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NASA NTRS2002

Strategic Plan

The Mission of the NSBRI will be to lead a National effort for accomplishing the integrated, critical path, biomedical research necessary to support the long term human presence, development, and exploration of space and to enhance life on Earth by applying the resultant advances in human knowledge and technology acquired through living and working in space. To carry out this mission, the NSBRI focuses its activities on three Strategic Programs: Strategic Program 1: Countermeasure Research Strategic Program 2: Education, Training and Outreach Strategic Program 3: Cooperative Research and Development. This document contains the detailed Team Strategic Plans for the 11 research teams focused on Strategic Program 1, and the Education and Outreach Team focused on Strategic Program 2. There is overlap and integration among the Programs and Team Strategic Plans, as described in each of the Plans.

Source record↗

NASA NTRS2004

Transitioning a Fundamental Research Program to Align with the NASA Exploration Initiative-Perspectives from Microgravity Combustion Science and Fluid Physics

A new Vision for Space Exploration was announced earlier this year by U.S. President George W. Bush. NASA has evaluated on-going programs for strategic alignment with this vision. The evaluation proceeded at a rapid pace and is resulting in changes to the scope and focus of experimental research that will be conducted in support of the new vision. The existing network of researchers in the physical sciences - a highly capable, independent, and loosely knitted community - typically have shared conclusions derived from their work within appropriate discipline-specific peer reviewed journals and publications. The initial result of introducing this Vision for Space Exploration has been to shift research focus from a broad coverage of numerous, widely varying topics into a research program focused on a nearly-singular set of supporting research objectives to enable advances in space exploration. Two of these traditional physical science research disciplines, Combustion Science and Fluid Physics, are implementing a course adjustment from a portfolio dominated by "Fundamental Science Research" to one focused nearly exclusively on supporting the Exploration Vision. Underlying scientific and engineering competencies and infrastructure of the Microgravity Combustion Science and Fluid Physics disciplines do provide essential research capabilities to support the contemporary thrusts of human life support, radiation countermeasures, human health, low gravity research for propulsion and materials and, ultimately, research conducted on the Moon and Mars. A perspective on how these two research disciplines responded to the course change will be presented. The relevance to the new NASA direction is provided, while demonstrating through two examples how the prior investment in fundamental research is being brought to bear on solving the issues confronting the successful implementation of the exploration goals.

Sutliff, Thomas J.↗

NASA NTRS1996

The Design, Planning and Control of Robotic Systems in Space

Dubowsky, Steven↗

NASA NTRS1996

The Design, Planning and Control of Robotic Systems in Space

In the future, robotic systems will be expected to perform important tasks in space, in orbit and in planetary exploration. In orbit, current technology requires that tasks such as the repair, construction and maintenance of space stations and satellites be performed by astronaut Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA). Eliminating, the need for astronaut EVA through the use of space manipulators would greatly reduce both mission costs and hazards to astronauts. In planetary exploration, cost and logistical considerations clearly make the use of autonomous and telerobotic systems also very attractive, even in cases where an astronaut explorer might be in the area. However, such applications introduce a number of technical problems not found in conventional earth-bound industrial robots. To design useful and practical systems to meet the needs of future space missions, substantial technical development is required, including in the areas of the design, control and planning. The objectives of this research program were to develop such design paradigms and control and planning algorithms to enable future space robotic systems to meet their proposed mission objectives. The underlying intellectual focus of the program is to construct a set of integrated design, planning and control techniques based on an understanding of the fundamental mechanics of space robotic systems. This work was to build upon the results obtained in our previous research in this area supported by NASA Langley Research Center in which we have made important contributions to the area of space robotics. This program was proposed and accepted as a three year research program, a period of time necessary to make the type of fundamental developments to make a significant contributions to space robotics. Unfortunately, less than a year into the program it became clear that the NASA Langley Research Center would be forced by budgetary constraints to essentially leave this area of research. As a result, the total funding we received under this grant represented approximately one year of the original, proposed and approved, funding. For some time, there was substantial uncertainty that even this very reduced level of funding would be provided. The spending of the reduced available funds was spread just over two years to provide the support to permit the MS students who had joined the program to receive their master's degree and terminate their studies in this area.

