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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 757 records · Page 42
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2013

Status of NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Long-Duration Test as of 50,000 h and 900 kg Throughput

The NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) project is developing the next-generation solar electric propulsion ion propulsion system with significant enhancements beyond the state-of-the-art NASA Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) ion propulsion system in order to provide future NASA science missions with enhanced propulsion capabilities. As part of a comprehensive thruster service life assessment, the NEXT Long-Duration Test (LDT) was initiated in June 2005 to demonstrate throughput capability and validate thruster service life modeling. The NEXT LDT exceeded its original qualification throughput requirement of 450 kg in December 2009. To date, the NEXT LDT has set records for electric propulsion lifetime and has demonstrated 50,170 hours of operation, processed 902 kg of propellant, and delivered 34.9 MN-s of total impulse. The NEXT thruster design mitigated several life-limiting mechanisms encountered in the NSTAR design, dramatically increasing service life capability. Various component erosion rates compare favorably to the pretest predictions based upon semi-empirical ion thruster models. The NEXT LDT either met or exceeded all of its original goals regarding lifetime demonstration, performance and wear characterization, and modeling validation. In light of recent budget constraints and to focus on development of other components of the NEXT ion propulsion system, a voluntary termination procedure for the NEXT LDT began in April 2013. As part of this termination procedure, a comprehensive post-test performance characterization was conducted across all operating conditions of the NEXT throttle table. These measurements were found to be consistent with prior data that show minimal degradation of performance over the thruster's 50 kh lifetime. Repair of various diagnostics within the test facility is presently planned while keeping the thruster under high vacuum conditions. These diagnostics will provide additional critical information on the current state of the thruster, in regards to performance and wear, prior to destructive post-test analyses performed on the thruster under atmosphere conditions.

Life test↗
NASA NTRS2015

Status of NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) Long-Duration Test as of 50,000 h and 900 kg Throughput

The NASA's Evolutionary Xenon Thruster (NEXT) project is developing the next-generation solar electric propulsion ion propulsion system with significant enhancements beyond the state-of-the-art NASA Solar Electric Propulsion Technology Application Readiness (NSTAR) ion propulsion system in order to provide future NASA science missions with enhanced propulsion capabilities. As part of a comprehensive thruster service life assessment, the NEXT Long-Duration Test (LDT) was initiated in June 2005 to demonstrate throughput capability and validate thruster service life modeling. The NEXT LDT exceeded its original qualification throughput requirement of 450 kg in December 2009. To date, the NEXT LDT has set records for electric propulsion lifetime and has demonstrated 50,170 h of operation, processed 902 kg of propellant, and delivered 34.9 MN-s of total impulse. The NEXT thruster design mitigated several life-limiting mechanisms encountered in the NSTAR design, dramatically increasing service life capability. Various component erosion rates compare favorably to the pretest predictions based upon semi-empirical ion thruster models. The NEXT LDT either met or exceeded all of its original goals regarding lifetime demonstration, performance and wear characterization, and modeling validation. In light of recent budget constraints and to focus on development of other components of the NEXT ion propulsion system, a voluntary termination procedure for the NEXT LDT began in April 2013. As part of this termination procedure, a comprehensive post-test performance characterization was conducted across all operating conditions of the NEXT throttle table. These measurements were found to be consistent with prior data that show minimal degradation of performance over the thruster's 50 kh lifetime. Repair of various diagnostics within the test facility is presently planned while keeping the thruster under high vacuum conditions. These diagnostics will provide additional critical information on the current state of the thruster, in regards to performance and wear, prior to destructive post-test analyses performed on the thruster under atmosphere conditions.

Ion thruster↗
NASA NTRS2016

Air STAR Beyond Visual Range UAS Description and Preliminary Test Results

The NASA Airborne Subscale Transport Aircraft Research Unmanned Aerial System project's capabilities were expanded by updating the system design and concept of operations. The new remotely piloted airplane system design was flight tested to assess integrity and operational readiness of the design to perform flight research. The purpose of the system design is to improve aviation safety by providing a capability to validate, in high-risk conditions, technologies to prevent airplane loss of control. Two principal design requirements were to provide a high degree of reliability and that the new design provide a significant increase in test volume (relative to operations using the previous design). The motivation for increased test volume is to improve test efficiency and allow new test capabilities that were not possible with the previous design and concept of operations. Three successful test flights were conducted from runway 4-22 at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center's Wallops Flight Facility.

