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At least 127 records · Page 7

Integrated Space Asset Management Database and Modeling

Effective Space Asset Management is one key to addressing the ever-growing issue of space congestion. It is imperative that agencies around the world have access to data regarding the numerous active assets and pieces of space junk currently tracked in orbit around the Earth. At the center of this issues is the effective management of data of many types related to orbiting objects. As the population of tracked objects grows, so too should the data management structure used to catalog technical specifications, orbital information, and metadata related to those populations. Marshall Space Flight Center's Space Asset Management Database (SAM-D) was implemented in order to effectively catalog a broad set of data related to known objects in space by ingesting information from a variety of database and processing that data into useful technical information. Using the universal NORAD number as a unique identifier, the SAM-D processes two-line element data into orbital characteristics and cross-references this technical data with metadata related to functional status, country of ownership, and application category. The SAM-D began as an Excel spreadsheet and was later upgraded to an Access database. While SAM-D performs its task very well, it is limited by its current platform and is not available outside of the local user base. Further, while modeling and simulation can be powerful tools to exploit the information contained in SAM-D, the current system does not allow proper integration options for combining the data with both legacy and new M&S tools. This paper provides a summary of SAM-D development efforts to date and outlines a proposed data management infrastructure that extends SAM-D to support the larger data sets to be generated. A service-oriented architecture model using an information sharing platform named SIMON will allow it to easily expand to incorporate new capabilities, including advanced analytics, M&S tools, fusion techniques and user interface for visualizations. In addition, tight control of information sharing policy will increase confidence in the system, which would encourage industry partners to provide commercial data. Combined with the integration of new and legacy M&S tools, a SIMON-based architecture will provide a robust environment that can be extended and expanded indefinitely.

MacLeod, Todd↗

Internal NASA Study: NASAs Protoflight Research Initiative

The NASA Protoflight Research Initiative is an internal NASA study conducted within the Office of the Chief Engineer to better understand the use of Protoflight within NASA. Extensive literature reviews and interviews with key NASA members with experience in both robotic and human spaceflight missions has resulted in three main conclusions and two observations. The first conclusion is that NASA's Protoflight method is not considered to be "prescriptive." The current policies and guidance allows each Program/Project to tailor the Protoflight approach to better meet their needs, goals and objectives. Second, Risk Management plays a key role in implementation of the Protoflight approach. Any deviations from full qualification will be based on the level of acceptable risk with guidance found in NPR 8705.4. Finally, over the past decade (2004 - 2014) only 6% of NASA's Protoflight missions and 6% of NASA's Full qualification missions experienced a publicly disclosed mission failure. In other words, the data indicates that the Protoflight approach, in and of it itself, does not increase the mission risk of in-flight failure. The first observation is that it would be beneficial to document the decision making process on the implementation and use of Protoflight. The second observation is that If a Project/Program chooses to use the Protoflight approach with relevant heritage, it is extremely important that the Program/Project Manager ensures that the current project's requirements falls within the heritage design, component, instrument and/or subsystem's requirements for both the planned and operational use, and that the documentation of the relevant heritage is comprehensive, sufficient and the decision well documented. To further benefit/inform this study, a recommendation to perform a deep dive into 30 missions with accessible data on their testing/verification methodology and decision process to research the differences between Protoflight and Full Qualification missions' Design Requirements and Verification & Validation (V&V) (without any impact or special request directly to the project).

