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NASA NTRS2022

Methane Bioreactor System Offers Sustainable Plastic Alternative for Earth and Space

Mango Materials partnered with the Colorado School of Mines on NASA STTR awards to adapt a bioreactor system to convert methane into bioplastic for low-gravity environments. In space, methane from carbon dioxide conversion systems and waste treatment can be used to 3D print objects and provide polymers for construction and regolith binding. On Earth, the system can convert methane—a greenhouse gas—into environmentally conscious bioplastic. Mango Materials received $6 million through NASA CCRPP, including funds from fashion investors seeking alternatives to plastic-based textiles.

SBIR/STTR↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Death of Airmanship: The Urgent Need to Understand Pilot Skills and Knowledge

Aviation awards a special name—airmanship—for the quality of being highly competent in foundational piloting skills, which seem to comprise primarily judgment, decision making, stick-and-rudder skills, and a bit of intuition. The term, which has a mystical quality, has historically resisted analysis; airmanship is acquired solely through experience. The graying of the Boomers and the extreme turbulence of the last few years in commercial aviation have led to a significant loss of those pilots who started out in simpler, round-dial airplanes and made a tortured transition to glass. Those pilots were comfortable disengaging the autopilot at any time, and more importantly, they continued to stay mentally engaged with flight and systems management even as automation continued to encroach on traditional pilot roles. As an industry, we need to prepare for the loss of these pilots by understanding the elements of airmanship and finding a way to replace the competency. The goal is to eliminate “airmanship” by understanding it...by demystifying it. Human factors/cognitive engineering offers tools and methods to develop a system interface that supports skilled performance from the human/technology team. In this presentation, I will talk about my efforts to understand the elements of skilled performance so that they can be trained, or supported by the interface in a seamless manner Specific topics will include the limits of SOP, monitoring for flight path management, alerting non-normals, and autoflight/mode confusion.

pilot skills↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Framework for NASA Space Relay Satellite Services Over the Next Decade: “Development and Demonstration of the Commercial Successors to TDRS "

The United States National Space Policy provides guidance and directives for U.S. Government agencies to purchase commercial space services and capabilities to the maximum extent practical. In alignment with this guidance, the Agency has no plans to replenish the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) fleet operated by the Space Communication and Navigation Program (SCaN) and will instead pursue commercial services for communications with spacecraft in near-Earth orbit. The Communications Services Project (CSP) at GRC is leading this commercialization effort and in May 2022 it awarded six contracts to commercial SATCOM companies to demonstrate and validate commercial SATCOM capabilities for future NASA and near space user missions. The responses from the vendors indicated a strong interest in providing commercial services to NASA’s missions and included a wide range of proposed architectures and demonstrations concepts. Overall, the responses indicated that a mature and healthy competitive environment exists with traditional satellite operators and constellation developers to provide NASA and future near space users with commercial communication services in the next five years. This paper will present an overview of the proposed capability coverages, risk spread, and US domestic market stimulation, along with common themes and conclusions. The result of these demonstrations will serve as the basis for acquisition and provision of operational SATCOM services for NASA missions.

SATCOM↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Framework for NASA Space Relay Satellite Services over the Next Decade: Development and Demonstration of the Commercial Successors to TDRS

• NASA SCaN Program plans to pursue commercial services for communications with Spacecrafts in near-earth Orbit • The Communications Services Project (CSP) formulated at GRC to establish partnerships with commercial SATCOM companies to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of providing SATCOM capabilities that could be offered as a service for future spacecraft users • CSP pursued an Announcement of Proposals (AFP) in 2021 • Awarded 6 industry vendors out of 14 (~ $278 million) • Viasat, SES Government Solutions, SpaceX; Kuiper Government Solutions (KGS), Telesat U.S. Services, Inmarsat Government. (4 RF and 2 Optical) • AFP’s objectives to develop and demonstrate end-to-end operational capabilities that could meet the needs of Government and private sector customers and maximize interoperability between them. • NASA completed assessment and analysis of the 6 industry proposals. • Results identified optimal portfolio that best meet AFP’s Objectives when considering capability coverage, risk spread, levels of confidence, U.S. domestic market stimulation, price and NASA budget.