Cunningham, Kevin↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Beyond BioSentinel: Iterative Development of Automated Microfluidics

NASA Ames has flown a series of Bio-CubeSats that performed biology experiments supported by automated fluidic systems. Since Genesat-1 in 2006, these payloads have increased in complexity and functionality, building upon previous successes, and applying lessons learned. BioSentinel was the most recent of this series, launched into heliocentric orbit onboard Artemis-1 in 2022. This presentation will discuss how the fluidic technology developed for these Bio-CubeSat missions, including the multi-layer polycarbonate manifolds at the heart of the BioSentinel BioSensor, have spurred the development of several additional projects. Most directly is the modified BioSensor that will be a part of LEIA, which will perform its Lunar biology experiment onboard a Commercial Lunar Payload Services lander. Several search-for-life manifolds have been designed to prepare samples from icy moons for downstream analyses. Two early career Polaris projects are developing fluidics to perform genetic sequencing on samples from multigenerational cell culture and to extract and quantify target miRNAs to support astronaut radiation health assessment. Improving the readiness of these systems has been accelerated by adopting the established flight heritage and microgravity-compatibility of the Bio-CubeSat fluidic hardware and designs, while focusing development efforts on the integration of novel functionalities and components.

microfluidics↗
DOE OSTI2023

DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) 2023 Project Peer Review: WBS 2.4.1.100 Bench Scale Research & Development

Bench Scale Integration develops and optimizes fermentation processes to produce bio-based fuels and chemicals for commercial scale-up. The project uses fermentation science to achieve high titers and production rates by, for example, manipulating how the microorganisms are fed biomass sugars and nutrients, modifying fermentation conditions (pH, temperature, aeration) or developing online control strategies for better fermentation operations and high titer, rates, and yield (TRY). For this period of performance, we continued our development of a commercial-ready 2,3-butanediol (BDO) fermentation from biomass sugars utilizing NREL's proprietary Zymomonas mobilis microorganism. The engineered Z. mobilis can use all the main sugars in corn stover biomass, which are glucose, xylose, and arabinose. BDO is a versatile, low-carbon chemical which can be catalytically upgraded to a variety of hydrocarbon fuels and chemicals. The project had three goals during this review period; evaluate the technical feasibility of using whole slurry pretreated corn stover to achieve the techno-economic analysis (TEA) performance goals, continue optimizing a liquor-based fed-batch fermentation process for high titer, and develop strategies to enable scale-up. After evaluating different iterations of a whole slurry fermentation that did not meet the TEA goals, a Go/No-Go decision was made to pivot to liquor-only with new TEA performance targets, the main one being 140 g/L titer. We successfully met this goal, producing 141 g/L BDO at 1 g/L-hr productivity and 84% process yield. This titer and productivity attracted industrial interest to scale the fermentation resulting in a Technology Commercialization Fund project award in 2022. We used an NREL developed near-infra red (NIR) spectroscopy method for rapid analysis which allowed for changes to aeration levels and sugar feeding during the fermentation to maximize BDO production. The NIR analysis can be done using a hand-held spectrometer, essentially taking the analysis on to the plant floor during scale-up and preliminary work shows the feasibility of using an online probe for continuous monitoring and control. The other scale-up tool is mapping oxygen transfer coefficient (kLa) and oxygen transfer rate (OTR) in various vessels to find conditions that match the optimized 500 mL vessels. Showing a correlation to the mapping work, which is done with water and a dissolved oxygen probe, can reduce the risk of failed fermentations during scale-up. Our end-of-project goal is to meet the design target BDO titer (140-150 g/L) from DMR corn stover liquor at 1000L or larger scale to demonstrate BDO process design case and transfer the technology to industrial fermentation stakeholders for commercialization.

2 3-butanediol↗
DOE OSTI2018

Pilot Readiness Development Program for Autonomous Pathogen Detection System (APDS) Final Report CRADA No. TC02115.0

The purpose of this CRADA was to develop, integrate, and test design changes to LLNL’s field prototype autonomous pathogen detection system (APDS). The desired result of this project was an improved design of the APDS, along with test data characterizing performance of the new hardware, software, and processes. This improved design was to be closer to the final production design for operation. The third amendment to the Statement of Work (SOW) significantly redefined the scope of the work from general improvements to creating a NGSS built system that included the improvements from before and prepared the system for head to head testing for the BioWatch Gen-3 program. All deliverables were met on time and on budget.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2022

The BREKTRIA 500 – A Breakthrough in Technology and Power Density for an Advanced 500kW Utility-Scale String Inverter (Final Technical Report)

