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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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At least 973 records · Page 54
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2004

Status of Aqua MODIS On-orbit Calibration and Characterization

The MODIS Flight Model 1 (FM1) has been in operation for more than two years since its launch onboard the NASA's Earth Observing System (EOS) Aqua spacecraft on May 4, 2002. The MODIS has 36 spectral bands: 20 reflective solar bands (RSB) with center wavelengths from 0.41 to 2.2 micron and 16 thermal emissive bands (TEB) from 3.7 to 14.5 micron. It provides the science community observations (data products) of the Earth's land, oceans, and atmosphere for a board range of applications. Its primary on-orbit calibration and characterization activities are performed using a solar diffuser (SD) and a solar diffuser stability monitor (SDSM) system for the RSB and a blackbody for the TEB. Another on-board calibrator (OBC) known as the spectro-radiometric calibration assembly (SRCA) is used for the instrument's spatial (TEB and RSB) and spectral (RSB only) characterization. We present in this paper the status of Aqua MODIS calibration and characterization during its first two years of on-orbit operation. Discussions will be focused on the calibration activities executed on-orbit in order to maintain and enhance the instrument's performance and the quality of its Level 1B (L1B) data products. We also provide comparisons between Aqua MODIS and Terra MODIS (launched in December, 1999), including their similarity and difference in response trending and optics degradation. Existing data and results show that Aqua MODIS bands 8 (0.412 micron) and 9 (0.443 micron) have much smaller degradation than Terra MODIS bands 8 and 9. The most noticeable feature shown in the RSB trending is that the mirror side differences in Aqua MODIS are extremely small and stable (<0.1%) while the Terra MODIS RSB trending has shown significant mirror side difference and wavelength dependent degradation. The overall stability of the Aqua MODIS TEB is also better than that of the Terra MODIS during their first two years of on-orbit operation.

Aqua↗
NASA NTRS2015

ARC EMCS Experiments (Seedling Growth-2) Experiment Status

Presentation of the status of the ARC ISS (International Space Station) Experiment, Seedling Growth-2 to the Payload Operations Investigator Working Group meeting at MSFC, Huntsville AL. The experiment employs the European Modular Cultivation System (ECMS).

EMCS↗
NASA NTRS2016

Design Status of the Capillary Brine Residual in Containment Water Recovery System

One of the goals of the AES Life Support System (LSS) Project is to achieve 98% water loop closure for long duration human exploration missions beyond low Earth orbit. To meet this objective, the AES LSS Project is developing technologies to recover water from wastewater brine; highly concentrated waste products generated from a primary water recovery system. The state of the art system used aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has the potential to recover up to 85% water from unine wastewater, leaving a significant amounts of water in the waste brine, the recovery of which is a critical technology gap that must be filled in order to enable long duration human exploration. Recovering water from the urine wastewater brine is complicated by the concentration of solids as water is removed from the brine, and the concentration of the corrosive, toxic chemicals used to stabilize the urine which fouls and degrades water processing hardware, and poses a hazard to operators and crew. Brine Residual in Containment (BRIC) is focused on solids management through a process of "in-place" drying - the drying of brines within the container used for final disposal. Application of in-place drying has the potential to improve the safety and reliability of the system by reducing the exposure to crew and hardware to the problematic brine residual. Through a collaboration between the NASA Johnson Space Center and Portland Status University, a novel water recovery system was developed that utilizes containment geometry to support passive capillary flow and static phase separation allowing free surface evaporation to take place in a microgravity environment. A notional design for an ISS demonstration system was developed. This paper describes the concept for the system level design.

Callahan, Michael R.↗
NASA NTRS2015

2015 Sensorimotor Risk Standing Review Panel Evidence and Status Review For: the Risk of Impaired Control of Spacecraft/Associated Systems and Decreased Mobility Due to Vestibular/Sensorimotor Alterations Associated with Spaceflight

