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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 NTRS2011

TAMU: a new space mission operations paradigm

The Transferable, Adaptable, Modular and Upgradeable (TAMU) Flight Production Process (FPP) is a model-centric System of System (SoS) framework which cuts across multiple organizations and their associated facilities, that are, in the most general case, in geographically diverse locations, to develop the architecture and associated workflow processes for a broad range of mission operations. Further, TAMU FPP envisions the simulation, automatic execution and re-planning of orchestrated workflow processes as they become operational. This paper provides the vision for the TAMU FPP paradigm. This includes a complete, coherent technique, process and tool set that result in an infrastructure that can be used for full lifecycle design and decision making during any flight production process. A flight production process is the process of developing all products that are necessary for flight.

Meshkat, Leila↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A New Control Paradigm: Multiple Aircraft Controlled by Multiple Operators

Remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) are becoming more and more prevalent in the aerospace operations. This is true in a number of diverse domains; urban air mobility, medical product delivery, infrastructure inspection, high altitude pseudo-satellites, search and rescue, auto cargo and several other applications. One aspect that all of these share in common is the need for scalability to be viable and continue to grow. The Association of Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) develops an annual economic report. They project that in the first three years of integration more than 70,000 jobs will be created in the US alone, with an economic impact of more than $13.6 billion. This benefit will grow through 2025 when we foresee more than 100,000 jobs created and economic impact of $82 billion. For many of these domains to reach these levels and have the scalability needed, they will require a remote pilot to control multiple aircraft (1:N) or the extension of that, multiple pilots controlling multiple aircraft (m:N). This is a new control paradigm that raises multiple issues in various areas. The issues include regulatory, technical, safety, community acceptance and Human Factors. Human factors issues include displays, pilot workload, pilot situation awareness just to name a few. This panel brings together researchers, developers and operators that have been working in the area of m:N. They will discuss the need, the issues and some potential solutions.

multi-vehicle control↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Conjunction Assessment and Deconfliction Paradigm for Co-located Satellite Constellations with On-Spacecraft “Autonomous” Flight Dynamics Control

Constellations that employ highly-automated satellite flight dynamics can operate safely from a collision avoidance (CA) perspective using current CA screening technology and communication paradigms—except when in proximity to other highly-automated constellations: there is no existing arrangement and concept of operations to allow the low-latency CA screenings, exchange of information, and assignment/acceptance of mitigation responsibility that co-location of highly-automated constellations requires. However, the serendipitous co-location of the NASA Starling mission—an autonomously-controlled technology demonstration constellation—and the SpaceX Starlink constellation has presented an opportunity (indeed, a requirement) to develop and build out a solution for safe operations of two (or more) co-located, highly-automated satellite constellations. Such a solution has been designed and constructed, including the required ground node; and it will be exercised as a dedicated, in-flight safety experiment between the two constellations from January to September 2024. Lessons learned from this experiment are expected to feed the design of the US Department of Commerce’s Tracking Control System for Space (TraCSS) space traffic coordination solution.

conjunction assessment↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

A Paradigm Shift in Monitoring Earth from Space

This presentation will focus on the new paradigm the Golden age of Earth observations (e.g. high temporal, spatial and spectral resolution Earth observations) represent for natural resources management, and ultimately societal benefit. And what to expect for the upcoming satellite Missions that NASA is planning to launch, such as NISAR and SBG.

NISAR↗
DOE OSTI2025

Nature-GL: A Revolutionary Learning Paradigm Unleashing Nature’s Power in Real-World Spatial-Temporal Graph Learning

Spatial-Temporal Graph Learning (ST-GL) is a prominent research area due to its unique capability to effectively learn real-world graphs. Applications of ST-GL pose stringent and various demands on not only real-time inference with low energy cost and high ac- curacy but also fast training. Unfortunately, as Moore’s Law approaches its limits and ST-GL model complexity drastically grows, the gap between digital hardware’s computational power and ST- GL application demands is widening. In response, this paper introduces Nature-GL, a nature-powered graph learning paradigm that exploits the principle of entropy increase to advance graph learning. In particular, Nature-GL transforms both the training and inference of real-valued ST-GL into electron-speed natural anneal- ing processes of a parameterized dynamical system that represents the target graphs. Experimental results across four real-world ap- plications with six datasets demonstrate that Nature-GL achieves orders-of-magnitude speedups in both training and inference, delivering higher accuracy compared to Graph Neural Networks.