The primary goal of this development project, planned to be 36 months in duration, was to create a 500kW utility-scale string inverter, demonstrating an advanced hybrid architecture that would achieve unprecedented high power density, and bring the inverter to the stage of production readiness. Specific key objectives for the 500kW utility-scale string inverter were: Create a 500kW 3-phase 600Vac inverter that was similar in overall size to the existing 250kW string inverters in the market, thereby demonstrating dramatically increased power density; Achieve a cost of goods, including all manufacturing-related costs and overheads, at or below 2.5¢/Wac ($12,500); Demonstrate full-power operation at a 45-50C ambient temperature with no power de-rating; Accommodate a PV array DC input of up to 1MWdc, aka a DC/AC Ratio of 2.0; Demonstrate peak efficiency greater than 99% at any operating dc voltage, and a CEC weighted average efficiency greater than or equal to 98.5%. The motivation for this project was to leapfrog the competition by creating the world’s most powerful string inverter, utilizing an innovative topology and achieving a step change increase in power density. Achieving the goals of the project would have enabled Yaskawa Solectria Solar to demonstrate its technology leadership, manufacture the utility-scale string inverter in the company’s facilities in Illinois, and bring to the market a highly-differentiated and compelling product to help the company grow its share in the large and growing utility market segment. During the course of this project, BREK Electronics’ hybrid architecture inverter was taken from an early-stage 125kW prototype, to a more mature and successfully demonstrated power stage at twice the power. Two 250kW power stages were planned to build the 500kW inverter. Significant progress was made in the inverter controls, achieving a clean AC sinewave and closed-loop operation into the grid, and improved efficiency by control of the high-speed switching. Further, the updated 250kW power stage was on track to achieve full power operation at an ambient temperature of 50C. At the time of the project’s closure in September 2022, global semiconductor supply remained limited, with shortages creating dramatic swings in both availability and price. Given this situation, our ability to predict cost-of-goods two years out with any accuracy or confidence was limited. As a result, the probability of attaining the target cost of 2.5¢/Wac for the 500kW inverter remained uncertain at the closure of the project. This project successfully demonstrated the potential for the advanced hybrid architecture inverter that emerged from a decade of university research on Si IGBTs and SiC mosfets, leading to this unique inverter topology. The team has taken the first steps toward an evolutionary advancement in inverter technology that remains to be fully realized.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗
NASA NTRS1999

Bantam: A Systematic Approach to Reusable Launch Vehicle Technology Development

The Bantam technology project is focused on providing a low cost launch capability for very small (100 kilogram) NASA and University science payloads. The cost goal has been set at one million dollars per launch. The Bantam project, however, represents much more than a small payload launch capability. Bantam represents a unique, systematic approach to reusable launch vehicle technology development. This technology maturation approach will enable future highly reusable launch concepts in any payload class. These launch vehicle concepts of the future could deliver payloads for hundreds of dollars per pound, enabling dramatic growth in civil and commercial space enterprise. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has demonstrated a better, faster, and cheaper approach to science discovery in recent years. This approach is exemplified by the successful Mars Exploration Program lead by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for the NASA Space Science Enterprise. The Bantam project represents an approach to space transportation technology maturation that is very similar to the Mars Exploration Program. The NASA Advanced Space Transportation Program (ASTP) and Future X Pathfinder Program will combine to systematically mature reusable space transportation technology from low technology readiness to system level flight demonstration. New reusable space transportation capability will be demonstrated at a small (Bantam) scale approximately every two years. Each flight demonstration will build on the knowledge derived from the previous flight tests. The Bantam scale flight demonstrations will begin with the flights of the X-34. The X-34 will demonstrate reusable launch vehicle technologies including; flight regimes up to Mach 8 and 250,000 feet, autonomous flight operations, all weather operations, twenty-five flights in one year with a surge capability of two flights in less than twenty-four hours and safe abort. The Bantam project will build on this initial capability to expand the capability of a reusable first stage, including ground launch, powered return to the launch site, and a fully reusable rocket propulsion system. A Bantam technology goal is to demonstrate twenty-five flights with no unplanned rocket engine maintenance and only minor planned maintenance or inspections. The design goal of the propulsion system is a mission life of one hundred.

