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NASA NTRS2018

Completion of Launch Director Console Project and Other Support Work

There were four projects that I was a part of working on during the spring semester of 2018. This included the completion of the Launch Director Console (LDC) project and the completion and submission of a Concept of Operations (ConOps) document for the Record and Playback System (RPS) at the Launch Control Center (LCC), as well as supporting the implementation of a unit in RPS known as the CDP (Communication Data Processor). Also included was my support and mentorship of a High School robotics team that is sponsored by Kennedy Space Center. The LDC project is an innovative workstation to be used by the launch director for the future Space Launch System program. I worked on the fabrication and assembly of the final console. The ConOps on RPS is a technical document for which I produced supporting information and notes. All of this was done in the support of the IT Project Management Office (IT-F). The CDP is a subsystem that will eventually be installed in and operated by RPS.

Steinrock, Joshua G.↗
NASA NTRS2018

Projecting Climate and Land Use Change Impacts on Actual Evapotranspiration for the Narmada River Basin in Central India in the Future

Assessment of actual evapotranspiration (ET) is essential as it controls the exchange of water and heat energy between the atmosphere and land surface. ET also influences the available water resources and assists in the crop water assessment in agricultural areas. This study involves the assessment of spatial distribution of seasonal and annual ET using Surface Energy Balance Algorithm for Land (SEBAL) and provides an estimation of future changes in ET due to land use and climate change for a portion of the Narmada river basin in Central India. Climate change effects on future ET are assessed using the ACCESS1-0 model of CMIP5. A Markov Chain model estimated future land use based on the probability of changes in the past. The ET analysis is carried out for the years 2009-2011. The results indicate variation in the seasonal ET with the changed land use. High ET is observed over forest areas and crop lands, but ET decreases over crop lands after harvest. The overall annual ET is high over water bodies and forest areas. ET is high in the premonsoon season over the water bodies and decreases in the winter. Future ET in the 2020s, 2030s, 2040s, and 2050s is shown with respect to land use and climate changes that project a gradual decrease due to the constant removal of the forest areas. The lowest ET is projected in 2050. Individual impact of land use change projects decreases in ET from 1990 to 2050, while climate change effect projects increases in ET in the future due to rises in temperature. However, the combined impacts of land use and climate changes indicate a decrease in ET in the future.

Kundu, Sananda↗
NASA NTRS2018

An Overview of Lessons Learned from Sonic-boom Flight Research Projects Conducted by NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

Over the course of four years, a team of aerospace engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Armstrong Flight Research Center completed four projects, each with the objective to research sonic-boom signatures from a ground-and building-level perspective. The relatively compressed timeline of these projects resulted in many lessons learned. With each successive project, these lessons have been more relied upon and referenced. This paper provides a high-level overview of the teams relevant lessons learned and the importance of these lessons for future projects.

lessons learned↗
NASA NTRS2017

Medical Data Architecture Project Status

The Medical Data Architecture (MDA) project supports the Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) risk to minimize or reduce the risk of adverse health outcomes and decrements in performance due to in-flight medical capabilities on human exploration missions. To mitigate this risk, the ExMC MDA project addresses the technical limitations identified in ExMC Gap Med 07: We do not have the capability to comprehensively process medically-relevant information to support medical operations during exploration missions. This gap identifies that the current International Space Station (ISS) medical data management includes a combination of data collection and distribution methods that are minimally integrated with on-board medical devices and systems. Furthermore, there are variety of data sources and methods of data collection. For an exploration mission, the seamless management of such data will enable an increasingly autonomous crew than the current ISS paradigm. The MDA will develop capabilities that support automated data collection, and the necessary functionality and challenges in executing a self-contained medical system that approaches crew health care delivery without assistance from ground support.To attain this goal, the first year of the MDA project focused on reducing technical risk, developing documentation and instituting iterative development processes that established the basis for the first version of MDA software (or Test Bed 1). Test Bed 1 is based on a nominal operations scenario authored by the ExMC Element Scientist. This narrative was decomposed into a Concept of Operations that formed the basis for Test Bed 1 requirements. These requirements were successfully vetted through the MDA Test Bed 1 System Requirements Review, which permitted the MDA project to begin software code development and component integration. This paper highlights the MDA objectives, development processes, and accomplishments, and identifies the fiscal year 2017 milestones and deliverables in the upcoming year.

