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This slide presentation focuses work of the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate (ARMD) with particular interest on the work being done to address the environmental and energy efficiency challenges. Particular interest is on the Subsonic Fixed Wing (SFW) project, though there is discussion of the rotorcraft and the supersonics environmental challenges.
The current NASA microgravity materials science flight research program is reviewed focusing on crystal growth experiments, solidification fundamentals, and thermophysical property measurements of materials. It is noted that most of the hardware which is utilized in joint international cooperation is flown on the International Microgravity Laboratory series of Spacelab missions. The Microgravity Science and Applications Program establishes a framework for the cooperative utilization of the SSF.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is embarking on a course to expand human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) while also expanding its mission to explore the solar system. Destinations such as Near Earth Asteroids (NEA), Mars and its moons, and the outer planets are but a few of the mission targets. Each new destination presents an opportunity to increase our knowledge of the solar system and the unique environments for each mission target. NASA has multiple technical and science discipline areas specializing in specific space environments disciplines that will help serve to enable these missions. To complement these existing discipline areas, a concept is presented focusing on the development of a space environments and spacecraft effects (SENSE) organization. This SENSE organization includes disciplines such as space climate, space weather, natural and induced space environments, effects on spacecraft materials and systems and the transition of research information into application. This space environment and spacecraft effects organization will be composed of Technical Working Groups (TWG). These technical working groups will survey customers and users, generate products, and provide knowledge supporting four functional areas: design environments, engineering effects, operational support, and programmatic support. The four functional areas align with phases in the program mission lifecycle and are briefly described below. Design environments are used primarily in the mission concept and design phases of a program. Engineering effects focuses on the material, component, sub-system and system-level selection and the testing to verify design and operational performance. Operational support provides products based on real time or near real time space weather to mission operators to aid in real time and near-term decision-making. The programmatic support function maintains an interface with the numerous programs within NASA, other federal government agencies, and the commercial sector to ensure that communications are well established and the needs of the programs are being met. The programmatic support function also includes working in coordination with the program in anomaly resolution and generation of lessons learned documentation. The goal of this space environment and spacecraft effects organization is to develop decision-making tools and engineering products to support all mission phases from mission concept through operations by focusing on transitioning research to application. Products generated by this space environments and effects application are suitable for use in anomaly investigations. This paper will describe the scope of the TWGs and their relationship to the functional areas, and discuss an organizational structure for this space environments and spacecraft effects organization.
The paper describes a 1-m high-resolution wide field-of-view telescope (Starlab) to be used on board the Space Shuttle. The purpose of Starlab is to obtain optical astronomical observations in the UV domain of the spectrum. The discussion focuses on scientific programs and technical description of the Starlab. The use of photographic film and rapid reconfiguration is possible because Starlab is flown in the Shuttle-attached mode. The Starlab uses an f/15-modified Ritchey-Chretien telescope, followed by an instrument selector that gives access to the conventional Cassegrain focus or, by inserting a diagonal mirror, to a radial focal plane. Results of five critical subsystem-design studies confirm the feasibility of using state-of-the-art design practices in meeting the Starlab science and engineering requirements.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is embarking on a course to expand human presence beyond Low Earth Orbit (LEO) while also expanding its mission to explore our Earth, and the solar system. Destinations such as Near Earth Asteroids (NEA), Mars and its moons, and the outer planets are but a few of the mission targets. Each new destination presents an opportunity to increase our knowledge on the solar system and the unique environments for each mission target. NASA has multiple technical and science discipline areas specializing in specific space environments fields that will serve to enable these missions. To complement these existing discipline areas, a concept is presented focusing on the development of a space environment and spacecraft effects (SESE) organization. This SESE organization includes disciplines such as space climate, space weather, natural and induced space environments, effects on spacecraft materials and systems, and the transition of research information into application. This space environment and spacecraft effects organization will be composed of Technical Working Groups (TWG). These technical working groups will survey customers and users, generate products, and provide knowledge supporting four functional areas: design environments, engineering effects, operational support, and programmatic support. The four functional areas align with phases in the program mission lifecycle and are briefly described below. Design environments are used primarily in the mission concept and design phases of a program. Environment effects focuses on the material, component, sub-system, and system-level response to the space environment and include the selection and testing to verify design and operational performance. Operational support provides products based on real time or near real time space weather to mission operators to aid in real time and near-term decision-making. The programmatic support function maintains an interface with the numerous programs within NASA, other federal government agencies, and the commercial sector to ensure that communications are well established and the needs of the programs are being met. The programmatic support function also includes working in coordination with the program in anomaly resolution and generation of lessons learned documentation. The goal of this space environment and spacecraft effects organization is to develop decision-making tools and engineering products to support all mission phases from mission concept through operations by focusing on transitioning research to application. Products generated by this space environments and effects application are suitable for use in anomaly investigations. This paper will describe the scope and purpose of the space environments and spacecraft effects organization and describe the TWG's and their relationship to the functional areas.
