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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2023

Sustainable Development in Algeria’s Urban Areas: Population Growth and Land Consumption

We analyzed the urban development sustainability in five major urban areas of Algeria by the standard of the UN Sustainability Development Goal indicator SDG 11.3.1, which focuses on the ratio of land consumption rate to population growth rate. We utilized the annual global artificial impervious area (GAIA) dataset to characterize land-use and population data from the two censuses carried out by the National Office of Statistics (ONS) for 2008 and 2018. We discuss the prevailing relationship between urban land consumption rate and population growth rate at the smallest territorial and population census unit scale. We confirm that the indicator SDG 11.3.1 is nonlinear and that while, for example, the wilaya of Tlemcen as a whole appears to be on a sustainable path, twenty-one of its communes are not. We found that overall, and for most of its communes, the wilaya of Oran seems to have an urban land use commensurable to its population growth, but in the wilaya of Algiers, out of fifty-seven communes, only fourteen have a tendency towards sustain-able development. However, the latter wilaya hosts the country’s capital and includes government buildings that are uninhabited but are accounted for as land consumed, and as such, the relationship between urban land consumption and population growth is biased. The wilaya of Annaba showed large discrepancies in terms of land use and population growth rates, and the evolution of these quantities is not homogenous across communes and not sustainable. In the Saharan wilaya of Ghardaia, the development is not homogeneous in all communes, with smaller communes undergoing buildup increases of more than 150% over the decade. Finally, in all communes where population growth exceeded urban land growth, there will be overcrowding, an aspect neither the SDG 11.3.1 nor the impervious surface per capita indicator captures. This result, in addition to other limitations, makes SDG 11.3.1 incomplete for the determination of the sustainable development in urban areas.

Algeria↗
DOE OSTI2020

Sequim Campus Master Plan

Based in Richland, Washington, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is one of ten U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) national laboratories. PNNL is DOE’s premier chemistry, earth sciences, and data analytics laboratory, delivering vital mission impacts in energy resiliency and national security. PNNL has 19 core capabilities, each a powerful combination of world-class staff, state-of-the- art equipment, and mission-ready facilities. These capabilities represent a collective set of skills and a body of world-leading scientific and engineering work that provides exceptional value and mission delivery to DOE, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal agencies and industry through strategic partnership projects on a not-to-interfere basis. Currently operated by Battelle Memorial Institute, PNNL occupies more than 2.3 million gross square feet (GSF) of buildings and employs approximately 4,700 staff members. PNNL has implemented a rolling 10-year campus strategy, initiated in fiscal year 2013, designed to deliver the foundation for the multidisciplinary science and engineering expertise, equipment, instrumentation, facilities, and infrastructure required to continue providing exceptional value and mission delivery. This strategy is incorporated into PNNL’s annual Laboratory Plan, which serves as DOE-SC’s equivalent of the Five- Year Site Plan required by DOE Order 430.1C Chg. 1, Real Property Asset Management. The PNNL Sequim Campus is located in Clallam County, just outside of Sequim, Washington. PNNL Sequim builds upon a rich history of research related to marine and coastal resources, environmental chemistry, water resources modeling, ecotoxicology, biotechnology, and national security. Facilities at the PNNL Sequim Campus were designed to take advantage of two unique locational assets: the pristine coastal ocean water in Sequim Bay and the region’s exceptionally clean air. Research facilities on the waterfront are supplied with up to 200 gallons per minute (gpm) of seawater and/or groundwater that enables research on aquatic systems ranging from fully seawater to fresh water, with an onsite water treatment system that removes all biological and hazardous chemical residues prior to discharge. Multiple large seawater tanks outside the waterfront laboratories, along with a boat ramp, pier, and floating dock, enable lab-to-field research. The uplands facility takes advantage of the amazing air quality and is built and operated to enable ultratrace chemical/radiological analytical chemistry. This combination of capabilities is not available at any other marine laboratory in the nation.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
NASA NTRS1999

