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At least 919 records · Page 51

Main principles used for building up a data bank for the long-term storage and retrieval of scientific space data

Methodological, technical, and practical organizational problems are considered of constructing a long term data bank. Data processing flowcharts are presented which are based on an analysis of the tasks which the data bank must fulfill, an estimate of the existing and predicted data flows in the processing center, and the selection of the data storage media and the forms in which the data are presented. Questions related to the use of standard and special hardware and software in the data bank are discussed. Reasons are presented for the adopted structure of the document-fact type information retrieval system which permits the mechanization and automation of various stages in the retrieval and selection of the data.

Zlotin, G. N.↗

Preliminary study for a Numerical Aerodynamic Simulation Facility

The state of the art of relevant technologies, of systems and processor architectures, and the measurable computational requirements of the two existing Navier-Stokes solution programs were assessed by Control Data Corporation to determine the best approach for designing a system for aerodynamic simulation. Standard parts and components were used to identify the support processing system, which is composed of commercially available equipment and software. Technological achievements in large scale integration technology and system organization of subcomponents borrowed from the STAR-100C project were used in the design of the Navier-Stokes solver.

Lincoln, N. R.↗

TAVERNS and the space station software support environment

The Space Station Information System (SSIS) provides the data processing capability for the Space Station Program (SSP). The Software Support Environment (SSE) System for the SSP is the collection of software, procedures, standards, hardware specification, documentation, policy, and training materials. The Ada programming language was baselined by the Space Station Program Office as the language for development and maintenance of all space station software including the software of the SSE itself. The Test And Validation Environment for Remote Networked Systems (TAVERNS) is a distributed philosophy for development and validation of Ada applications software for the space station and as such is closely related to the SSE. An overview of the system is provided.

Howes, Norman R.↗

Development of Bio-GAS systems

Four experiment systems which have fundamental significance in the field of biotechnology are developed for the Get Away Special (GAS). Unique considerations were necessary to develop the systems which carry out biotechnological experiments under GAS's restricted conditions: delicate thermal control, fluid handling and protection from contamination. All experimental processes are controlled by internal sequencers and results of the experiments are recorded as images and numerical data within the systems. The systems are standardized in order to enable repeated use with a variety of experiments by replacement of the experiment modules and modification of experiment sequencing programs.

Takayanagi, M.↗

High rate information systems - Architectural trends in support of the interdisciplinary investigator

Data systems requirements in the Earth Observing System (EOS) Space Station Freedom (SSF) eras indicate increasing data volume, increased discipline interplay, higher complexity and broader data integration and interpretation. A response to the needs of the interdisciplinary investigator is proposed, considering the increasing complexity and rising costs of scientific investigation. The EOS Data Information System, conceived to be a widely distributed system with reliable communication links between central processing and the science user community, is described. Details are provided on information architecture, system models, intelligent data management of large complex databases, and standards for archiving ancillary data, using a research library, a laboratory and collaboration services.

Handley, Thomas H., Jr.↗

Global Precipitation Measurement: Benefits of Partnering with GPM Mission - Report 2

An important goal of the Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission is to maximize participation by non-NASA partners both domestic and international. A consequence of this objective is the provision for NASA to provide sufficient incentives to achieve partner buy-in and commitment to the program. NASA has identified seven specific areas in which substantive incentives will be offered: (1) partners will be offered participation in governance of GPM mission science affairs including definition of data products; (2) partners will be offered use of NASA's TDRSS capability for uplink and downlink of commands and data in regards to partner provided spacecraft; (3) partners will be offered launch support for placing partner provided spacecraft in orbit conditional upon mutually agreeable co-manifest arrangements; (4) partners will be offered direct data access at the NASA-GPM server level rather than through standard data distribution channels; (5) partners will be offered the opportunity to serve as regional data archive and distribution centers for standard GPM data products; and (6) partners will be offered the option to insert their own specialized filtering and extraction software into the GPM data processing stream or to obtain specialized subsets and products over specific areas of interest (7) partners will be offered GPM developed software tools that can be run on their platforms. Each of these incentives, either individually or in combination, represents a significant advantage to partners who may wish to participate in the GPM mission.

