Engineering Papers⌕ Search

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “open”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

At least 901 records · Page 50

NASA GeneLab: Open Science for Life in Space

NASA’s GeneLab helps scientists understand how the fundamental building blocks of life – DNA, RNA, proteins, and metabolites – change from exposure to the space environment including microgravity and cosmic radiation exposure. GeneLab does so by providing fully coordinated epigenomics, genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics data (collectively known as omics data) alongside essential metadata describing each spaceflight and space-relevant experiment. The open-access GeneLab repository currently consists of over 300 omics datasets generated by biological experiments, involving various model organisms, that are relevant to spaceflight. In order to maximize the intelligibility of these data, particularly for users with limited bioinformatics knowledge, GeneLab has started processing and analyzing these datasets to generate differential gene expression data and identify biological and physiological pathways that are dysregulated as a result of spaceflight. To aide GeneLab’s efforts to harmonize and democratize space-relevant omics data, over 130 scientists have joined one of four GeneLab Analysis Working Groups (Animal AWG, Plant AWG, Microbe AWG, Multi-Omics AWG) and together helped develop and adopted standard data analysis workflows for all data types available in GeneLab. Currently, the GeneLab Data System includes a data repository with federated search capability, an online controlled-access toolshed powered by "Galaxy" for users to process data with vetted standard workflows, a workspace for data sharing, a data submission portal, and the ability to browse and visualize transcriptomics processed data. The user interface was designed to be accessible to a broad variety of users, including high school and college students who can use it to learn about omics data analysis and space biology. The visualization portal enhances GeneLab’s ability to democratize omics data by removing the need for bioinformatics expertise to interpret transcriptomics data hosted on GeneLab. This presentation will provide an over-view of NASA’s GeneLab including how to navigate the GeneLab Data System and will conclude by providing resources for opportunities to work with GeneLab and NASA at large.

Amanda M Saravia-Butler↗

DELTA: An Open-Source Framework to Simplify Deep Learning with Satellite Imagery

DELTA (Deep Earth Learning, Tools, and Analysis) is an open-source framework developed at NASA for deep learning on satellite imagery based on tensorflow. It helps simplify data engineering and preprocessing steps and reduces the need for a lot of the boilerplate code that needs written to make datasets palatable for machine learning. This lets data scientists focus on model development while DELTA handles the grunt work. This presentation will demonstrate DELTA’s functionality and share some examples from an active project using it for flood mapping.

Michael von Pohle↗

DELTA: An Open-Source Framework to Simplify Machine Learning with Satellite Imagery

DELTA (Deep Earth Learning, Tools, and Analysis) is an open-source framework developed at NASA to simplify running and training machine learning (ML) models on satellite imagery. Users new to machine learning can run existing ML models on satellite imagery with minimal setup and configuration. For experienced ML users, DELTA helps simplify data engineering, preprocessing steps, and reduces the need for boilerplate code that needs written to make satellite imagery datasets palatable for machine learning. This lets data scientists focus on model development while DELTA handles the imagery manipulation. This presentation will demonstrate DELTA’s functionality and share some examples from an active project using it for flood mapping using imagery from multiple satellite sources

Michael von Pohle↗

An Open-Science Approach to Address Individual Response to Simulated GCR In Genetically Diverse Populations of Mice and Humans