The 2015 Sensorimotor Risk Standing Review Panel (from here on referred to as the SRP) participated in a WebEx/teleconference with members of the Human Health Countermeasures (HHC) Element, representatives from the Human Research Program (HRP), NASA Headquarters, and NASA Research and Education Support Services (NRESS) on December 17, 2015 (list of participants is in Section VI of this report). The SRP reviewed the new Evidence Report for the Risk of Impaired Control of Spacecraft/Associated Systems and Decreased Mobility Due to Vestibular/Sensorimotor Alterations Associated with Spaceflight (from here on referred to as the 2015 Sensorimotor Evidence Report), and also received a status review of the Risk. The opening section of the 2015 Sensorimotor Evidence Report provides written descriptions of various incidents that have occurred during space missions. In most of these incidents, the main underlying contributing factors are not easy to identify unambiguously. For example, in section 1.9, a number of falls occurred while astronauts were walking on the moon. It is not clear to the SRP, however, why they fell. It is only possible to extrapolate from likely specific psychophysical or physiological abnormalities, but how these abnormalities were determined, and how they were directly responsible for the falls is unclear to the SRP. Section 2.1.2 on proprioception is very interesting, but the functional significance of the abnormalities detected is not clear. The SRP sees this as a problem throughout the report: a mapping between the component abnormalities identified and the holistic behaviors that are most relevant, for example, controlling the vehicle, and locomotion during egress, is generally lacking. The SRP thinks the cognitive section is too strongly focused on vestibular functioning. The SRP questions the notion that the main cognitive effects are mainly attributable to reversible vestibular changes induced by spaceflight. The SRP thinks that there can also be independent cognitive effects. The Functional Task Test (FTT) protocols and the Field Test are particularly valuable. The conclusion is that the unloading of major postural muscles experienced during spaceflight plays a central role in the alteration of functional task performance and balance control. This conclusion stands in contrast with the statements in other parts of the document that emphasize the role of vestibular changes on these functions. It would help to more fully integrate these two views on the predominant effects of spaceflight. Although the SRP thinks the countermeasures section is interesting, the proposed countermeasures are not well integrated with the abnormalities described in previous sections. The SRP thinks it would help enormously to have explicit links among each abnormality, its 2015 Sensorimotor Risk SRP Evidence Review Final Report 2 overall importance/impact on function, and the appropriate countermeasure that can be implemented to maintain adequate functioning.

Steinberg, Susan↗
NASA NTRS2015

A Description of the Development, Capabilities, and Operational Status of the Test SLATE Data Acquisition System at the National Transonic Facility

The paper will present a brief background of the previous data acquisition system at the National Transonic Facility (NTF) and the reasoning and goals behind the upgrade to the current Test SLATE (Test Software Laboratory and Automated Testing Environments) data acquisition system. The components, performance characteristics, and layout of the Test SLATE system within the NTF control room will be discussed. The development, testing, and integration of Test SLATE within NTF operations will be detailed. The operational capabilities of the system will be outlined including: test setup, instrumentation calibration, automatic test sequencer setup, data recording, communication between data and facility control systems, real time display monitoring, and data reduction. The current operational status of the Test SLATE system and its performance during recent NTF testing will be highlighted including high-speed, frame-by-frame data acquisition with conditional sampling post-processing applied. The paper concludes with current development work on the system including the capability for real-time conditional sampling during data acquisition and further efficiency enhancements to the wind tunnel testing process.

Cramer, Christopher J.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Status of Computational Aerodynamic Modeling Tools for Aircraft Loss-of-Control

A concerted effort has been underway over the past several years to evolve computational capabilities for modeling aircraft loss-of-control under the NASA Aviation Safety Program. A principal goal has been to develop reliable computational tools for predicting and analyzing the non-linear stability & control characteristics of aircraft near stall boundaries affecting safe flight, and for utilizing those predictions for creating augmented flight simulation models that improve pilot training. Pursuing such an ambitious task with limited resources required the forging of close collaborative relationships with a diverse body of computational aerodynamicists and flight simulation experts to leverage their respective research efforts into the creation of NASA tools to meet this goal. Considerable progress has been made and work remains to be done. This paper summarizes the status of the NASA effort to establish computational capabilities for modeling aircraft loss-of-control and offers recommendations for future work.