George Haddad↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A PI’s Guide to Analog Research

Congratulation on being awarded a grant to conduct research in a spaceflight analog! NASA funded research in a Human Research Program (HRP) managed analog environment is very different from research in a traditional laboratory. This presentation will provide a guide to help investigators successfully plan studies for integration and implementation in an HRP analog platform. There are many things to consider when planning a study for implementation in an analog facility and campaign or mission. How do you get from grant approval to data analysis? This is where HRP’s Research Operations and Integration (ROI) team comes in. The ROI team works with sponsoring HRP elements and PI teams to capture requirements and help the PI teams through the phases of research complement development, integration and implementation. A complement is comprised of a group of studies requiring a common platform and/or scenario that are able to be integrated on a noninterference basis for implementation. Properly defining and documenting requirements and study needs is crucial in successful integration and implementation. This presentation will outline and provide the information needed for PI teams to understand the integration process and the role of the ROI team in the successful integration and implementation of their study. Topics to be discussed will include but not be limited to science requirement definition and documentation, NASA IRB submissions, subject recruitment, screening and selection, study integration process, efficiency in data collection and data sharing, daily crew schedules, hardware and software shipping, receipt and checkout, biological sample collection, mission support, data management and receipt of data.

B. Caldwell↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Increasing Cognitive Ability/Reserve Using Software – Pilot (ICARUS-Pilot)

BACKGROUND This research study was competitively awarded under the 2022 JSC Innovation Charge Account (ICA) program administered by NASA Johnson Space Center’s Joint Technology Working Group. Study period of performance was May through September 2022, with a maximum allowed procurement budget of $10K. The study sought to quantify and assess the potential benefit of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) cognitive training software to improve cognitive performance in an astronaut-like terrestrial population. METHODS Five volunteer research participants were recruited from the JSC employee population to mimic certain demographic characteristics of the NASA astronaut population (age, education/discipline). Participant cognitive performance was assessed before and after executing eighteen sessions of remote cognitive training executed nominally three times per week using six exercises within an adaptive app-based COTS software package (BrainHQ, Posit Science) on study-provided tablets. Pre- and post-training cognitive performance was measured using internal assessments in BrainHQ as well as Cognition Test Battery (CTB) version ISS B01 v3 (3.0.9-201710021500), an independent software test developed specifically for NASA and used currently in research studies on astronauts. BrainHQ exercises were posited to map well or partially to several CTB sub-tests. Participants provided feedback on their study experience formally via semi-structured interview at the conclusion of testing and informally throughout the study if they encountered issues. RESULTS The enrolled ICARUS-Pilot study participants generally matched Artemis crew demographic characteristics. Four of five participants have completed study training and assessment activities as of the writing of this abstract. These test participants complied well with desired training session frequency and duration yielding an average cumulative active training duration of 15 hours over an average of 45 days; participants showed 78% average improvement in metric performance for the six trained exercises, with an associated overall 33%ile ranking increase against performance of the entire BrainHQ subscribing population for internal pre/post assessment, agreeing with post-study survey self-reported performance increases. CTB overall feedback scoring, not corrected for learning effects, showed an average of 19% performance improvement across its 10 performance measures over the training period for the completed participants. Detailed analyses will be conducted once participant data collection for the study is complete and the resulting dataset is fully populated. DISCUSSION These preliminary results provide a positive trend for the effectiveness of the training approach, but further analysis will be needed to establish significance, investigate far transfer, and suggest the needed participant pool size for subsequent efforts to achieve statistically significant outcomes given similar results. The pilot study has already been helpful by allowing the study team to learn a great deal about the capabilities and limitations of the COTS software package that will be reflected in future proposals along with revised timelines for study execution and test participant management. From participant feedback, one common thread regarding the COTS training was that it felt overly repetitive – future proposals should reassess overall training duration, available levels for each trained exercise, and the behavior of the BrainHQ internal scheduler in determining which exercises should be trained and for how long. If the final analysis of this feasibility study ultimately supports it, the study team will recommend further investigation to fully evaluate this potential countermeasure and optimize its implementation. Future proposals would cite this feasibility study’s outcome and would seek to refine the training protocol and obtain statistically significant results for cognitive performance increases as well as retention data.

