and a discussion of operational constraints.

Rodent Research↗
NASA NTRS2014

Ghost Imaging of Space Objects

would like to summarize that our "Ghost Imaging of Space Objects" NIAC research effort was successful. As anticipated, its main return has been the newly acquired knowledge and the understanding of the pathways that lead from this knowledge to its applications in observational astronomy. During this research we came across several fundamental insights that were not expected at the beginning. We came to realize that the ghost imaging of dark objects using background thermal light can be treated as a special case of Hanbury Brown and Twiss intensity interferometry in combination with the Babinet's principle for higher-order observables. Extensive recent work performed in this field by other research groups worldwide might seem to detract from the conceptual originality and novelty of our approach; but at the same time it serves as an encouraging indication that the chosen approach is acknowledged in the broader science community as promising. This newly found synergy, acknowledged in the CTA newsletter from May 2014 reporting on the Workshop on Hanbury Brown and Twiss interferometry in Nice, makes us confident that our published and otherwise disseminated results will be integrated into a larger-scale on-going research effort aimed at performing astronomy observations of both bright and dark objects with unparalleled resolution. While we are satisfied with acceptance of our results by the international research community as a contribution to the field of intensity interferometry as well as to the on-going mission-oriented projects, we also have been aiming at receiving support to continue and advance this research at JPL. Several proposals have been submitted in pursuit of this goal. Three of them are still under consideration, and we expect to learn about the funding decisions soon. These new projects would leverage the results of this NIAC study and extend it along well-defined directions that have been discussed above. Shifting the main paradigm of our approach towards intensity interferometry entailed another important realization, that the actual imaging of dark objects, in a sense of mapping the column optical density distribution, is possible by using known numerical techniques, such as the Gerchberg-Saxton approach. This insight was also unanticipated in the beginning and caused a shift of the research focus from the initial plan. While this focus shift has been well-justified and fruitful, it has left several issues unexplored. Some of these issues, too, are included in the future research proposals.

Optics↗
NASA NTRS2018

Dual-mode Propulsion System Enabling Cubesat Exploration of the Solar System

It is apparent the cost of planetary exploration is rising as mission budgets are declining. Currently small scientific beds geared to performing limited tasks are being developed and launched into low earth orbit (LEO) in the form of small-scale satellite units, i.e., CubeSats. These micro- and nano-satellites are gaining popularity among the university and science communities due to their relatively low cost and design flexibility. To date these small units have been limited to performing tasks in LEO utilizing solar-based power. If a reasonable propulsion system could be developed, these CubeSat platforms could perform exploration of various extra-terrestrial bodies within the solar system engaging a broader range of researchers. Additionally, being mindful of mass, smaller cheaper launch vehicles (~1,000 kg to LEO) can be targeted. This, in effect, allows for beneficial exploration to be conducted within limited budgets.Researchers at the Center for Space Nuclear Research (CSNR) are proposing a low mass, radioisotope-based, dual-mode propulsion system capable of extending the exploration realm of these CubeSats out of LEO.The proposed radioisotope-based system would leverage the high specific energies [J/kg] associated with radioisotope materials and enhance their inherent low specific powers [W/g]. This is accomplished by accumulating thermal energy from nuclear decay within a central core over time. This allows for significant amounts of power to be transferred to a flowing gas over short periods of time. In the proposed configuration the stored energy can be utilized in two ways: (1) with direct propellant injection to the core, the energy can be converted into thrust through the use of a converging-diverging nozzle and (2) by flowing a working fluid through the core and subsequent Brayton engine, energy within the core can be converted to electrical energy. The first scenario achieves moderate ranges of thrust, but at a higher Isp than traditional chemical-based systems. The second scenario allows for the production of electrical power, which is then available for electric-based propulsion. Additionally, once at location the production of electrical power can be dedicated to the payload's communication system for data transfer. Ultimately, the proposed dual-mode propulsion platform capitalizes on the benefits of two types of propulsion methods the thrust of thermal propulsion ideal for quick orbital maneuvers and the specific impulse of electric propulsion ideal for efficient interplanetary travel. Overall, the system is functioning as a radioisotope thermal rocket (RTR).In this study the RTR concept is being developed as an in-space propulsion system to deliver a 6U CubeSat payload to the orbit of the Saturnian moon - Enceladus. Additionally, this study will develop an entire mission architecture for Enceladus targeting a total allowable launch mass of 1,000 kg.

