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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1991

Low power DIPS design for NASA missions

Conceptual designs of low power dynamic isotope power systems (DIPS) for NASA's future deep space missions are being developed to characterize the power system's unique features in the 0.5-1.0 kilowatt-electric (kWe) range. The August 1990 Mariner Mark II spacecraft design was used for the spacecraft integration study. One basic design with slight mission specific variations was developed for the Cassini, Comet Nucleus Sample Return, and Outer Planet Orbiter Probe missions. A low power DIPS flight unit offers comparable specific power values to the MOD-RTG unit with a factor-of-three improvement in radioisotope fuel requirements. This was accomplished by fully exploiting the dynamic power conversion technology available in the DIPS program.

Johnson, Richard A.↗
NASA NTRS2007

DSN Antenna Array Architectures Based on Future NASA Mission Needs

A flexible method of parametric, full life-cycle cost analysis has been combined with data on NASA's future communication needs to estimate the required number and operational dates of new antennas for the Deep Space Network (DSN). The requirements were derived from a subset of missions in the Integrated Mission Set database of NASA's Space Communications Architecture Working Group. Assuming that no new antennas are 'constructed', the simulation shows that the DSN is unlikely to meet more than 20% of mission requirements by 2030. Minimum full life-cycle costs result when antennas in the diameter range, 18m-34m, are constructed. Architectures using a mixture of antenna diameters produce a slightly lower full life-cycle cost.

array↗
NASA NTRS2019

NASA Centennial Challenges Program: A Crowdsourcing Tool to Advance Life Support Technologies for Future NASA Missions

Historically, competitions and prizes such as those executed by the NASA Centennial Challenges (CC) program have created broader avenues through which to spur innovation from unlikely sources. In 2005, Congress amended the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 to authorize NASA to create challenges through which prizes could be awarded to United States citizens or entities that succeeded in meeting the challenge objectives. Over the past 13 years, the CC program has initiated more than 19 challenges in a variety of technology areas, including propulsion, robotics, communications and navigation, human health, science instrumentation, nanotech, materials/structures and aerodynamics. This paper will discuss the status and the accomplishments of the CC program and discuss results of an ideation process designed to identify and formulate topics for a potential Centennial Challenge competition targeting a life support technology gap for future long-term exploration missions. Status of this challenge formulation process with information on how to use crowdsourcing tools will be discussed. An overview of the CC Program’s accomplishments, including strategic objectives, past challenges, and current challenge development and execution. This program exemplifies the values that have formed the bedrock of the culture at NASA since the beginning: innovation, imagination, and a passion for exploration.

innovation↗
NASA NTRS2010

Techniques for Assuring NASA Mission Success Using Redundancy and Multi-Functionality Designs

Topics include NASA centers around the country; 2009 highlights of significant successes in space transportation, exploration, and science; significant accomplishments; places to explore include Lagrange points, near-Earth objects, Mars and the Moon, and International Space Station research; Marshall's missions include propulsion and transportation systems, life support systems, and earth and space science spacecraft, systems, and operations; project lifecycle management model; motivation of avionics fault-tolerance, redundancy needs and concerns, redundancy versus reliability; parallel-series configurations; effect of adding redundancy on mission success; example of rules-based approach where reliability and safety interaction impacts design; impact of common cause failure; approach ot bottom-up reliability analysis; three factors that lead to redundant system failure; Apollo 13 multi-functional reliability and example; and mitigating the risk of single string spacecraft architecture;.

Shivers, Herb↗
NASA NTRS1974

Description of the attitude control, guidance and navigation space replaceable units for automated space servicing of selected NASA missions

Control elements such as sensors, momentum exchange devices, and thrusters are described which can be used to define space replaceable units (SRU), in accordance with attitude control, guidance, and navigation performance requirements selected for NASA space serviceable mission spacecraft. A number of SRU's are developed, and their reliability block diagrams are presented. An SRU assignment is given in order to define a set of feasible space serviceable spacecraft for the missions of interest.