Liu, Chuan [University of Rochester]↗
NASA NTRS2017

Connecting Projects to Complete the In Situ Resource Utilization Paradigm

Terrain Identify specifics such as slope, rockiness, traction parameters Identify what part of ISRU needs each Physical Geotechnical Hardness, density, cohesion, etc. Identify what part of ISRU needs each (e.g., excavation needs to know hardness, density; soil processing needs to know density, cohesion; etc.)Mineral Identify specifics Identify what part of ISRU needs each Volatile Identify specifics Identify what part of ISRU needs each Atmosphere Identify specifics Identify what part of ISRU needs each Environment Identify specifics Identify what part of ISRU needs each Resource Characterization What: Develop an instrument suite to locate and evaluate the physical, mineral, and volatile resources at the lunar poles Neutron Spectrometer Near Infrared (IR) to locate subsurface hydrogen surface water Near IR for mineral identification Auger drill for sample removal down to 1 m Oven with Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer to quantify volatiles present ISRU relevance: Water volatile resource characterization and subsurface material access removal Site Evaluation Resource Mapping What: Develop and utilize new data products and tools for evaluating potential exploration sites for selection and overlay mission data to map terrain, environment, and resource information e.g., New techniques applied to generate Digital Elevation Map (DEMs) at native scale of images (1mpxl)ISRU relevance: Resource mapping and estimation with terrain and environment information is needed for extraction planning Mission Planning and Operations What: Develop and utilize tools and procedures for planning mission operations and real time changes Planning tools include detailed engineering models (e.g., power and data) of surface segment systems allows evaluation of designs ISRU relevance: Allows for iterative engineering as a function of environment and hardware performance.

Paradigm↗
DOE OSTI2026

A New Electrode Paradigm Enabled by Co-Axial Electrospinning

A conventional electrode in a polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) often imposes competing requirements on the ionomer, which must enable efficient proton conduction while allowing sufficient oxygen transport. To address these material-level requirements, a co-axial electrospun electrode comprising of a pristine ionomer core and a multifunctional platinum-carbon-ionomer shell is introduced. By decoupling proton and oxygen transport pathways, this architecture enables independent tailoring of core and shell chemistries and their interfaces. The core-shell structure of the electrospun fibers is confirmed by microscopy, while electrochemical and transport properties are quantified using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and limiting-current diagnostics. The co-axial fibers in their current version meet or exceed the performance of conventional ultrasonically sprayed electrode at relative humidities above 75%, enabled by improvements in non-Fickian diffusion processes. This work establishes co-axial electrospun electrodes as a versatile platform for advanced PEMFC electrodes and a wide range of electrochemical applications, including CO2 electrolysis, water electrolysis, and critical mineral separations.

08 HYDROGEN↗
DOE OSTI2025

N-terminal domain swapping: A new paradigm for spermidine/spermine N -acetyltransferase (SSAT) protein structures?

Enterococcus faecalis is a multi-drug-resistant human pathogen that is found in a variety of environments and is challenging to treat. Under stress conditions, some bacteria regulate intracellular polyamine concentrations via polyamine acetyltransferases to reduce their toxicity. The E. faecalis genome encodes two polyamine acetyltransferases: PmvE and BltD. Both of these proteins belong to the Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT) superfamily. It is unclear why there are two enzymes with similar substrate specificities in this organism. To better understand the structure/function relationship of the E. faecalis BltD enzyme, we determined its crystal structure and performed additional assays to explore its oligomeric state and enzymatic activity. The goal was to determine whether there were structural or catalytic differences between this enzyme and other polyamine acetyltransferases that could explain this redundancy and be exploited for future development of targeted inhibitors for this important human pathogen. We found the BltD enzyme was structurally unique due to its N-terminal domain swapped dimer. However, this enzyme adopts a catalytically active monomer rather than dimer in solution. This indicates the crystal structure we obtained may represent a state that forms at high protein and salt concentrations and at low pH used during crystallization. The BltD dimer found in the crystal may represent a unique view of how an inhibitory peptide or molecule could be designed to occupy its active site. Additionally, this structure shows the extensive flexibility of the N-terminal portion of the E. faecalis BltD enzyme.