Dubowsky, Steven↗

NASA NTRS2000

The NASA Aviation Safety Program: Overview

In 1997, the United States set a national goal to reduce the fatal accident rate for aviation by 80% within ten years based on the recommendations by the Presidential Commission on Aviation Safety and Security. Achieving this goal will require the combined efforts of government, industry, and academia in the areas of technology research and development, implementation, and operations. To respond to the national goal, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has developed a program that will focus resources over a five year period on performing research and developing technologies that will enable improvements in many areas of aviation safety. The NASA Aviation Safety Program (AvSP) is organized into six research areas: Aviation System Modeling and Monitoring, System Wide Accident Prevention, Single Aircraft Accident Prevention, Weather Accident Prevention, Accident Mitigation, and Synthetic Vision. Specific project areas include Turbulence Detection and Mitigation, Aviation Weather Information, Weather Information Communications, Propulsion Systems Health Management, Control Upset Management, Human Error Modeling, Maintenance Human Factors, Fire Prevention, and Synthetic Vision Systems for Commercial, Business, and General Aviation aircraft. Research will be performed at all four NASA aeronautics centers and will be closely coordinated with Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and other government agencies, industry, academia, as well as the aviation user community. This paper provides an overview of the NASA Aviation Safety Program goals, structure, and integration with the rest of the aviation community.

Shin, Jaiwon↗

NASA NTRS2018

Centennial Challenges Program Update: From Humanoids to 3D-Printing Houses on Mars, How the Public Can Advance Technologies for NASA and the Nation

The Centennial Challenges (CC) program, part of NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD), was founded upon the principle that engaging the public at large was a very important part of garnering the true magnitude of grassroots American innovation and ingenuity. The program uses a focused problem-statement approach to obtain solutions and/or stimulate innovation in key NASA technology gaps by catalyzing sources outside of the traditional aerospace community. The CC program announced the first two challenge competitions in 2005 incentivizing the public to participate using a congressionally authorized prize purse. Since then, the program has developed and executed more than 18 competitions and has awarded over $9 million in prize money. The challenges have covered a variety of technology areas, including propulsion, robotics, communications and navigation, human health, science instrumentation, nanotech, materials and structures, and aerodynamics. Centennial Challenges' accomplishments from October 2016 to December 2017--including significant increases in the amount and diversity of participants; increase in prize purse awards; strong alignments with NASA missions; and partnerships with industry, academia, and other government agencies-are summarized in this paper. Technological advancements, communication strategies, and legal authority are also discussed. NASA is leading the government agencies in the area of prizes and competitions to push technologies, and the CC program is one powerful example of NASA's continuing commitment to technological advancement and innovation through non-traditional programs. Currently, the Agency has in place the proven infrastructure, policies, and people needed to enable the successful use of competition tools, including the ones used as part of the CC program.

Centennial Challenge Prize↗

NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Cryogenic Extension of NASA Species Polynomials Using Hydrogen and Oxygen at Stoichiometry

NASA has been conducting research in Rotating Detonation Rocket Engines (RDREs) for several years. A recent test at the Marshall Spaceflight Center has successfully shown operation of a RDRE that ran for 251 seconds which had combustion chamber cryogenic inlet conditions [1]. However, an overall pressure gain was not observed in the performance of the engine. Such an indication could mean an optimal chamber design is yet to be discovered. Such a design could significantly reduce parasitic pressure loses and improve overall engine efficiency beyond that of conventional rockets. To investigate different chamber configurations, new CFD capability is needed to accurately capture cryogenic thermophysical and transport property data. Such an effort is currently part of NASA’s Early Career Initiative (ECI) program. This paper focuses on the thermophysical property mixture model approach that makes use of NASA’s polynomial fits of species and another cryogenic model chosen from NIST’s Refprop program. Presented in this paper are results of a 1D denotation CFD simulation of stoichiometric Hydrogen and Oxygen mixture at a cryogenic upstream condition.

Combustion↗

DOE OSTI2015

State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP) Reports

The State Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program (SEEARP) reports database includes rebate reports (xls) and summary factsheets (pdf) from states and territories that participated in SEEARP. With funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) developed SEEARP to spur economic activity and invest in long-term energy savings by helping consumers replace older, inefficient appliances with new, efficient models. SEEARP provided almost $300 million to the 56 U.S. states and territories to support state-level consumer rebate programs for efficient appliances from December 1, 2009 to February 17, 2012. The successes and challenges of SEEARP provide valuable lessons for designing and running a consumer-focused appliance rebate program. In addition to the SEEARP reports database, the two reports included provide a results and program design lessons.

appliances↗

NASA NTRS2004

NASA's Microgravity Fluid Physics Strategic Research Roadmap

The Microgravity Fluid Physics Program at NASA has developed a substantial investigator base engaging a broad crosssection of the U.S. scientific community. As a result, it enjoys a rich history of many significant scientific achievements. The research supported by the program has produced many important findings that have been published in prestigious journals such as Science, Nature, Journal of Fluid Mechanics, Physics of Fluids, and many others. The focus of the program so far has primarily been on fundamental scientific studies. However, a recent shift in emphasis at NASA to develop advanced technologies to enable future exploration of space has provided motivation to add a strategic research component to the program. This has set into motion a year of intense planning within NASA including three workshops to solicit inputs from the external scientific community. The planning activities and the workshops have resulted in a prioritized list of strategic research issues along with a corresponding detailed roadmap specific to fluid physics. The results of these activities were provided to NASA s Office of Biological and Physical Research (OBPR) to support the development of the Enterprise Strategy document. This paper summarizes these results while showing how the planned research supports NASA s overall vision through OBPR s organizing questions.