This project addresses the challenge of understanding and predicting individual radiation sensitivity by integrating genetics, demographics and biomarker characteristics across species (mice and humans). We hypothesize that ex vivo DNA repair response to GCR components is a central determinant of cancer risk from space radiation and can serve as a biomarker of radiation risk in combination with genetics. Automated image quantification of 53BP1+ radiation-induced foci (RIF) during the first 4-48 h post-irradiation was performed as a function of dose and LET in non-immortalized primary skin fibroblasts derived from 76 mice across 15 strains (5 inbred reference strains and 10 collaborative-cross strains) exposed to X rays (0.1, 1 and 4 Gy), 350 MeV/n 40Ar and 600 MeV/n 56Fe (1.1 and 3 particles/100sq. μm), as well as in peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) from 768 healthy donors (matched ethnicity, 50/50 male/female, 18-70 years old) exposed to gamma rays (0.1 and 1 Gy), 350 MeV/n 28Si, 350 MeV/n 40Ar and 600 MeV/n 56Fe (1.1 and 3 particles/100sq. μm). A genome-wide association study (GWAS) was performed on the mouse strains between DNA damage responses to space radiation and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). We found SNPs, which were significantly associated to the RIF phenotype, mapped to genes and pathways that are functionally linked to health hazards for deep space exploration (e.g. carcinogenesis, nervous system damage and immune dysfunction). Some of these SNPs were located within protein coding regions, potentially interfering with protein functions and providing promising genetic targets for countermeasures. We also found correlations between both spontaneous and radiation-induced DNA damage and SNPs mapped to pathways associated with cellular metabolism. GWAS is undergoing for the human data. All data have been made available via the NASA Space Biology Open-Science database (genelab.nasa.gov) and we will discuss how various genomic and transcriptomic datasets can be accessed for modeling and integrated using machine learning methods for discovering new radiation biology.

Sylvain V Costes↗

Open-source Techniques for Automated Landslide Inventory Generation for Rapid Response

Manual mapping is the most used method for generating landslide inventories. For rapid response scenario this method becomes tedious and time consuming. The Landslide team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center has been developing open-source landslide mapping systems for rapid generation of landslide inventories. We have developed a Python-based landslide mapping framework known as the Semi-Automatic Landslide Detection (SALaD) system that uses Object-based Image Analysis and machine learning. For production of event-based inventories, SALaD was modified to include a change detection module (SALaD-CD). Utilizing high-resolution imagery form from Planet and Maxar, we have generated multiple rapid response landslide inventories that have been used by emergency responders on the ground, the NASA Disasters program, and academia. Currently, we are exploiting deep learning frameworks for landslide mapping. We are interested to learn about efficient way to harmonize multi-sensor data for creating a long-term record of landslides, training strategies and ongoing deep learning-based efforts for natural hazard characterization within NASA and UMD.

Pukar Amatya↗

CEOS Enabling Open Science via Science Data Systems

The Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) strives to enhance international coordination and data exchange and to optimize societal benefit. CEOS contributes to NASA’s core mission and is critical to NASA’s Earth Science program and to the future of Earth observations community as a whole because it advances mission planning, interagency coordination and technical implementation. Within NASA, the CEOS Working Group on Information System and Services (WGISS) is a forum for the Earth Sciences Data Systems (ESDS) Program to collaborate with other international and domestic agencies in the development of Earth observation data systems and services. NASA leads the development and demonstration of multiple prototypes supporting CEOS and Group on Earth Observations (GEO) requirements. NASA’s participation in WGISS influences NASA’s Earth Observing System Data and Information System’s (EOSDIS) ability to make high-quality data products available to the broad science community both nationally and internationally. Combined with NASA’s free and open data policy, EOSDIS’s involvement in WGISS is essential to widespread use of research satellite measurements. This presentation focuses on an overview and recent status of NASA’s EOSDIS.

Diane Davies↗

AIST Technology Perspectives for ESO Mission Processing and Open-sourced Science

NASA is formulating the Earth System Observatory (ESO), a set of Earth-focused missions to provide key information to guide efforts related to monitoring climate change, mitigating disasters, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. Within that framework, this presentation will introduce the Advanced Collaborative Frameworks (ACF) concepts that have been developed as part of the Advanced Information Systems Technology (AIST) Program, demonstrating the capability for facilitating open-sourced science and with a strong transition/infusion potential.

Jacqueline Le Moigne↗

Building Maps for Terrain Relative Navigation Using Blender: An Open-Source Approach

A persistent challenge for vision-based navigation systems that compare imagery to a reference map is generating high quality maps with similar lighting conditions. Image rendering software can be used to apply variable lighting to reference maps or to generate synthetic imagery for test trajectories. While many image rendering software packages are available, with several developed specifically for spaceflight applications, there are often limitations due to cost, image fidelity, or flexibility. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of an open-source image rendering software, Blender, for use in Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN) applications. A scene in Blender was generated based on elevation data and satellite imagery of the region of West Texas used by Blue Origin for the operation of their New Shepard suborbital rocket. The Blender scene was validated by reproducing imagery collected during a flight of New Shepard in October 2020 and was further used to generate reference maps for use by a TRN algorithm on a subsequent New Shepard flight in August 2021. The work was performed under the NASA Safe and Precise Landing Integrated Capabilities Evolution (SPLICE) project, which is focused on technology advancement for precision landing and hazard avoidance. This work aims to lower the cost of entry and generally promote the adoption and advancement of vision-based navigation technologies.

