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The system design of a rubidium maser frequency standard

The Rubidium Maser Frequency Standard is a precision frequency source with excellent short-term stability. A type PBR-II Rb maser frequency standard was developed by the Beijing Institute of Radio Metrology and Measurement (BIRMM). The time-domain frequency stability (two-sample variance) of this frequency standard is less than 1/5 times 10 to the 13th power for t=10ms yields 1.0s, fh=1.0 KHz. Two PBR-II frequency standards were used as reference frequency sources in a frequency stability measurement system. Some important system characteristics for the PBR-II Rb maser frequency standard such as phase noise and frequency stability transfer characteristics are discussed. Furthermore, the design of the frequency standard for optimum frequency stability of the output signal; the choice of a voltage controlled crystal oscillator for the frequency standard; the design of the phase-locked loop; and the frequency stability test results on the PBR-II are discussed.

Xiong, C. X.

NASA space station software standards issues

The selection and application of software standards present the NASA Space Station Program with the opportunity to serve as a pacesetter for the United States software in the area of software standards. The strengths and weaknesses of each of the NASA defined software standards issues are summerized and discussed. Several significant standards issues are offered for NASA consideration. A challenge is presented for the NASA Space Station Program to serve as a pacesetter for the U.S. Software Industry through: (1) Management commitment to software standards; (2) Overall program participation in software standards; and (3) Employment of the best available technology to support software standards

Tice, G. D., Jr.

Tables for calibrating altimeters and computing altitudes based on the standard atmosphere

During 1925 the assumption of an isothermal atmosphere which was in general use as the standard for the calibration of altimeters in the United States was replaced by a standard atmosphere which assumes an altitude-temperature relation closely corresponding to the average of upper air observations at latitude 40 degrees in this country. The same standard atmosphere had already been adopted somewhat earlier in the United States as the aircraft performance standard. National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics Technical Reports nos. 147 and 218 give necessary constants, tables, and information. However, neither of these reports includes all of the tables required for the computation of actual altitudes nor those readily suitable for use in calibrating altimeters, since the altitude intervals for which data are given are not sufficiently small. The present report has been prepared specifically for these purposes. The formulas which define the standard atmosphere are given in this report, together with other formulas giving the corrections to be applied to the standard altitude in order to obtain the actual altitude when the necessary observations of pressure and temperature are available. The tables necessary for the use of this standard atmosphere in calibrating altimeters and in computing altitudes form the principal part of this report. An example of the computation of actual altitudes from observed pressures and temperatures are given in table IV.

Brombacher, W G

NASA specification for manufacturing and performance requirements of NASA standard aerospace nickel-cadmium cells

On November 25, 1985, the NASA Chief Engineer established a NASA-wide policy to maintain and to require the use of the NASA standard for aerospace nickel-cadmium cells and batteries. The Associate Administrator for Safety, Reliability, Maintainability, and Quality Assurance stated on December 29, 1986, the intent to retain the NASA standard cell usage policy established by the Office of the Chief Engineer. The current NASA policy is also to incorporate technological advances as they are tested and proven for spaceflight applications. This policy will be implemented by modifying the existing standard cells or by developing new NASA standards and their specifications in accordance with the NASA's Aerospace Battery Systems Program Plan. This NASA Specification for Manufacturing and Performance Requirements of NASA Standard Aerospace Nickel-Cadmium Cells is prepared to provide requirements for the NASA standard nickel-cadmium cell. It is an interim specification pending resolution of the separator material availability. This specification has evolved from over 15 years of nickel-cadmium cell experience by NASA. Consequently, considerable experience has been collected and cell performance has been well characterized from many years of ground testing and from in-flight operations in both geosynchronous (GEO) and low earth orbit (LEO) applications. NASA has developed and successfully used two standard flight qualified cell designs.