Cubesats↗
NASA NTRS2018

Toward Landsat and Sentinel-2 BRDF Normalization and Albedo Estimation: A Case Study in the Peruvian Amazon Forest

The Amazon forest has been the focus of study by the science community during the last few decades. Remote sensing data analysis is the only way to study such a large geographical extent during an extended period of time. Since the launch in 2015 of Sentinel 2 and its increase in temporal resolution through the combination with Landsat sensors, a strong emphasis has been put on exploiting these data. Though these satellites provide near nadir observations, surface reflectance time series are affected by illumination variability throughout the year. These effects can be corrected using a Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) model. Franch et al. (2014a) developed a methodology to derive Landsat surface albedo and BRDF. It is based on the BRDF parameters from the MODerate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) which are disaggregated at Landsat spatial resolution (30 m). In this work, we apply the Franch et al. (2014a) method to normalize the surface reflectance for BRDF effects using the NASA's Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 (HLS) product. We apply this method to the Tambopata region in Peru from 2013 to 2017 and validate it using ground-based albedometer measurements. The results show that the near infrared reflectance can increase up to 0.06 (20%) for low solar angles while the impact on the red range and the NDVI is minor (<0.01). The evaluation of the surface albedo against field measurements shows an error of 0.01.

Landsat 8↗
NASA NTRS2018

NASA Earth eXchange (NEX) App Store

NASA Earth Exchange (NEX), and her public cloud version OpenNEX, have become platforms supporting scientific collaboration, knowledge sharing and research for the entire Earth science community. To date, a number of custom tools and capabilities have been integrated into the platforms. However, such integration has to undergo a case-by-case manual process thus lacks scalability. This timely project builds an App Store onto OpenNEX as a building block. Climate data analytics tools/programs can be easily uploaded, shared, organized, searched, and recommended like photos and videos on the YouTube. The foundation of our App Store is a provenance server, which not only records metadata but also execution history of climate data analytics apps including the input data and parameters, output data and products, who runs the app for which purpose, and how apps may be chained into workflows. Researchers can thus understand, reproduce, and repurpose existing apps and workflows. Machine learning approaches are applied to mine provenance to provide recommend-as-you-go services for Earth scientists, such as to recommend suitable apps and workflow snippets. A browser-based workflow tool is also provided for researchers to explore the provenance server and design value-added workflows. Scalability, sustainability, extensibility, usability, adaptability, security and privacy are considered in the App Store.

eXchange↗
NASA NTRS2018

The Discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole

The author Nassim Taleb has coined the term ‘‘Black Swan’’ event to describe a very low probability event that come as a surprise and has a major effect in the field in which it occurs. He suggests that such events have occurred in history, finance, science, and technology more frequently than one can expect from stochastic theory. The discovery of the Antarctic Ozone Hole fits this description well. In this paper, we describe the events surrounding this discovery and the role of NASA satellite data before and soon after the seminal paper by Farman et al., in May 1985 that first brought this phenomenon to the attention of the broader science community.

Bhartia, Pawan Kumar↗
NASA NTRS2019

Sensitivity of Inherent Optical Properties from Ocean Reflectance Inversion Models to Satellite Instrument Wavelength Suites