Chobotov, V. A.↗
NASA NTRS1995

Nuclear Thermal Rocket/Vehicle Design Options for Future NASA Missions to the Moon and Mars

The nuclear thermal rocket (NTR) provides a unique propulsion capability to planners/designers of future human exploration missions to the Moon and Mars. In addition to its high specific impulse (approximately 850-1000 s) and engine thrust-to-weight ratio (approximately 3-10), the NTR can also be configured as a 'dual mode' system capable of generating electrical power for spacecraft environmental systems, communications, and enhanced stage operations (e.g., refrigeration for long-term liquid hydrogen storage). At present the Nuclear Propulsion Office (NPO) is examining a variety of mission applications for the NTR ranging from an expendable, single-burn, trans-lunar injection (TLI) stage for NASA's First Lunar Outpost (FLO) mission to all propulsive, multiburn, NTR-powered spacecraft supporting a 'split cargo-piloted sprint' Mars mission architecture. Each application results in a particular set of requirements in areas such as the number of engines and their respective thrust levels, restart capability, fuel operating temperature and lifetime, cryofluid storage, and stage size. Two solid core NTR concepts are examined -- one based on NERVA (Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application) derivative reactor (NDR) technology, and a second concept which utilizes a ternary carbide 'twisted ribbon' fuel form developed by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The NDR and CIS concepts have an established technology database involving significant nuclear testing at or near representative operating conditions. Integrated systems and mission studies indicate that clusters of two to four 15 to 25 klbf NDR or CIS engines are sufficient for most of the lunar and Mars mission scenarios currently under consideration. This paper provides descriptions and performance characteristics for the NDR and CIS concepts, summarizes NASA's First Lunar Outpost and Mars mission scenarios, and describes characteristics for representative cargo and piloted vehicles compatible with a reference 240 t-class heavy lift launch vehicle (HLLV) and smaller 120 t HLLV option. Attractive performance characteristics and high-leverage technologies associated with both the engine and stage are identified, and supporting parametric sensitivity data is provided. The potential for commonality of engine and stage components to satisfy a broad range of lunar and Mars missions is also discussed.

Borowski, Stanley K.↗
NASA NTRS2012

A Look at the Impact of High-End Computing Technologies on NASA Missions

From its bold start nearly 30 years ago and continuing today, the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) facility at Ames Research Center has enabled remarkable breakthroughs in the space agency s science and engineering missions. Throughout this time, NAS experts have influenced the state-of-the-art in high-performance computing (HPC) and related technologies such as scientific visualization, system benchmarking, batch scheduling, and grid environments. We highlight the pioneering achievements and innovations originating from and made possible by NAS resources and know-how, from early supercomputing environment design and software development, to long-term simulation and analyses critical to design safe Space Shuttle operations and associated spinoff technologies, to the highly successful Kepler Mission s discovery of new planets now capturing the world s imagination.

Biswas, Rupak↗
NASA NTRS2008

Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) Mission: NASA Precipitation Processing System (PPS)

NASA is contributing the precipitation measurement data system PPS to support the GPM mission. PPS will distribute all GPM data products including NASA s GMI data products freely and quickly. PPS is implementing no system mechanisms for restricting access to GPM data. PPS is implementing no system mechanisms for charging for GPM data products. PPS will provide a number of geographical and parameter subsetting features available to its users. The first implementation of PPS (called PPS--) will assume processing of TRMM data effective 1 June 2008. TRMM realtime data will be available via PPS- to all users requesting access

Stocker, Erich Franz↗
NASA NTRS1989

Technology requirements for advanced NASA missions

Two recent reports, one by the National Commission on Space and the second by the Ride committee, have urged NASA to look at a variety of future missions. Among these are manned missions to Mars and permanent bases on the moon and Mars. Addressed here is a wide variety of technologies needed for such missions as well as areas where power is required. An estimate of power ranges and photovoltaic opportunities is also presented.