cognitive training↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Entry Systems and Vehicle Development Branch (Code TSS)

- TSS was established in 2009 to work with discipline-oriented branches (TSA, TSM, TSF) and provide a leadership approach for sub-system design and hardware components that comprise entry systems. - Currently, branch comprises 11 civil servants and 11 contractors. - 19 NASA Honor Awards in Exceptional Service (2), Achievement (2), Engineering Achievement (5), Early Career Achievement (5), and Outstanding Leadership (5). - In the last decade, TSS has built up core competencies that enable the branch to deliver end-to-end entry systems and vehicle development capabilities.

Antonella Alunni↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Equitable Letters for Space Physics

Equitable Letters in Space Physics (ELSP) is an organization that aims to encourage merit-based recommendations and nominations in the space physics community by providing resources and reviews. Recommendation and award nomination letters are a known source of bias that affect education and job opportunities, career progression, and recognition for scientists from underrepresented backgrounds. ELSP was founded to mitigate this bias within the current system by providing a proof-reading service that focuses on identifying phrasing and structure within letters that unintentionally undermines the purpose of the recommendation or nomination. If you are writing a recommendation letter for someone you know professionally, you can send it to us and we will send it out to our reviewers. They will provide recommendations on how you can make your letter more equitable and less biased, using a combination of the techniques and resources described on our site, with the aim to make unbiased recommendation letters more accessible to all. If you are interested in being a reviewer or having your writing reviewed, please reach out to us. We're a relatively young initiative and are keen to engage with and involve many diverse voices. Our website with more information, sample letters, and other resources can be found at https://equitableletterssp.github.io/ELSP/

Angeline G. Burrell↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Game Based Learning For Earth Science Applications Training

Current NASA Earth capacity development programs employ mechanisms ranging from online resource sharing, and virtual and in-person trainings to share knowledge. While these programs are highly successful at engaging individuals around the world – in 2018, over 8000 individuals and over 2000 institutions from all 50 US states and over 140 countries were engaged through over 150 projects and trainings – user feedback has highlighted the desire for expanded hands-on, practical experiences in incorporating NASA EO insights with localized data and actions. We aim to address this gap by leveraging the benefits of game-based learning to build user skills in integrating NASA and local EO data to guide decisions for climate resiliency and hazard planning. This project is being executed as a two-phase crowdsourced challenge: 1) Phase 1 will require a well-researched product concept that reflects an understanding of NASA’s Earth data and tools and user needs, and proposes an innovative and interactive game or extended reality experience to train users in identifying relevant NASA data and applying insights to their climate resiliency decisions; 2) Winners of Phase 1 will be provided seed funding to develop a working prototype of the product. We aim to award 1-3 final winners to support the development of more than one game, thereby ensuring that NASA's diverse audiences around the world can access training games that best suit their needs and capabilities. This EO training game project fits in the NASA Earth Science Applied Sciences Program’s Capacity Development Program, contributing to the program mission of “helping people around the world better understand [NASA’s Earth] data and find ways to use them” (https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/what-we-do/capacity-building). The final training game will complement existing programmatic activities of workforce development, trainings, and collaborative projects, while providing the unique value of providing interactive experiences to users and collecting real-time data and feedback to improve NASA’s Earth applications’ products and services related to climate resilience.

