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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 1,009 records · Page 56
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1989

Space station

The history of American space flight indicates that a space station is the next logical step in the scientific pursuit of greater knowledge of the universe. The Space Station and its complement of space vehicles, developed by NASA, will add new dimensions to an already extensive space program in the United States. The Space Station offers extraordinary benefits for a comparatively modest investment (currently estimated at one-ninth the cost of the Apollo Program). The station will provide a permanent multipurpose facility in orbit necessary for the expansion of space science and technology. It will enable significant advancements in life sciences research, satellite communications, astronomy, and materials processing. Eventually, the station will function in support of the commercialization and industrialization of space. Also, as a prerequisite to manned interplanetary exploration, the long-duration space flights typical of Space Station missions will provide the essential life sciences research to allow progressively longer human staytime in space.

Stewart, Donald F.↗
NASA NTRS1997

Mining the Mars Atmosphere

A series of concepts have been developed to mine the atmosphere of Mars and process it to extract or generate compressed carbon dioxide, compressed buffer gas mixtures of nitrogen and argon, water, oxygen, carbon monoxide, and/or carbon. Such products can be of use to science instruments, robotic, and human missions. The products can be for utility purposes, life support, propulsion (both interplanetary and on the planet's surface), and power generation.

Finn, John E.↗
NASA NTRS2003

Precision adjustable liquid regulator (ALR)

A passive mechanical regulator has been developed for the control of fuel or oxidizer flow to a 450N class bipropellant engine for use on commercial and interplanetary spacecraft. There are several benefits to the propulsion system, depending on mission requirements and spacecraft design.

adjustable liquid regulator ALR↗
NASA NTRS2018

New Technologies Advancing Thermophysics

Researchers at NASA Ames in California have built a new facility that uses multiple 50-kW continuous wave lasers to add the capability for simulating radiative heating on thermal protection materials. The new facility, the Laser Enhanced Arc-jet Facility (LEAF-Lite), was added to NASA Ames’s Interaction Heating Facility arc-jet and now allows for test articles to be heated by both convective and radiative heat flux, making the facility more like flight. Using this new system, researchers can now simulate radiant heating with the laser and convective heating with the arc-jet simultaneously on a single test article. During its initial test in October 2017, the lasers radiatively heated a 6” x 6” Avcoat wedge sample to 405 W/sq.cm while the arc-jet simultaneously provided 160 W/sq.cm of convective heat, resulting in a total heat flux of 565 W/sq.cm. Radiative heating is more prevalent in missions with higher atmospheric entry speeds like the Orion space capsule or interplanetary scientific probes. Later this year, scientists will expand the spot size to cover 17” x 17” to test an Orion TPS panel.

Brandis, Aaron↗
NASA NTRS2019

Advanced Composite Solar Sail System: Demonstrating Deployable Composite Solar Sails for Future Deep Space Small Spacecraft

NASA is developing new deployable structures and materials technologies for solar sail propulsion systems destined for future low-cost deep space missions. Solar sails eliminate the need for conventional rocket propellants, relying instead upon the pressure of sunlight to generate continuous thrust. They can operate indefinitely, limited only by the space environment durability of the solar sail materials and spacecraft electronic systems.At NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, researchers and engineers are planning a mission to demonstrate the next generation of solar sail technology for small interplanetary spacecraft. As part of this development effort, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) will demonstrate deployment of an approximately 800 square foot (74 square meter) composite boom (mast) solar sail system in low-Earth orbit. This will be the first use of composite booms as well as sail packing and deployment systems for a solar sail in orbit.

composite materials↗
NASA NTRS2019

Advanced Composite Solar Sail System Animation

At NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley, researchers and engineers are planning a mission to demonstrate the next generation of solar sail technology for small interplanetary spacecraft. As part of this development effort, the Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) will demonstrate deployment of an approximately 800 square foot (74 square meter) composite boom solar sail system in low-Earth orbit. This will be the first use of composite booms as well as sail packing and deployment systems for a solar sail in orbit. Also developed for ACS3 is an innovative tape-spool boom extraction system to minimize blossoming, or jamming, of the coiled booms during deployment.