Exploration medical system↗
NASA NTRS2019

NASA Undergraduate Student Instrument (USIP) Project--Lessons Learned

NASA offers real-world experiences, with the goal of developing students’ skills and capabilities in science, technology, engineering and math, skills critical to building a STEM-literate workforce and achieving the nation's exploration goals. In 2016, the NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) and the Office of Education National Space Grant Program (OE Space Grant) awarded $8 million through the Undergraduate Student Instrument Project (USIP) to 47 student teams to conduct hands-on research with 23 of the projects being CubeSat projects. The USIP student teams proposed science or technology experiments that are relevant to NASA missions, and the platform to fly their payload. The platforms include sounding rockets, scientific and hand-held balloons, aircraft, suborbital reusable and commercial launch vehicles, and CubeSats launched as a secondary payload on an orbital vehicle. The mission management for USIP was the responsibility of NASA Goddard Space Flight Centers Wallops Flight Facility (WFF) in Virginia. The university faculty supporting USIP attest to the benefits students are receiving in the hands-on aspects of the projects, as well as the real-world problem resolution. The USIP university teams are receiving an authentic NASA educational experience that will encourage the students to be part of NASA’s or the Nations’ future workforce and leaders.

Winterton, Joyce L.↗
NASA NTRS2019

Overview of NASA's Solar Electric Propulsion Project

NASA is continuing to develop and qualify a state of the art 13 kW-class Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) for NASA exploration missions through a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne. An objective of the AEPS project is to empower the US space industry to accelerate the adoption of high power electric propulsion technologies by reducing the risk and uncertainty of integrating Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies into space flight systems. NASA and AEPS contract has recently initiated engineering hardware testing of the Hall Current Thruster (HCT), Power Processing Unit (PPU), and Xenon Flow Controller (XFC) at both the component and system levels. The successful completion of these tests will provide the required information to advance the AEPS system towards Critical Design Review. In support of the AEPS contract, NASA and JPL have been performing risk reduction activities to address specific concerns of the state of the art higher power Hall thruster propulsion system. These risk reduction activities have included long duration wear testing of the Technology Demonstration Unit (TDU) Hall thruster and cathode hardware, thermal cycling testing of TDU cathode heaters and coils, plasma plume measurements, and investigating PPU design. In addition to NASA propulsion development, the SEP project is developing the Plasma Diagnostic Package (PDP) and the SEP Testbed. The PDP is designed for use in conjunction with a high powered EP system to characterize in-space operation. The SEP Testbed system is developed for demonstration of Abstract: NASA is continuing to develop and qualify a state of the art 13 kW-class Advanced Electric Propulsion System (AEPS) for NASA exploration missions through a contract with Aerojet Rocketdyne. An objective of the AEPS project is to empower the US space industry to accelerate the adoption of high power electric propulsion technologies by reducing the risk and uncertainty of integrating Solar Electric Propulsion (SEP) technologies into space flight systems. NASA and AEPS contract has recently initiated engineering hardware testing of the Hall Current Thruster (HCT), Power Processing Unit (PPU), and Xenon Flow Controller (XFC) at both the component and system levels. The successful completion of these tests will provide the required information to advance the AEPS system towards Critical Design Review. In support of the AEPS contract, NASA and JPL have been performing risk reduction activities to address specific concerns of the state of the art higher power Hall thruster propulsion system. These risk reduction activities have included long duration wear testing of the Technology Demonstration Unit (TDU) Hall thruster and cathode hardware, thermal cycling testing of TDU cathode heaters and coils, plasma plume measurements, and investigating PPU design. In addition to NASA propulsion development, the SEP project is developing the Plasma Diagnostic Package (PDP) and the SEP Testbed. The PDP is designed for use in conjunction with a high powered EP system to characterize in-space operation. The SEP Testbed system is developed for demonstration of an integrated SEP end-to-end system performance. The paper will present an overview of the NASA and the AEPS contract activities and a summary of the associated NASA in-house activities.

