Software development and verification technology
Procedures for development and verification of complex software used in space shuttle data management system
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Procedures for development and verification of complex software used in space shuttle data management system
The Army Corps of Engineers research and development efforts associated with the ERTS Program are confined to applications of investigation, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of water resource projects. Problems investigated covered: (1) resource inventory; (2) environmental impact; (3) pollution monitoring; (4) water circulation; (5) sediment transport; (6) data collection systems; (7) engineering; and (8) model verification. These problem areas were investigated in relation to bays, reservoirs, lakes, rivers, coasts, and regions. ERTS-1 imagery has been extremely valuable in developing techniques and is now being used in everyday applications.
A FORTRAN computer program called THERMTRAJ is presented which can be used to compute the trajectory of high altitude scientific zero pressure balloons from launch through all subsequent phases of the balloon flight. In addition, balloon gas and film temperatures can be computed at every point of the flight. The program has the ability to account for ballasting, changes in cloud cover, variable atmospheric temperature profiles, and both unconditional valving and scheduled valving of the balloon gas. The program was verified for an extensive range of balloon sizes (from 0.5 to 41.47 million cubic feet). Instructions on program usage, listing of the program source deck, input data and printed and plotted output for a verification case are included.
Flight critical computer based control systems designed for advanced aircraft must exhibit ultrareliable performance in lightning charged environments. Digital system upset can occur as a result of lightning induced electrical transients, and a methodology was developed to test specific digital systems for upset susceptibility. Initial upset data indicates that there are several distinct upset modes and that the occurrence of upset is related to the relative synchronization of the transient input with the processing sate of the digital system. A large upset test data base will aid in the formulation and verification of analytical upset reliability modeling techniques which are being developed.
The primary purpose of the Deep Space Network (DSN) is to serve as a communications instrument for deep space exploration, providing communications between the spacecraft and the ground facilities. The uplink communications channel provides instructions or commands to the spacecraft. The downlink communications channel provides command verification and spacecraft engineering and science instrument payload data.
An algorithm has been developed to derive the horizontal and vertical distribution of clouds from the same set of infrared radiance data used to retrieve atmospheric temperature profiles. The method leads to the determination of the vertical atmospheric temperature structure and the cloud distribution simultaneously, providing information on heat sources and sinks, storage rates and transport phenomena in the atmosphere. Experimental verification of this algorithm was obtained using the 15-micron data measured by the NOAA-VTPR temperature sounder. After correcting for water vapor emission, the results show that the cloud cover derived from 15-micron data is less than that obtained from visible data.
Driver program allows for programing, reading, and verification of various PROM's. Manual entry of data to DATA/I/O PROM Programmer timeconsuming and error-prone. Driver program combines file management capability of EXORCISOR with flexibility of DATA I/O system. Provides user with way of reading, programing and verifying PROM's storing data on disk, modifying files and printing data.
The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of the FGGE SOS on the GLAS analyses and forecasts in the Southern Hemisphere, and to evaluate the relative importance of its components, and in particular, the impact of the loss of surface buoys. This discussion is limited to the forecast impact of the FGGE system upon a region between 28 deg S and 56 deg S, 50 deg W-80 W which includes essentially the southern cone of South America. Although forecast skill is verified against the NMC analysis, which used only VTPR but no TIROS-N data in the Southern Hemisphere, enough conventional data exists over this region to avoid biased verifications.
The purpose of this paper is to quantify the impact of the FGGE SOS on the GLAS analyses and forecasts in the Southern Hemisphere, and to evaluate the relative importance of its components, and in particular, the impact of the loss of surface buoys. This discussion is limited to the forecast impact of the FGGE system upon a region between 28 deg S and 56 deg S, 50 deg W-80 W which includes essentially the southern cone of South America. Although forecast skill is verified against the NMC analysis, which used only VTPR but no TIROS-N data in the Southern Hemisphere, enough conventional data exists over this region to avoid biased verifications.
Report traces development of imaging radar polarimetry at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory during recent years. When fully developed, multipolarization synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) systems aboard aircraft and spacecraft expected to yield wealth of data for assessment of resources, agricultural forecasting, and verification of radar-scattering calculations.
A computer program has been developed to model the steady-state performance of single and two-phase heat transport systems. The development effort had the intent of making the program general, relatively easy to implement and easy to integrate into currently available software. The primary use of the program is for, but not limited to, heat transport system for spacecraft. In order to show the program has achieved its intended goals, the program was first applied to a small loop and a quick parametric study done. Next a verification study was done in which the temperature data from a thermal loop flown on the space shuttle was compared to modeler predictions.
The vapor scrubbing system and the coulometric test procedure for the low level vapor verification of monomethyl hydrazine (MMH) are evaluated. Experimental data on precision, efficiency of the scrubbing liquid, instrument response, detection and reliable quantitation limits, stability of the vapor scrubbed solution, and interference were obtained to assess the applicability of the method for the low ppb level detection of the analyte vapor in air. The results indicated that the analyte vapor scrubbing system and the coulometric test procedure can be utilized for the quantitative detection of low ppb level vapor of MMH in air.
