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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,495 records · Page 83
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2017

Electronics and Software Engineer for Robotics Project Intern

I was assigned to mentor high school students for the 2017 First Robotics Competition. Using a team based approach, I worked with the students to program the robot and applied my electrical background to build the robot from start to finish. I worked with students who had an interest in electrical engineering to teach them about voltage, current, pulse width modulation, solenoids, electromagnets, relays, DC motors, DC motor controllers, crimping and soldering electrical components, Java programming, and robotic simulation. For the simulation, we worked together to generate graphics files, write simulator description format code, operate Linux, and operate SOLIDWORKS. Upon completion of the FRC season, I transitioned over to providing full time support for the LCS hardware team. During this phase of my internship I helped my co-intern write test steps for two networking hardware DVTs , as well as run cables and update cable running lists.

Teijeiro, Antonio↗
NASA NTRS2014

How to Make a Microgravity Drop Tower for Your Classroom

Microgravity is quite often seen as exotic and special as astronauts float around in the International Space Station, eating MM's in mid-air, and performing science experiments, all done seemingly without gravity being present. Surprisingly enough, up on the ISS there is about 90 of the same gravity that holds you to the floor in your classroom or museum exhibit hall. Participate in this session and you will understand that and more. You can use simple devices to demonstrate microgravity conditions in your classroom or museum exhibit hall. This will be the same microgravity condition that astronauts experience on the ISS, just for a much shorter period of time. Contrary to popular opinion of some people, microgravity is NOT caused by zero gravity up there. Microgravity on the ISS is due to free fall within the Earth's gravitational field. That means you can drop an item in free fall in your classroom and museum exhibit hall and that item will experience microgravity. In this session, a short theory segment will explain and reinforce these concepts so that you may explain to others. The session will concentrate on showing the session participants how to make an effective, but inexpensive, drop tower for use in the classroom. Such a drop tower may be used to reinforce classroom instruction in physics and forces motion as well as serve as a platform for student investigations, classroom competitions, and student science or technology fair entries. Session participants will build their own simple microgravity experiment and operate them in a drop tower, compare results, and modify their experiment based on results. This material is also useful for public demonstrations at school open houses, travelling museum exhibits, fixed museum exhibits, and independent student projects or experiments. These free fall concepts also connect terrestrial demonstrations with planetary moon motion, comet trajectory, and more.

forces↗
NASA NTRS2017

The Effects of Long-Duration Spaceflight on Training Retention and Transfer

Training our crew members for long duration, exploration-class missions will have to maximize long-term retention and transfer of the trained skills. The expected duration of the missions, our inability to predict all the possible tasks the crew will be called upon to perform, and the low training-to-mission time ratio require that the training be maximally effective such that the skills acquired during training will be retained and will be transferrable across a wide range of specific tasks that are different from the particular tasks used during training. However, to be able to design training that can achieve these ambitious goals, we must first understand the ways in which long-duration spaceflight affects training retention and transfer. Current theories of training retention and transfer are largely based on experimental studies conducted at university laboratories using undergraduate students as participants. Furthermore, all such studies have been conducted on Earth. We do not know how well the results of these studies predict the performance of crew members. More specifically, we do not know how well the results of these studies predict the performance of crew members in space and especially during long-duration missions. To address this gap in our knowledge, the current on-going study seeks to test the null hypothesis that performance of university undergraduate students on Earth on training retention and transfer tests do in fact predict accurately the performance of crew members during long-duration spaceflights. To test this hypothesis, the study employs a single 16-month long experimental protocol with 3 different participant groups: undergraduate university students, crew members on the ground, and crew members in space. Results from this study will be presented upon its completion. This poster presents results of study trials of the two tasks used in this study: a data entry task and a mapping task. By researching established training principles, by examining future needs, and by using current practices in spaceflight training as test beds, this research project is mitigating program risks and generating templates and requirements to meet future training needs.

ISS↗
NASA NTRS2018

The Effects of Long-Duration Spaceflight on Training Retention and Transfer

Training our crew members for long duration, exploration-class missions will have to maximize long-term retention and transfer of the trained skills. The expected duration of the missions, our inability to predict all the possible tasks the crew will be called upon to perform, and the low training-to-mission time ratio require that the training be maximally effective such that the skills acquired during training will be retained and will be transferrable across a wide range of specific tasks that are different from the particular tasks used during training. However, to be able to design training that can achieve these ambitious goals, we must first understand the ways in which long-duration spaceflight affects training retention and transfer. Current theories of training retention and transfer are largely based on experimental studies conducted at university laboratories using undergraduate students as participants. Furthermore, all such studies have been conducted on Earth. We do not know how well the results of these studies predict the performance of crew members. More specifically, we do not know how well the results of these studies predict the performance of crew members in space and especially during long-duration missions. To address this gap in our knowledge, the current on-going study seeks to test the null hypothesis that performance of university undergraduate students on Earth on training retention and transfer tests do in fact predict accurately the performance of crew members during long-duration spaceflights. To test this hypothesis, the study employs a single 16-month long experimental protocol with 3 different participant groups: undergraduate university students, crew members on the ground, and crew members in space. Results from this study will be presented upon its completion. This poster presents results of study trials of the two tasks used in this study: a data entry task and a mapping task. By researching established training principles, by examining future needs, and by using current practices in spaceflight training as test beds, this research project is mitigating program risks and generating templates and requirements to meet future training needs.