Plasma Diagnostics Package↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Virtual Project Management Challenge

Technical knowledge is essential to the work done by NASA practitioners. So it may be surprising to learn that the most ingenious and elegant solutions to project challenges often arise not from a specific technical discipline perspective, but from a systems-focused mindset. While technical discipline expertise is a critical component of project success, sometimes the simplest resolution to a problem involves a systems-wide solution. Because of this, encouraging a systems mentality among project team members can be a powerful tool in mitigating risk and eliminating threats. Join us for an exploration of the critical ways in which a systems engineering and integration perspective can enhance project management efforts. Presenter Bo Bejmuk is the former Space Shuttle Orbiter Program Director and manager of Sea Launch Program operations and development for Boeing. He recently served as Chairman of the Standing Review Board for the NASA Constellation Program. Moderator Ramien Pierre is from NASA's Academy for Program/Project and Engineering Leadership (APPEL).

Bo Bejmuk↗
NASA NTRS2020

Lessons Learned from Sonic Boom Flight Research Projects conducted by NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center

Over the course of four years, a team of aerospace engineers at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Armstrong Flight Research Center completed four projects, each with the objective to research sonic boom signatures from a ground and building level perspective. The relatively compressed timeline of these projects resulted in the team amassing a large number of lessons learned. With each successive project, these lessons have been more relied upon and referenced. This report serves as a written record of the teams tribal knowledge capturing the relevant lessons learned and their importance for future projects.

Erin R Waggoner↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Extreme Environments Solar Power Project For Use Near Jupiter

The Extreme Environment Solar Power (EESP) Project goal was to develop solar cell and solar array design concept technologies for space power applications in high radiation and low solar intensity, low temperature (LILT) environments. NASA missions focused on outer planets, such as Jupiter, are subjected to intense radiation while experiencing less than ten percent of the solar flux relative to a mission in the general vicinity of Earth. Under these conditions, present solar array technology is not as efficient in converting the sun’s energy, and the solar array performance degrades quickly due to the additional radiation exposure. The EESP Project objectives were accomplished through four competitively selected contracts. These contracts were awarded with a Base and two option periods of performance. The Base requirements included System Design and Component Test & Analysis with a duration of nine and one half (9.5) months. The Option I requirements involved the fabrication of test hardware that NASA would evaluate following its delivery, and this period of performance had a duration of thirteen (13) months. The Option II requirements involved the fabrication of a scalable system prototype that can be integrated into a system level application and be demonstrated in a relevant environment. Option II had a duration of fifteen (15) months. The Transformational Array (TA) is an array concept developed by JHU-APL with Deployable Space Systems (DSS), SolAero Technologies and NewForge Technologies that proceeded through all three contract periods. The TA combines the DSS Roll Out Solar Array (ROSA) with Flexible Array Concentrator Technology (FACT) and SolAero’s Inverted Metamorphic Multijunction (IMM) solar cells for operation in the EESP Project environment. To achieve the EESP Project goals, the JHU-APL team conducted several investigations to improve performance of the solar cells and increase their efficiency, reduce outgassing contamination of the concentrators from the solar cell assembly adhesives, and to test the robustness of a sample blanket during deployment and retraction. Additionally, the team performed vibration, thermal cycling, and performance tests at a Standard Power Module (SPM) level. At the end of Option II, the JHU-APL team achieved the following performance metrics: • 39% beginning of life (BOL) cell efficiency at 5 AU and -125 C • 29% end of life (EOL) efficiency at the blanket level at 50 W/m2, -125 C and 4x1015 1 MeV e/cm2 • Increased specific power to 8 W/kg at EOL for the entire array including structure, deployment, and pointing mechanisms • Demonstrated the ability to survive numerous deploy-retract cycles without degradation • Reached a current System-Level Technology Readiness Level, TRL5 This presentation will describe the Transformational Array and component technologies and will discuss future potential uses for the system.

Anna Maria Pal↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview of the SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) during 2013-2020

The Stratosphere-troposphere Processes And their Role in Climate (SPARC) project is one of the four core projects of the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP). Researchers interested in SPARC use global atmospheric reanalysis products to understand a wide range of processes and variability in the atmosphere, to validate chemistry climate models, and to investigate and identify climate change. The SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP) was initiated in 2011 and officially started in 2013 to conduct a coordinated intercomparison of all major global atmospheric reanalysis data sets. The S-RIP has been aiming at writing up an assessment report in the SPARC report series (to be published by the end of 2020) (1) on overall quality of temperature, winds, ozone, and water vapor data, (2) on more process- and region-oriented evaluation of the Brewer–Dobson circulation, extratropical stratosphere-troposphere coupling, extratropical upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, the tropical tropopause layer, the quasi-biennial oscillation, polar processes, and the upper stratosphere and lower mesosphere, and (3) with a coordinated description of the reanalysis systems. We also have an inter-journal special issue on "The SPARC Reanalysis Intercomparison Project (S-RIP)" in Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (ACP) and Earth System Science Data (ESSD). In the presentation, we will discuss key findings and recommendations as well as the evaluation of this rst phase of the S-RIP activity.