Kyle W Smith↗

pyQuARC: Open Source Library for Earth Observation Metadata Quality Assessment

Metadata quality is essential to effective data discovery and has become increasingly vital as more Earth Science data sets become available. The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) hosts metadata describing NASA’s Earth Observation data products, which are archived across 12 Distributed Active Archive Centers (DAACs). The Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team, located at Marshall Space Flight Center, conducts metadata quality assessments to ensure that these data products are discoverable, accessible, and usable. To achieve these goals, the ARC team has developed a metadata quality assessment framework to evaluate metadata completeness, correctness, and consistency. ARC uses a combination of manual and automated methods to assess these three components and identify areas of improvement; the team then collaborates with the DAACs to resolve any findings. To streamline this process, ARC is currently developing a host of scripts, known as pyQuARC, to automate metadata quality assessments as much as possible. pyQuARC is an open source library for Earth Observation Metadata Quality Assessment, and the tool utilizes ARC’s metadata quality assessment framework to make basic validation checks, pinpoint inconsistencies between dataset-level (i.e. collection) and file-level (i.e. granule) metadata, and identify opportunities for more descriptive and robust information. Since pyQuARC is also customizable, other users can make modifications as needed, and future metadata standards can also be implemented. Once pyQuARC is fully developed, it will support multiple schema types to serve the broader EOSDIS metadata community. This presentation will provide an overview of pyQuARC and its process of development while showcasing the tool’s valuable features and uses.

Jenny Wood↗

A Framework for Assessing Earth Observation Metadata Quality: Implications for Data Discovery and Open Science

The Common Metadata Repository (CMR) contains metadata records describing NASA’s collection of over 8,000 Earth observation data products. The Analysis and Review of CMR (ARC) Team at Marshall Space Flight Center assesses the quality of these metadata records. Metadata, rather than the data itself, is indexed for search in both discipline-specific datacenters and global or aggregated catalogs (such as Earth data Search), making it essential for determining whether a data product is appropriate for a given research question or application need. Since metadata connects users to data, it should be as accurate and complete as possible in addition to meeting minimum database requirements. The ARC team has developed a metadata quality framework by which to assess quality. The framework consists of a set of quality criteria that converge around the dimensions of correctness, completeness, and consistency, with the goal of improving the discoverability, accessibility, and usability of NASA’s Earth Observation data. The application of the framework has resulted in a measurable improvement in NASA’s metadata quality. Key aspects of the framework’s success are the ability to systematically evaluate metadata and provide actionable quality improvement recommendations. Lessons learned from the project will be shared along with implementation details which may be relevant to other science disciplines. By aiming to make data more discoverable and accessible to a broad user community, the ARC metadata quality framework helps contribute to NASA’s commitment to open science.

Jeanne Le Roux↗

DELTA: An Open-Source Framework to Simplify Machine Learning with Satellite Imagery

DELTA (Deep Earth Learning, Tools, and Analysis) is an open-source framework developed at NASA to simplify running and training machine learning (ML) models on satellite imagery. Users new to machine learning can run existing ML models on satellite imagery with minimal setup and configuration. For experienced ML users, DELTA helps simplify data engineering, preprocessing steps, and reduces the need for boilerplate code that needs written to make satellite imagery datasets palatable for machine learning. This lets data scientists focus on model development while DELTA handles the imagery manipulation. This presentation will demonstrate DELTA’s functionality and share some examples from an active project using it for flood mapping using imagery from multiple satellite sources.

deep learning↗

COTS Camera and Computer-based Open-source Star Tracker

The NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) and other partners have developed and verified a software suite intended to allow users with little-to-no experience with star trackers/attitude estimation to assemble, deploy, calibrate, and operate a star tracker using COTS cameras and computers. This software is open source, written in Python 3, and has been demonstrated across a variety of computers, operating systems, and cameras. The first release of the software is now available to download at the link below. We’re excited to see what you do with it! Please contact us for more information.

