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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE): From Initial Concept to Full Implementation on the International Space Station

Two phase thermal management systems that capitalize on both latent and sensible heats of the working fluid can yield orders of magnitude enhancements in flow boiling and condensation heat transfer coefficients and reduce size and weight of future space systems. Because the understanding of microgravity influences on two-phase flow and heat transfer is quite limited, there is presently an urgent need for a new experimental microgravity facility to enable investigators to perform long-duration flow boiling and condensation experiments in pursuit of reliable databases. This presentation will discuss evolution of the Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE), a collaborative effort between Purdue University and NASA Glenn Research Center, from initial concept with clearly defined objectives to full implementation on the International Space Station (ISS). It will be shown how this facility will serve as a primary platform for obtaining two-phase flow and heat transfer data in microgravity. By comparing the microgravity data against those obtained in Earth gravity, it will be possible to ascertain the influence of body force on two-phase transport phenomena in pursuit of mechanistic models as well as correlations, and to help determine the minimum flow criteria to ensure gravity independent flow boiling and condensation.

Flow boiling↗
NASA NTRS2021

A Dedicated Relay Network to Enable the Future of Mars Exploration

A highly successful international collaboration, the “Mars Relay Network” (MRN) leverages the combined NASA and ESA orbiter capabilities to transfer data to and from Mars surface missions. The MRN has admirably flight-demonstrated the benefits of a relay network and validated how international protocol standards may be used to ensure interoperability. However, principally designed for science missions, these orbiters addressed relay requirements as a secondary function, which introduced limitations to what can be achieved with the network. Next-decade missions are expected to have significantly greater communication needs than can be accommodated by the aging MRN. This paper reports the results of a broad study that evaluated the potential of a next-generation relay network, referencing the current MRN as a benchmark. A wide variety of orbital altitudes, surface latitudes, and mission scenarios were evaluated around a specific set of assumptions regarding the telecommunications payloads included. The study outlined how current day technologies could be applied to greatly enhance the data throughput to and from Mars on behalf of future science and reconnaissance missions. The instantiation of such a network would be enabling for a variety of missions and mission classes that have been heretofore unachievable, including both large and small orbiters, and landed vehicles representing new mission types (i.e. climbers, diggers, drones, etc.), and further argues that such a network would be instrumental in advancing human exploration interests at Mars.

Davis, Richard M.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Orbital Communications Adapter

What is OCA? The OCA system provides the capability to transfer data (documents, imagery, video, data) between a ground PC network in MCC-H and the onboard SSC and JSL systems via Ku band.

Michelle Lee Nowling↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Advances in PSP Testing in LaRC High Reynolds Number Facilities

The use of luminescent coatings for the global measurement of surface aerodynamic properties at full-flight Reynolds numbers has been ongoing at the NASA Langley Research Center since the late 1990s, beginning with Temperature Sensitive Paint (TSP) for boundary layer analysis at the 0.3-m Transonic Cryogenics Tunnel. Since then, significant work has been made to extend these measurements to pressure using Pressure Sensitive Paint (PSP) as well as develop systems for application in larger scale, full-flight Reynolds number facilities, such as the National Transonic Facility (NTF). Recently, a system for the measurement of time-resolved pressure using recently developed unsteady PSP (uPSP) formulations has been designed and implemented in the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT). The use of PSP (or uPSP) in either of these large scale, full-fight Reynolds number wind tunnels is complicated by the fact that both facilities operate best in oxygen deficient environments; however, the PSP technique relies on the presence of oxygen to work. The NTF is typically operated in cryogenic conditions, which is achieved using liquid nitrogen. In this facility, temperatures can reach as low as 116 K (-250 °F) with nominal oxygen concentrations of less than 50 ppm. This has resulted in the development of specialized PSP formulations that can operate in the cryogenic environment with the introduction of low amounts of oxygen (typically less than 2000 ppm) for PSP response. Likewise, to achieve full-flight Reynolds number conditions in the TDT, the atmosphere in the tunnel is replaced with a “heavy gas” of R-134A (1,1,1,2-tetrafluoroethane), which also has minimal oxygen native in the flow. The use of uPSP in this case will also depend on the introduction of trace amounts of oxygen, with the precise concentrations to be determined in an upcoming test. This presentation will describe some recent advancements that have been made for PSP measurements in both facilities. For the NTF system, there has been significant development of enhanced lighting for use at cryogenic conditions, as well as improvements in the application efficiency of the PSP. Furthermore, there are efforts underway to incorporate advanced data analysis techniques to acquire additional surface aerodynamic properties using the PSP technique that can yield not only improved experimental efficiency, but also provide data needed for next generation vehicle design and development. For the uPSP system in TDT, significant efforts to improve the data transfer rates to a high-performance computing environment for analysis are underway and performance and initial results from the system in the heavy-gas environment will be presented.