The configuration of the TOPEX/Poseidon mission is discussed in an overview of the launch and experimental objectives related to the deployment planned for 1992. The spacecraft carries equipment for radar altimetry and precise orbit determination, and the instruments are expected to provide precise observations of global ocean dynamics. Six scientific instruments are described including the Laser Retroreflector Array, the Tracking System Receiver, and GPS Demonstration Receiver. Also described are the orbit configuration of the satellite, verification of system performance, and the techniques for data processing. The observations from the TOPEX/Poseidon experiment can provide data that is free of sea-level variabilities and describes the general circulation of the ocean and its variability.
Several investigators had determined that some atmospheric parameters were related to the formation and severity of microbursts. For example, Caracena pointed out the relationship between a dry adiabatic lapse rate and microbursts in 'The crash of Delta Flight 191 at Dallas-Fort Worth international airport'. These early investigations led to the idea that numeric modeling of microbursts with varying atmospheric parameters might define 'signatures' that could lead to determining the probability of microburst intensity. The idea was that, by using already available sensors (such as static air temperature, pressure altitude, and radar reflectivity) onboard an aircraft, a reliable prediction of microburst existence and intensity could be formed. Such data could be used to create an 'expert meteorologist' using either artificial intelligence or other techniques that could be used in either reactive or look-ahead systems to vary sensitivity thresholds and coordinate the inputs from different detecting systems. To this end, Honeywell contracted to have the microburst simulations run. The questions to be addressed were the following: using the sensor set available to the aircraft (e.g. temperature, radar reflectivity, etc.), can we calculate the probability that (1) a microburst could be formed? and (2) that the resultant winds would be of sufficient magnitude to threaten the aircraft? Over a two year period, a data set of 1800 microburst simulations was accumulated. Verification of the microburst simulation was obtained using the results of other independent researchers and actual comparison to microburst events in Orlando and Denver. Some of the results from the simulation have already been incorporated into Honeywell's Windshear Detection and Guidance System with excellent results. Various aspects of this investigation are presented in viewgraph form.
The Cryogenic Heat Pipe (CRYOHP) Experiment has been designed to test two cryogenic heat pipes independently in a micro-gravity environment. The CRYOHP experiment is manifested for flight aboard the shuttle (STS-53) which is scheduled for launch in November, 1992. This paper presents the design of this experiment and the thermal vacuum verification test results. A correlation of the test data and the planned mission operations are also provided.
The objective of the task reported herein, which was conducted as part of the NASA sponsored Large Engine Technology program, was to define and evaluate a near-term rich-zone liner construction based on currently available materials and fabrication processes for a Rich-Quench-Lean combustor. This liner must be capable of operation at the temperatures and pressures of simulated HSCT flight conditions but only needs sufficient durability for limited duration testing in combustor rigs and demonstrator engines in the near future. This must be achieved at realistic cooling airflow rates since the approach must not compromise the emissions, performance, and operability of the test combustors, relative to the product engine goals. The effort was initiated with an analytical screening of three different liner construction concepts. These included a full cylinder metallic liner and one with multiple segments of monolithic ceramic, both of which incorporated convective cooling on the external surface using combustor airflow that bypassed the rich zone. The third approach was a metallic platelet construction with internal convective cooling. These three metal liner/jacket combinations were tested in a modified version of an existing Rich-Quench-Lean combustor rig to obtain data for heat transfer model refinement and durability verification.
An analytical approach for spin-stabilized spacecraft attitude prediction is presented for the influence of the residual magnetic torques and the satellite in an elliptical orbit. Assuming a quadripole model for the Earth s magnetic field, an analytical averaging method is applied to obtain the mean residual torque in every orbital period. The orbit mean anomaly is used to compute the average components of residual torque in the spacecraft body frame reference system. The theory is developed for time variations in the orbital elements, giving rise to many curvature integrals. It is observed that the residual magnetic torque does not have component along the spin axis. The inclusion of this torque on the rotational motion differential equations of a spin stabilized spacecraft yields conditions to derive an analytical solution. The solution shows that the residual torque does not affect the spin velocity magnitude, contributing only for the precession and the drift of the spin axis of the spacecraft. The theory developed has been applied to the Brazilian s spin stabilized satellites, which are quite appropriated for verification and comparison of the theory with the data generated and processed by the Satellite Control Center of Brazil National Research Institute. The results show the period that the analytical solution can be used to the attitude propagation, within the dispersion range of the attitude determination system performance of Satellite Control Center of Brazil National Research Institute.
A theoretical method for evaluating the stability characteristics and the amplitude and the frequency of pulsation of ram-jet engines without heat addition is presented herein. Experimental verification of the theoretical results are included where data were available. Theory and experiment show that the pulsation amplitude of a high mass-flow-ratio diffuser having no cone surface flow separation increases with decreasing mass flow. The theoretical trends for changes in amplitude, frequency, and mean-pressure recovery with changes in plenum-chamber volume were experimentally confirmed. For perforated convergent-divergent-type diffusers, a stability hysteresis loop was predicted on the pressure-recovery mass-flow-ratio curve. At a given mean mass-flow ratio, the higher.value of mean pressure recovery corresponded to oscillatory flow in the diffuser while the lower branch was stable. This hysteresis has been observed experimentally. The theory indicates that for a ram-jet engine of given diameter, the amplitude of pulsation of a supersonic diffuser is increased by decreasing the relative size of the plenum chamber with respect to the diffuser volume down to a critical value at which oscillations cease. In the region of these critical values, the stable mass-flow range of the diffuser may be increased either by decreasing the combustion chamber volume or by increasing the length of the diffuser.