59 BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES↗
DOE OSTI2025

Bridging paradigms: Designing for HPC-Quantum convergence

Here, this paper presents a comprehensive software stack architecture for integrating quantum computing (QC) capabilities with High-Performance Computing (HPC) environments. While quantum computers show promise as specialized accelerators for scientific computing, their effective integration with classical HPC systems presents significant technical challenges. We propose a hardware-agnostic software framework that supports both current noisy intermediate-scale quantum devices and future fault-tolerant quantum computers, while maintaining compatibility with existing HPC workflows. The architecture includes a quantum gateway interface, standardized APIs for resource management, and robust scheduling mechanisms to handle both simultaneous and interleaved quantum–classical workloads. Key innovations include: (1) a unified resource management system that efficiently coordinates quantum and classical resources, (2) a flexible quantum programming interface that abstracts hardware-specific details, (3) A Quantum Platform Manager API that simplifies the integration of various quantum hardware systems, and (4) a comprehensive tool chain for quantum circuit optimization and execution. We demonstrate our architecture through implementation of quantum–classical algorithms, including the variational quantum linear solver, showcasing the framework’s ability to handle complex hybrid workflows while maximizing resource utilization. This work provides a foundational blueprint for integrating QC capabilities into existing HPC infrastructures, addressing critical challenges in resource management, job scheduling, and efficient data movement between classical and quantum resources.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗
DOE OSTI2026

Tailoring Crosslinks through Time─A Paradigm for Tough Hydrogels

The multidisciplinary applications of hydrogels have motivated a thorough exploration of the relationship between their structural and mechanical properties, i.e., spatial structure–function relationships, with particular regard to strength and toughness. While this approach has driven fundamental advancements in the design of robust hydrogel structures, further complementary perspectives are needed to enable holistic, rational design schemes that integrate considerations such as fabrication and advanced functions like response and adaptation. To these ends, this review focuses on the dynamics of temporal-function relationships and their fundamental bases in order to highlight how the dynamic regulation of polymer interactions programs: 1) polymer assembly and material structure; 2) response to deformation and fracture behavior; 3) dynamic modulation of properties and structural remodeling/self-healing. Here, by exploring this intersection of hydrogel formation, function, and remodeling, this review seeks to shed light on the fundamental relationship between molecular structure, material assembly, and performance in order to connect the emerging area of bioinspired materials processing with tough hydrogel design, and further provides a lasting inspiration and impetus for future hydrogel development that enables valuable scientific and technological advancements.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2024

Polyalkenamers as Drop-In Additives for Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization: A Promising Upcycling Paradigm

Here we report a distinct strategy to upcycle waste polyalkenamers such as polybutadiene into new, performance-advantaged materials by using them as drop-in additives for ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). The polyalkenamers serve as competent chain-transfer agents in ROMPs of common classes of cyclic olefin monomers, facilitating good molecular weight control, allowing low Ru catalyst loadings, and enabling efficient incorporation of the polyalkenamer into the synthesized polymeric material. We successfully demonstrate ROMP using model polyalkenamers and translate these learnings to leverage commercial polybutadiene and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as chain transfer agents for ROMP copolymerizations. Critically, our strategy is shown to be highly efficient and operationally simple, quantitatively incorporating the polyalkenamer and inheriting aspects of its thermomechanical performance. Our results highlight a promising pathway for the upcycling of polyalkenamers and provide an alternative to existing deconstruction and functional upcycling strategies.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2024

The shard test and nanoporomechanics reverse classical paradigm of cement hydration being contractive

Le Chatelier in 1887 and Powers in 1947 demonstrated that the volume of nanoscale C-S-H (calcium silicate hydrate) particles formed during hydration is smaller than the combined volume of the reactants—the anhydrous Portland cement and water. Hydration has thus been considered as contractive. An experiment shows that the opposite is true above the nanoscale. The porous skeleton of cement paste expands as the growing C-S-H particles push each other apart, similar to crystal growth pressure. This is significant for high-performance concretes (HPC) with low water-cement ratios (w/c ≤ 0.4), where chemical self-desiccation lowers pore relative humidity by 40%, compared to just 1% in traditional concretes (w/c ≈ 0.5). Standard American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) C1608 tests, using 10 mm thick water-immersed specimens, show large shrinkage because the half-time of water ingress is many decades, unable to offset shrinkage-causing self-desiccation. The present experiment, using a laser microscopy-topography technique, proves the opposite—expansion, evidenced by measuring the length changes of water-immersed HPC shards 0.5 mm thick in which the diffusion halftime, only about one hour, allows continuous resaturation of pores, canceling self-desiccation. The faster diffusion (halftime of one hour) enables continuous pore resaturation, preventing shrinkage. When sealed with paraffin oil, the shards self-desiccate and shrink. These findings align with studies since 2015, showing that models excluding hydration expansion cannot fit test data across various specimen sizes and sealing conditions. The results suggest that standardized ASTM tests for the so-called chemical shrinkage in modern concretes with very low water-cement ratios are misleading and need revision.

Science & Technology - Other Topics↗