Bion-11 Spaceflight Mission

The Sensors 2000! Program, in support of the Space Life Sciences Payloads Office at NASA Ames Research Center developed a suite of bioinstrumentation hardware for use on the Joint US/Russian Bion I I Biosatellite Mission (December 24, 1996 - January 7, 1997). This spaceflight included 20 separate experiments that were organized into a complimentary and interrelated whole, and performed by teams of US, Russian, and French investigators. Over 40 separate parameters were recorded in-flight on both analog and digital recording media for later analysis. These parameters included; Electromyogram (7 ch), Electrogastrogram, Electrooculogram (2 ch), ECG/EKG, Electroencephlogram (2 ch), single fiber firing of Neurovestibular afferent nerves (7 ch), Tendon Force, Head Motion Velocity (pitch & yaw), P02 (in vivo & ambient), temperature (deep body, skin, & ambient), and multiple animal and spacecraft performance parameters for a total of 45 channels of recorded data. Building on the close cooperation of previous missions, US and Russian engineers jointly developed, integrated, and tested the physiologic instrumentation and data recording system. For the first time US developed hardware replaced elements of the Russian systems resulting in a US/Russian hybrid instrumentation and data system that functioned flawlessly during the 14 day mission.

Skidmore, M.↗
NASA NTRS2011

Application of the Life Safety Code to a Historic Test Stand

NASA has conducted a study to assess alternatives to refurbishing existing launch vehicle modal test facilities as opposed to developing new test facilities to meet the demands of a very fiscally constrained test and evaluation environment. The results of this study showed that Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Test Stand (TS) 4550 could be made compliant, within reasonable cost and schedule impacts, if safety processes and operational limitations were put in place to meet the safety codes and concerns of the Fire Marshall. Trades were performed with key selection criteria to ensure that appropriate levels of occupant safety are incorporated into test facility design modifications. In preparation for the ground vibration tests that were to be performed on the Ares I launch vehicle, the Ares Flight and Integrated Test Office (FITO) organization evaluated the available test facility options, which included the existing mothballed structural dynamic TS4550 used by Apollo and Shuttle, alternative ground vibration test facilities at other locations, and construction of a new dynamic test stand. After an exhaustive assessment of the alternatives, the results favored modifying the TS4550 because it was the lowest cost option and presented the least schedule risk to the NASA Constellation Program for Ares Integrated Vehicle Ground Vibration Test (IVGVT). As the renovation design plans and drawings were being developed for TS4550, a safety concern was discovered the original design for the construction of the test stand, originally built for the Apollo Program and renovated for the Shuttle Program, was completed before NASA s adoption of the currently imposed safety and building codes per National Fire Protection Association Life Safety Code [NFPA 101] and International Building Codes. The initial FITO assessment of the design changes, required to make TS4550 compliant with current safety and building standards, identified a significant cost increase and schedule impact. An effort was launched to thoroughly evaluate the applicable life safety requirements, examine the context in which they were derived, and determine a means by which the TS4550 modifications could be made within budget and on schedule, while still providing the occupants with appropriate levels of safety.

Askins, Bruce↗
NASA NTRS2014

The Experimental Regional Ensemble Forecast System (ExREF): Its Use in NWS Forecast Operations and Preliminary Verification