The Earth science community seeks to develop climate data records (CDRs) from satellite measurements of ocean color, a continuous data record that now exceeds 20 years. Space agencies will launch additional instruments in the coming decade that will continue this data record, including the NASA PACE spectrometer. Inherent optical properties (IOPs) quantitatively describe the absorbing and scattering constituents of seawater and can be estimated from satellite-observed spectroradiometric data using semi-analytical algorithms (SAAs). SAAs exploit the contrasting optical signatures of constituent matter at spectral bands observed by satellite sensors. SAA performance, therefore, depends on the spectral resolution of the satellite spectroradiometer. A CDR spanning SeaWiFS, MODIS, OLCI, and PACE, for example, would include IOPs derived using varied wavelength suites if all available wavelengths were considered. Here, we explored differences in derived IOPs that stem simply from the use of (eight) different wavelength suites of input radiometric measurements. Using synthesized data and SeaWiFS Level-3 mission-long composites, we demonstrated equivalent SAA performance for all wavelength suites, but that IOP retrievals vary by several percent across wavelength suites and as a function of water type. The differences equate to roughly ≤ 6, 12, and 7% for a(sub dg)(443), a(sub ph)(443), and b(sub bp)(443), respectively, for waters with C(sub a) ≤ 1 mg -cu m. These values shrink for sensors with similar wavelength suites (e.g., SeaWiFS, MODIS, and MERIS) and rise to substantially larger values for higher C(sub a) waters. Our results also indicate that including 400 nm (in the case of OLCI) influences the derived IOPs, using longer wavelengths (>600 nm) influences the derived IOPs when there is a red signal, and, including additional spectral information shows potential for improved IOP estimation, but not without revisiting SAA parameterizations and execution. While modest in scope, we believe this study contributes to the knowledge base for CDR development. The implication of ignoring such an analysis as CDRs continue to be developed is a prolonged inability to distinguish between algorithmic and environmental contributions to trends and anomalies in the IOP time-series.

ocean color satellites↗
NASA NTRS2016

Nisar L-band Digital Electronics Subsystem

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) L-band SAR instrument employs multiple digital channels to optimize resolution while keeping a large swath on a single pass. High-speed digitization with fine synchronization and digital beam forming are necessary in order to facilitate this new technique called SweepSAR. An architecture employing multiple FPGA based digital signal processors has been conceived to facilitate digital calibration on an individual channel basis as well as digital signal processing to optimize the receive signal. On-board processing and data compression has been implemented to reduce the volume of data in order to satisfy the operational requirements of near global coverage for the desired science targets. A novel command and timing architecture was developed to manage this complex system to meet the challenging project requirements. The NISAR L-band Digital Electronics Subsystem is the combination of the hardware, firmware and software components architected and implemented to operate this radar and return the desired quantity and quality of data for the science community.

SweepSAR↗
NASA NTRS2016

The Last Orbit: Planning Cassini's Plummet into Saturn

Cassini’s final orbit around Saturn will culminate in a dramatic ending as the spacecraft plunges into the ringed planet’s atmosphere, never to escape or be heard from again. The last hours of the mission prior to the final loss of signal have some of the most unique and valuable science to date. Cassini will take a unique trajectory to dive deep into the atmosphere on its approach to final disposal and no spacecraft, Cassini included, has entered these depths of Saturn’s atmosphere. The science community has placed heavy emphasis onthis once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to inspect these deeper regions of Saturn’s atmosphere. The Cassini project specifically aims to collect the very last bits of data during the final plunge to get samples of the deepest regions before the spacecraft is lost forever. The desire to collect the final bits of data presents several challenges. Cassini’s Mission Planning (MP) team has developed an End of Mission (EOM) scenario to tackle these demands. The EOM scenario outlines the framework for the entire last orbit of the mission and details thestrategy for data collection and transmission. Attaining near real-time transmission is key for the acquisition of the very last bits of data. The Cassini spacecraft will use a new mode of operations to successfully achieve this real-time transmission. In addition to this primary investigation and planning for telecommunications, key risks have been studied within the realm of the last orbit. Ultimately, this paper shows how the Cassini Project plans to ensurethe return of every last bit of data before the spacecraft is consumed by Saturn forever.