Stocker, Erich F.↗

Protecting Against Faults in JPL Spacecraft

A paper discusses techniques for protecting against faults in spacecraft designed and operated by NASA s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). The paper addresses, more specifically, fault-protection requirements and techniques common to most JPL spacecraft (in contradistinction to unique, mission specific techniques), standard practices in the implementation of these techniques, and fault-protection software architectures. Common requirements include those to protect onboard command, data-processing, and control computers; protect against loss of Earth/spacecraft radio communication; maintain safe temperatures; and recover from power overloads. The paper describes fault-protection techniques as part of a fault-management strategy that also includes functional redundancy, redundant hardware, and autonomous monitoring of (1) the operational and health statuses of spacecraft components, (2) temperatures inside and outside the spacecraft, and (3) allocation of power. The strategy also provides for preprogrammed automated responses to anomalous conditions. In addition, the software running in almost every JPL spacecraft incorporates a general-purpose "Safe Mode" response algorithm that configures the spacecraft in a lower-power state that is safe and predictable, thereby facilitating diagnosis of more complex faults by a team of human experts on Earth.

Morgan, Paula↗

Analyzing AQP Data to Improve Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) Operations and Training

Key points include: Initiate data collection and analysis early in the implementation process. Use data to identify procedural and training refinements. Use a de-identified system to analyze longitudinal data. Use longitudinal I/E data to improve their standardization. Identify above average pilots and crews and use their performance to specify best practices. Analyze below average crew performance data to isolate problems with the training, evaluator standardization and pilot proficiency.

Seamster, Thomas L.↗

Software Formal Inspections Standard

The purpose of this Standard is to define the requirements for a software inspection process aimed at detecting and eliminating defects as early as possible in the software life cycle. This process can be used for any documented product; however, this Standard focuses on its use for software products - i.e., software code, plans, manuals, etc. The process provides for the collection and analysis of inspection data to improve the inspection process as well as the quality of the software.

Wetherholt, Martha S.↗

ThermoBase: A Database of the Phylogeny and Physiology of Thermophilic and Hyperthermophilic Organisms

Thermophiles and hyperthermophiles are those organisms which grow at high temperature (> 40°C). The unusual properties of these organisms have received interest in multiple fields of biological research, and have found applications in biotechnology, especially in industrial processes. However, there are few listings of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic organisms and their relevant environmental and physiological data. Such repositories can be used to standardize definitions of thermophile and hyperthermophile limits and tolerances and would mitigate the need for extracting organism data from diverse literature sources across multiple, sometimes loosely related, research fields. Therefore, we have developed ThermoBase, a web-based and freely available database which currently houses comprehensive descriptions for 1238 thermophilic or hyperthermophilic organisms. ThermoBase reports taxonomic, metabolic, environmental, experimental, and physiological information in addition to literature resources. This includes parameters such as coupling ions for chemiosmosis, optimal pH and range, optimal temperature and range, optimal pressure, and optimal salinity. The database interface allows for search features and sorting of parameters. As such, it is the goal of ThermoBase to facilitate and expedite hypothesis generation, literature research, and understanding relating to thermophiles and hyperthermophiles within the scientific community in an accessible and centralized repository. ThermoBase is freely available online at the Astrobiology Habitable Environments Database (AHED; https://ahed.nasa.gov), at the Database Center for Life Science (TogoDB; http://togodb.org/db/thermobase), and in the S1 File.