Human centered design↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Increasing Cognitive Ability/Reserve Using Software – Pilot (ICARUS-Pilot)

Background: This research study was competitively awarded under the 2022 JSC Innovation Charge Account (ICA) program administered by NASA Johnson Space Center’s Joint Technology Working Group. Study period of performance was May through September 2022, with a maximum allowed procurement budget of $10K. The study sought to quantify and assess the potential benefit of using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) cognitive training software to improve cognitive performance in an astronaut-like terrestrial population. Methods: Five volunteer research participants were recruited from the JSC employee population to mimic certain demographic characteristics of the NASA astronaut population (age, education/discipline). Participant cognitive performance was assessed before and after executing eighteen sessions of remote cognitive training executed nominally three times per week using six exercises within an adaptive app-based COTS software package (BrainHQ, Posit Science) on study-provided tablets. Pre- and post-training cognitive performance was measured using internal assessments in BrainHQ as well as Cognition Test Battery (CTB) version ISS B01 v3 (3.0.9-201710021500), an independent software test developed specifically for NASA and used currently in research studies on astronauts. BrainHQ exercises were posited to map well or partially to several CTB sub-tests. Participants provided feedback on their study experience formally via semi-structured interview at the conclusion of testing and informally throughout the study if they encountered issues. Results: The enrolled ICARUS-Pilot study participants generally matched Artemis crew demographic characteristics. Four of five participants have completed study training and assessment activities as of the writing of this abstract. These test participants complied well with desired training session frequency and duration yielding an average cumulative active training duration of 15 hours over an average of 45 days; participants showed 78% average improvement in metric performance for the six trained exercises, with an associated overall 33%ile ranking increase against performance of the entire BrainHQ subscribing population for internal pre/post assessment, agreeing with post-study survey self-reported performance increases. CTB overall feedback scoring, not corrected for learning effects, showed an average of 19% performance improvement across its 10 performance measures over the training period for the completed participants. Detailed analyses will be conducted once participant data collection for the study is complete and the resulting dataset is fully populated. Discussion: These preliminary results provide a positive trend for the effectiveness of the training approach, but further analysis will be needed to establish significance, investigate far transfer, and suggest the needed participant pool size for subsequent efforts to achieve statistically significant outcomes given similar results. The pilot study has already been helpful by allowing the study team to learn a great deal about the capabilities and limitations of the COTS software package that will be reflected in future proposals along with revised timelines for study execution and test participant management. From participant feedback, one common thread regarding the COTS training was that it felt overly repetitive – future proposals should reassess overall training duration, available levels for each trained exercise, and the behavior of the BrainHQ internal scheduler in determining which exercises should be trained and for how long. If the final analysis of this feasibility study ultimately supports it, the study team will recommend further investigation to fully evaluate this potential countermeasure and optimize its implementation. Future proposals would cite this feasibility study’s outcome and would seek to refine the training protocol and obtain statistically significant results for cognitive performance increases as well as retention data.

cognitive training↗
NASA NTRS2023

Smc-Last Point Source Catalog Spitzer'S Last Survey of the Small Magellanic Cloud

We present a processing for the point source catalog derived from Spitzer's final two surveys of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). These 2017-2018 maps duplicate the footprint from the SAGE-SMC program from 2008 and were obtained at 3.6 and 4.5 μm with the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). They provide a nearly 10-year baseline of all observations of the SMC made by Spitzer. We extracted point sources from both the basic calibrated data (BCD) as well as the final processed mosaics. We did not use any prior catalogs as inputs in order to search for moving objects (e.g., foreground brown dwarfs) and other transient phenomena. The extractions from two test fields are shown here: a field sparsely populated with stars and a second containing more complicated structures. Comparing our extractions between both of our epochs and with the SAGE epochs shows the completeness and range of our survey. The mosaics are currently available on the Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) and the Harvard Dataverse. The final point source catalog will be available at both archives, as well. This work is supported by NASA Award 80NSSC19K0585.