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An emerging network storage management standard: Media error monitoring and reporting information (MEMRI) - to determine optical tape data integrity

Sophisticated network storage management applications are rapidly evolving to satisfy a market demand for highly reliable data storage systems with large data storage capacities and performance requirements. To preserve a high degree of data integrity, these applications must rely on intelligent data storage devices that can provide reliable indicators of data degradation. Error correction activity generally occurs within storage devices without notification to the host. Early indicators of degradation and media error monitoring 333 and reporting (MEMR) techniques implemented in data storage devices allow network storage management applications to notify system administrators of these events and to take appropriate corrective actions before catastrophic errors occur. Although MEMR techniques have been implemented in data storage devices for many years, until 1996 no MEMR standards existed. In 1996 the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) approved the only known (world-wide) industry standard specifying MEMR techniques to verify stored data on optical disks. This industry standard was developed under the auspices of the Association for Information and Image Management (AIIM). A recently formed AIIM Optical Tape Subcommittee initiated the development of another data integrity standard specifying a set of media error monitoring tools and media error monitoring information (MEMRI) to verify stored data on optical tape media. This paper discusses the need for intelligent storage devices that can provide data integrity metadata, the content of the existing data integrity standard for optical disks, and the content of the MEMRI standard being developed by the AIIM Optical Tape Subcommittee.

Podio, Fernando

NASA Software Documentation Standard

The NASA Software Documentation Standard (hereinafter referred to as "Standard") is designed to support the documentation of all software developed for NASA; its goal is to provide a framework and model for recording the essential information needed throughout the development life cycle and maintenance of a software system. The NASA Software Documentation Standard can be applied to the documentation of all NASA software. The Standard is limited to documentation format and content requirements. It does not mandate specific management, engineering, or assurance standards or techniques. This Standard defines the format and content of documentation for software acquisition, development, and sustaining engineering. Format requirements address where information shall be recorded and content requirements address what information shall be recorded. This Standard provides a framework to allow consistency of documentation across NASA and visibility into the completeness of project documentation. The basic framework consists of four major sections (or volumes). The Management Plan contains all planning and business aspects of a software project, including engineering and assurance planning. The Product Specification contains all technical engineering information, including software requirements and design. The Assurance and Test Procedures contains all technical assurance information, including Test, Quality Assurance (QA), and Verification and Validation (V&V). The Management, Engineering, and Assurance Reports is the library and/or listing of all project reports.

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Lessons Learned and Technical Standards: A Logical Marriage

A comprehensive database of lessons learned that corresponds with relevant technical standards would be a boon to technical personnel and standards developers. The authors discuss the emergence of one such database within NASA, and show how and why the incorporation of lessons learned into technical standards databases can be an indispensable tool for government and industry. Passed down from parent to child, teacher to pupil, and from senior to junior employees, lessons learned have been the basis for our accomplishments throughout the ages. Government and industry, too, have long recognized the need to systematically document And utilize the knowledge gained from past experiences in order to avoid the repetition of failures and mishaps. The use of lessons learned is a principle component of any organizational culture committed to continuous improvement. They have formed the foundation for discoveries, inventions, improvements, textbooks, and technical standards. Technical standards are a very logical way to communicate these lessons. Using the time-honored tradition of passing on lessons learned while utilizing the newest in information technology, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has launched an intensive effort to link lessons learned with specific technical standards through various Internet databases. This article will discuss the importance of lessons learned to engineers, the difficulty in finding relevant lessons learned while engaged in an engineering project, and the new NASA project that can help alleviate this difficulty. The article will conclude with recommendations for more expanded cross-sectoral uses of lessons learned with reference to technical standards.