Addressing performance portability across diverse accelerator architectures has emerged as a major challenge in the development of application and programming systems for high-performance computing environments. Although recent programming systems that focus on performance portability have significantly improved productivity in an effort to meet this challenge, the problem becomes notably more complex when compute nodes are equipped with multiple accelerator types—each with unique performance attributes, optimal data layout, and binary formats. To navigate the intricacies of multi-accelerator programming, we propose CHARM-SYCL as an extension of our CHARM multi-accelerator execution environment [27]. This environment will combine our SYCL-based performance-portability programming front end with a back end for extremely heterogeneous architectures as implemented with the IRIS runtime from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Our preliminary evaluation indicates potential productivity boost and reasonable performance compared to vendor-specific programming system and runtimes.
The technology advancement topics described are a part of the supporting research and technology (SRT) program conducted to support the major Stirling engine development program. This support focuses on developing alternatives or backups to the engine development in critical areas. These areas are materials, seals control, combustors and system analysis. Specific objectives and planned milestone schedules for future activities as now envisioned are described. These planned SRT activities are related to the timeline of the engine development program that they must support.
As part of the overall goal of developing Integrated Vehicle Health Management (IVHM) systems for aerospace vehicles, NASA has focused considerable resources on the development of technologies for Structural Health Management (SHM). The motivations for these efforts are to increase the safety and reliability of aerospace structural systems, while at the same time decreasing operating and maintenance costs. Research and development of SHM technologies has been supported under a variety of programs for both aircraft and spacecraft including the Space Launch Initiative, X-33, Next Generation Launch Technology, and Aviation Safety Program. The major focus of much of the research to date has been on the development and testing of sensor technologies. A wide range of sensor technologies are under consideration including fiber-optic sensors, active and passive acoustic sensors, electromagnetic sensors, wireless sensing systems, MEMS, and nanosensors. Because of their numerous advantages for aerospace applications, most notably being extremely light weight, fiber-optic sensors are one of the leading candidates and have received considerable attention.
The DOE-NE AFC program broadly supports the creation of novel fuel forms including intermetallics, composites, and dopants for high uranium density compounds. While data can be obtained for key performance indicators such as thermal expansion and oxidation resistance in steam, fuel qualification remains a time intensive process. As such, accelerated fuel qualification methods are a recent focus of the program. By first looking at systems with known historical irradiation testing information, like UO 2 , the method of accelerated burnup testing can be validated, followed by use on novel materials with less information available, like silicides and nitrides. The biggest time delay in doing irradiation testing is reaching a “high burnup” fuel, to effectively model how the fuel will behave when it has been fully used. Reaching this point conventionally could take upwards of 30 years. Accelerated burnup would be approaching the threshold of “high burnup”, something on the order or 50GWd/MTU, more quickly, which although achievable in test reactors requires a decade to achieve using current irradiation testing schemes. To achieve this faster rate, the fuel is likely going to be subject to thermal effects commiserate with the increased heat by more fission. In a normal fuel pellet, this increased temperature would operate less efficiently because the thermal diffusivity of the pellet only allows it to transfer heat so quickly, thus causing a high centerline temperature and noticeable stress along the diameter of the pellet. Solutions could include smaller pellets, which would have a greater surface area giving off heat relative to their volume, or “shaped” fuel designs modifying the thermal behavior. The concept that drives the annular pellet design is reduction of the thermal gradient caused from the high “centerline” temperature at the center of a normal pellet to its surface. By removing the center of the pellet, the new centerline will instead be closer to an edge (whether that be the inner or outer edge), allowing cooling to wick away more heat than the traditional design. In an ideal world, the center of the pellet could also have a heat wick running through it allowing heat to be transported away from throughout the pellet. This increase in heat removal would allow the pellet to be subjected to higher energy output, and thus accelerate the burn-up process. UO 2 has been the staple fuel form of nuclear energy for decades, and replacement of this functionally understood material can only be done with sufficient fuel qualification. Increasing the burnup allows us to characterize new fuels with limited to no operational experience behind them, including carbides, nitrides, and silicide’s. Production of the unique geometries detailed herein will allow us to cut qualification times from multi-decadal experiments into the sub-decadal range, vastly increasing the quantity and quality of information available.