Bittner, Molly E.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Mars Sample Thermal Control During Mars Ascent and Orbit

Although NASA has no official plans at this time for a mission to return samples from Mars, the Program Formulation Office of the Mars Exploration Program sponsors ongoing mission concept studies, systems analyses, and technology investments which explore different strategies for the potential return of samples from Mars, consistent with the charter of the program and stated priorities of the science community. Maintaining the thermal integrity of collected samples would be very important. In general, samples would be collected, sealed inside tubes, and left on the surface for later retrieval. They would then be inserted into an OS (Orbiting Sample), and carried to a Mars or Solar orbit via a MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle). Subsequently, an Earth return vehicle would rendezvous with the OS and bring it back to Earth. During ascent from Mars, the OS could serve as the nose cone of the MAV and would be subjected to significant aerodynamic heating from the Martian atmosphere. Once the OS is released from the MAV, its external surface would be exposed to potentially several years of sunlight, eclipse, planetary IR, albedo, and space. The challenge is to ensure that these samples are kept at thermally moderate conditions to preserve their integrity in these widely different environments. Various thermal techniques have been investigated to achieve sample thermal control: use of thermal protection shields and surfaces (ablative and non-ablative) to protect them from adverse exposure to ascent heating, as well combinations of thermo-optical coatings during the orbital phase. The work described herein is part of this ongoing effort & will describe the key challenges related to the thermal control of the potential Mars samples during these phases and the corresponding schemes to overcome them.

Bhandari, Pradeep↗
NASA NTRS2017

Heating and Thermal Control of Brazing Technique to Break Contamination Path for Potential Mars Sample Return

The potential return of Mars sample material is of great interest to the planetary science community, as it would enable extensive analysis of samples with highly sensitive laboratory instruments. It is important to make sure such a mission concept would not bring any living microbes, which may possibly exist on Mars, back to Earth’s environment. In order to ensure the isolation of Mars microbes from Earth’s Atmosphere, a brazing sealing and sterilizing technique was proposed to break the Mars-to-Earth contamination path. Effectively, heating the brazing zone in high vacuum space and controlling the sample temperature for integrity are key challenges to the implementation of this technique. The break-the-chain procedures for container configurations, which are being considered, were simulated by multi-physics finite element models. Different heating methods including induction and resistive/radiation were evaluated. The temperature profiles of Martian samples in a proposed container structure were predicted. The results show that the sealing and sterilizing process can be controlled such that the samples temperature is maintained below the level that may cause damage, and that the brazing technique is a feasible approach to breaking the contamination path.

Bao, Xiaoqi↗
NASA NTRS2019

Federated Cloud Challenges in NASA's Earth Science Data Systems (Why So Difficult?)

NASA is presented with a number of opportunities and challenges in federating its Earth Science Data Systems in the burgeoning world of cloud computing. Cloud hosting of Earth Science data provides a new way of bringing data together, at least from a virtual location sense, and is one of the main motives for NASA to host data there. However, NASA is also faced with a Big Data Variety challenge, brought on by the variety of the EO datasets in its archives. This diversity requires many diverse science archives to service the different science communities. As a result, nearly every major function in the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) must also be federated across its data centers. This pattern is repeated with many of the outside agencies and organizations that EOSDIS federates with, such as the Committee for Earth Observing Satellites, leading to pioneering work on "deep federation" in a joint project with the European Space Agency to develop a Multi-Mission Algorithm and Analysis Platform.

Lynnes, Christopher↗
NASA NTRS2019

Testbed Requirements to Enable New Observing Strategies

Emerging capabilities to integrate instruments on smallsats, airborne platforms and in situ devices into an intelligent, distributed observing strategy show great promise for measuring Earth science natural phenomena and physical processes that have not previously been characterized. To reduce the threshold for success in deploying such an intelligent, integrated observing strategy, a ground-based testbed system is proposed. Virtually all of the technologies needed for using such a tool have matured to the point of being used, individually. Virtually none of the technologies have been deployed, working together. The technologies to be deployed should be integrated into a working "breadboard" where the components can be debugged and performance and behavior characterized and tuned-up. A system of this complexity should not be expected to work without full integration and experimental characterization. Further, and perhaps more importantly, in order to successfully propose a space-based element to this strategy, teams must convince the relevant science community that the risk is low enough to warrant the investment. The main benefit of the testbed is to retire the risk of integrating these new technologies and increase the Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of each component as well as the System Readiness Level (SRL) of the integrated system.