Samuel M. Pedrotty↗

Passive Microwave Signatures and Retrieval of High-Latitude Snowfall Over Open Oceans and Sea Ice: Insights From Coincidences of GPM and CloudSat Satellites

This article studies changes in microwave signals of oceanic snowfall in response to the formation of snow-covered sea ice using active and passive coincident data from the radar and radiometer onboard the CloudSat and the global precipitation measurement satellites. Using reanalysis data of liquid and ice water path as well as satellite retrievals of sea ice snow-cover depth, spectral regions are determined over which the snowfall signatures are likely to be obscured or falsely detected. Relying on an a priori database populated with the active–passive coincidences, a Bayesian snowfall retrieval algorithm is presented that links a k -nearest neighbor matching with the inverse Gaussian estimator used in the Goddard profiling algorithm. Without relying on any ancillary data of air temperature, the results demonstrate that over open oceans (sea ice), we can passively retrieve the CloudSat active snowfalls with a true positive rate of 92 (85%) and the root mean squared error of 0.24 (0.15) mm per h.

Sajad Vahedizade↗

The Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC2) v1.1: An Open-Source Ground-Based Lidar and Radar Instrument Simulator and Subcolumn Generator for Large-Scale Models

Climate models are essential for our comprehensive understanding of Earth's atmosphere and can provide critical insights on future changes decades ahead. Because of these critical roles, today's climate models are continuously being developed and evaluated using constraining observations and measurements obtained by satellites, airborne, and ground-based instruments. Instrument simulators can provide a bridge between the measured or retrieved quantities and their sampling in models and field observations while considering instrument sensitivity limitations. Here we present the Earth Model Column Collaboratory (EMC2), an open-source ground-based lidar and radar instrument simulator and subcolumn generator, specifically designed for large-scale models, in particular climate models, but also applicable to high-resolution model output. EMC2 provides a flexible framework enabling direct comparison of model output with ground-based observations, including generation of subcolumns that may statistically represent finer model spatial resolutions. In addition, EMC2 emulates ground-based (and air- or space-borne) measurements while remaining faithful to large-scale models' physical assumptions implemented in their cloud or radiation schemes. The simulator uses either single particle or bulk particle size distribution lookup tables, depending on the selected scheme approach, to perform the forward calculations. To facilitate model evaluation, EMC2 also includes three hydrometeor classification methods, namely, radar- and sounding-based cloud and precipitation detection and classification, lidar-based phase classification, and a Cloud Feedback Model Intercomparison Project Observational Simulator Package (COSP) lidar simulator emulator. The software is written in Python, is easy to use, and can be straightforwardly customized for different models, radars, and lidars. Following the description of the logic, functionality, features, and software structure of EMC2, we present a case study of highly supercooled mixed-phase cloud based on measurements from the U.S. Department of Energy Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) West Antarctic Radiation Experiment (AWARE). We compare observations with the application of EMC2 to outputs from four configurations of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) climate model (ModelE3) in single-column model (SCM) mode and from a large-eddy simulation (LES) model. We show that two of the four ModelE3 configurations can form and maintain highly supercooled precipitating cloud for several hours, consistent with observations and LES. While our focus is on one of these ModelE3 configurations, which performed slightly better in this case study, both of these configurations and the LES results post-processed with EMC2 generally provide reasonable agreement with observed lidar and radar variables. As briefly demonstrated here, EMC2 can provide a lightweight and flexible framework for comparing the results of both large-scale and high-resolution models directly with observations, with relatively little overhead and multiple options for achieving consistency with model microphysical or radiation scheme physics.