Protoflight↗

Standards Roadmapping for Mission Assurance in Commercial Spaceflight

This paper explores the application of established roadmapping approaches in standards planning and roadmap development to support mission assurance objectives. Mission assurance requires proactive planning across multiple domains including technical, schedule, cost, organizational, and policy. The intersection of these domains happens at the enterprise level, and enterprise systems engineering processes can systematically guide mission assurance activities, including development of standards roadmaps. Standards planning and development is a critical contributor to an effective mission assurance strategy, although standards are often developed and adopted reactively. Technology and standards planning is a key Enterprise Process Management activity, as identified by the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge, and technology and standards roadmaps are strategic tools used to enable that process. Technology roadmapping has proven effective in guiding enterprise architecture and concept design, and standards planning supports enterprise requirements definition and management. However, there are limited methodologies to guide such standards planning activities. The application of technology roadmapping principles to standards planning formalizes the process and establishes a repeatable framework for standards development and integration. The framework development described in this paper fills a methodological gap by adapting proven roadmapping techniques to standards planning. Through a comparison of roadmapping methodologies and a case study analysis, this approach outlines a systematic process for anticipating and planning standards needs. In the case of developing a standards integration roadmap for NASA’s Office of Safety and Mission Assurance (OSMA), technology roadmapping principles were adapted to develop a roadmap framework to allow NASA and OSMA to define an agency-wide standards integration plan for commercial and industry safety and mission assurance standards. The outcome highlights key adaptations required for roadmapping in a standards context and describes the process steps to formalize a standards planning activity. The roadmapping framework adapted for standards development and integration enables more strategic, forward-looking standards planning and allows for better alignment between evolving capabilities and mission assurance requirements. Beyond its application to mission assurance, this methodology can be transferred to other domains requiring standards development, providing a systematic approach that integrates systems engineering principles into policy strategy and decision-making processes.

Enterprise Systems Engineering↗

A Complex Brownfields Case Study—The Former Bannister Federal Complex, Kansas City, Missouri

Abstract In November 2017, 225 acres (91 ha) of the former Bannister Federal Complex (BFC) in Kansas City, Missouri were transferred from the Federal Government to Bannister Transformation & Development, LLC (BTD), for demolition; environmental corrective measures; and preparation of the site for redevelopment. This presented a once‐in‐a‐lifetime opportunity to reconfigure groundwater remedies and address long‐standing soil contamination issues. The property included more than 40 previously‐identified Solid Waste Management Units, 3.9 million square feet (362,000 m 2 ) of buildings, subsurface utilities dating back to the 1940s, and an active groundwater containment system. Demolition of buildings and installation of an interim groundwater containment system began almost immediately after property transfer. In 2018, BTD substantially modified its project schedule to incorporate the construction of the first new buildings while demolition and remedial activities were ongoing. By October 2020, construction of the first new warehouse commenced while excavation and capping of contaminated soils, installation of a groundwater containment treatment systems, and abandonment of legacy utilities were still underway. Completion of this work, within the originally planned timeframe, was made possible by factors including up‐front multi‐year funding, early and ongoing engagement of regulators, an extended 3‐year due diligence program and planning stage, and establishment of well‐defined environmental targets. Both the soil and groundwater remedies were also designed with the flexibility needed to accommodate unknown conditions, changing schedules, and revisions to the regrading and redevelopment plans. This case study highlights key technical and management factors that led to the successful completion of this complex brownfields remediation project.

Water Resources↗

High-heat transfer lithium-ion batteries: A new era in battery thermal management

Despite advances in lithium-ion battery technology, critical challenges remain that must be addressed to accelerate electric vehicle (EV) adoption and global energy transformation. Significantly improved battery thermal management (BTM) is key to overcoming these challenges. BTM approaches focus on increasing heat transfer coefficients via air, liquid, or refrigerant cooling, but less attention is given to reducing the battery's thermal resistance, a major bottleneck for heat transfer. This work introduces a novel approach to reduce battery thermal resistance by integrating in-plane heat transfer with optimized cell geometry, minimized thermal resistances, and reduced interfacial resistances, representing a departure from previous methods. The standard prismatic can cell incorporating this technology is referred to as the high heat transfer (HHT) battery. An equivalent resistance battery thermal model is developed for speed and accuracy, validated against experimental data in the literature, demonstrating strong correlation and ensuring reliable predictions for real-world performance. Thermal performance metrics of the conventional and HHT batteries are compared using a parametric study with air, liquid, and refrigerant boundary conditions across a range of aspect ratios. The HHT battery shows a heat removal rate up to 20 times higher than a conventional battery. These findings suggest that HHT technology could be transformative for EV battery performance, enabling fast charging, mitigating thermal runaway, extending battery life, reducing cold-weather power loss, increasing reliability, lowering costs, and enabling higher energy density, all critical for EV adoption and energy transformation. Future work will focus on prototyping and real-world testing to refine these findings for commercial-scale applications.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗

Considerations For The Management Of Spent Nuclear Fuel from Advanced Reactors

The intent of this presentation is to give some key considerations for the management of spent nuclear fuel from Advanced Reactors. It will be presented at the Management of Spent Fuel, Radioactive Waste and Decommissioning in SMRs or Advanced Reactor Technologies conference organized by OECD – NEA in Ottawa (Canada) on November 2022 in the session: Operational feedback on managing and disposal of existing waste streams and how some of these concepts can be applied in future endeavours, such as SMRs/Advanced Reactors.