Motil, Brian J.↗

DOE OSTI2022

Microphysical-macrophysical interactions in low cloud systems over the Eastern North Atlantic

How low clouds over the oceans respond to changes in atmospheric greenhouse gases and aerosol particles is poorly understood. Climate model disagreement in these responses limits the accuracy of predictions of future climate. Processes governing the behavior of marine low cloud need to be improved in models and comprehensive long-term observations provide important constraints. Cloud structure and impacts on climate are shaped by processes operating on a wide range of time and space scales, which interact to modulate cloud dynamics, boundary layer structure, and precipitation. The Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Eastern North Atlantic (ENA) site at Graciosa Island (Azores, 28°W 39°N) began taking measurements in late 2013 to address the need for comprehensive cloud, aerosol, and meteorological observations in a remote marine low cloud environment. The site straddles the boundary between the subtropical and midlatitude climate zones in the eastern North Atlantic and experiences a great diversity of meteorological and cloud conditions. In addition, the ENA site is downwind of the North American continent and is periodically impacted by continental aerosol particles transported there on the prevailing winds. In response to a 2014 proposal call, our team (ENA Site Science Team) laid out a strategy to accelerate research focused on understanding the multi-scale interactions that shape cloud properties by maximizing the utility of the observational capabilities of the ENA site. The proposed work aligned with the scientific directions of the ASR Working Groups. The team, together with collaborators, conducted a program of research focused upon multi-scale cloud processes. The team worked with scientists both within and outside the Atmospheric System Research (ASR) program, and with the ARM infrastructure to ensure that the full potential of the ENA site is realized. The suite of instruments at the ENA site has been increasing since the site’s inception and is now essentially complete. In 2019, we laid out a two-year extension of the research, and were granted an extension of the Site Science award.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

NASA NTRS2005

Space Physics Data Facility Web Services

The Space Physics Data Facility (SPDF) Web services provides a distributed programming interface to a portion of the SPDF software. (A general description of Web services is available at http://www.w3.org/ and in many current software-engineering texts and articles focused on distributed programming.) The SPDF Web services distributed programming interface enables additional collaboration and integration of the SPDF software system with other software systems, in furtherance of the SPDF mission to lead collaborative efforts in the collection and utilization of space physics data and mathematical models. This programming interface conforms to all applicable Web services specifications of the World Wide Web Consortium. The interface is specified by a Web Services Description Language (WSDL) file. The SPDF Web services software consists of the following components: 1) A server program for implementation of the Web services; and 2) A software developer s kit that consists of a WSDL file, a less formal description of the interface, a Java class library (which further eases development of Java-based client software), and Java source code for an example client program that illustrates the use of the interface.

Candey, Robert M.↗

NASA NTRS1991

A research program in empirical computer science

During the grant reporting period our primary activities have been to begin preparation for the establishment of a research program in experimental computer science. The focus of research in this program will be safety-critical systems. Many questions that arise in the effort to improve software dependability can only be addressed empirically. For example, there is no way to predict the performance of the various proposed approaches to building fault-tolerant software. Performance models, though valuable, are parameterized and cannot be used to make quantitative predictions without experimental determination of underlying distributions. In the past, experimentation has been able to shed some light on the practical benefits and limitations of software fault tolerance. It is common, also, for experimentation to reveal new questions or new aspects of problems that were previously unknown. A good example is the Consistent Comparison Problem that was revealed by experimentation and subsequently studied in depth. The result was a clear understanding of a previously unknown problem with software fault tolerance. The purpose of a research program in empirical computer science is to perform controlled experiments in the area of real-time, embedded control systems. The goal of the various experiments will be to determine better approaches to the construction of the software for computing systems that have to be relied upon. As such it will validate research concepts from other sources, provide new research results, and facilitate the transition of research results from concepts to practical procedures that can be applied with low risk to NASA flight projects. The target of experimentation will be the production software development activities undertaken by any organization prepared to contribute to the research program. Experimental goals, procedures, data analysis and result reporting will be performed for the most part by the University of Virginia.