The Experimental Regional Ensemble Forecast (ExREF) system is a tool for the development and testing of new Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) methodologies. ExREF is run in near‐realtime by the Global Systems Division (GSD) of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL) and its products are made available through a website, an ftp site, and via the Unidata Local Data Manager (LDM). The ExREF domain covers most of North America and has 9‐km horizontal grid spacing. The ensemble has eight members, all employing WRF‐ARW. The ensemble uses a variety of initial conditions from LAPS and the Global Forecasting System (GFS) and multiple boundary conditions from the GFS ensemble. Additionally, a diversity of physical parameterizations is used to increase ensemble spread and to account for the uncertainty in forecasting extreme precipitation events. ExREF has been a component of the Hydrometeorology Testbed (HMT) NWP suite in the 2012‐2013 and 2013‐2014 winters. A smaller domain covering just the West Coast was created to minimize band‐width consumption for the NWS. This smaller domain has and is being distributed to the National Weather Service (NWS) Weather Forecast Office and California Nevada River Forecast Center in Sacramento, California, where it is ingested into the Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS I and II) to provide guidance on the forecasting of extreme precipitation events. This paper will review the cooperative effort employed by NOAA ESRL, NASA SPoRT (Short‐term Prediction Research and Transition Center), and the NWS to facilitate the ingest and display of ExREF data utilizing the AWIPS I and II D2D and GFE (Graphical Software Editor) software. Within GFE is a very useful verification software package called BoiVer that allows the NWS to utilize the River Forecast Center's 4 km gridded QPE to compare with all operational NWP models 6‐hr QPF along with the ExREF mean 6‐hr QPF so the forecasters can build confidence in the use of the ExREF in preparing their rainfall forecasts. Preliminary results will be presented.

Reynolds, David↗
NASA NTRS2016

Probabilistic Survivability Versus Time Modeling

This presentation documents Kennedy Space Center's Independent Assessment work completed on three assessments for the Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program to assist the Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer during key programmatic reviews and provided the GSDO Program with analyses of how egress time affects the likelihood of astronaut and ground worker survival during an emergency. For each assessment, a team developed probability distributions for hazard scenarios to address statistical uncertainty, resulting in survivability plots over time. The first assessment developed a mathematical model of probabilistic survivability versus time to reach a safe location using an ideal Emergency Egress System at Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B); the second used the first model to evaluate and compare various egress systems under consideration at LC-39B. The third used a modified LC-39B model to determine if a specific hazard decreased survivability more rapidly than other events during flight hardware processing in Kennedy's Vehicle Assembly Building.

Operational Hazards↗
DOE OSTI2023

SAM Software Quality Assurance Plan Implementation and NQA-1 Assessment

The System Analysis Module (SAM) is an advanced and modern system analysis tool being developed at Argonne National Laboratory under the U.S. DOE Office of Nuclear Energy’s Nuclear Energy Advanced Modeling and Simulation (NEAMS) program. As a modern-day software, SAM development included efforts to follow best practices in software development. These best practices include version control using git, independent reviews of development activities, and detailed descriptions of developments and bug fixes using the GitLab issue and merge request system. In Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), the SAM development team set out to formalize a Software Quality Assurance (SQA) program that allowed industry partners to credit the informal steps being taken by the SAM development team to ensure the quality of the software. As part of formalizing an SQA program, a SQA Plan (SQAP) was developed, implemented, and assessed. The SAM SQAP targets compliance with NQA-1-2008/2009 Addenda. The SQAP builds on the MOOSE SQAP and the Argonne SSQAPP while accounting for the needs of the multi-organization SAM development team. Modifications to the SAM repository structure, including a new testing system, updated test cases, and the development of an internal website, facilitate the implementation of the SAM SQAP. The initial assessment of the SAM SQAP indicated that the SAM SQAP was adequately and effectively implemented and additional work was required to improve the compliance of the SAM SQAP with NQA-1 2008/2009 Addenda. Several improvements to the SQAP have already been drafted to address these assessments and future work is planned to further improve the SAM SQAP in support of end-user needs.