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS↗

Secure Firmware Update and Device Authentication for Smart Inverters using Blockchain and Physically Uncloable Function (PUF)-Embedded Security Module

Cybersecurity of inverters has been significantly important as inverters become smarter in cyber-physical environments. However, firmware security of smart inverters against firmware attacks from various attack vectors has been less studied. Furthermore, this paper proposes a secure firmware update and device authentication method using a blockchain-based public key infrastructure (PKI) management system and a physically unclonable function (PUF)-embedded security module in a smart inverter. The proposed method is validated by experiments.

blockchain↗

Quantum Computing in the Cloud: Analyzing job and machine characteristics

As the popularity of quantum computing continues to grow, quantum machine access over the cloud is critical to both academic and industry researchers across the globe. And as cloud quantum computing demands increase exponentially, the analysis of resource consumption and execution characteristics are key to efficient management of jobs and resources at both the vendor-end as well as the client-end. While the analysis of resource consumption and management are popular in the classical HPC domain, it is severely lacking for more nascent technology like quantum computing. This paper is a first-of-its-kind academic study, analyzing various trends in job execution and resources consumption / utilization on quantum cloud systems. We focus on IBM Furthermore, quantum systems and analyze characteristics over a two year period, encompassing over 6000 jobs which contain over 600,000 quantum circuit executions and correspond to almost 10 billion “shots” or trials over 20+ quantum machines. Specifically, we analyze trends focused on, but not limited to, execution times on quantum machines, queuing/waiting times in the cloud, circuit compilation times, machine utilization, as well as the impact of job and machine characteristics on all of these trends. Furthermore, our analysis identifies several similarities and differences with classical HPC cloud systems. Based on our insights, we make recommendations and contributions to improve the management of resources and jobs on future quantum cloud systems.

42 ENGINEERING↗

Understanding Impacts of Data Integrity Attacks on Transactive Control Systems

With the rapid growth of internet-connected smart devices capable of exchanging energy price information and adaptively controlling energy consumption of connected loads, the role of transactive control is expected to become more prominent in the modern grid. Transactive control systems integrate the wholesale and retail energy markets, and enable active participation of end users, thereby playing a key role in managing the rising number of distributed assets in the smart grid. The use of internet for the communication of data between the controllers at the building, distribution, and transmission levels makes the system susceptible to cyber-attacks. A skilled adversary can potentially manipulate the exchanged data with the intention of inflicting damage to the system. In this paper, four categories of metrics are put forth for evaluating the performance of the system when under data integrity attacks. A model for scaling-based data integrity attack has been described, and co-simulations have been performed on a 240 bus WECC transmission system model with detailed modeling of distribution systems at specific buses. Our results show that scaling-based data integrity attacks can have non-trivial impacts on the operational, financial, and comfort aspects of the transactive control system.

Smart grid, transactive control system, Buildings-↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Integrators Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that integrators can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Manufacturers Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that manufacturers can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Cybersecurity for Distributed Wind: What Operators Need to Know

Few resources exist to address a growing need to secure distributed wind systems. Idaho National Laboratory recently published the Cybersecurity Guide for Distributed Wind, a richly detailed resource outlining a distributed wind system's possible architecture, relevant standards, risk management strategies, and key recommendations for stakeholders. This document highlights key actionable insights from the Guide that operators can use to execute an effective cybersecurity strategy.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

Workshop on Establishing and Operating a National Nuclear Security Support Centre Hypothetical Scenario: “Centralia Nuclear Security Support Centre Strategy Implementation Plan”