Gill, Paul

Software Defined Radio Standard Architecture and its Application to NASA Space Missions

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG's SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA's current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

Andro, Monty

NASA's SDR Standard: Space Telecommunications Radio System

A software defined radio (SDR) architecture used in space-based platforms proposes to standardize certain aspects of radio development such as interface definitions, functional control and execution, and application software and firmware development. NASA has charted a team to develop an open software defined radio hardware and software architecture to support NASA missions and determine the viability of an Agency-wide Standard. A draft concept of the proposed standard has been released and discussed among organizations in the SDR community. Appropriate leveraging of the JTRS SCA, OMG s SWRadio Architecture and other aspects are considered. A standard radio architecture offers potential value by employing common waveform software instantiation, operation, testing and software maintenance. While software defined radios offer greater flexibility, they also poses challenges to the radio development for the space environment in terms of size, mass and power consumption and available technology. An SDR architecture for space must recognize and address the constraints of space flight hardware, and systems along with flight heritage and culture. NASA is actively participating in the development of technology and standards related to software defined radios. As NASA considers a standard radio architecture for space communications, input and coordination from government agencies, the industry, academia, and standards bodies is key to a successful architecture. The unique aspects of space require thorough investigation of relevant terrestrial technologies properly adapted to space. The talk will describe NASA s current effort to investigate SDR applications to space missions and a brief overview of a candidate architecture under consideration for space based platforms.

Reinhart, Richard C.

Blowout Jets: Hinode X-Ray Jets that Don't Fit the Standard Model

Nearly half of all H-alpha macrospicules in polar coronal holes appear to be miniature filament eruptions. This suggests that there is a large class of X-ray jets in which the jet-base magnetic arcade undergoes a blowout eruption as in a CME, instead of remaining static as in most solar X-ray jets, the standard jets that fit the model advocated by Shibata. Along with a cartoon depicting the standard model, we present a cartoon depicting the signatures expected of blowout jets in coronal X-ray images. From Hinode/XRT movies and STEREO/EUVI snapshots in polar coronal holes, we present examples of (1) X-ray jets that fit the standard model, and (2) X-ray jets that do not fit the standard model but do have features appropriate for blowout jets. These features are (1) a flare arcade inside the jet-base arcade in addition to the small flare arcade (bright point) outside that standard jets have, (2) a filament of cool (T is approximately 80,000K) plasma that erupts from the core of the jetbase arcade, and (3) an extra jet strand that should not be made by the reconnection for standard jets but could be made by reconnection between the ambient unipolar open field and the opposite-polarity leg of the filament-carrying flux-rope core field of the erupting jet-base arcade. We therefore infer that these non-standard jets are blowout jets, jets made by miniature versions of the sheared-core-arcade eruptions that make CMEs

Moore, Ronald L.

NASA Occupant Protection Standards Development

Current National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) occupant protection standards and requirements are based on extrapolations of biodynamic models, which were based on human tests performed under pre-Space Shuttle human flight programs where the occupants were in different suit and seat configurations than is expected for the Multi Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and Commercial Crew programs. As a result, there is limited statistical validity to the occupant protection standards. Furthermore, the current standards and requirements have not been validated in relevant spaceflight suit, seat configurations or loading conditions. The objectives of this study were to develop new standards and requirements for occupant protection and rigorously validate these new standards with sub-injurious human testing. To accomplish these objectives we began by determining which critical injuries NASA would like to protect for. We then defined the anthropomorphic test device (ATD) and the associated injury metrics of interest. Finally, we conducted a literature review of available data for the Test Device for Human Occupant Restraint New Technology (THOR-NT) ATD to determine injury assessment reference values (IARV) to serve as a baseline for further development. To better understand NASA s environment, we propose conducting sub-injurious human testing in spaceflight seat and suit configurations with spaceflight dynamic loads, with a sufficiently high number of subjects to validate no injury during nominal landing loads. In addition to validate nominal loads, the THOR-NT ATD will be tested in the same conditions as the human volunteers, allowing correlation between human and ATD responses covering the Orion nominal landing environment and commercial vehicle expected nominal environments. All testing will be conducted without the suit and with the suit to ascertain the contribution of the suit to human and ATD responses. In addition to the testing campaign proposed, additional data analysis is proposed to mine existing human injury and response data from other sources, including military volunteer testing, automotive Crash Injury Research Engineering Network (CIREN), and IndyCar impact and injury data. These data sources can allow a better extrapolation of the ATD responses to off-nominal conditions above the nominal range that can safely be tested. These elements will be used to develop injury risk functions for each of the injury metrics measured from the ATD. These risk functions would serve as the basis for the NASA standards. Finally, we propose defining standard test methodology for evaluating future spacecraft designs against the IARVs, including developing a star-rating system to allow crew safety comparisons between vehicles.