Knight, J. C.↗

NASA NTRS2010

Aquarius and the Aquarius/SAC-D Mission

Aquarius is a combination L-band radiometer and scatterometer designed to map the salinity field at the ocean surface from space. It will be flown on the Aquarius/SAC-D mission, a partnership between the USA space agency (NASA) and Argentine space agency (CONAE). The mission is composed of two parts: (a) The Aquarius instrument being developed as part of NASA.s Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) program; and (b) SAC-D the fourth spacecraft service platform in the CONAE Satellite de Aplicaciones Cientificas (SAC) program. The primary focus of the mission is to monitor the seasonal and interannual variations of the salinity field in the open ocean. The mission also meets the needs of the Argentine space program for monitoring the environment and for hazard detection and includes several instruments related to these goals.

LeVine, D. M.↗

NASA NTRS2015

Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 and Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator

The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) Phase 2 is an excavation robot for mining regolith on a planet like Mars. The robot is programmed using the Robotic Operating System (ROS) and it also uses a physical simulation program called Gazebo. This internship focused on various functions of the program in order to make it a more professional and efficient robot. During the internship another project called the Smart Autonomous Sand-Swimming Excavator was worked on. This is a robot that is designed to dig through sand and extract sample material. The intern worked on programming the Sand-Swimming robot, and designing the electrical system to power and control the robot.

Regolith↗

DOE OSTI2019

Sandia National Laboratories Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) Appraisal Method for the Implementation of the ASC Software Quality Engineering Practices (V.2.0)

This document provides a guide to the process of conducting software appraisals under the Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) ASC Program. The goal of this document is to describe a common methodology for planning, conducting, and reporting results of software appraisals thereby enabling: 1) Identification of improvements in implementation of the software quality engineering (SQE) practices identified in the ASC Software Quality Plan across the ASC Program against objective baselines. 2) Feedback from project teams on SQE opportunities for improvement. 3) Identification of strengths and opportunities for improvement for individual project teams. 4) Guidance to the ASC Program on the focus of future SQE activities. Document contents include process descriptions, templates to promote consistent conduct of appraisals, and an explanation of the relationship of this procedure to the SNL ASC software program. The activities described by this document are under the oversight of SNL ASC Program Director and SNL ASC Program Manager.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2020

Herding Cats: Firm Non-Compliance in China’s Industrial Energy Efficiency Program

Here we study firm responses to a large-scale energy efficiency program in China, focusing on the quality of reporting and compliance outcomes. Using statistical methods to detect data manipulation in compliance reports, we find evidence that firms deliberately exaggerated performance during the first phase of the program (2006-2010), suggesting the high compliance rate was overstated. In its second phase (2011-2015), the number of firms in the program expanded by an order of magnitude, and the compliance rate decreased. We develop a simple model to show how the observed increase in non-compliance is consistent with reduced misreporting. Statistical tests find no evidence of manipulation in the second phase. Larger firms, especially those not controlled by the state, and firms in cities with relatively low growth were more likely to report non-compliance, which suggests a role for state control and local protectionism in shaping compliance decisions. Based on our findings, we offer several lessons for future program design.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

NASA NTRS1990

Space transfer vehicle avionics advanced development needs

The assessment of preliminary transportation program options for the exploration initiative is underway. The exploration initiative for the Moon and Mars is outlined by mission phases. A typical lunar/Mars outpost technology/advanced development schedule is provided. An aggressive and focused technology development program is needed as early as possible to successfully support these new initiatives. The avionics advanced development needs, plans, laboratory facilities, and benefits from an early start are described.

Huffaker, C. F.↗

NASA NTRS1992

Advanced tow placement of composite fuselage structure

The Hercules NASA ACT program was established to demonstrate and validate the low cost potential of the automated tow placement process for fabrication of aircraft primary structures. The program is currently being conducted as a cooperative program in collaboration with the Boeing ATCAS Program. The Hercules advanced tow placement process has been in development since 1982 and was developed specifically for composite aircraft structures. The second generation machine, now in operation at Hercules, is a production-ready machine that uses a low cost prepreg tow material form to produce structures with laminate properties equivalent to prepreg tape layup. Current program activities are focused on demonstration of the automated tow placement process for fabrication of subsonic transport aircraft fuselage crown quadrants. We are working with Boeing Commercial Aircraft and Douglas Aircraft during this phase of the program. The Douglas demonstration panels has co-cured skin/stringers, and the Boeing demonstration panel is an intricately bonded part with co-cured skin/stringers and co-bonded frames. Other aircraft structures that were evaluated for the automated tow placement process include engine nacelle components, fuselage pressure bulkheads, and fuselage tail cones. Because of the cylindrical shape of these structures, multiple parts can be fabricated on one two placement tool, thus reducing the cost per pound of the finished part.

Anderson, Robert L.↗