Frink, Neal T.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Status of the Signals of Opportunity Airborne Demonstrator (SoOp-AD)

Root zone soil moisture (RZSM) is not directly measured by any current satellite instrument, despite its importance as a key link between surface hydrology and deeper processes. Presently, model assimilation of surface measurements or indirect estimates using other methods must be used to estimate this value. Signals of Opportunity (SoOp) methods, exploiting reflected P- and S-band communication satellite signals, have many of the benefits of both active and passive microwave remote sensing. Reutilization of active transmitters, with forward-scattering geometry, presents a strong reflected signal even at orbital altitudes. Microwave radiometry is advantageous as it measures emissivity, which is directly related to dielectric constant and sensitive to water content of soil. Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) is used in P-band (400 MHz) for soil moisture and biomass, but faces issues in obtaining permission to transmit due to spectrum regulations, particularly over North America and Europe. A primary advantage of SAR is excellent spatial resolution. Signals-of-opportunity (SoOp) reflectometry provides a good compromise between radiometry and SAR by providing decent sensitivity and special resolution for RZSM measurements without issues of spectrum access. Further, a SoOp instrument would not be limited to operating in only a few protected frequencies and is also expected to have less susceptibility to radio-frequency interference (RFI). Although advantageous if available, SoOp techniques do not require the ability to demodulate or decode the communication signals. The SoOp instrument is receive only and therefore requires much less electrical power than a SAR and is more similar to a radiometer in receiver architecture. These unique features of SoOp circumvent past obstacles to a spaceborne P-band remote sensing mission and have the potential to enable new RZSM measurements that are not possible with present technology. We will present the latest development status of a SoOp reflectometer airborne demonstrator (SoOp-AD) operating at 250 MHz to take advantage of existing communication satellite. The instrument is currently in laboratory integration and test.

Reflectometers↗
NASA NTRS2016

Status of the KTH-NASA Wind-Tunnel Test for Acquisition of Transonic Nonlinear Aeroelastic Data

This paper presents a status report on the collaboration between the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Sweden and the NASA Langley Research Center regarding the design, fabrication, modeling, and testing of a full-span lighter configuration in the Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT). The goal of the test is to acquire transonic limit-cycle- oscillation (LCO) data, including accelerations, strains, and unsteady pressures. Finite element models (FEMs) and aerodynamic models are presented and discussed along with results obtained to date.

Silva, Walter A.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Review of the Theoretical and Experimental Status of Dark Matter Identification with Cosmic-Ray Antideuterons

Recent years have seen increased theoretical and experimental effort towards the first-ever detection of cosmic-ray antideuterons, in particular as an indirect signature of dark matter annihilation or decay. In contrast to indirect dark matter searches using positrons, antiprotons, or gamma-rays, which suffer from relatively high and uncertain astrophysical backgrounds, searches with antideuterons benefit from very suppressed conventional backgrounds, offering a potential breakthrough in unexplored phase space for dark matter. This article is based on the first dedicated cosmic-ray antideuteron workshop, which was held at UCLA in June 2014. It reviews broad classes of dark matter candidates that result in detectable cosmic-ray antideuteron fluxes, as well as the status and prospects of current experimental searches. The coalescence model of antideuteron production and the influence of antideuteron measurements at particle colliders are discussed. This is followed by a review of the modeling of antideuteron propagation through the magnetic fields, plasma currents, and molecular material of our Galaxy, the solar system, the Earth's geomagnetic field, and the atmosphere. Finally, the three ongoing or planned experiments that are sensitive to cosmic-ray antideuterons, BESS, AMS-02, and GAPS, are detailed. As cosmic-ray antideuteron detection is a rare event search, multiple experiments with orthogonal techniques and backgrounds are essential. Therefore, the combination of AMS-02 and GAPS antideuteron searches is highly desirable. Many theoretical and experimental groups have contributed to these studies over the last decade, this review aims to provide the first coherent discussion of the relevant dark matter theories that antideuterons probe, the challenges to predictions and interpretations of antideuteron signals, and the experimental efforts toward cosmic antideuteron detection.

Antideuteron Cosmic ray Dark matter↗
NASA NTRS2016

James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element/Integrated Science Instrument Module (OTIS) Status

The James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element (OTE) and Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) are integrated together to form the OTIS. Once integrated, the OTIS undergoes primary mirror center of curvature optical tests, electrical and operational tests, acoustics and vibration testing at the Goddard Space Flight Center before being shipped to the Johnson Space Center for cryogenic optical testing of the OTIS. In preparation for the cryogenic optical testing, the JWST project has built a Pathfinder telescope and has completed two Optical Ground System Equipment (OGSE) cryogenic optical tests with the Pathfinder. In this paper, we will summarize optical test results to date and status the final Pathfinder test and the OTIS integration and environmental test preparations