Somers, Jeffrey T.

Building SAWE Capability as an ANSI Accredited Standards Developer

This paper presents a 2014 status of the Society of Allied Weight Engineers' process towards becoming an Accredited Standards Developer (ASD) under certification by the United States American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Included is material from the committee's 2013 International presentation, current status, and additional general background material. The document strives to serve as a reference point to assist SAWE Recommended Practice and Standards developers in negotiating United States Standards Strategy, international standards strategy, and the association of SAWE standards and recommended practices to those efforts. Required procedures for SAWE to develop and maintain Recommended Practices and ANSI/SAWE Standards are reviewed.

Cerro, Jeffrey A.

Developing a Standard for Earth Observation Data Preservation Content - A Path to Future Usability

For datasets to be usable, many pieces of information in addition to the data themselves are essential. During the active parts of the lifecycle of dataset generating projects, the needed information is usually accessible through individuals familiar with the various aspects of the projects. However, the utility of datasets tends to outlive the lives of projects, by several decades in many cases. Thus it is essential to capture all the relevant information about the datasets, data, metadata and associate knowledge that is sufficient to read, understand, interpret and reuse the datasets, while the projects are still active. The capture and preservation should be such that the data are usable when no consultation is available from the original project participants. Identification of specific categories of content through an international standard is beneficial to the user communities of the future, so that projects involving Earth observations and generating data products can consistently plan for preservation and future usability of the project outcomes. While there are existing standards that address archival and preservation in general, there are no existing international standards or specifications today to address what content should be preserved. The standard, ISO 19165-1, titled "Geographic Information - Preservation of digital data and metadata Part 1: Fundamentals" considers geographic information preservation in general. It acknowledges that "specific content items needed to preserve the full provenance and context of the data and associated metadata depend on the needs of the designated community and types of datasets (e.g., maps, remotely sensed data from satellites and airborne instruments, physical samples). Follow-up parts to this standard may be developed detailing content items appropriate to individual disciplines." NASA proposed an extension to this standard, titled "Geographic information -- Preservation of digital data and metadata -- Part 2: Content specifications for Earth observation data and derived digital products." The development of this extension is in progress with participation by an international team representing nine countries. The purpose of this paper is to introduce this standard and report on its status.

Remote Sensing; Data Systems; Open Data;

Standards and Best Practices - Two NASA Examples

Formal international standards as well as promotion of community or recommended practices have their place in ensuring "FAIRness" of data. Data management in NASA's Earth Observation System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) has benefited from both of these avenues to a significant extent. The purpose of this paper is to present one example of each of these, which promote (re)usability. The first is an ISO standard for specifying preservation content from Earth observation missions. The work on this started in 2011, informally within the Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) in the US, while the European Space Agency (ESA) was leading an effort on Long-Term Data Preservation (LTDP). Resulting from the ESIP discussions was NASA's Preservation Content Specification, which was applied in 2012 as a requirement for NASA's new missions. ESA's Preserved Data Set Content (PDSC) document was codified into a document adopted by the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS). It was recognized that it would be useful to combine PCS and PDSC into an ISO standard to ensure consistency in data preservation on a broader international scale. This standard, numbered ISO 19165-2 has been under development since mid-2017. The second is an example of developing recommendations for "best practices" within more limited (still fairly broad) communities. A Data Product Developers' Guide (DPDG) is currently being developed by one of NASA's Earth Science Data System Working Groups (ESDSWGs). It is for use by developers of products to be derived from Earth observation data to improve product (re)usability. One of the challenges in developing the guide is the fact that there are already many applicable standards and guides. The relevant information needs to be selected and expressed in a succinct manner, with appropriate pointers to references. The DPDG aims to compile the most applicable parts of earlier guides into a single document outlining the typical development process for Earth Science data products. Standards and best practices formally endorsed by the Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) Standards Office (ESO), outputs from ESDSWGs (e.g., Dataset Interoperability Working Group, and Data Quality Working Group), and recommendations from Distributed Active Archive Centers and data producers are emphasized.