22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS↗
NASA NTRS2002

MDP: Reliable File Transfer for Space Missions

This paper presents work being done at NASA/GSFC by the Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI) project to demonstrate the application of the Multicast Dissemination Protocol (MDP) to space missions to reliably transfer files. This work builds on previous work by the OMNI project to apply Internet communication technologies to space communication. The goal of this effort is to provide an inexpensive, reliable, standard, and interoperable mechanism for transferring files in the space communication environment. Limited bandwidth, noise, delay, intermittent connectivity, link asymmetry, and one-way links are all possible issues for space missions. Although these are link-layer issues, they can have a profound effect on the performance of transport and application level protocols. MDP, a UDP-based reliable file transfer protocol, was designed for multicast environments which have to address these same issues, and it has done so successfully. Developed by the Naval Research Lab in the mid 1990's, MDP is now in daily use by both the US Post Office and the DoD. This paper describes the use of MDP to provide automated end-to-end data flow for space missions. It examines the results of a parametric study of MDP in a simulated space link environment and discusses the results in terms of their implications for space missions. Lessons learned are addressed, which suggest minor enhancements to the MDP user interface to add specific features for space mission requirements, such as dynamic control of data rate, and a checkpoint/resume capability. These are features that are provided for in the protocol, but are not implemented in the sample MDP application that was provided. A brief look is also taken at the status of standardization. A version of MDP known as NORM (Neck Oriented Reliable Multicast) is in the process of becoming an IETF standard.

Rash, James↗
DOE OSTI2020

Facility Cybersecurity Framework Best Practices

Federal facilities are increasingly adopting automation and connecting to the Internet creating an energy-internet-of-things environment that converges operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). Today's buildings increasingly weave together networked sensors and cyber and physical systems that enable data to be collected, aggregated, exchanged, stored and monetized in new ways. Building technological advances have created new energy technology, services, markets and value creation opportunities (e.g. transactive energy, two-way grid communications, machine learning, and increased use of renewable and distributed energy resources). But as larger data sets are being exchanged at faster speeds between an increasing number of OT systems, it becomes more difficult to protect the security of the data lifecycle and the physical equipment it interacts with. These challenges are especially difficult to overcome because the economic and environmental gain (interoperability, big data, social networks and ubiquitous information sharing) are driving these prominent trends in the digital age. Often cybersecurity is an afterthought. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) funded the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to develop various cybersecurity tools, trainings, and reports to aid federal facility managers – and other building owners and operators – in better applying frameworks and lessons learned from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF), risk management framework (RMF), DOE’s cybersecurity capability maturity model (C2M2), and a wide variety of industry best practices and guidance documents (i.e., NIST 800 series, Department of Defense United Facilities Criteria). This set of tools, collectively known as the FEMP Facility-Related Control System Cyber Toolkit (FRCS Cyber Toolkit)2, is focused on cybersecurity concerns from facility-related control systems and other operational technology (OT), such as industrial control systems (ICS). The FRCS Cyber Toolkit can be applied across six of the sixteen critical infrastructure sectors designated by the Department of Homeland Security, including government facilities, healthcare and public health, commercial facilities (e.g., public assembly, offices, lodging), financial services (e.g., banking and insurance), emergency services (e.g., fire and police stations), and information technology. With increasingly converged IT and OT systems, it is crucial to address OT cybersecurity considerations and assess how the seam of these two systems could impact the overall cybersecurity posture of a facility. The objective of this report is to provide an overview of the best possible method to use FRCS Cyber Toolkit (section 2.0) and distilled cybersecurity best practices for the federal facilities to address growing non-linear cyber threats (section 3.0). Recommendations in this document are aggregated from several NIST and other documents (see Appendix A for additional details).