Curtis, Henry B.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Sustaining Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) for Future NASA Missions Including Discovery and New Frontiers

Phenolic Impregnated Carbon Ablator (PICA) was invented in the mid 1990's and due to its relatively low density and efficient performance has been the heat shield TPS of choice for a range of missions includ-ing, Stardust, OSIRIS-Rex, Mars Science Laboratry (MSL) and Mars 2020. PICA has also been the TPS solution on numerous Discovery and New Frontiers proposals, as both the heat shield and back shell TPS and is under consideration as both for the Mars Sample Return Earth Entry Vehicle (EEV) and the heat shield on the Sample Retrieval Lander (SRL). Recently NASA's Science Mission Directorate (SMD) has funded an activity to develop a more sus-tainable version of PICA and to expand the demon-strated capabilities of PICA both in manufacturing and aerothermal performance.

Thermal Protection Material↗
NASA NTRS1994

The NASA Mission Operations and Control Architecture Program

The conflict between increases in space mission complexity and rapidly declining space mission budgets has created strong pressures to radically reduce the costs of designing and operating spacecraft. A key approach to achieving such reductions is through reducing the development and operations costs of the supporting mission operations systems. One of the efforts which the Communications and Data Systems Division at NASA Headquarters is using to meet this challenge is the Mission Operations Control Architecture (MOCA) project. Technical direction of this effort has been delegated to the Mission Operations Division (MOD) of the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC). MOCA is to develop a mission control and data acquisition architecture, and supporting standards, to guide the development of future spacecraft and mission control facilities at GSFC. The architecture will reduce the need for around-the-clock operations staffing, obtain a high level of reuse of flight and ground software elements from mission to mission, and increase overall system flexibility by enabling the migration of appropriate functions from the ground to the spacecraft. The end results are to be an established way of designing the spacecraft-ground system interface for GSFC's in-house developed spacecraft, and a specification of the end to end spacecraft control process, including data structures, interfaces, and protocols, suitable for inclusion in solicitation documents for future flight spacecraft. A flight software kernel may be developed and maintained in a condition that it can be offered as Government Furnished Equipment in solicitations. This paper describes the MOCA project, its current status, and the results to date.

Ondrus, Paul J.↗
NASA NTRS2011

NASA Mission Operations Directorate Preparations for the COTS Visiting Vehicles

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle looming, a series of new spacecraft is under development to assist in providing for the growing logistical needs of the International Space Station (ISS). Two of these vehicles are being built under a NASA initiative known as the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. These visiting vehicles ; Space X s Dragon and Orbital Science Corporation s Cygnus , are to be domestically produced in the United States and designed to add to the capabilities of the Russian Progress and Soyuz workhorses, the European Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) and the Japanese H-2 Transfer Vehicle (HTV). Most of what is known about the COTS program has focused on the work of Orbital and SpaceX in designing, building, and testing their respective launch and cargo vehicles. However, there is also a team within the Mission Operations Directorate (MOD) at NASA s Johnson Space Center working with their operational counterparts in these companies to provide operational safety oversight and mission assurance via the development of operational scenarios and products needed for these missions. Ensuring that the operational aspect is addressed for the initial demonstration flights of these vehicles is the topic of this paper. Integrating Dragon and Cygnus into the ISS operational environment has posed a unique challenge to NASA and their partner companies. This is due in part to the short time span of the COTS program, as measured from initial contract award until first launch, as well as other factors that will be explored in the text. Operational scenarios and products developed for each COTS vehicle will be discussed based on the following categories: timelines, on-orbit checkout, ground documentation, crew procedures, software updates and training materials. Also addressed is an outline of the commonalities associated with the operations for each vehicle. It is the intent of the authors to provide their audience with a better understanding of the mission assurance that MOD brings to commercial ventures to the ISS

Shull, Sarah A.↗
NASA NTRS1999

An Overview of Future NASA Missions, Concepts, and Technologies Related to Imaging of the World's Land Areas