Thermophiles↗

Medium-Range River Flood Forecasts Using a Long Short-Term Memory Network

River flooding and the impacts are a concern for decision makers throughout the United States. Accurate medium-range forecasts (~3-7 days) are critical for providing advanced outlooks to emergency management officials. Unfortunately, accurately forecasting rainfall-runoff and the subsequent rise and fall within rivers remain a challenge in hydrological modeling. While complex physical modeling systems are the standard for representing the hydrological processes, they are computationally demanding and can require extensive calibration. Further, uncertainties remain in the model parameters and input data. The use of machine learning can reduce some of the computational demand while maintaining high accuracy. Therefore, this project makes use of a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network which explicitly accounts for the time-dependent nature of rainfall-runoff modeling. The developed LSTM was trained to predict river gauge height, or stage height, based on time-lagged input features which include: gauge height to initialize the model, the NASA Short-term Prediction Research and Transition Center’s instance of the Land Information System (SPoRT-LIS) relative soil moisture to describe the rainfall infiltration rate, and 6-hr Multi-Radar Multi-Sensor quantitative precipitation estimate (MRMS QPE). The developed LSTM based system is then used to produce 7-day forecasts with a 6-hr temporal resolution using three different quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPF) from the NWS’s Weather Prediction Center (WPC), the NCEP Global Forecast System (GFS) model and the National Blend of Models (NBM). This trained modeling system has been implemented as an experimental product at over 100 different rivers in collaboration with at multiple National Weather Service (NWS) Forecast Offices and River Forecast Centers (RFC) across the eastern half of the United States. The developed LSTM model achieved average Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) 0.89 higher than the equivalent medium-range National Water Model ensemble member forecast over a 7-day forecast. In addition to the initial development and evaluation, this project has continued to expand. While the initial model was developed for precipitation dominated basins, expansion of the project has taken it to basins effected by snow melt. This presentation will provide an overview of the project with focus on recent developments on incorporating snow melt processes into the model.

Andrew T. White↗

The LuNaMaps Project: Advancing Capabilities for Developing and Validating Digital Elevation Models of Rocky Surfaces from Orbital Data

Both navigation and surface science can benefit from the ability to generate high resolution and accurate maps of the surface of the Moon and other solar system bodies. The primary way these maps are generated is through the use of orbital imagery and ranging data. Traditionally, the process of using orbital imagery and ranging data is tedious and labor-intensive. Additionally, once maps have been built, there has generally been limited effort in developing standards by which to verify the accuracy and quality of the generated maps. The Lunar Navigation Maps (LuNaMaps) project is a NASA Game Changing Development (GCD) project which over the last 4 years has aimed to address these issues both for the Moon and for other rocky solar system bodies. This has been accomplished through development of new and existing capabilities including: a suite of methods and tools to combine all sources of orbital imagery; a benchmark data set as well as basic requirements for high-fidelity simulations of precision landing functions; tools to synthetically enhance map products with lander-scale features for use in the development and testing of hazard detection systems; methods and tools to evaluate the accuracy of developed digital elevation maps (DEMs) and their quality for use in terrain relative navigation scenarios; and tools to realistically render image and lidar data. In this work, we provide an overview of the capabilities developed through LuNaMaps, demonstrating its use for processing existing lunar data, and describing how it can be applied to other use cases. We additionally provide preliminary results showing the application of the developed tools and processes to the generation of elevation maps of the Lunar Surface Proving Grounds (LSPG) lunar analog at Astrobotic’s Mojave testing facility using “orbital imagery” captured by a drone. In this terrestrial demonstration, we have the benefit of being able to compare the results to a ground truth model of the LSPG. We finally describe plans to use the newly created maps in a terrestrial terrain relative navigation demonstration over the LSPG in early 2025.