Pressure Sensitive Paint↗
NASA NTRS2021

Development of a Computational Framework for the Design of Resilient Space Structures

Cyber-physical testing provides a unique platform to enable the design of resilient space structures. This hybrid approach requires the development of a structural model that accounts for various hazards (e.g., micrometeorite and debris impact) and interacts with physical tests and other sub-system models (e.g., thermal) of the space habitat. A two-dimensional finite element analysis code was developed in MATLAB to facilitate the evaluation of potential designs under operating and unexpected loads and prepare the computational framework for eventually performing cyber-physical testing. The code’s efficiency was enhanced by using an object-oriented programming approach that reduced data transfer between functions. In this study, the code is implemented to predict the response of a dome-style structure made of regolith concrete to impact loading and identify the force magnitude that will cause the tensile strength to be exceeded in domes with different thicknesses.

Tensile strength↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Gateway Autonomy for Enabling Deep Space Exploration

The Gateway spacecraft is an important stepping-stone to exploration of the solar system, integrating commercial and international partners into a tightly coupled system, enabling cislunar activities, and implementing key technologies for missions to Mars. Autonomy is a capability area necessary to handle long communication outages where intervention from Earth is impossible, to prepare to operate with long communication delays that will be common in interplanetary travel, and to make spaceflight more affordable and accessible by reducing sustaining operations costs. The Gateway Concept of Operations states that one of Gateway’s goals is to “focus on infrastructure and systems that will allow autonomous operations aboard the Gateway with robotics, automated systems, advanced communications, and distributed computing.” Gateway’s Vehicle Systems Manager (VSM) and associated Autonomous Spacecraft Management Architecture (ASMA) are key products towards delivering autonomous capability. The primary functions of the control architecture are Mission Management and Timeline Execution, Resource Management, Fault Management, and Vehicle Control and Operation (VCO). In each of these areas, there is an initial level of capability to be delivered at launch, with plans to continue development and grow to greater capability. The initial deployment of VSM will focus on maintaining vehicle safety by focusing on full fault management capabilities and deploying only enough resource and timeline planning functionality to support that. The final deployment of VSM will add significant planning and control optimization functionality to support nominal operations for up to 21 days without ground support, even accommodating fault and failure conditions. While the VSM is the vehicle-level representation of autonomous reasoning, distributed automation is essential to provide the right scope and abstraction of information to process. Module and system support of automation and simplicity of interfaces are two important design paradigms that Gateway is focusing on to garner a systems approach to autonomy. Distribution of reasoning can increase complexity, so Gateway is also taking a strict hierarchical approach to information flow and decision making. VSM is not the only capability necessary to achieve an autonomous spacecraft. Robotics support for maintenance of the spacecraft will be essential to provide continued vehicle functionality even when crew is not present. Technical and programmatic challenges exist when implementing autonomous robotics operations. These challenges include sufficient network flexibility to support data transfer to the rest of the vehicle to coordinate module-to-module robotic walk-offs and finding the proper interfaces to allow sufficient dexterity. Communication system upgrades planned for Gateway include Delay Tolerant Networking to best utilize the complex network of relays that will be part of mature cislunar operations. Distributed computing and management will provide failure tolerance, robustness, and growth of capabilities while still allowing significant reuse of heritage software on heritage systems as well as reuse of common applications across a spacecraft to minimize new development, but this requires adherence to key standards and interfaces. The Gateway program has demonstrated significant progress towards these capabilities and has identified challenges other spacecraft developers should be aware of from the start.

Molly Anderson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

SOLL-E: A Module Transport and Placement Robot for Autonomous Assembly of Discrete Lattice Structures

This paper presents the design and development of a transport and placement robot that demonstrates autonomous assembly of structural building blocks. The robots are intended to serve as a critical component of automated structural assembly and maintenance systems. The Scaling Omni-directional Lattice Locomoting Explorer (SOLL-E) uses a 5-DoF bipedal inchworm locomotion architecture with locking foot and cargo grippers. The locomotion system employs large magnet gap diameter BLDC motors with moderate timing belt gearing for primary joints, and DC planetary gearmotors for turning. Foot and cargo grippers are identical, with servo-actuated locking mechanisms. Three modular controller boards are used to control these actuators in real-time, with command and telemetry data transferred between the server and each controller board via WiFi. Functionality and performance were evaluated in a ground demonstration.