Horner, Scott D.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Applications of different design methodologies in navigation systems and development at JPL

The NASA/JPL deep space navigation system consists of a complex array of measurement systems, data processing systems, and support facilities, with components located both on the ground and on-board interplanetary spacecraft. From its beginings nearly 30 years ago, this system has steadily evolved and grown to meet the demands for ever-increasing navigation accuracy placed on it by a succession of unmanned planetary missions. Principal characteristics of this system are its capabilities and great complexity. Three examples in the design and development of interplanetary space navigation systems are examined in order to make a brief assessment of the usefulness of three basic design theories, known as normative, rational, and heuristic. Evaluation of the examples indicates that a heuristic approach, coupled with rational-based mathematical and computational analysis methods, is used most often in problems such as orbit determination strategy development and mission navigation system design, while normative methods have seen only limited use is such applications as the development of large software systems and in the design of certain operational navigation subsystems.

Thurman, S. W.↗
NASA NTRS2016

Potential Cislunar and Interplanetary Proving Ground Excursion Trajectory Concepts

NASA has been investigating potential translunar excursion concepts to take place in the 2020s that would be used to test and demonstrate long duration life support and other systems needed for eventual Mars missions in the 2030s. These potential trajectory concepts could be conducted in the proving ground, a region of cislunar and near-Earth interplanetary space where international space agencies could cooperate to develop the technologies needed for interplanetary spaceflight. Enabled by high power Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies, the excursion trajectory concepts studied are grouped into three classes of increasing distance from the Earth and increasing technical difficulty: the first class of excursion trajectory concepts would represent a 90-120 day round trip trajectory with abort to Earth options throughout the entire length, the second class would be a 180-210 day round trip trajectory with periods in which aborts would not be available, and the third would be a 300-400 day round trip trajectory without aborts for most of the length of the trip. This paper provides a top-level summary of the trajectory and mission design of representative example missions of these three classes of excursion trajectory concepts.

asteroids↗
NASA NTRS1993

The interplanetary magnetic field from 1 to 5 AU - Ulysses observations

Observations of the IMF carried out from October 1990 to February 1992 during the in-ecliptic phase of the Ulysses mission are presented. The observations were made between 1 and 5.4 AU during a different phase of the solar cycle from previous missions. The large-scale reorganization of the solar coronal fields following the maximum in Solar Cycle 22 generated numerous transient events, causing large-scale disturbances in interplanetary space, particularly during the first half of 1991. From about the middle of 1991, solar activity apparently decreased, resulting in fewer transient events, allowing the formation of corotating interaction regions (CIRs) recurring in successive solar rotations. Observations of the IMF reflect this temporal evolution in solar activity. However, the average orientation of the IMF, the observed sector structure, and the evolution of the CIRs show that the dynamic interaction of transient events with evolving stream-stream structures in this heliocentric distance range results in significant deviations from the expected IMF topology, even when signature of the transients is less apparent.

Balogh, A.↗
NASA NTRS1983

The ISPM Mission - Science objectives and mission overview

The International Solar Polar Mission (ISPM) will, for the first time, allow exploration of the heliosphere within a few astronomical units of the sun over the full range of heliographic latitudes. The prime mission objective is to study, as a function of solar latitude, the properties of the interplanetary medium and solar corona. The scientific instrumentation is designed to explore, in the third heliospheric dimension, the properties of the solar wind, the sun/wind interface, the heliospheric magnetic field, solar radio bursts and plasma waves, solar X-rays, solar and galactic cosmic rays, and interplanetary/interstellar neutral gas and dust. ISPM will also detect cosmic gamma-ray bursts and search for gravitational waves. ISPM is a cooperative mission carried out jointly by ESA and NASA, to be launched in May 1986 and utilising a Jupiter gravity-assist to achieve a high-solar-latitude trajectory.