optical navigation↗

Benchmark Tracking System for Performance Monitoring

Benchmarking is essential for high-performance software development, particularly for monitoring performance across code iterations. This project focused on enhancing the benchmarking process for Lamellar, an asynchronous runtime for High-Performance Computing (HPC) systems developed at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Prior to this work, benchmark results were difficult to track and compare across code versions, presenting significant challenges in identifying performance regressions and long-term trends. The primary objective was to establish a systematic, reproducible approach for measuring performance and detecting regressions following code commits. Our methodology involved three key components: standardizing benchmark outputs, implementing data versioning, and developing analysis tools. We standardized the benchmark output format to JSON Line records containing specific fields (execution time, hardware specifications, and environmental variables). To address data management challenges, we evaluated several options and eventually chose a git repository dedicated to benchmark data. We developed a suite of Python tools that processed benchmark results, enriched them with metadata, and facilitated search in the repository. The resulting system enables more efficient filtering and comparison of performance metrics across commit histories, hardware configurations, and benchmark variants through a unified query interface. Our implementation reduces computational overhead by first checking for existing results through configuration matching before initiating new benchmark runs, thereby conserving resources. The system has been validated by Lamellar developers. It organizes results by benchmark type and build configurations for efficient retrieval. Future developments include a planned Large Language Model interface for predicting benchmark performance, incorporating the criterion package for statistical analysis, which will enable automated detection of statistically significant performance changes, and integration with continuous integration pipelines. Despite these enhancements being reserved for future work, this project has successfully provided the Lamellar development team with a framework for maintaining consistent performance standards and identifying optimization opportunities across workloads and hardware environments.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

Region-based convolutional neural network for wind turbine wake characterization from scanning lidars

A convolutional neural network is applied to lidar scan images from three experimental campaigns to identify and characterize wind turbine wakes. Initially developed as a proof-of-concept model and applied to a single data set in complex terrain, the model is now improved and generalized and applied to two other unique lidar data sets, one located near an escarpment and one located offshore. The model, initially developed using lidar scans collected in predominantly westerly flow, exhibits sensitivity to wind flow direction. The model is thus successfully generalized through implementing a standard rotation process to scan images before input into the convolutional neural network to ensure the flow is westerly. The sample size of lidar scans used to train the model is increased, and along with the generalization process, these changes to the model are shown to enhance accuracy and robustness when characterizing dissipating and asymmetric wakes. Applied to the offshore data set in which nearly 20 wind turbine wakes are included per scan, the improved model exhibits a 95% success rate in characterizing wakes and a 74% success rate in characterizing dissipating wake fragments. The improved model is shown to generalize well to the two new data sets, although an increase in wake characterization accuracy is offset by an increase in model sensitivity and false positive wake identifications.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Keyword Management Process and Lifecycle

The Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) keywords are a hierarchical set of controlled vocabulary covering the Earth science disciplines that have been evolving for over 25 years. The process for how these keywords have been curated and reviewed has also evolved. This presentation will convey the process for reviewing and approving the GCMD keywords, including fast track and yearly reviews through the ESDIS Standards Office, and how Earth science users can influence keyword additions and modifications. The presentation will also highlight how keywords facilitate the discovery of EOSDIS data and services and how other organizations are using the GCMD keywords.

EOSDIS↗

Spectral decomposition of AVIRIS data

A set of techniques is presented that uses only information contained within a raw Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) scene to estimate and to remove additive components such as multiple scattering and instrument dark current. Multiplicative components (instrument gain, topographic modulation of brightness, atmospheric transmission) can then be normalized, permitting enhancement, extraction, and identification of relative reflectance information related to surface composition and mineralogy. The technique for derivation of additive-component spectra from a raw AVIRIS scene is an adaption of the 'regression intersection method' of Crippen. This method uses two surface units that are spatially extensive, and located in rugged terrain. For a given wavelength pair, subtraction of the derived additive component from individual band values will remove topography in both regions in a band/band ratio image. Normalization of all spectra in the scene to the average scene spectrum then results in cancellation of multiplicative components and production of a relative-reflectance scene. The resulting AVIRIS product contains relative-reflectance features due to mineral absorption that depart from the average spectrum. These features commonly are extremely weak and difficult to recognize, but they can be enhanced by using two simple 3-D image-processing tools. The validity of these techniques will be demonstrated by comparisons between relative-reflectance AVIRIS spectra and those derived by using JPL standard calibrations. The AVIRIS data used in this analysis were acquired over the Kelso Dunes area (34 deg 55' N, 115 deg 43' W) of the eastern Mojave Desert, CA (in 1987) and the Upheaval Dome area (38 deg 27' N, 109 deg 55' W) of the Canyonlands National Park, UT (in 1991).