High burnup fuel in excess of ~6268 GWd/MTU has been observed to severely fragment when subjected to temperature transient conditions as in a loss-of-coolant accident. In the event of cladding failure, the severely fragmented fuel can relocate into the balloon region and potentially disperse through the burst opening into the reactor’s primary system. This observation has led to implementation of several independent test programs designed to focus on various aspects of fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal. The purpose of this review is to perform a critical, holistic assessment of fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal under loss-of-coolant conditions to identify data gaps in the experimental data base. Phenomena have been identified and well defined through the various testing programs, and general agreement regarding the governing parameters (temperature, burnup, heating rate, cladding deformation, etc.) has been established. However, there is a significant data gap connecting research to commercial application. Furthermore, previous research attempted to evaluate the problem holistically, but has yet to provide a comprehensive understanding of the problem. Major identified data gaps consist of (1) a comprehensive understanding of pretransient fuel rod conditions (fuel temperature, fuel stress, rod internal pressures, microstructure, etc.), (2) definition of prototypic loss-of-coolant accident conditions (heating rate, fuel temperatures, fuel stress), (3) identification of the differences between nuclear and electrical integral loss-of-coolant accident tests, and connection of fuel rod performance (cladding ballooning, burst opening, potential relocation, fragmentation susceptibility, etc.) to fuel fragmentation, relocation, and dispersal severity. Finally, the content of this manuscript provides a clear path for connecting testing and data acquisition to commercial application by providing concrete means for filling data gaps and prioritized testing regimes.
This document reports on the findings of an inventory of the educational and workforce development resources in a four-county area on the I-91 corridor in Connecticut. The overarching goal of this exercise is to help the local workforce leaders in Bridgeport, Connecticut to optimize their training programs to support the county's clean energy transition. The inventory generally finds that Fairfield County, where Bridgeport is located, lacks adequate education and training programs compared to other surrounding counties with similar populations. More than half of Fairfield County's programs occur through high school or career technical education programs, suggesting that there are minimal opportunities for workers who are not currently high school students. Much of the existing focus within Fairfield County is on general construction or plumbing and electrical skills. There is room to expand by offering more programs focusing on energy efficiency and renewable energy skills. The document outlines some potential next steps and questions for consideration for the local workforce leaders in Bridgeport. Bridgeport is a city located within Fairfield County in southwestern Connecticut. It is the largest city in Connecticut with an estimated population of 150,000. Through the Department of Energy-funded Communities LEAP program, NREL conducted an analysis of existing education and workforce development (EWD) programs located in Fairfield County that align with (or could support) the worker pipeline for occupations related to building energy efficiency (EE), renewable energy (RE), and clean energy manufacturing. The analysis also looked at EWD offerings in other counties in Connecticut as a point of comparison.
In a joint program involving Prof. F.A. Williams of the University of California, San Diego and Dr. V. Nayagam of the National Center for Microgravity Research on Combustion and Fluid Dynamics, the combustion of liquid fuel droplets of n-heptane, n-decane, methanol, methanol-water, ethanol and ethanol-water having initial diameters between about 1 mm and 6 mm continues to be studied. The objectives of the work are to improve fundamental knowledge of droplet combustion dynamics for pure fuels and fuel-water mixtures through microgravity experiments and theoretical analyses. The Princeton contributions to the collaborative program supports the engineering design, data analysis, and data interpretation requirements for the study of initially single component, spherically symmetric, isolated droplet combustion studies through experiments and numerical modeling. The complementary UCSD contributions apply asymptotic theoretical analyses and are described in the published literature and in a companion communication in this conference. The combined program continues to focus on analyses of results obtained from Fiber Supported Droplet Combustion (FSDC) experiments (FSDC-2, STS- 94) conducted with the above fuels in shuttle cabin air and Droplet Combustion Experiment (DCE) data obtained for unsupported and fiber supported droplets of n-heptane in Helium-Oxygen mixtures and cabin air (STS-83, STS-94). The program is preparing for a second DCE experimental mission using methanol/methanol-water as fuels and helium-oxygen-nitrogen environments. DCE-2 is to be conducted aboard the International Space Station. Emphases of recent Princeton work are on the study of simple alcohols (methanol, ethanol) and alcohol/water mixtures as fuels, with time-dependent measurements of drop size, flame-standoff, liquid-phase composition, and finally, extinction. Ground based experiments have included bench-scale studies at Princeton and collaborative experimental studies in the 2.2 second drop tower at NASA-Glenn Research Center.