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
NASA NTRS2002

MDP: Reliable File Transfer for Space Missions

This paper presents work being done at NASA/GSFC (Goddard Space Flight Center) by the Operating Missions as Nodes on the Internet (OMNI) project to demonstrate the application of the Multicast Dissemination Protocol (MDP) to space missions to reliably transfer files. This work builds on previous work by the OMNI project to apply Internet communication technologies to space communication. The goal of this effort is to provide an inexpensive, reliable, standard, and interoperable mechanism for transferring files in the space communication environment. Limited bandwidth, noise, delay, intermittent connectivity, link asymmetry, and one-way links are all possible issues for space missions. Although these are link-layer issues, they can have a profound effect on the performance of transport and application level protocols. MDP, a UDP (User Datagram Protocol)-based reliable file transfer protocol, was designed for multicast environments which have to address these same issues, and it has done so successfully. Developed by the Naval Research Lab in the mid 1990s, MDP is now in daily use by both the US Post Office and the DoD (Department of Defense). This paper describes the use of MDP to provide automated end-to-end data flow for space missions. It examines the results of a parametric study of MDP in a simulated space link environment and discusses the results in terms of their implications for space missions. Lessons learned are addressed, which suggest minor enhancements to the MDP user interface to add specific features for space mission requirements, such as dynamic control of data rate, and a checkpoint/resume capability. These are features that are provided for in the protocol, but are not implemented in the sample MDP application that was provided. A brief look is also taken at the status of standardization. A version of MDP known as NORM (Nack Oriented Reliable Multicast) is in the process of becoming an IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) standard.

Rash, James↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Resilience efforts tend to reinforce injustices. Communities who experience disproportionate climate impacts are often excluded from resilience planning, and those plans do not typically address root causes of social vulnerability. More transformational approaches to resilience would shift decision-making power into communities and affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changing world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aims to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build community cohesion. My mixed methods research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different municipalities navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, my empirical results will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities, offices of community engagement, and practitioners. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2024

The PHASE Project: New Research and Tools to Inform Pollinator Habitat on Utility-Scale Solar

The solar industry is responding to demand for building a clean energy future. At the same time, pollinator declines and habitat losses are resulting in listing consideration for once-common species like monarch butterflies, plus petitions to list bees and other species. How can projects responsibly co-locate pollinator plantings at solar facilities? What ecological and performance benefits can be realized from pollinator plantings? How do developers and owners weigh the costs and challenges of maintaining pollinator plantings and determine the effects it has on power generation, community acceptance, and operations? The Pollinator Habitat Aligned with Solar Energy (PHASE) project is a four-year research project that aims to answer these questions and better support the solar industry in successfully implementing pollinator plantings. This project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Energy Technologies Office. In collaboration with an advisory group composed of industry and technical professionals, the PHASE team developed methodologies to evaluate the impacts of plantings on both biodiversity and the facility operations, including the diversity of plant and insect communities, pollinator services being provided by the site, and the effects of pollinator vegetation on panel temperature and efficiency. The PHASE team also used data to develop tools designed to better support solar industry decision-making on pollinator vegetation including a Pollinator Planting Implementation Manual, a Cost Comparison Tool, a Seed Selection Tool, and Habitat Assessment Module Guidance. Final versions of the four tools will be released this year.

agrivoltaic↗
DOE OSTI2024

Data Analytics and Visualization of Energy Systems for Critical Infrastructure Insights

Modernization of energy systems including transportation facilities provides opportunities for increased efficiency, expansion of commerce and meeting industry and federal goals. A significant increase in electrical demand is projected to meet these needs, which concentrates at facilities such as airports. For example, Xcel Energy working with two airports in their service area recently published information projecting an up to fivefold increase in electricity demand in the next 25 years [1]. Concurrently, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently surveyed 30 commercial service airports identifying more than 300 outages of more than 5 minutes between 2015 and 2022 [2]. Power, reliability, and resilience planning becomes more important to safely maintain operations and the flow of commerce with fewer energy carriers providing necessary energy to safely move passengers and goods. NREL proposes to develop methodologies to allow owners, utilities, and federal agencies to dynamically analyze, forecast, and manage energy loads at airports, focused upon maintaining the flow of commerce in an efficient, sustainable, and resilient way. To address these energy challenges, a suite of technologies and methodologies can be leveraged to validate concepts, inform design, de-risk solutions and optimize energy management during deployment. These technologies include digitalization of energy systems, microgrid methodologies, and related energy technologies for building and vehicle loads. [1] Electrifying Airport Ecosystems - https://www.enterprisemobility.com/content/dam/enterpriseholdings/marketing/innovation-in-mobility/vehicle-innovation/airport-electrification-study-full-report-2024.pdf [2] Airport Infrastructure: Selected Airport's Efforts to Enhance Electrical Resilience https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105203.