Masatomo Fujiwara↗
NASA NTRS2018

Project-domain Science Traceability and Alignment Framework (P-STAF): Analysis of a Payload Architecture

Large science-focused space missions often have multiple instruments working together to address broad science goals. Systems engineers on these types of projects must work with the project scientists to evaluate trades and make decisions that result in a system that efficiently serves the mission science goals. This collaboration is more effective if the systems engineers understand both the traceability from the L1 customer requirements to the selected instruments and the contributions of each instrument in the context of the whole payload suite. These relationships might be understood implicitly by the science team on a project, but there is value in formally codifying them so this understanding can be accessed and formally analyzed by a broader systems engineering effort. We first described a framework for this communication, called the Project-domain Science Traceability and Alignment Framework (P-STAF), in the IEEE 2017 paper “A Framework for Extending the Science Traceability Matrix: Application to the Planned Europa Mission.” This paper shows how that basic framework can be leveraged to not only formally capture these relationships between the instruments and the customer needs, but also how that information can be codified in an analyzable graph that can be queried to provide a better understanding of mission risks and scope. This work was drawn from the application of P-STAF to the Europa Clipper mission, but generic example networks are used to illustrate the power of this technique.

Reinholtz, Kirk↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Building Capacity to Use Earth Observations for Health Applications: A Summary of NASA’s DEVELOP Program and Projects in Central and South America

NASA’s DEVELOP program engages individuals and organizations in 10-week feasibility studies to apply NASA Earth observations (EO) to decision makers’ needs. Since 2018, DEVELOP conducted 21 projects in Central and South America, eight of those in collaboration with Sistema de la Integración Centroamericana (SICA) and its member state partner agencies. These projects addressed a diverse set of community needs across multiple themes, including a project focused on monitoring aerosols using satellite-based measurements from Aqua and Terra MODIS, Suomi NPP VIIRS, and CALIPSO CALIOP and in situ data in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Panama. This poster introduces DEVELOP, its approach to capacity building, key partnerships, and project results highlighting the capabilities of Earth observations for enhanced decision making in the area of health.

Capacity Building↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Overview and Introduction of the Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXploration (ROAMX) Project

Research in pursuit of rotorcraft flight on Mars has been ongoing since the late 1990s at NASA Ames Research Center. Since then, many other organizations have also begun researching rotary-wing flight on Mars. In 2014, the project that led to the first helicopter to fly on Mars began at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ingenuity was developed as a joint effort between JPL, NASA Ames, NASA Langley, and AeroVironment. The Ingenuity Mars Helicopter made history in April 2021 as the first vehicle demonstrating controlled, powered flight on another planet and, in doing so, it has opened a new era of planetary aviation. Future, more capable Mars rotorcraft will be able to fly even further and carry significant science payload. At NASA Ames, through NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate funding, the research necessary to help develop the next generation of Mars rotorcraft has begun with the Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXploration (ROAMX) project. The ROAMX project involves computationally and experimentally investigating aerodynamically efficient, compressible, low-Reynolds number airfoils for rotor blades and, further, new high-performance rotor designs. ROAMX is also developing and validating a rotor design methodology to optimize blades given specific mission requirements. The primary experimental effort of the ROAMX project is focused on rotor hover performance, but subsequent airfoil and rotor design advances are anticipated to carry over into improvements in forward flight efficiency. ROAMX is a collaboration between NASA Ames, JPL, the University of Maryland, AeroVironment, and Tohoku University.