Thomas Kuchar↗
NASA NTRS2023

Human Landing System (HLS) Program Extravehicular Activity (EVA) Compatibility Interface Requirements Document (IRD)

The purpose of this document is to establish a set of EVA compatibility design requirements for the HLS Program. This document contains the fundamental information required for building hardware compatible with suited EVA flight crewmembers to perform EVAs. Compatibility requirements are located in section 3.0 with a gravity field applicability table provided in APPENDIX G, Human Landing System Program Applicability Matrix. Each HLS Provider will use the EHP-provided matrix in Appendix G to assess applicability to the awarded mission provider on a per-mission basis. Providers will negotiate applicability with EHP, and this will be documented in the appropriate Annex (reference section 2.2)

Christine N Kovich↗
NASA NTRS2025

Subsonic Ultra Green Aircraft Research: Phase V – Buffet Test Report

This test report summarizes work performed by the Boeing Subsonic Ultra-Green Aircraft Research (SUGAR) team in the Phase V Transonic Truss-Braced Wing contract task. The task was awarded in September 2020, and ended at the end of September 2022. As a part of the SUGAR Phase V contract task, Boeing developed a wind tunnel test plan, model requirements, then fabricated and conducted a dedicated transonic buffet wind tunnel test. The test focused on the investigation of buffet onset, and the ability to accurately predict buffet onset for the TTBW configuration. This report summarizes the results and post-test analysis of the 9% scale, semispan, Transonic Truss-Braced Wing (TTBW) transonic buffet model tested at the NASA Ames Research Center Unitary Plan Wind Tunnel (UPWT) 11-Foot Transonic Wind Tunnel (11-Ft TWT) facility located at Moffett Field, CA. It was tested from January 24, 2022, through February 18, 2022. The wind tunnel test was successful in capturing buffet onset at the model design dynamic pressure. Multiple configurations were tested starting in the wing-body-strut configuration and ending with the full configuration including wing-body-strut-nacelle/pylon, and flap hinge. The test also measured the effect of control surface deflections (ailerons and spoilers), as well as the effect of an outboard strut flap. Steady data collected during the test included standard force and moment measurements, as well as wing, strut, nacelle, and body (fuselage) static pressures. These data were collected in a standard pitch-pause mode. Unsteady data captured in the test, collected in continuous pitch mode, included wing and strut dynamic pressures, accelerations, and strains. According to test data, previous concerns regarding critical buffet onset on the strut (at low vehicle lift coefficient) and in the wing-strut channel have been mitigated. Buffet onset on the TTBW appears to follow conventional wing-induced buffet onset mechanisms. However, the critical station where buffet onset first occurs has moved inboard to the wing-strut juncture span location (55-60% span) from the typical ~70% span location. Test data obtained by unsteady pressure transducers provided a good match to expected buffet onset modes. An assessment of different tools and methodologies for predicting buffet onset was conducted. Reasonable agreement was found for buffet boundary predictions between most of the methods examined when using a forward trip location, with the greatest discrepancies from the pitching moment break and trailing edge pressure divergence methods. When an aft trip location was used the buffet boundary predictions diverged more significantly from unsteady pressure measurements. In addition, good agreement between the buffet onset trends were found when the Reynolds number, configuration, or spanload was changed.

strut↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Artemis Navigation Architecture: Early Capabilities and Long Term Evolvability and Evolution