training↗
NASA NTRS2014

AztechSat-1, a First Collaborative CubeSat Between NASA and Mexico

An international collaboration program for capacity building in space technology is being established between NASA and the Mexican Space Agency (AEM). Its objective is to develop a series of CubeSats collaboratively in a way that benefits both agencies. For AEM, this experience will support the development of human capital required for its space program. This project provides an opportunity for NASA future missions to benefit from commercially available technologies demonstrated in space. AEM was recently created by the Mexican Government to use and develop space technology in Mexico. Current AEM plans call for having the capability of developing its own communication satellites by 2030, so the need for having a Mexican cadre of space experts is mandatory. The program will start with the development and launching of AztechSat-1, the first AEM CubeSat project to be deployed from the International Space Station (ISS). Several public Mexican universities will participate in this project to demonstrate GlobalStar, a satellite communications provider using a constellation of LEO satellites, as an option for small satellite missions. AztechSat-1 mission objectives are:(1) Develop a flight ready CubeSat for deployment from the ISS; (2) Demonstrate GlobalStar´s Network as a method to advance communications in CubeSat missions. AztechSat-1 is envisioned as a 1U CubeSat and will be designed and constructed by Mexican graduate students from two major universities in Mexico: UNAM and IPN. The students will be mentored and supervised by researchers from NASA Ames Research Center (NARC). Flight acceptance tests are going to be done both at Mexican university labs as well as at NARC. Funding for the project will be provided concurrently by AEM, the Mexican participating universities, and other Mexican entities. The development of AztechSat-1 will emphasize the transfer of knowledge in space mission analysis and design, flight acceptance testing and other areas of space technology which are not well developed in Mexico yet. Mexican students will benefit from their mentoring from NASA researchers and will provide a multiplier effect in the development of the next generation of Mexican aerospace engineers. AztechSat-1 will be developed in a period of twelve months and will be launched by late 2015. AztechSat´s success will define the future of collaboration between NASA and AEM in capacity building. A plan for developing a series of AztechSat’s in a one per year basis, with increasing capabilities and complexity is currently being negotiated between NASA an AEM.

Martinez, Andres↗
NASA NTRS2019

Introduction to Multicasting

This is a presentation for students who will be participating in the App Development Challenge (ADC). This discussion tells the students the data format NASA will be using (which their software must be compatible with). This presentation contains only publicly available images and information, and is provided to help the students with their coding (that they will submit to NASA).

Hirsh, Robert↗
NASA NTRS2017

CERES S’COOL Project Update: The Evolution and Value of a Long-Running Education Project With a Foundation in NASA Earth Science Missions

In January 1997, the Students’ Cloud Observations On-Line (S’COOL; http://scool.larc.nasa.gov) Project began with NASA scientists visiting rural Gloucester, Virginia to observe clouds with middle school students. In the 19 years since, this educational outreach component of NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) mission has collected ~141,000 observations from every continent and ocean basin around the world. Thousands of students and teachers have directly engaged in S’COOL. Beginning in 2008 we invited citizen scientists to participate as well. Over time S’COOL has added more components that engage participants directly with science data analysis, continuing direct ties to CERES research. Whenever possible, the S’COOL team extracts corresponding subsets of CERES data, which are sent to the participant to analyze. Observations can now be matched to images and cloud retrievals from MODIS and measurements from CALIPSO. To date, more than half of S'COOL observation reports correspond to one (or more) CERES overpasses. Comparisons with CERES geostationary satellite cloud retrievals were recently added, making cloud observations at almost any time of day over non-polar regions useful for validation. A thorough analysis of co-located S’COOL and satellite data was conducted during summer 2015. Results show that the S’COOL community provides high quality observations offering useful insights on the strengths and shortcomings of passive cloud remote sensing from space. This reconfirmed the utility of S’COOL observations to the scientific community and provides observers with deeper insight into the challenges associated with validation of space-based cloud property retrievals.

Lin H Chambers↗
NASA NTRS2019

Fatigue and Fatigue Countermeasures

Sleep can play an important role in alleviating health disparities, as inadequate sleep is associated with serious, adverse health conditions including cardiovascular disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and premature mortality. Nonetheless, dissemination of sleep health interventions targeted towards health disparities populations remains limited. Social workers and social work students serve populations designated as health disparities populations and are in an optimal position to promote sleep health among their underserved clients. However, social work students lack the specific training and resources necessary to promote healthy sleep practices among their clients. In fact, bachelors, master's, and doctoral social work programs in the United States do not incorporate any sleep health training as part of their curriculum. To improve public health through the promotion of healthy sleep practices among underserved populations, we propose to equip social work students, through an online learning module, with the knowledge and resources necessary to promote healthy sleep practices among their clients in underserved communities. In order to maximize effectiveness and reach, this proposal employs: (1) a collaborative team of sleep medicine and social work professionals; and (2) an ideal university environment with sophisticated eLearning capabilities that has one of the largest social work programs in the state of Florida.