Earth Model Column Collaboratory↗

NASA GeneLab: Open Science for Life in Space

The NASA GeneLab project capitalizes on multi-omic technologies to maximize the return on spaceflight experiments. To do this, GeneLab maintains a publicly accessible database (GLDS) that houses spaceflight and spaceflight relevant multi-omics data and collaborates with NASA principal investigators and projects to generate additional omics data. GeneLab houses more than 350 transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and epigenomic datasets from plant, animal and microbial experiments, with a growing number of these having been produced by the GeneLab Sequencing Lab. The GLDS contains rich metadata about each experiment and has integrated radiation dosimetry data from experiments flown on the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Free Flying spacecrafts. With the increasing amount and complexity of omics data being generated, GeneLab utilizes community-defined, common models for metadata and terminology so that omics data and results are discoverable and reliably reproducible. GeneLab uses the ISA-Tab specification and semantic model for organizing and representing omics metadata. In addition to metadata standards, data files must be open-source file or common exchange formats to ensure accessibility and usability by all users. To ease data ingestion and transfer, the web-based submission tool allows PIs a user-friendly user interface to curate, organize, and publish their space relevant omics data. In the more recent years, data curation and submission portal has incorporated the FAIR principles making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. To increase reusability of data, GeneLab has implemented an effort to present processed data in the GLDS in addition to the raw omics data. The processed data will enable interpretation of the data by a larger group of students, scientists and the general public. Standard pipelines for the transformation of raw data into visualizations were developed by four GeneLab Analysis Working Groups (animals, plants, microbes, multi-omics) comprised of over 200 scientists from NASA, industry, and academia. To explore the data, the GLDS provides users various tools for data analysis, collaborative workspace for file storage and sharing, and a visualization portal. The analysis platform built using the Galaxy toolshed provides access to a broad variety of users including those with limited bioinformatics experience and students to learn how to analyze spaceflight omics data. The visualization portal takes GeneLab one step closer to data democratization by removing all bioinformatics requisites to interpret transcriptomics data hosted in the repository. To train the next generation of scientists, NASA offers training programs such as GeneLab 4 High School (GL4HS) and GeneLab 4 Universities. NLM Curation at a Scale Workshop 2022 | NASA GeneLab (GL4U) to teach students bioinformatics and computational biology methods to analyze omics data. Discoveries made using GeneLab have begun and will continue to deepen our understanding of biology, advance the field of genomics, and help to discover cures for diseases, create better diagnostic tools, and ultimately allow astronauts to better withstand the rigors of long-duration spaceflight.

GeneLab↗

Open-source Wireless Sensor Network (Wi-Se Net) for Flexible Deployment

Wireless sensors, especially if battery powered, have a number of advantages over wired sensors for flexible or temporary diagnostic deployment in a field or lab setting. Recent advances in wireless technology and microprocessor boards have produced a variety of inexpensive off-the shelf chips which can communicate wirelessly with simple protocols. This paper describes the design and implementation of a highly customizable wireless sensor network (called WiSe Net) using inexpensive open-source hardware components as wireless nodes. These wireless sensor nodes can transmit data at a rate <250 Hz, can be battery powered, and have a small footprint (2x5 cm). In addition, a preliminary over-the-air programming system was developed to allow for simple wireless configuration when active. The network performance was demonstrated by taking distributed and electrically isolated temperature measurements on a high-voltage lab apparatus. Although this test case is in a laboratory setting, this network architecture could be easily repurposed for various other forms of monitoring

Wireless Sensor Network↗

Big-data Efficient and Automated Science Transfer (BEAST): An Open-Source Software Architecture for Arc Jet Data Management, Modeling, and Automation

Big-data Efficient and Automated Science Transfer (BEAST) was conceived to address the existing ground testing data management of the NASA Ames arc jet facilities (e.g., manually entered Excel files and USB drive data transfers). These data management practices were seen as a choke point for future thermal protection system (TPS) development as they limit statistical tracking, resolution of diagnostics, coordination between video/time series, data throughput, and data processing speed/efficiency. Consequently, BEAST was developed to provide a new data infrastructure with streamlined data collection, processing, transfer, and analysis. This new framework also seeks to implement the FAIR principles of data stewardship: Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. The BEAST framework is based on a combination of the Python Django web framework and the Python data stack to provide a monolithic, open-source platform for data management, automation, and machine learning. This architecture was chosen for maintainability and scalability for a small, in-house development team. This paper will describe the application framework, deployment, and discuss the benefits and future plans for the system.

Data management↗