Rotor Optimization for the Advancement of Mars eXp↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Benefits of using Electronic Data Sheets (EDS) with coreFlight Systems (cFS) - A Project Example

Recently there has been interest in the incorporation of core Flight Systems (cFS) with Spacecraft Onboard Interface Services (SOIS) Electronic Data Sheets (EDS) in the spaceflight software community. The Regenerative Fuel Cell project at the Glenn Research Center is using cFS architecture with EDS support for its monitoring and control software. The presentation will outline the benefits to using cFS with EDS support: First, EDS establishes a single source of truth for the definitions of data structures used throughout an entire mission that may otherwise be programmed in different languages and designed with different processor architectures. Not only does this help with inter-application communication via the software bus, but it also greatly simplifies communication between systems. An EDS Application Programming Interface (API) library allows the conversion of EDS data structures to and from native data structures. Second, bindings for other programming languages (e.g. Lua, Python, JSON) have been written to allow the creation and manipulation of EDS data objects within those languages. The RFC project uses Lua scripts to automatically generate binary configuration files at build time to be loaded into our cFS programs. We also use Python bindings in a graphical user interface (GUI) to allow an operator to send commands and view telemetry messages sent from cFS instances. Finally, using Lua scripts we can set up specific simulation scenarios to perform automatic functional testing. During the development of the RFC software, the software team put together a generic python GUI called “cFS-EDS-GroundStation” that provides a basic interface to an instance of cFS with EDS support. The GUI includes a basic telecommand and telemetry system that reads directly from the generated EDS databases. In the telecommand system, dropdown menus are populated with all user commands that are defined in EDS. In the telemetry system, telemetry messages are automatically decoded, written to the screen, and saved to a binary file. Additional Python scripts have been written to convert the binary data files into a comma separated value (CSV) format for further processing. We will demonstrate the basic use of the cFS-EDS-GroundStation software including adding additional commands and telemetry payload values in EDS and see them appear automatically in the cFS-EDS-Groundstation software. About the RFC project: The Regenerative Fuel Cell project is tasked with developing and demonstrating a power system consisting of a fuel cell and electrolyzer to provide power during a lunar day/night cycle. During the night, the fuel cell takes Hydrogen and Oxygen gasses and converts them into electricity, water, and heat. During the day, the electrolyzer takes input power (e.g. from a photovoltaic array) and converts water back into Hydrogen and Oxygen gasses.

Mathew Mccaskey↗
NASA NTRS2022

Constraining Arctic Climate Projections of Wintertime Warming With Surface Turbulent Flux Observations and Representation of Surface-Atmosphere Coupling

The drivers of rapid Arctic climate change—record sea ice loss, warming SSTs, and a lengthening of the sea ice melt season—compel us to understand how this complex system operates and use this knowledge to enhance Arctic predictability. Changing energy flows sparked by sea ice decline, spotlight atmosphere-surface coupling processes as central to Arctic system function and its climate change response. Despite this, the representation of surface turbulent flux parameterizations in models has not kept pace with our understanding. The large uncertainty in Arctic climate change projections, the central role of atmosphere-surface coupling, and the large discrepancy in model representation of surface turbulent fluxes indicates that these processes may serve as useful observational constraints on projected Arctic climate change. This possibility requires an evaluation of surface turbulent fluxes and their sensitivity to controlling factors (surface-air temperature and moisture differences, sea ice, and winds) within contemporary climate models (here Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6). The influence of individual controlling factors and their interactions is diagnosed using a multi-linear regression approach. This evaluation is done for four sea ice loss regimes, determined from observational sea ice loss trends, to control for the confounding effects of natural variability between models and observations. The comparisons between satellite- and model-derived surface turbulent fluxes illustrate that while models capture the general sensitivity of surface turbulent fluxes to declining sea ice and to surface-air gradients of temperature and moisture, substantial mean state biases exist. Specifically, the central Arctic is too weak of a heat sink to the winter atmosphere compared to observations, with implications to the simulated atmospheric circulation variability and thermodynamic profiles. Models were found to be about 50% more efficient at turning an air-sea temperature gradient anomaly into a sensible heat flux anomaly relative to observations. Further, the influence of sea ice concentration on the sensible heat flux is underestimated in models compared to observations. The opposite is found for the latent heat flux variability in models; where the latent heat flux is too sensitive to a sea ice concentration anomaly. Lastly, the results suggest that present-day trends in sea ice retreat regions may serve as suitable observational constraints of projected Arctic warming.