With the awarding of multiple contracts within the Artemis program and building on the success of Artemis I, NASA is investing in and demonstrating the vehicle capabilities necessary for a return to human crewed Lunar Missions. To support activities on the lunar surface, NASA is also assessing architecture options and approaches to enable high precision in-situ navigation within the lunar sphere of influence. These capabilities build on decades of research and advancements within the field, building and evolving the techniques used during Apollo. To support inter-operability and broad application within its elements, NASA conducted a trade on Orbital and Surface Lunar Architecture for PNT. Time-defined mission requirements were captured across elements to inform a phased approach and deployment of needed capability. The architecture must also address unique aspects of the South Pole lunar environments, specifically in terms of harsh lighting and hazardous terrain. To inform the study, documentation of primary users, operational concepts of operations, driving scenarios, and mission needs were used to define performance constraints and phasing. Multiple technologies were assessed in terms of maturity, applicability, and performance to meet the primary user needs forecast. The results of this study support the utilization of in-situ orbital infrastructure to provide a back-bone for navigation and emphasize the need for a common Lunar Reference System and Lunar Time Reference. This deployment can ensure compatibility and enable a high-accuracy in-situ capability. This provides further justification for the capabilities being invested in and deployed by NASA and other international agencies. In addition to including advancements in terrestrial surface navigation, NASA is also applying lessons learned and innovation in the contractual approach to the individual elements by means of a services-based contract mechanism. This impacts the navigation architecture heavily in terms of government and provider roles, in terms of levels of implementation, interoperability, and verification. These distinctions in roles provide constraints to the architecture approach in terms of implementation and integration and will be discussed. The development, use, and mandate of interoperability standards are being deployed to support cross-element compatibility. This paper will provide a summary of the NASA Lunar Navigation needs across its various elements and the proposed deployment of an integrated navigation architecture to support early mission needs with inherent extensibility towards the future.

Evan Anzalone↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA's Efforts to Pursue Commercial Communications Services for Missions in Near Space

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program enables high speed, robust, secure and cost-effective space communications and navigation services to current and future science and exploration missions. Consistent with National Space Policy, NASA is seeking commercial services for all its future near Earth requirements by incorporating additional direct to Earth (DTE) providers and introducing commercial satellite communications (SATCOM) vendors as NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellites (TDRS) begin to decline. Through the progression of these efforts, SCaN is also integrating commercial services in the cislunar domain. The overarching objective is to satisfy the demands from the mission community – both in terms of capacity and capability – in a robust and cost-effective way, leveraging the strong and growing commercial space sector. For near earth space relay, six SATCOM vendors were awarded Funded Space Act Agreements in June of 2022 to demonstrate the ability to serve near-Earth missions, and are working through their committed milestones. The failure of TDRS Flight-9 (F9) in late 2022 prompted an increased tempo of mission engagement to identify driving user needs that commercial SATCOM can meet in the near-term. NASA has set a course to accelerate a decision to terminate commitments for TDRS services to new missions and has developed a plan to execute validation and risk reduction efforts with early adopter “pathfinder” missions to pave the way to earlier operational services. As the Artemis Program matures and builds on the successful Artemis I flight in November/December of 2022, the definition of the supporting communications and navigation architecture has further been refined. Although NASA government assets will continue to play a key role in provision of services, such as through the Deep Space Network, SCaN is pursuing commercial services offerings to expand ground network capability and implement lunar relay services. In February of 2023, SCaN released solicitation for services that include DTE services to missions near-Earth and in cislunar space, as well as lunar relay services. Further, SCaN is seeking opportunities to integrate commercial capability into lunar surface communications infrastructure. NASA is also advocating for standards that promote interoperability and strategic technology investments in the commercial sector. This paper addresses the recent progress and future plans in the near-Earth space and lunar regimes, discusses the unified approach for industry engagement, and highlights both the common and unique challenges of commercialization efforts in the two regimes.