Ramapriyan, Hampapuram

NASA’s Plans for the Release of Standards for Additive Manufactured Components

NASA has a critical need for the development of Agency standards for the certification of additively manufactured (AM) components. This is necessary since the current version of NASA standards for manned and noncrewed spaceflight hardware do not contain sufficient detail and the development of documents by the international standards organizations are not mature enough for implementation. AM parts are currently flying or in development for nearly all NASA flight programs. To bridge the gap prior to the release of Agency standards MSFC released two documents, MSFC-STD-3716 and MSFC-SPEC-3717. These documents were written specifically for laser power fusion of metallic powder, but the principles defined were used for tailoring requirements for current NASA manned missions. In 2018 a team of Agency AM experts was assembled and development of standards for the certification of additively manufactured components. These standards are design for use by all NASA programs and a broader spectrum of mature materials and processes. Four documents are being planned; NASA-STD-6030 (add title), NASA-STD-6032 (add title), NASA-STD-6033 (add title) and NASA-HNBK-6034 (add title). Two of these documents, NASA-STD-6030 and NASA-STD-6033, are being finalized for release in late 2020. These standards contain requirements that address part classification, metallurgical process control, material property development, part process control, part inspection and acceptance, equipment process control and vendor process control. This paper will present a summary of the status of each document and provide an overview of the content of NASA-STD-6030.

Richard Russell

Establishing Standardized Test Methods for Evaluating Space Suit Gloves

The Artemis space suit glove environmental protection garment (EPG) will be the first line of protection used to protect the crewmember’s hands from the environments encountered during extravehicular activity (EVA). As the Artemis missions will include more extreme environments, it is necessary to define tests to evaluate if gloves can meet new, challenging requirements. The NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC)has funded an effort with the goal to help vendors to produce a space suit glove that is sufficiently durable to meet the needs of the Artemis missions. Three problems were identified in meeting that goal. First, there are no standardized tests defined to evaluate the durability of space suit gloves for the extreme lunar environments. Second, there is insufficient data on glove performance in a lunar environment from which to compare new designs. And third, current ISS glove TMG fabrics are unlikely to be sufficient to meet Lunar requirements. Four tasks were established to answer different aspects of these three problems. Task 1 focused on the characterization of potential glove fabrics using ASTM standardized test methods when possible. When one did not exist, new standardized test procedures were devised. Task 2 focused on developing a procedure for characterizing the thermal performance of a glove assembly. Task 3 focused on devising a standard procedure for characterizing the dust/abrasion resistance of a space suit glove. Task 4 focused on devising a standard procedure for characterizing the cut resistance of a space suit glove while at cryogenic temperatures. The new procedures created in Tasks 2, 3 and 4 were then validated by testing the Phase VI glove to collect baseline data. This paper will summarize the approach used to establish standardized test methods for each task and will expound on the ASTM process to publish the new standards.