Griner, Carolyn↗
DOE OSTI2016

Performance Validation of Advanced PHEV Vehicle

Summary of Major Accomplishments: Ford developed a PHEV Escape as part of a DOE contract to develop a production-ready PHEV prototype. Although conventional certification tests were conducted by Ford during their development, Argonne was brought in at the half-way point and at end of the development project to run their research-oriented benchmark testing on one of their prototype vehicles in different states of controls development. Here are the accomplishments: Prototype vehicle was instrumented by installing voltage and current probes and a resolver was installed for engien speed and position; Other signals were collected such as several temperatures and sett up CAN network data collection. ANL-1060 (10/07/2016) Summary of Major Accomplishments: 51 individual tests were conducted on the 4WD chassis dynamometer in December 2008, in both CD and CS modes over UDDS, US06, HWY, SC03 cycles, and research cycles including preformance and steady-state - 66 individual tests were conducted run on the 4WD chassis dynamometer in Aug 2009, in both CD and CS modes over UDDS, US06, HWY, SC03 cycles, and research cycles including prefoemance and steady-state - Data was analyzed and summarized for DOE in several in-person briefings. One briefing was held in early 2009 and another in the fall of 2009.

33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS↗
NASA NTRS2012

Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX

The Gravity and Extreme Magnetism SMEX mission will be the first mission to catalogue the X-ray polarisation of many astrophysical objects including black-holes and pulsars. This first of its kind mission is enabled by the novel use of a time projection chamber as an X-ray polarimeter. The detector has been developed over the last 5 years, with the current effort charged toward a demonstration of it's technical readiness to be at level 6 prior to the preliminary design review. This talk will describe the design GEMS polarimeter and the results to date from the engineering test unit.

Source record↗
NASA NTRS2018

Distributed Attitude Control and Maneuvering for Deep Space SmallSats

The aim of the Distributed Attitude Control and Maneuvering for Deep Space SmallSats project is to advance a multi-purpose, deep space mission-enabling technology for low-power attitude and thermal control of small satellites to a flight demonstration technology readiness level (TRL). The film-evaporation microelectromechanical systems tunable array (FEMTA) small satellite technology combines innovative microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) microfabrication and microscale effects in fluid surface tension to produce a thermally actuated capillary valve. Using water as the propellant, the FEMTA thruster can generate finely controllable thrust at a thrust to power ratio of about 200 microNewton per Watt (W).

thermal control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Heritage to Flight; The Test Program that Brought an Inflation System Back to Life for the Low Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID)

Following the success of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment-3 (IRVE-3) project, the Terrestrial Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) Orbital Reentry (THOR) project was stood up with a “built to print” Inflation System utilizing the IRVE-3 flight spares. When THOR was canceled, this Inflation System had already been tested and assembled, ready for use. Thus, when the Low Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) was spun up, the THOR system seemed like a good candidate to salvage flight ready hardware. There were, however, some key differences in the IRVE/THOR system and the LOFTID one. LOFTID’s HIAD was two times the size of IRVE for starters and would require much higher flows to accommodate inflating such an article within a specific timeframe. With new requirements and a tight schedule, the LOFTID Inflation team set to work to verify flight readiness under LOFTID conditions and eliminate the need to requalify new hardware. LOFTID, utilizing an Inflation System built primarily hardware from IRVE-3 spares, successfully flew in November of 2022. This paper will outline the mission differences, the test campaign used to prepare LOFTID’s Inflation System for flight, and some lessons learned in repurposing older hardware.

Inflation System↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Heritage to Flight: The Test Program that Brought an Inflation System Back to Life for LOFTID

Following the success of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment-3 (IRVE-3) project, the Terrestrial Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) Orbital Reentry (THOR) project was stood up with a “built to print” Inflation System utilizing the IRVE-3 flight spares. When THOR was canceled, this Inflation System had already been tested and assembled, ready for use. Thus, when the Low Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) was spun up, the THOR system seemed like a good candidate to salvage flight ready hardware. There were, however, some key differences in the IRVE/THOR system and the LOFTID one. LOFTID’s HIAD was two times the size of IRVE for starters and would require much higher flows to accommodate inflating such an article within a specific timeframe. With new requirements and a tight schedule, the LOFTID Inflation team set to work to verify flight readiness under LOFTID conditions and eliminate the need to requalify new hardware. LOFTID, utilizing an Inflation System built primarily hardware from IRVE-3 spares, successfully flew in November of 2022. This paper will outline the mission differences, the test campaign used to prepare LOFTID’s Inflation System for flight, and some lessons learned in repurposing older hardware.