robotics↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Gateway Autonomy for Enabling Deep Space Exploration

The Gateway spacecraft is an important stepping-stone to exploration of the solar system, integrating commercial and international partners into a tightly coupled system, enabling cislunar activities, and implementing key technologies for missions to Mars. Autonomy is a capability area necessary to handle long communication outages where intervention from Earth is impossible, to prepare to operate with long communication delays that will be common in interplanetary travel, and to make spaceflight more affordable and accessible by reducing sustaining operations costs. The Gateway Concept of Operations states that one of Gateway’s goals is to “focus on infrastructure and systems that will allow autonomous operations aboard the Gateway with robotics, automated systems, advanced communications, and distributed computing.” Gateway’s Vehicle Systems Manager (VSM) and associated Autonomous Spacecraft Management Architecture (ASMA) are key products towards delivering autonomous capability. The primary functions of the control architecture are Mission Management and Timeline Execution, Resource Management, Fault Management, and Vehicle Control and Operation (VCO). In each of these areas, there is an initial level of capability to be delivered at launch, with plans to continue development and grow to greater capability. The initial deployment of VSM will focus on maintaining vehicle safety by focusing on full fault management capabilities and deploying only enough resource and timeline planning functionality to support that. The final deployment of VSM will add significant planning and control optimization functionality to support nominal operations for up to 21 days without ground support, even accommodating fault and failure conditions. While the VSM is the vehicle-level representation of autonomous reasoning, distributed automation is essential to provide the right scope and abstraction of information to process. Module and system support of automation and simplicity of interfaces are two important design paradigms that Gateway is focusing on to garner a systems approach to autonomy. Distribution of reasoning can increase complexity, so Gateway is also taking a strict hierarchical approach to information flow and decision making. VSM is not the only capability necessary to achieve an autonomous spacecraft. Robotics support for maintenance of the spacecraft will be essential to provide continued vehicle functionality even when crew is not present. Technical and programmatic challenges exist when implementing autonomous robotics operations. These challenges include sufficient network flexibility to support data transfer to the rest of the vehicle to coordinate module-to-module robotic walk-offs and finding the proper interfaces to allow sufficient dexterity. Communication system upgrades planned for Gateway include Delay Tolerant Networking to best utilize the complex network of relays that will be part of mature cislunar operations. Distributed computing and management will provide failure tolerance, robustness, and growth of capabilities while still allowing significant reuse of heritage software on heritage systems as well as reuse of common applications across a spacecraft to minimize new development, but this requires adherence to key standards and interfaces. The Gateway program has demonstrated significant progress towards these capabilities and has identified challenges other spacecraft developers should be aware of from the start.

Molly Anderson↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Insights and Observations From Operating A Laser Communication Terminal on the International Space Station (ISS)

The Integrated Laser Communication Relay Demonstration (LCRD) Low Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) is the first user platform for NASA’s first laser communication relay, LCRD. ILLUMA-T is hosted on the International Space Station (ISS) as an external payload of the Japanese Experiment Module – Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) situated in slot 3. The LCRD payload is hosted on the STPSat-6 spacecraft, which orbits Earth in a geostationary orbit at position 112 W. The ILLUMA-T-to-LCRD system provides a bidirectional, space-to-ground laser communication relay link transferring data up to 1.2 Gbps utilizing two optical ground stations (OGS), OGS-1 in California and OGS-2 in Hawai’i. This paper describes lessons learned from operating the ILLUMA-T system and examines topics such as the end-to-end system availability, predictive versus actual ephemeris, acquisition adjustments, modem timing and handshaking, the terminal’s physical placement and accommodations, and experiment development, execution, and analysis. The authors of this paper operate both the LCRD and ILLUMA-T laser terminals on a daily basis including pass planning, procedure execution, acquisition analysis, and real-time terminal commanding and telemetry monitoring. LCRD is a joint project involving NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), the California Institute of Technology Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory (MIT LL). The ILLUMA-T payload is managed by NASA GSFC in Greenbelt, Maryland whose partners include the ISS program office at NASA’s Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas; the Huntsville Operations Support Center (HOSC) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) in Huntsville, Alabama; the Glenn Research Center (GRC) in Cleveland, Ohio; and the MIT LL in Lexington, Massachusetts. ILLUMA-T is funded by the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Laser Communications↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Big Data Challenges at CCMC