[This is part of a hypothetical scenario-based exercise for workshop participants, based on the fictitious country "Centralia."] In prior years, as a part of efforts to strengthen and better sustain nuclear security within the State, Centralia requested through the Integrated Nuclear Security Support Plan (INSSP) framework that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) conduct an expert mission on establishing and operating a national nuclear security support centre (NSSC). After the IAEA conducted the NSSC expert mission, members of the Centralia Committee on Nuclear Security (CNS) agreed to initiate the feasibility determination phase of establishing an NSSC, in line with the systematic process recommended by the IAEA. Centralia Nuclear Regulatory Authority (CNRA), as the designated lead organization for coordinating the feasibility determination process, prepared a Feasibility Report in collaboration with members of the CNS and based on input gathered among relevant national stakeholders. The report was presented to the National Security Advisor (NSA), who reviewed and approved the proposal for Centralia to proceed with establishing an NSSC. After Centralia moved into the planning phase for the Centralia Nuclear Security Support Centre (CNSSC), per REF, the primary stakeholders of the centre jointly developed this strategy implementation plan, which provides an outline of the organizational structure, needs analysis, programme objectives, financial and project management, risk management, and other key aspects of the centre. This document will be reviewed and updated as necessary on a semi-annual basis during the project implementation period of establishing CNSSC.

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY↗

Aircrew-aircraft integration: A summary of US Army research programs and plans

A review of selected programs which illustrate the research efforts of the U.S. Army Aeromechanics Laboratory in the area of aircrew-aircraft integration is presented. Plans for research programs to support the development of future military rotorcraft are also described. The crew of a combat helicopter must, in general, perform two major functions during the conduct of a particular mission: flightpath control and mission management. Accordingly, the research programs described are being conducted in the same two major categories: (1) flightpath control, which encompasses the areas of handling qualities, stability and control, and displays for the pilot's control of the rotorcraft's flightpath, and (2) mission management, which includes human factors and cockpit integration research topics related to performance of navigation, communication, and aircraft systems management tasks.

Key, D. L.↗

Aircrew-aircraft integration - A summary of U.S. Army research programs and plans

A review of selected programs which illustrate the research efforts of the U.S. Army Aeromechanics Laboratory in the area of aircrew-aircraft integration is presented. Plans for research programs to support the development of future military rotorcraft are also described. The crew of a combat helicopter must, in general, perform two major functions during the conduct of a particular mission: flightpath control and mission management. Accordingly, the research programs described are being conducted in the same two major categories: (1) flightpath control, which encompasses the areas of handling qualities, stability and control, and displays for the pilot's control of the rotorcraft's flightpath, and (2) mission management, which includes human factors and cockpit integration research topics related to performance of navigation, communication, and aircraft systems management tasks.

Key, D. L.↗

Practices in Adequate Structural Design

Structural design and verification of space vehicles and space systems is a very tricky and awe inspiring business, particularly for manned missions. Failures in the missions with loss of life is devastating personally and nationally. The scope of the problem is driven by high performance requirements which push state-of-the-art technologies, creating high sensitivites to small variations and uncertainties. Insurance of safe, reliable flight dictates the use of sound principles, procedures, analysis, and testing. Many of those principles which were refocused by the Space Shuttle Challenger (51-L) accident on January 26, 1986, and the activities conducted to insure safe shuttle reflights are discussed. The emphasis will be focused on engineering, while recognizing that project and project management are also key to success.

Ryan, Robert S.↗

The new Space Shuttle Transportation System (STS) - Problem, performance, supportability, and programmatic trending program

This paper describes the NASA Space Shuttle Trend Analysis program. The four main areas of the program - problem/reliability, performance, supportability, and programmatic trending - are defined, along with motivation for these areas, the statistical methods used, and illustrative Space Shuttle applications. Also described is the NASA Safety, Reliability, Maintainability and Quality Assurance (SRM&QA) Management Information Center, used to focus management attention on key near-term launch concerns and long-range mission trend issues. Finally, the computer data bases used to support the program and future program enhancements are discussed.

Crawford, J. L.↗

An integrated decision support system for TRAC: A proposal

Optimal allocation and usage of resources is a key to effective management. Resources of concern to TRAC are: Manpower (PSY), Money (Travel, contracts), Computing, Data, Models, etc. Management activities of TRAC include: Planning, Programming, Tasking, Monitoring, Updating, and Coordinating. Existing systems are insufficient, not completely automated, manpower intensive, and has the potential for data inconsistency exists. A system is proposed which suggests a means to integrate all project management activities of TRAC through the development of a sophisticated software and by utilizing the existing computing systems and network resources. The systems integration proposal is examined in detail.

Mukkamala, Ravi↗