commercialization↗
NASA NTRS2012

XHAB 2012 Final Report Habitat Demonstration Unit Lite

The University of Maryland Space Systems Laboratory (SSL) was awarded a NASA X-Hab 2012 grant for the design and construction of a new Earth analogue habitat for habitability research. This work builds on the past ECLIPSE and X-Hab projects at the SSL, by combining these elements with a new habitat module in order to create a single research platform for habitability studies. The “Crew Habitat Evaluator for Long-duration Orbital, Near-earth, and Interplanetary Applications” (CHELONIA) will deliver a much more flexible architecture than the previously developed mock-ups, allowing facilitating faster modification of the interior layouts and available total volume. This will enable the investigators to evaluate crew assessments and task performance as a function of the interior layout, functional area allocation and total available volume. This paper documents the design of this new infrastructure, and includes the details of the manufacturing of a new habitat mock-up module and modifications to the existing elements. The paper also includes a brief discussion of possible future research goals. Initial layouts are implemented using foam-core volumetric mock-ups for internal equipment and outfitting. These low fidelity mock-ups constitute a “library” that will allow a very rapid evaluation of a multitude of layouts. CHELONIA is also suitable for higher fidelity functional mock-ups, as well as short to medium-duration mission simulations. This new facility will enable the examination of habitat layouts for both partial gravity and microgravity environments. While partial gravity systems will be easily evaluated with the habitat currently in development, microgravity subsystems will be studied by utilizing low fidelity volumetric neutral buoyancy mock-ups in order to determine if commonality in the design for these two environments is appropriate. Finally, this new facility is being integrated into the SSL Moonyard planetary surface simulation center. The Moonyard simulates a planetary surface by means of a large sandbox, and is used primarily for rover field trials and suit systems evaluation. This new facility will be a prime element in future Earth analog simulations at the University of Maryland in support of NASA exploration objectives.

Kevin Davis↗
NASA NTRS2023

Remote Plant Food Production Capability X-Hab

As human space exploration expands to long-duration missions, plant production capability serves as a solution to reduce the mass of consumables necessary to support human metabolic requirements and promote positive crew psychological health. A capability to remotely grow plants for a long-duration space mission could allow crops to be produced before a crew arrives at a staged habitat and could enable plant health to be maintained through remote operation with minimal local crew support. The University of Colorado Boulder was awarded a grant in the summer of 2012 to build a system capable of remote plant production as part of the NASA and National Space Grant Foundation eXploration Habitat (X-Hab) 2013 Academic Innovation Challenge. This report is presented as a review of the Robotic Gardening System that was designed and developed to meet the requirements outlined in the challenge. Each subsystem of the Robotic Gardening System is presented in detail. Included in this report are the design methodologies used, lessons learned throughout the design and development processes, and options or ideas for continued development and future upgrades. In addition to being a review of the Robotic Gardening System and its subsystems, this document is meant to aid with the continued development of this system in conjunction with other projects, such as team member Heather Hava’s NASA Space Technology Research Fellowship (NSTRF) work, X-Hab 2013-14 Plants Anywhere: Growing Plants in Free Habitat Spaces, and Dr. Nikolaus Correll’s NASA Early Career Professionals Fellowship.

Daniel Zukowski↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

The Nasa Facility for Astromaterials Research at the Johnson Space Center – A National Laboratory for Planetary Research.

The Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) Division at the NASA Johnson Space Center has established the NASA Facility for Astromaterials Research (NFAR) through the NASA Planetary Science Enabling Facilities program. NFAR is designed to provide access to our unique combination of laboratories, instruments, infrastructure, and technical expertise for conducting broad-based world-class planetary research. NFAR enables direct access to both research and curation expertise, to facilitate specialized sample handling and analysis of astromaterials and planetary analog materials. NFAR users from institutions that historically have limited access to or lack in-house analytical or experimental facilities are particularly encouraged to apply. We issue three calls for user proposals each year due the last day of April, July, and November. We award NFAR research projects to users in a competitive peer-reviewed proposal process. NASA-funded research in active PSD R&A proposals is prioritized along with requests from early-career/next-generation scientists, under-represented minorities, and those PIs from minority serving institutions. There is no cost to use the analytical facility, but researchers are required to be in person for analyses. Proposals to use NFAR labs are limited to < 5 pages and focus on the scientific purpose of the investigation and its relevance to NASA PSD, the labs to be accessed, and the time needed for the investigation. More information can be found at: https://ares.jsc.nasa.gov/research/nasa-facility-astromaterials-research/.

J. Filiberto↗