Feinberg, Lee↗
NASA NTRS2016

James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element Integrated Science Instrument Module (OTIS) Status

The James Webb Space Telescope Optical Telescope Element (OTE) and Integrated ScienceInstrument Module (ISIM)are integrated together to form the OTIS. Once integrated, the OTIS undergoes primary mirrorcenter of curvatureoptical tests, electrical and operational tests, acoustics and vibration testing at the Goddard SpaceFlight Center beforebeing shipped to the Johnson Space Center for cryogenic optical testing of the OTIS. In preparationfor the cryogenicoptical testing, the JWST project has built a Pathfinder telescope and has completed two OpticalGround SystemEquipment (OGSE) cryogenic optical tests with the Pathfinder. In this paper, we will summarize opticaltest results todate and status the final Pathfinder test and the OTIS integration and environmental test preparations

Feinberg, Lee↗
NASA NTRS2016

Unstructured Grid Adaptation: Status, Potential Impacts, and Recommended Investments Toward CFD Vision 2030

Unstructured grid adaptation is a powerful tool to control discretization error for Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). It has enabled key increases in the accuracy, automation, and capacity of some fluid simulation applications. Slotnick et al. provides a number of case studies in the CFD Vision 2030 Study: A Path to Revolutionary Computational Aerosciences to illustrate the current state of CFD capability and capacity. The authors forecast the potential impact of emerging High Performance Computing (HPC) environments forecast in the year 2030 and identify that mesh generation and adaptivity continue to be significant bottlenecks in the CFD work flow. These bottlenecks may persist because very little government investment has been targeted in these areas. To motivate investment, the impacts of improved grid adaptation technologies are identified. The CFD Vision 2030 Study roadmap and anticipated capabilities in complementary disciplines are quoted to provide context for the progress made in grid adaptation in the past fifteen years, current status, and a forecast for the next fifteen years with recommended investments. These investments are specific to mesh adaptation and impact other aspects of the CFD process. Finally, a strategy is identified to diffuse grid adaptation technology into production CFD work flows.

Park, Michael A.↗
NASA NTRS2016

NASA GRC MBSE Implementation Status

This presentation gives a brief overview on GRCs Model Based System Engineering (MBSE) implementation status. This overview covers: history, project usage and implementation, challenges and future work.

MBSE↗
NASA NTRS2015

Coming of Age: Polarization as a Probe of Plant Canopy Water Status

We tested the hypothesis that the relative water content (RWC) of the sunlit leaves in a plant canopy may be estimated from polarized canopy imagery. Recently (IGARSS, July 27-31, 2015, Milan, Italy), we reported the results of laboratory polarization measurements of single detached leaves during dry down. We found that RWC was linearly related to the ratio of the reflectance of the interior of the leaf and the leaf transmittance. Here we report application of the laboratory results to estimate RWC for sunlit leaves in a plant canopy. Using a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) Nikon 810 camera with Nikkor 300 mm lens and Polaroid type HN-22 linear polarizer, we photographed in the principle plane a plant canopy displaying a gradient of water stress and collected, at each of multiple points along the gradient, two images, one with the polarization filter oriented for maximum scene response and a second with the filter oriented for minimum scene response. We converted the digital values in the two images to reflectance factor with reference to images of a white, flat, horizontal Spectralon surface. We classified the polarization imagery, identifying reflecting leaves, transmitting leaves, other sunlit vegetation and shadows. For each image pair we normalized the leaf internal reflectance by dividing by the cosine of the angle of incidence of the sunlight on the leaf, selected the leaf maximum transmittance in the scene and divided to obtain the ratio reflectance/transmittance, which we compared with leaf RWC. We determined the leaf relative water content by harvesting a section of leaf and immediately placing it in a sealed container in an ice chest. Later in the laboratory the leaf sample was weighed, rehydrated, weighed, dried and again weighed. RWC was determined using the standard formula. Our experimental results support our hypothesis, suggesting that the RWC of sunlit leaves in a plant canopy may be estimated from analysis of polarization imagery collected by a COTS camera system. Unlike remotely sensed estimates of canopy equivalent water thickness, our estimates of the RWC of sunlit canopy leaves provide leaf physiological information. We propose RWC estimates based upon sunlit leaves are more relevant to assessing the water status of a plant canopy than would be RWC estimates based upon large FOV canopy measurements.

estimates↗