In the near term NASA is entering into the peak activity period of the Earth Observing System (EOS). The EOS AM-1 /"Terra" spacecraft is nearing launch and operation to be followed soon by the New Millennium Program (NMP) Earth Observing (EO-1) mission. Other missions related to land imaging and studies include EOS PM-1 mission, the Earth System Sciences Program (ESSP) Vegetation Canopy Lidar (VCL) mission, the EOS/IceSat mission. These missions involve clear advances in technologies and observational capability including improvements in multispectral imaging and other observing strategies, for example, "formation flying". Plans are underway to define the next era of EOS missions, commonly called "EOS Follow-on" or EOS II. The programmatic planning includes concepts that represent advances over the present Landsat-7 mission that concomitantly recognize the advances being made in land imaging within the private sector. The National Polar Orbiting Environmental Satellite Series (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) is an effort that will help to transition EOS medium resolution (herein meaning spatial resolutions near 500 meters), multispectral measurement capabilities such as represented by the EOS Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) into the NPOESS operational series of satellites. Developments in Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and passive microwave land observing capabilities are also proceeding. Beyond these efforts the Earth Science Enterprise Technology Strategy is embarking efforts to advance technologies in several basic areas: instruments, flight systems and operational capability, and information systems. In the case of instruments architectures will be examined that offer significant reductions in mass, volume, power and observational flexibility. For flight systems and operational capability, formation flying including calibration and data fusion, systems operation autonomy, and mechanical and electronic innovations that can reduce spacecraft and subsystem resource requirements. The efforts in information systems will include better approaches for linking multiple data sets, extracting and visualizing information, and improvements in collecting, compressing, transmitting, processing, distributing and archiving data from multiple platforms. Overall concepts such as sensor webs, constellations of observing systems, and rapid and tailored data availability and delivery to multiple users comprise and notions Earth Science Vision for the future.

Salomonson, Vincent V.↗
NASA NTRS2008

High Power and Efficiency Space Traveling-Wave Tube Amplifiers With Reduced Size and Mass for NASA Missions

Recent advances in high power and efficiency space traveling-wave tube amplifiers (TWTAs) for NASA s space-to-Earth communications are presented in this paper. The RF power and efficiency of a new K-Band amplifier are 40 W and 50 percent and that of a new Ka-Band amplifier are 200 W and 60 percent. An important figure-of-merit, which is defined as the ratio of the RF power output to the mass (W/kg) of a TWT has improved by a factor of ten over the previous generation Ka-Band devices.

Simons, Rainee N.↗
NASA NTRS2002

Smart Aerospace eCommerce: Using Intelligent Agents in a NASA Mission Services Ordering Application

This paper describes how intelligent agent technology was successfully prototyped and then deployed in a smart eCommerce application for NASA. An intelligent software agent called the Intelligent Service Validation Agent (ISVA) was added to an existing web-based ordering application to validate complex orders for spacecraft mission services. This integration of intelligent agent technology with conventional web technology satisfies an immediate NASA need to reduce manual order processing costs. The ISVA agent checks orders for completeness, consistency, and correctness, and notifies users of detected problems. ISVA uses NASA business rules and a knowledge base of NASA services, and is implemented using the Java Expert System Shell (Jess), a fast rule-based inference engine. The paper discusses the design of the agent and knowledge base, and the prototyping and deployment approach. It also discusses future directions and other applications, and discusses lessons-learned that may help other projects make their aerospace eCommerce applications smarter.

Moleski, Walt↗
NASA NTRS2014

Model-Based Systems Engineering With the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) Applied to NASA Mission Operations

The potential of Model Model Systems Engineering (MBSE) using the Architecture Analysis and Design Language (AADL) applied to space systems will be described. AADL modeling is applicable to real-time embedded systems- the types of systems NASA builds. A case study with the Juno mission to Jupiter showcases how this work would enable future missions to benefit from using these models throughout their life cycle from design to flight operations.

MBSE↗
NASA NTRS2015

Solar Electric Propulsion for Future NASA Missions

Use of high-power solar arrays, at power levels ranging from approximately 500 KW to several megawatts, has been proposed for a solar-electric propulsion (SEP) demonstration mission, using a photovoltaic array to provide energy to a high-power xenon-fueled engine. One of the proposed applications of the high-power SEP technology is a mission to rendezvous with an asteroid and move it into lunar orbit for human exploration, the Asteroid Retrieval mission. The Solar Electric Propulsion project is dedicated to developing critical technologies to enable trips to further away destinations such as Mars or asteroids. NASA needs to reduce the cost of these ambitious exploration missions. High power and high efficiency SEP systems will require much less propellant to meet those requirements.

photovoltaic↗