Like other research centers, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC, https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is also experiencing the big data challenges. CCMC hosts over 80 space weather models for Runs On Request (ROR), Continuous Runs and Instant Runs simulation services for the research community. In addition, CCMC has started to support simulation output onboarding in response to the Open Science initiative. Overall, we have accumulated over petabytes of simulation output data and are rapidly growing. In this presentation, we will discuss our data and storage challenges. We will present our attempts to address our challenges and any associated lessons learned. CCMC uses Apache Airflow to ensure data transfer is consistent. We will give a brief overview on how we leverage Apache Airflow to enhance our environment.

space weather↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Big Data Challenges at the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC)

Like other research centers, the Community Coordinated Modeling Center (CCMC, https://ccmc.gsfc.nasa.gov) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is also experiencing the big data challenges. CCMC hosts over 80 space weather models for Runs On Request (ROR), Continuous Runs and Instant Runs simulation services for the research community. In addition, CCMC has started to support simulation output onboarding in response to the Open Science initiative. Overall, we have accumulated over petabytes of simulation output data and are rapidly growing. In this presentation, we will discuss our data and storage challenges. We will present our attempts to address our challenges and any associated lessons learned. CCMC uses Apache Airflow to ensure data transfer is consistent. We will give a brief overview on how we leverage Apache Airflow to enhance our environment.

space weather↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Experimental Results from Integrated LCRD Low-Earth Orbit User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) Program

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Integrated LCRD Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) User Modem and Amplifier Terminal (ILLUMA-T) payload was launched and installed on the International Space Station’s (ISS) Japanese Experiment Module - Exposed Facility (JEM-EF) in November 2023. ILLUMA-T was the first space-based user to communicate with NASA’s Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD) using free space optical communication to transfer data from the ISS at return rates to Earth of up to 1.244 Gbps and forward rates from Earth of up to 155 Mbps. A 6-month long Experiments Program on ILLUMA-T concluded in June 2024, after which the payload was removed from the ISS and is currently de-orbiting. The Experiments Program was carefully designed to understand and characterize the Pointing, Acquisition, and Track (PAT) process with the new Modular, Agile, Scalable Optical Terminal (MAScOT), optical modem performance, and end-to-end relay performance.

ISS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Remote Hardware-in-the-Loop Approach for Microgrid Controller Evaluation

Utilities have been installing microgrids because of the increased resilience and reliability advantages they may provide to the distribution system. A microgrid controller is a critical component in microgrids. It is of great benefit to derisk the installation of microgrid controllers before field deployment. Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is used by controller developers and utilities to evaluate the controllers under stressful conditions. In this work, a microgrid control function developed by the Synchrophasor Grid Monitoring and Automation (SyGMA) laboratory at the University of California, San Diego is tested in a remote HIL (RHIL) setup. The digital real-time simulation of the detailed microgrid system was operated at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Energy Systems Integration Facility. Under such RHIL setup, successful controller operation is contingent on understanding and characterizing the communications channel and in particular network latencies. The novelty of this paper is the proposed use of a RHIL setup that leverages existing power system communications protocols to evaluate the controller in conjunction with the simulation capabilities of a remote facility. The work presented here will provide the complete setup of the HIL evaluation platform, the details of the communications protocols used by the setup for data transfer between the two organizations, test cases developed to evaluate the controller, and the results from the experiments.

24 POWER TRANSMISSION AND DISTRIBUTION↗
DOE OSTI2020

The updated DESGW processing pipeline for the third LIGO/VIRGO observing run

The DESGW group seeks to identify electromagnetic counterpartsof gravitational wave events seen by the LIGO-VIRGO network, such as thoseexpected from binary neutron star mergers or neutron star- black hole mergers.DESGW was active throughout the first two LIGO observing seasons, followingup several binary black hole mergers and the first binary neutron star merger,GW170817. We describe the modifications to the observing strategy generationand image processing pipeline between the second (ending in August 2017)and third (beginning in April 2019) LIGO observing seasons. The modifica-tions include a more robust observing strategy generator, further parallelizationof the image reduction software and dierence imaging processing pipeline,data transfer streamlining, and a web page listing identified counterpart candi-dates that updates in real time. Taken together, the additional parallelizationsteps enable us to identify potential electromagnetic counterparts within fullycalibrated search images in less than one hour, compared to the 3-5 hours itwould typically take during the first two seasons. These performance improve-ments are critical to the entire EM followup community, as rapid identification(or rejection) of candidates enables detailed spectroscopic followup by multipleinstruments as soon as possible, leading to more information about the environ-ment immediately following such gravitational wave events.