critcal infrastructure↗
NASA NTRS2015

Probabilistic Survivability Versus Time Modeling

This technical paper documents Kennedy Space Centers Independent Assessment team work completed on three assessments for the Ground Systems Development and Operations (GSDO) Program to assist the Chief Safety and Mission Assurance Officer (CSO) and GSDO management during key programmatic reviews. The assessments provided the GSDO Program with an analysis of how egress time affects the likelihood of astronaut and worker survival during an emergency. For each assessment, the team developed probability distributions for hazard scenarios to address statistical uncertainty, resulting in survivability plots over time. The first assessment developed a mathematical model of probabilistic survivability versus time to reach a safe location using an ideal Emergency Egress System at Launch Complex 39B (LC-39B); the second used the first model to evaluate and compare various egress systems under consideration at LC-39B. The third used a modified LC-39B model to determine if a specific hazard decreased survivability more rapidly than other events during flight hardware processing in Kennedys Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB).Based on the composite survivability versus time graphs from the first two assessments, there was a soft knee in the Figure of Merit graphs at eight minutes (ten minutes after egress ordered). Thus, the graphs illustrated to the decision makers that the final emergency egress design selected should have the capability of transporting the flight crew from the top of LC 39B to a safe location in eight minutes or less. Results for the third assessment were dominated by hazards that were classified as instantaneous in nature (e.g. stacking mishaps) and therefore had no effect on survivability vs time to egress the VAB. VAB emergency scenarios that degraded over time (e.g. fire) produced survivability vs time graphs that were line with aerospace industry norms.

Joyner, James J., Sr.↗
DOE OSTI2025

Equity-Centered Engagement Through Climate Resilience Policy in Massachusetts

Communities who experience disproportionate climate change impacts tend to be excluded from resilience planning. Those efforts typically follow top-down processes within established governance practices that are inaccessible to marginalized folks and reinforce inequalities. Regenerating the commons includes creating opportunities for everyone to meaningfully shape community resilience decisions and experience related benefits. Resilience planning that shifts power into communities and focuses on social vulnerability can affect how people survive and thrive in a climate changed world. The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) 2.0 program is an attempt to change the status quo in resilience planning by bringing new voices into decision-making power, recognizing their labor, addressing root causes of vulnerability, and investing in social infrastructure. It aspires to build capacity for equity-focused community engagement within teams of municipal staff and community liaisons, and ultimately build social capital and community cohesion. My research investigates implementation of this state grant program in several western Massachusetts towns. I am using document review, participant observation, and interviews to understand the MVP 2.0 process as written, how different towns navigate it, and how individuals make sense of their experiences in it. I seek to understand how those experiences explain relationships between engagement approaches, mediating factors, and process outcomes. I am interested in the conditions that allow for community empowerment and how a model like MVP 2.0 can shift conditions that hold systems in place. In a practical sense, our findings will help municipalities reflect on their work during MVP 2.0 and plan for future community engagement. They may be informative for designing future iterations of the MVP program and for other municipalities or offices of community engagement. The findings will also contribute to the participation, resilience, and climate justice literatures, by adding perspectives on equity-centered resilience and community engagement approaches in smaller towns and rural settings.