Little, Mike↗
NASA NTRS2017

NISAR L-SAR Digital Electronics Subsystem - A Multichannel Distributed Processing System with Synchronous Timing Control for Digital Beam Forming and Multiple Echo Tracking

The NASA-ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar (NISAR) L-band SAR instrument employs multiple digital channels to optimize resolution while keeping a large swath on a single pass. High-speed digitization with fine synchronization and digital beam forming are necessary in order to facilitate this new technique called SweepSAR. An architecture employing multiple FPGA based digital signal processors has been conceived to facilitate digital calibration on an individual channel basis as well as digital signal processing to optimize the receive signal. On-board processing and data compression has been implemented to reduce the volume of data in order to satisfy the operational requirements of near global coverage for the desired science targets. A novel command and timing architecture was developed to manage this complex system while providing detailed control of individual channel receive window timing required for digital beam forming. The NISAR L-band Digital Electronics Subsystem is the combination of the hardware, firmware and software components architected and implemented to operate this radar and return the desired quantity and quality of data for the science community.

Chuang, Chung-Lun↗
NASA NTRS2015

The Global Exploration Roadmap: Opportunities for Lunar Science

The Global Exploration Roadmap (GER) has been developed by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG comprised of 14 space agencies) to define various pathways to getting humans beyond low Earth orbit and eventually to Mars. Such pathways include visiting asteroids or the Moon before going on to Mars. This document has been written at a very high level and many details are still to be determined. However, a number of important papers regarding international space exploration can form a basis for this document.This poster will focus on developing the Lunar Vicinity scenario by adding detail via mapping a number of recent reportsdocuments into the GER. The documents highlighted here are in no way meant to be all encompassing and other documents can and should be added, (e.g., the JAXA Space Exploration Roadmap). This exercise is intended to demonstrate that existing documents can be mapped into the GER despite the major differences in granularity, and that this mapping is a way to promote broader national and international buy-in to the Lunar Vicinity scenario.The documents used here are: the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) Panel on Exploration report on developing a global space exploration program, the Strategic Knowledge Gaps (SKGs) report from the Lunar Exploration Analysis Group (LEAG), the Lunar Exploration Roadmap developed by LEAG, the National Research Council report Scientific Context for the Exploration of the Moon (SCEM), and two journal articles, the scientific rationale for resuming lunar surface exploration, and the astrobiological benefits of human space exploration.In addition, the ISECG is in the process of developing a Science White Paper (SWP) to accompany the next edition of the GER, due in late 2016. The SWP will be an important tool to communicate science which will be able to be accomplished at human exploration destinations to policymakers. This abstract will discuss the process of developing this SWP and ways in which the global science community can become engaged in its development.

Schmidt, Gregory↗
NASA NTRS2019

The Diurnal Cycle of Precipitation and Organized Convection in a Set of Global Mesoscale Simulations with the NASA GEOS AGCM

The NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) has conducted a series of 40-day nonhydrostatic global simulations with horizontal grid spacing ranging from 200 km to 3 km, as part of the DYAMOND model intercomparison project. The Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model was run with the Grell-Freitas scale-aware convection scheme, which smoothly reduces parameterized deep convection with increasing resolution. Here we evaluate the diurnal cycle and other statistics of precipitation and organized convection as a function of resolution. For validation we use the 0.1 degree IMERG precipitation and 4 km Merged IR brightness temperature datasets, focusing on four regions: the continental United States, Amazonia, the equatorial Indian ocean, and the Maritime Continent. Early results indicate good phase agreement but excessive magnitude of the continental diurnal cycle of precipitation at coarser resolutions, with improved magnitude as resolution increases and the role of parameterization is reduced. Convective cloud clusters are identified with a brightness temperature threshold, and we find realistic numbers of the largest clusters (>10^4 km sq) at all resolutions, while the number of smaller clusters increases with resolution, approaching observations when dx=3 km. The observed diurnal cycle in the cluster size distribution is also reproduced, with realistic magnitude in the highest resolution runs. Precipitation characteristics across cluster sizes are also examined. The results show the potential for global mesoscale simulations as a community science resource, and we invite collaboration to explore these runs in greater detail.