Herner, Kenneth R.↗
DOE OSTI2020

High-Level Model Articulation with BuildingSync and OpenStudio

The use of the BuildingSync schema for describing the contents of buildings is becoming more common with its recent integration into the Audit Template tool as well as ASHRAE’s Building Energy Quotient (bEQ) web portal. Although BuildingSync was initially created to store and transfer data related to building energy audits (as defined by ASHRAE Standard 211), it has since been expanded to store the data needed to articulate fully defined physics-based building energy models. BuildingSync combined with abstracted high-level input methods defined in OpenStudio’s Standards project and the newly developed BuildingSync gem allows BuildingSync eXtensible Markup Language (XML) (Bray, Paoli, Sperberg-McQueen, Maler, Eve (Sun Microsystems, & Francois, 2008) document to be converted into OpenStudio models. Automatic generation of a building energy model from data collected during an audit 1) eliminates the need to separately generate an energy model, 2) improves consistency between model generation, and 3) simplifies evaluation of various energy efficiency measures. This manuscript will discuss this open-source project, including: development of the validation infrastructure necessary to provide formalized expectations of informational requirements for BuildingSync documents; development of the BuildingSync gem for translation of BuildingSync documents to OpenStudio models as well as example implementations; and finally, the manuscript will elaborate on the advantages and disadvantages of using high-level models generated from BuildingSync as surrogates to detailed models.

30 DIRECT ENERGY CONVERSION↗
DOE OSTI2020

C-SAW: a framework for graph sampling and random walk on GPUs

Many applications require to learn, mine, analyze and visualize large-scale graphs. These graphs are often too large to be addressed efficiently using conventional graph processing technologies. Fortunately, recent research efforts find out graph sampling and random walk, which significantly reduce the size of original graphs, can benefit the tasks of learning, mining, analyzing and visualizing large graphs by capturing the desirable graph properties. This paper introduces C-SAW, the first framework that accelerates Sampling and Random Walk framework on GPUs. Particularly, C-SAW makes three contributions: First, our framework provides a generic API which allows users to implement a wide range of sampling and random walk algorithms with ease. Second, offloading this framework on GPU, we introduce warp-centric parallel selection, and two novel optimizations for collision migration. Third, towards supporting graphs that exceed the GPU memory capacity, we introduce efficient data transfer optimizations for out-of-memory and multi-GPU sampling, such as workload-aware scheduling and batched multi-instance sampling. Taken together, our framework constantly outperforms the state of the art projects in addition to the capability of supporting a wide range of sampling and random walk algorithms.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2024

Overcoming obstacles to IPv6 on WLCG

The transition of the Worldwide Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid (WLCG) storage services to dual-stack IPv6/IPv4 is almost complete; all Tier-1 and 94% of Tier-2 storage are IPv6 enabled. While most data transfers now use IPv6, a significant number of IPv4 transfers still occur even when both endpoints support IPv6. This paper presents the ongoing efforts of the HEPiX IPv6 working group to steer WLCG toward IPv6-only services by investigating and fixing the obstacles to the use of IPv6 and identifying cases where IPv4 is used when IPv6 is available. Removing IPv4 use is essential for the long-term agreed goal of IPv6-only access to resources within WLCG, thus eliminating the complexity and security concerns associated with dual-stack services. We present our achievements and ongoing challenges as we navigate the final stages of the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 within WLCG.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Investigation of CAD-based Geometry Workflows for Multiphysics Fusion Problems Using OpenMC and MOOSE

Fusion system designs are complex and require intricate and accurate meshes to be properly modeled. In this study, we investigate the use of CAD-based geometry workflows in fusion systems multiphysics problems. A simplified tokamak was introduced and modeled in CAD using a multiphysics coupling of OpenMC Monte Carlo transport and MOOSE heat conduction. The meshed geometry was prepared using direct accelerated geometry Monte Carlo (DAGMC) for particle transport, and a volumetric mesh was also prepared to be used in MOOSE and to tally OpenMC results. Cardinal was used to run OpenMC Monte Carlo particle transport within MOOSE framework. The heat source distribution and tritium production were calculated in OpenMC. The data transfer system was used to transfer heat source and temperature distribution between OpenMC and MOOSE. Two computational studies related to mesh refinement were performed: (1) refining the DAGMC and volumetric meshes used for tallying results and solving heat conduction and (2) only refining the DAGMC particle transport mesh. The refinement of the tally mesh has a much larger effect on the runtime compared to the refinement of the DAGMC particle transport surface mesh.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