Callaham, Shannon↗
DOE OSTI2023

ESnet Requirements Review Program Through the IRI Lens: A Meta-Analysis of Workflow Patterns Across DOE Office of Science Programs (Final Report)

The Department of Energy (DOE) ensures America’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental, and nuclear challenges through transformative science and technology solutions. The DOE’s Office of Science (SC) delivers groundbreaking scientific discoveries and major scientific tools that transform our understanding of nature and advance the energy, economic, and national security of the United States. The SC’s programs advance DOE mission science across a wide range of disciplines and have developed the research infrastructure needed to remain at the forefront of scientific discovery. The DOE SC’s world-class research infrastructure — exemplified by the 28 SC scientific user facilities — provides the research community with premier observational, experimental, computational, and network capabilities. Each user facility is designed to provide unique capabilities to advance core DOE mission science for its sponsor SC program and to stimulate a rich discovery and innovation ecosystem. Research communities gather and flourish around each user facility, bringing together diverse perspectives. A hallmark of many facilities is the large population of students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career scientists who contribute as full-fledged users. These facility staff and users collaborate over years to devise new approaches to utilizing the user facility’s core capabilities. The history of the SC user facilities has many examples of wildly inventive researchers challenging operational orthodoxy to pioneer new vistas of discovery; for example, the use of the synchrotron X-ray light sources for study of proteins and other large biological molecules. This continual reinvention of the practice of science — as users and staff forge novel approaches expressed in research workflows — unlocks new discoveries and propels scientific progress. Within this research ecosystem, the high-performance computing (HPC) and networking user facilities stewarded by SC’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) program play a dynamic cross-cutting role, enabling complex workflows demanding high performance data, networking, and computing solutions. The DOE SC’s three HPC user facilities and the Energy Sciences Network (ESnet) high-performance research network serve all of the SC’s programs as well as the global research community. Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), and Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF) conceive, build, and provide access to a range of supercomputing, advanced computing, and large-scale data-infrastructure platforms, while ESnet interconnects DOE SC research infrastructure and enables seamless exchange of scientific data. All four facilities operate testbeds to expand the frontiers of computing and networking research. Together, the ASCR facilities enterprise seeks to understand and meet the needs and requirements across SC and DOE domain science programs and priority efforts, highlighted by the formal requirements reviews (RRs) methodology. In recent years, the research communities around the SC user facilities have begun experimenting with and demanding solutions integrated with HPC and data infrastructure. This rise of integrated-science approaches is documented in many community and high-level government reports. At the dawn of the era of exascale science and the acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) innovation, there is a broad need for integrated computational, data, and networking solutions. In response to these drivers, DOE has developed a vision for an Integrated Research Infrastructure (IRI): To empower researchers to meld DOE’s world-class research tools, infrastructure, and user facilities seamlessly and securely in novel ways to radically accelerate discovery and innovation.

42 ENGINEERING↗
DOE OSTI2025

Furthering Advancements to Shorten the Time (FAST) to Commissioning for Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH) Prize: Cooperative Research and Development (Final Report)

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory initiated a Prize with support from Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy Water Power Technologies Office (DOE WPTO) to encourage ideas to reduce the time to commissioning for PSH projects. As a result, nine finalists have been chosen to develop their concepts in advance of the FAST Prize Pitch Contest to be held on October 7, 2019. The National Labs will provide technical and business advisement to the noted FAST Prize finalists in preparation for this Pitch Contest.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗
NASA NTRS1992

Independent verification and validation for Space Shuttle flight software

The Committee for Review of Oversight Mechanisms for Space Shuttle Software was asked by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Office of Space Flight to determine the need to continue independent verification and validation (IV&V) for Space Shuttle flight software. The Committee found that the current IV&V process is necessary to maintain NASA's stringent safety and quality requirements for man-rated vehicles. Therefore, the Committee does not support NASA's plan to eliminate funding for the IV&V effort in fiscal year 1993. The Committee believes that the Space Shuttle software development process is not adequate without IV&V and that elimination of IV&V as currently practiced will adversely affect the overall quality and safety of the software, both now and in the future. Furthermore, the Committee was told that no organization within NASA has the expertise or the manpower to replace the current IV&V function in a timely fashion, nor will building this expertise elsewhere necessarily reduce cost. Thus, the Committee does not recommend moving IV&V functions to other organizations within NASA unless the current IV&V is maintained for as long as it takes to build comparable expertise in the replacing organization.

Source record↗