The project spearheaded by Pennsylvania State University aims to address the growing need for integrating energy-focused computation and data science into building engineering education. As the demand for energy-efficient building designs and operations increases, the educational sector must adapt to equip future engineers with the necessary skills. This initiative responds to this need by developing a consortium that unites multiple institutions to enhance curriculum development, dataset curation, and resource sharing, thereby ensuring students are well-prepared for the evolving energy sector. The primary goal of the project is to establish a consortium that will develop and disseminate educational materials and training programs focused on energy-related data science and computation. Key accomplishments include the creation of a beta website for resource sharing, the development of training programs and standalone modules, and the curation of datasets accessible to the public. This effort will culminate in a curriculum that incorporates advanced modeling technologies and data science skills into building engineering programs.
Though the rapid decline in the cost of solar has resulted in unprecedented levels of solar deployment across the country, the majority of residential solar installations have been in middle-to-affluent households. Also, federal energy assistance programs have traditionally focused on weatherization with energy efficiency measures or bill assistance. Coupled with innovative financing mechanisms, solar photovoltaics (PV) now present another attractive option for helping low-income households reduce their energy burden. Seizing this opportunity, several states have undertaken efforts to include solar investments in Department of Health and Human Services' Low-Income Heating and Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) and the Department of Energy's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) funded projects. To support these state initiatives, DOE's WAP and the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) have been collaborating with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to provide states with additional guidance and technical support to gain approval to use WAP funds for PV. Early examples of states demonstrating cost effectiveness of PV within Colorado and New York state SETO and NREL have also begun exploring how established solar business models could align with the LIHEAP utility assistance model.
The conference goals were: (1) to provide a setting for Space Grant College/Consortia leaders to meet and discuss program plans; (2) to provide participants with updates on major NASA science and engineering programs and educational affairs activities; and (3) to hold workshops on themes of critical importance to the program. The conference agenda focused primarily on a series of 15 workshops in which program directors or their designees discussed components of the Space Grant Program. These components - outreach, pre-college education, publicity, and organization - were earlier incorporated in very specific ways within individual program plans. The conference, thus, afforded those attending an opportunity to exchange information and concerns regarding program elements while exploring ways to structure, enhance and perhaps broaden their program plans. Space Grant representatives also discussed with headquarters officials ways in which the Space Grant Program itself should be evaluated.
The future of the United States is in the classrooms of America and tomorrow's scientific and technological capabilities are derived from today's investments in research. In 1980, NASA initiated the Graduate Student Researchers Program (GSRP) to cultivate additional research ties to the academic community and to support promising students pursuing advanced degrees in science and engineering. Since then, approximately 1300 students have completed the program's requirements. In 1987, the program was expanded to include the Underrepresented Minority and Disabled Focus (UMDF) Component. This program was designed to increase participation of underrepresented groups in graduate study and research and, ultimately, in space science and aerospace technology careers. Approximately 270 minority students have completed the program's requirements while making significant contributions to the nation's aerospace efforts. Continuing to expand fellowship opportunities, NASA announced the Graduate Student Fellowships in Global Change Research in 1990. Designed to support the rapid growth in the study of earth as a system, more than 250 fellowships have been awarded. And, in 1992, NASA announced opportunities in the multiagency High Performance Computing and Communications (HPCC) Program designed to accelerate the development and application of massively parallel processing. Approximately five new fellowships will be awarded yearly. This booklet will guide you in your efforts to participate in programs for graduate student support.
NASA provides funds for a variety of research programs whose principal focus is to collect and analyze terrestrial analog materials. These data are used to (1) understand and interpret planetary geology; (2) identify and characterize habitable environments and pre-biotic/biotic processes; (3) interpret returned data from present and past missions; and (4) evaluate future mission and instrument concepts prior to selection for flight. Data management plans are now required for these programs, but the collected data are still not generally available to the community. There is also little possibility to re-analyze the collected materials by other techniques, since there is no requirement to archive collected samples. The Planetary Materials Database (PMD) is a central, high-quality, long-term data repository, which aims to promote the field of astrobiology and increase scientific returns from NASA funded research by enabling data sharing, collaboration and exposure of non-NASA scientists to NASA research initiatives and missions. The PMD is a linked collection of databases developed using the Open Data Repository (ODR) system. The PMD will include detailed descriptions of terrestrial analog planetary materials as well as data from the instruments used in their analysis. The goal is to provide example patterns/spectra/analyses, etc. and background information suitable for use by the Space Science community. An early example showing the utility of these databases (although not in the ODR format) is the RRUFF mineral database. RRUFF, comprising 4,000+ pure mineral standards, is the most popular and widely used dataset of minerals and receives more than 180,000 queries per week from geologists and mineralogists worldwide. The PMD will be patterned after the CheMin database [3], a resource that contains all of the data collected by the MSL CheMin XRD instrument on Mars. Raw and processed CheMin data can be viewed, downloaded, reprocessed and reanalyzed using cloud-based “applications” linked to the data.