turbulent fluxes↗
NASA NTRS2022

NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Handbook

This handbook is the companion document to NPR 7120.5F, NASA Space Flight Program and Project Management Requirements. It represents the accumulation of knowledge on managing program and projects derived from NASA’s human, robotic, and scientific missions. It incorporates the “corporate knowledge” for existing and future NASA space flight programs and projects, including NASA’s Artemis missions to establish a sustainable human presence on the Moon through collaboration with commercial and international partners, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) mission, and NASA’s robotic missions on Mars. The practices discussed have evolved as a function of NASA’s core values of safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion, and may also prove a resource for other agencies, the private sector, and academia. The knowledge gained from the Agency’s victories and defeats, including the checks and balances and initiatives to better control cost and risk, provides a foundation for continuing an exciting and healthy space program. This handbook provides implementation guidance for NPR 7120.5F and includes the changes and updates to key procedural requirements in NPR 7120.5F since NPR 7120.5E. The goal of the NPR requirements is to ensure programs and projects are developed and successfully executed in the most cost-effective and efficient manner possible. This handbook provides context, rationale, and explanation to facilitate the application of requirements and to pass on some of the hard-won best practices and lessons learned.

Tracy L Osborne↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Moon-to-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology Project: Overview and Status

NASA plans to land the first woman and next man on the Moon by 2025 through the initial Artemis missions. NASA and its international partners plan to establish a sustainable long-term presence on the lunar surface and build up infrastructure in the subsequent Artemis missions. The Lunar Surface Innovation Initiative (LSII), within NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate, aims to spur the creation of novel technologies needed for lunar surface exploration and accelerate the technology readiness of key systems and components. The primary thrust areas of LSII include sustainable power; dust mitigation; in-situ resource utilization; surface excavation, construction, and outfitting; and extreme access/extreme environments. The Moon-to-Mars Planetary Autonomous Construction Technology (MMPACT) project was initiated to address the lunar surface construction thrust area of LSII. The goal of the MMPACT project is to develop, deliver, and demonstrate on-demand capabilities to protect astronauts and create infrastructure on the lunar surface via construction of landing pads, habitats, shelters, roadways, berms and blast shields using lunar regolith-based materials. The MMPACT project is leveraging technology derived from NASA’s 3D Printed Mars Habitat Challenge along with contributions from other Government agencies, and multiple partners within industry and academia. The MMPACT project is comprised of three interrelated elements, construction hardware and process development; feedstock materials development; and microwave structure construction capabilities. These elements are working together to address the multiple challenges of infrastructure construction on the surface of the Moon including increased autonomy of operations, hardware operation and manufacturing under lunar environmental conditions, long-duration operation of mechanisms and parts, scale of construction activities, and material and construction requirements and standards. This presentation will summarize the status of development activities in each of the three elements, including testing of the various candidate materials, preliminary design concepts for future lunar infrastructure elements, and the vision for future technology demonstrations on the lunar surface. These demonstrations, targeting the mid-to-late 2020’s, are expected to enable landing pad construction and habitat construction resulting in commercial capabilities early in the next decade.

Additive construction, regolith processing, lunar ↗
NASA NTRS2023

P-ACTIVE Project Report

The Phase change material-based actively-tunable filter (P-ACTIVE, Dr. Hyun Jung Kim, the Principal Investigator / PI) project is a NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC)-led research endeavor that began as a NASA CIF (Center Innovation Fund) project in 2019. The goal of P-ACTIVE is to develop all-solid-state tunable optical filters that can serve as low-Size, Weight, and Power (SWaP) replacements to the ubiquitous filter wheel technology current in use, and serve as a starting point for completely new optical component technologies. By using materials commonly used in electronic memory devices, namely chalcogenide phase-change materials (PCMs), in conjunction with nanostructured surfaces with exotic, tailored optical responses (“metasurfaces”), the P-ACTIVE filters are able to tune their optical transmission/reflection behavior in real-time. Because of this new functionality, P-ACTIVE filters are highlighted for NASA science and space programs such as next generation Lidar, landing system (SLS) thermal monitoring, thermal imaging, imaging spectroscopy, and disaster monitoring (e.g., volcanic eruption observations from SmallSats). This document intends to serve as a compendium of the P-ACTIVE project. We begin by describing the project from background science and assume no prior knowledge of the subject. We then address experimental and theoretical results of P-ACTIVE device performance, as well as recent results obtained from the MISSE-14 mission related to space qualification of P-ACTIVE devices and constituent materials. We conclude with a prospective view of the P-ACTIVE technology, and discuss the potential for these filters and other similar metasurface devices to serve NASA’s mission.

metamaterial↗