Wenzel, K.-P.↗
NASA NTRS1974

Communication system for the Viking mission to Mars

The Viking communications system discussed comprises a UHF relay link and an S-band communication link. The design of both links was guided by the design of the mission itself and its constraints. The most important of these are: the available launch opportunities; the effect of interplanetary distances on the power and bandwidth of the S-band link; weight; reliability and survival in the Martian environment; the up-link command philosophy; the landing problem; and the requirements for planetary quarantine and cleanliness. The Viking mission, with its orbits and trajectories, launch and landing sequences is described and illustrated.

Brown, I.↗
NASA NTRS1991

Ulysses

The DSN (Deep Space Network) mission support requirements for Ulysses are summarized. The primary goal of the Ulysses mission is to explore the Sun, its environment, and possible links between solar variability and terrestrial weather and climate. The Ulysses spacecraft will be injected into an interplanetary orbit toward Jupiter after which the spacecraft travels in a heliocentric, out-of-ecliptic orbit with high heliographic inclination. The Ulysses mission objectives are outlined and the DSN support requirements are defined through the presentation of tables and narratives describing the spacecraft flight profile; DSN support coverage; frequency assignments; support parameters for telemetry, command and support systems; and tracking support responsibility.

Meeks, W.↗
NASA NTRS1990

Voyager mission telecommunication firsts

The communications breakthroughs achieved during the NASA Voyager mission are discussed. The dual-spacecraft mission to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and their moons and rings was launched in 1977 and completed interplanetary phase some 12 years later with the Voyager 2 Neptune encounter in August 1989. The radio telemetry, coding, and navigation equipment of the spacecraft are examined in detail. Firsts achieved in the radio science area are also discussed. These include the fact that it was the first mission specifically designed to obtain radio-science data. It had very exacting requirements for radio system stability, both at S- and X-bands, and for frequency and timing system stability, both flight and ground.

Posner, Edward C.↗
NASA NTRS1990

The Advanced Composition Explorer

The Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) was recently selected as one of two new Explorer-class missions to be developed for launch during the mid-1990s. ACE will observe particles of solar, interplanetary, interstellar, and Galactic origins, spanning the energy range from that of the solar wind to Galactic cosmic ray energies. Definitive studies will be made of the abundance of nearly all isotopes from H to Zn, with exploratory isotope studies extending to Zr. The scientific objectives, instrumentation, spacecraft, and mission approach that were defined for ACE during the Phase-A study period are summarized.

Stone, E. C.↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Shadow Chaser: a SmallSat Mission Concept to Measure the Upper Atmosphere of Uranus from Earth Orbit, and Enabling Aerocapture Orbit Insertion Benefits for Uranus Orbiter and Probe

We present the latest design of the Shadow Chaser mission concept that will measure the upper atmosphere of Uranus from Earth orbit using the stellar occultation technique. Upcoming stellar occultations by Uranus represent valuable opportunities to prepare for a potential aerocapture orbit insertion to be incorporated in the Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) Flagship mission, the highest-priority new mission recommended by the 2022 Planetary Science Decadal Survey. An aerocapture maneuver enables faster interplanetary trajectories that do not depend on Jupiter gravity assist, and offer annual launch windows for UOP. However, an aerocapture maneuver’s precision depends on a-priori knowledge of the upper atmosphere, which today primarily comes from the highly uncertain Voyager 2 stellar occultations recently shown to be inconsistent with ground-based occultation measurements during the same era. To improve upper atmospheric characterization, the Shadow Chaser will observe the occultations by Uranus on February 15, 2031, October 9, 2031 and February 6, 2032 from Earth orbit. Together with the occultation on April 8, 2025 (which we are planning to observe from the ground), these events represent the best opportunities to characterize the Uranian upper atmosphere before UOP arrival. We present the Shadow Chaser’s latest spacecraft and measurement design. We will also present results of analyses funded by NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate to establish the viability of aerocapture for UOP, quantify the benefits of reducing Uranian upper atmospheric uncertainties to improve the aerocapture design, and demonstrate that anticipated new stellar occultation data can be incorporated into the engineering design of aerocapture.

Uranus↗