Inflation System↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Heritage to Flight: The Test Program that Brought an Inflation System Back to Life for LOFTID

Following the success of the Inflatable Reentry Vehicle Experiment-3 (IRVE-3) project, the Terrestrial Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) Orbital Reentry (THOR) project was stood up with a “built to print” Inflation System utilizing the IRVE-3 flight spares. When THOR was canceled, this Inflation System had already been tested and assembled, ready for use. Thus, when the Low Earth Orbit Flight Test of an Inflatable Decelerator (LOFTID) was spun up, the THOR system seemed like a good candidate to salvage flight ready hardware. There were, however, some key differences in the IRVE/THOR system and the LOFTID one. LOFTID’s HIAD was two times the size of IRVE for starters and would require much higher flows to accommodate inflating such an article within a specific timeframe. With new requirements and a tight schedule, the LOFTID Inflation team set to work to verify flight readiness under LOFTID conditions and eliminate the need to requalify new hardware. LOFTID, utilizing an Inflation System built primarily hardware from IRVE-3 spares, successfully flew in November of 2022. This paper will outline the mission differences, the test campaign used to prepare LOFTID’s Inflation System for flight, and some lessons learned in repurposing older hardware.

Inflation System↗
DOE OSTI2022

2.3.3.404 - National Lab and University Collaboration for MHK Instrumentation and Data Processing Tools

Field and laboratory validation, testing, demonstration, and operation are critical steps for increasing the technology readiness level of marine energy (ME) converters because they provide high-quality testing and performance data that are critical information used to feed all aspects of technology development. This project, in partnership with industry, enables the marine and hydrokinetic energy (MHK) community to reliably and efficiently collect, process, manage, and share quality data by facilitating access to and development of instrumentation, guidelines and data processing/QA tools. Under this project, open-source data processing code (MHKiT) and tools (ME Data Pipeline, MRE Code Hub, PRIMRE Code Catalog), instrumentation (loads measurements), data acquisition systems (miniDAQ), and measurement guidance tools (Telesto, high EMI guidance) were developed to facilitate the collection and processing of quality laboratory and field data. Overall, this project is intended to improve the quality of the data collected during laboratory and field demonstration projects by standardizing the collection and processing techniques, as well as by improving access to instrumentation, code, and measurement guidance. Quality data will, in turn, lead to improved knowledge capture following ME device testing.

data processing↗
DOE OSTI2025

BESS Digital Assurance, Supply Chain Risk Management, and Emerging Regulation Session One - Abridged

The TADA BESS Supply Chain Workshops are designed to equip participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to address the evolving challenges at the intersection of battery energy storage systems (BESS), cybersecurity, and supply chain vulnerabilities. The workshops emphasize the application of Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles using INL’s procurement guide and the CIE-BAT tool. Attendees will develop risk-based security strategies and actionable compliance roadmaps tailored to their BESS projects. Additionally, the program fosters a collaborative network of practitioners and provides guidance on navigating emerging regulatory requirements, including FEOC rules under the OBBB framework, to assess and enhance organizational readiness. This is Session 1 of 3.

25 - ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

BESS Digital Assurance, Supply Chain Risk Management, and Emerging Regulation Session Two

The TADA BESS Supply Chain Workshops are designed to equip participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to address the evolving challenges at the intersection of battery energy storage systems (BESS), cybersecurity, and supply chain vulnerabilities. The workshops emphasize the application of Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles using INL’s procurement guide and the CIE-BAT tool. Attendees will develop risk-based security strategies and actionable compliance roadmaps tailored to their BESS projects. Additionally, the program fosters a collaborative network of practitioners and provides guidance on navigating emerging regulatory requirements, including FEOC rules under the OBBB framework, to assess and enhance organizational readiness. A comprehensive exploration of BESS cybersecurity supply chain risks, systematic vendor risk assessment through the BESS Procurement Guide, and practical application of the INL SCRM Chatbot for enhanced supply chain resilience. This is Session 2 of 3. (Full Version)

25 - ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2025

BESS Digital Assurance, Supply Chain Risk Management, and Emerging Regulation Session One

The TADA BESS Supply Chain Workshops are designed to equip participants with the knowledge and tools necessary to address the evolving challenges at the intersection of battery energy storage systems (BESS), cybersecurity, and supply chain vulnerabilities. The workshops emphasize the application of Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) principles using INL’s procurement guide and the CIE-BAT tool. Attendees will develop risk-based security strategies and actionable compliance roadmaps tailored to their BESS projects. Additionally, the program fosters a collaborative network of practitioners and provides guidance on navigating emerging regulatory requirements, including FEOC rules under the OBBB framework, to assess and enhance organizational readiness. This is Session 1 of 3. (Full Version)

25 - ENERGY STORAGE↗