spacesuit

Additional Trials & Tribulations in Synthesizing a Sulfide Standard

Well-characterized sulfide reference materials that can serve as matrix-matched calibrants for in-situ trace element analyses via laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) remain elusive. Here, we describe the creation an in-house sulfide standard at NASA JSC that will be used to measure siderophile and chalcophile trace elements in low pressure experimental products, specifically pentlandite ([FeNi]9S8) and pyrrhotite ([FeNi]1-xS), as well as natural sulfides in terrestrial and meteoritic mineral assemblages. Recent methods in creating a homogenous sulfide standard include pressed pellets, synthesized chips, or fused glass [e.g. 1-3]. Other studies, however, have had success in forming homogenous FeS standards via synthesization methods [e.g. 4-6]. We present a variation of the method described in [4], in which we create a pyrrhotite standard doped with a variety of trace elements (Zn, As, Se, Mo, Ru, Rh, Pd, Sn, Sb, Te, W, Os, Ir, Pt, Au) at ~10-40 ppm and Cu at ~200 ppm. Sulfide compositions were constructed using Fe and Ni metal and elemental sulfur powders. Trace elements were added to elemental sulfur from Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (AAS) elemental standards as either nitrate or chloride solutions to prevent oxidation of the metal powders. The dried sulfur mixture was mixed with Fe and Ni powders and mechanically mixed before two aliquots were placed in separate SiO2 tubes. Each tube was held under vacuum for ~30 minutes, sealed under vacuum, and then heated at 800C for 48 hours. Like [4], the synthesis products were composed of pourous sulfide crystals. Major element analyses of both experimental aliquots, collected using an Electron Probe Microanalyser (EPMA), yield indistinguishable major element compositions (uncertainties in 2SE & 2RSE[%]), with an average of 57.90  0.09 (0.16 %), 4.95  0.03 (0.55 %), and 39.70  0.14 (0.34 %), for Fe, Ni, and S, respectively. Trace element data were measured using a Photon Machines 193nm laser ablation system coupled to a Thermo-Scientific Element-XR ICP-MS. Spot sizes were limited to 50 μm due to the porous nature of the sulfide target material. Trace element abundances, normalized to Fe as an internal standard, were also found to be homogenous between the two aliquots, with weighted mean 2RSE (%) values of <3.0 for all trace elements. Synthesized products were re-powdered and absolute concentrations measured via solution ICP-MS. Although the sulfide appears to be homogenous, sintering experiments will be performed to more closely match the standard density to natural sulfides and minimize differences in ablation behavior. Improved density also allows for higher sensitivity (i.e. more compact target material) and larger spot sizes or traverses, as void space is eliminated. Additional major and trace element analyses on the products of the sintering experiments will be undertaken.

Jacob B Setera

Cross-calibration of liquid and solid QCT calibration standards: corrections to the UCSF normative data

Quantitative computed tomography (QCT) has been shown to be a precise and sensitive method for evaluating spinal bone mineral density (BMD) and skeletal response to aging and therapy. Precise and accurate determination of BMD using QCT requires a calibration standard to compensate for and reduce the effects of beam-hardening artifacts and scanner drift. The first standards were based on dipotassium hydrogen phosphate (K2HPO4) solutions. Recently, several manufacturers have developed stable solid calibration standards based on calcium hydroxyapatite (CHA) in water-equivalent plastic. Due to differences in attenuating properties of the liquid and solid standards, the calibrated BMD values obtained with each system do not agree. In order to compare and interpret the results obtained on both systems, cross-calibration measurements were performed in phantoms and patients using the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) liquid standard and the Image Analysis (IA) solid standard on the UCSF GE 9800 CT scanner. From the phantom measurements, a highly linear relationship was found between the liquid- and solid-calibrated BMD values. No influence on the cross-calibration due to simulated variations in body size or vertebral fat content was seen, though a significant difference in the cross-calibration was observed between scans acquired at 80 and 140 kVp. From the patient measurements, a linear relationship between the liquid (UCSF) and solid (IA) calibrated values was derived for GE 9800 CT scanners at 80 kVp (IA = [1.15 x UCSF] - 7.32).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS).

NASA Program Space Physiology and Countermeasures