Gaddis, Lisa↗

System for Processing Coded OFDM Under Doppler and Fading

An advanced communication system has been proposed for transmitting and receiving coded digital data conveyed as a form of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) on orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing (OFDM) signals in the presence of such adverse propagation-channel effects as large dynamic Doppler shifts and frequency-selective multipath fading. Such adverse channel effects are typical of data communications between mobile units or between mobile and stationary units (e.g., telemetric transmissions from aircraft to ground stations). The proposed system incorporates novel signal processing techniques intended to reduce the losses associated with adverse channel effects while maintaining compatibility with the high-speed physical layer specifications defined for wireless local area networks (LANs) as the standard 802.11a of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE 802.11a). OFDM is a multi-carrier modulation technique that is widely used for wireless transmission of data in LANs and in metropolitan area networks (MANs). OFDM has been adopted in IEEE 802.11a and some other industry standards because it affords robust performance under frequency-selective fading. However, its intrinsic frequency-diversity feature is highly sensitive to synchronization errors; this sensitivity poses a challenge to preserve coherence between the component subcarriers of an OFDM system in order to avoid intercarrier interference in the presence of large dynamic Doppler shifts as well as frequency-selective fading. As a result, heretofore, the use of OFDM has been limited primarily to applications involving small or zero Doppler shifts. The proposed system includes a digital coherent OFDM communication system that would utilize enhanced 802.1la-compatible signal-processing algorithms to overcome effects of frequency-selective fading and large dynamic Doppler shifts. The overall transceiver design would implement a two-frequency-channel architecture (see figure) that would afford frequency diversity for reducing the adverse effects of multipath fading. By using parallel concatenated convolutional codes (also known as Turbo codes) across the dual-channel and advanced OFDM signal processing within each channel, the proposed system is intended to achieve at least an order of magnitude improvement in received signal-to-noise ratio under adverse channel effects while preserving spectral efficiency.

Tsou, Haiping↗

Tidal Energy Resource Characterization, Bottom Lander Measurements, Cook Inlet, AK, 2021

These datasets are from tidal resource characterization measurements collected on the Terrasond High Energy Oceanographic Mooring (THEOM) from 1 July 2021 to 30 August 2021 (60 days) in Cook Inlet, Alaska. The lander was deployed at 60.7207031 N, 151.4294998 W in ~50 m of water. The dataset contains raw and processed data from the following two instruments: 1. A Nortek Signature 500 kHz acoustic Doppler current profiler (ADCP). Data were recorded in 4 Hz in the beam coordinate system from all 5 beams. Processed data has been averaged into 5 minutes bins and converted to the East-North-Up (ENU) coordinate system. 2. A Nortek Vector acoustic Doppler velocimeter (ADV). Data were recorded at 8 Hz in the beam coordinate system. Processed data has been averaged into 5 minutes bins and converted to the Streamwise - Cross-stream - Vertical (Principal) coordinate system. Turbulence statistics were calculated from 5-minute bins, with an FFT length equal to the bin length, and saved in the processed dataset. Data was read and analyzed using the DOLfYN (version 1.0.2) python package and saved in MATLAB (.mat) and netCDF (.nc) file formats. Files containing analyzed data (".b1") were standardized using the TSDAT (version 0.4.2) python package. NetCDF files can be opened using DOLfYN (e.g., `dat = dolfyn.load(''*.nc")`) or the xarray python package (e.g. `dat = xarray.open_dataset("*.nc"). All distances are in meters (e.g., depth, range, etc), and all velocities in m/s. See the DOLfYN documentation linked in the submission, and/or the Nortek documentation for additional details.

16 TIDAL AND WAVE POWER↗