Arnold, Nathan↗
NASA NTRS2019

"Sensor Web Evolution - Webs of Webs for NASA Science - Focus on small Uninhabited Aerial Systems (sUAS)"

This paper will describe the evolution of information collection, derivation and delivery mechanisms in webs of NASA sensor webs, with a focus on recent advancements in small Uninhabited Aerial Systems (sUAS). I will discuss the movement to "Fog Computing", also known as Edge Computing. Fog Computing facilitates the distribution of common operations and networking between edge devices and cloud computing facilities, optimizing the production of actionable intelligence. Initially, sUASs utilized onboard data collection as standard, with minimal data downloaded directly. Information products were derived in conventional computational environments, generally desk top computers, and information products made available to the Science Community in weeks or months. With the increased availability, and increasingly lower costs, of beyond line of sight (BLOS) satellite based communication, transmission rates and data volumes increased, and processing migrated to Cloud based services. Contemporary sUASs are moving some of that information product derivation to on vehicle services, and are creating a distributed Cloud/Fog environment. I will describe the technological advances that have made this possible, including low power multi-core Central Processing Units (CPU), and, more recently, the availability of high end Graphical Processing Units (GPU) that consume only a few watts. Intelligent system software, leveraging these hardware advances, finally allows for information product generation on-board, rather than simple data collection. Additionally, intelligent flight control systems now support mutual vehicle to vehicle collaboration, allowing sUASs to create ad-hoc sensor webs on demand, as required. Also discussed will be the lessons learned by the Authors' development of data systems for NASA's large High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) UASs like Predator and Global Hawk, and how those lessons are being applied to sUAS development. This paper will focus on application, rather a deep dive into the technology, and will highlight improving data management through these new technologies.

Sensor Web↗
NASA NTRS2019

A Discussion of the Need to Sustain Mission Ready TPS and for Continued Development of Innovative Entry System Technologies

Flight proven entry system and TPS technologies are critical for the successful execution of in-situ science missions at Venus. Emerging new technologies point to new possibilities and offer innovative approaches to delivering small satellites for orbital science. Venus entry can be very demanding and there are only a few flight proven TPS, some developed by Industry and others by NASA, capable of meeting the mission needs. NASA developed TPS has predominately been transferred to Industry and it is assumed industry will maintain the fabrication capability. However, lack of mission needs may result in obsolence of TSP fabrication capability if there is no money and no motivation. Even within NASA, its' expertise could be diverted to higher priority objectives and thereby the readiness for particular material systems can be impacted or lost. Atrophy of capabilities can come about in other ways as well such as changes to raw materials. Even small manufacturing process changes can demand requalification and TRL may be degraded. Carbon-Phenolic is a text book example. After a long period of absence of US Venus missions, VEXG and the Science community is making the case for future missions. It is insufficient to assume the TSP technologies will be there in 5 or 10 years without active and continual planning and assessment. After Galileo, Carbon-Phenolic materials and fabrication skills were allowed to atrophy. Then when missions needed it, in early 2000, it was no longer possible to make the heritage Carbon-Phenolic. What do we need to do? The first step is to advocate for the establishment of TPS readiness assess-ment. The assessment will involve understanding threats and opportunities, and the development of risk mitigation strategies. VEXAG needs to advocate for such an active monitoring of the needed capabilities, assessment of emerging risks and development of risk mitigation strategies with implementation plans. Such an approach reduces the threat of material obsolence and helps maintain the availability of entry system and TPS technology capabilities, both old and new. Venus probes, landers, balloons and other variable altitude missions, and skimmer missions such as "Cu-pid's Arrow" as well as aerocapture missions to deliver small spacecraft require qualified entry systems and ablative TPS. VEXAG advocated for HEEET in 2013/2014 and the community is well versed with the need to sustain it. But, other TPS that need to be sustained may not be apparent to VEXAG community. The following figure summarizes the ablative TPS capabilities vs Venus mission needs for both primary heatshield and backshell.

Venkatapathy, Ethiraj↗