fatigue countermeasure↗
NASA NTRS2019

Common Habitat for Long Duration Transit and Surface Operations

This concept is based on the Skylab II concept, which proposes using a SLS propellant tank as the primary structure of a habitat. Common Habitat takes this a step further, proposing an interior architecture that is equally viable as a lunar surface hab, transit hab, and Mars surface hab, thus enabling a single development to support all three long duration habitat roles. Common Habitat has been pursued by the PI and co- investigators at MSFC and other centers in a spare time / funding available basis, often with heavy student intern support. Student resources have developed preliminary concepts, but these models must be refined to reflect accurate vehicle subsystems, utilities, stowage, workstations, and other crew systems. This investigation applies NASA civil servant and contractor expertise to correct errors in the most recent student concepts in order to prepare them for future human-in-the-loop evaluations to determine the most viable configuration for a Common Habitat.

Howard, Robert L.↗
NASA NTRS2020

Effects of Long-Duration Space Flight on Training Retention and Transfer

The space environment imposes on the astronaut crew significant physiological, psycho-social, and cognitive loads that can not be replicated on the ground. These loads likely impact crew performance. To date, no systematic data collection has taken place to understand the effects of such loads on crew members ability to retain trained knowledge and skills, and to transfer such knowledge and skills to novel situations. The research described here was originally requested by HRP management to be the first such study to systematically collect data on the effects of long duration space flight on training retention and transfer. Because current theories of retention and transfer are based on results obtained in university laboratories using undergraduate students as research participants, and because crew time in space is very expensive, this study was designed to compare the performance of 4 groups of subjects: crew members in space, crew members on the ground, crew-like subjects, and university undergraduate students. Results from the ground-phase of the study reported here demonstrate that crew members performance under cognitive load can not be predicted from the performance of university undergraduate students. It is still an open question the extent to which crew members cognitive performance in space can be predicted from the performance of crew members on the ground.

Barshi, Immanuel↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

TPSAS-NF1676L-18251-DND

The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) and its Eco-Schools USA program is focused providing an engaging educational experience to help students better understand the essential principles of Earth's systems and the impact of climate change on them. The program is aimed to provide those students with the ability to communicate about climate change and apply knowledge in decision making. To achieve these objectives, the NWF partnered with NASA scientists and developed the Eco-Schools USA Climate Change Connections (CCC) is a 9th-12th grade curriculum. CCC is designed to build upon and utilize the many NASA mission resources, programs, and associated interfaces to enhance authentic learning experiences for both educators and students. It seeks to develop an integrated systems-thinking approach to understanding and acting upon the issue of climate change. In collaboration with mission specialists from ICESat, LandSat, Terra, AQUA, AURA, a cross programmatic curriculum was developed to provide a unified or systems-thinking approach to addressing realworld Earth systems problems (see NWF web page below). In this presentation, we provide an overview of the Climate Change Connections lesson curriculum but focus specifically on a couple of example exercises where NASA data sets are used to teach basic lessons about aspects of the climate system as it pertains to the built environment. In particular, we show how data adapted from NASA’s GEWEX Surface Energy Budget are applied to a lesson in solar energy. These data sets are made available directly through NASA web portals entitled “My NASA Data” and the Prediction of Worldwide Renewable Energy Resource. At the POWER web portal there is a link to the Surface meteorology and Solar Energy web portal providing data sets tailored specifically to the assessment of solar energy resource at any location on the globe. Here, we depict the sources of these data and their subsequent usage in the Eco-Schools USA CCC Lessons.

Paul W Stackhouse↗
NASA NTRS2020

Effects of Long-Duration Space Flight on Training Retention and Transfer

The space environment imposes on the astronaut crew significant physiological, psycho-social, and cognitive loads that can not be replicated on the ground. These loads likely impact crew performance. To date, no systematic data collection has taken place to understand the effects of such loads on crew members’ ability to retain trained knowledge and skills, and to transfer such knowledge and skills to novel situations. The research described here was originally requested by HRP management to be the first such study to systematically collect data on the effects of long duration space flight on training retention and transfer. Because current theories of retention and transfer are based on results obtained in university laboratories using undergraduate students as research participants, and because crew time in space is very expensive, this study was designed to compare the performance of 4 groups of subjects: crew members in space, crew members on the ground, crew-like subjects, and university undergraduate students. Results from the ground-phase of the study reported here demonstrate that crew members’ performance under cognitive load can not be predicted from the performance of university undergraduate students. It is still an open question the extent to which crew members’ cognitive performance in space can be predicted from the performance of crew members on the ground.

training↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Astronauts' Performance: The Retention and Transfer of Training

The space environment imposes on the astronaut crew significant physiological, psycho-social, and cognitive loads that can not be replicated on the ground. These loads likely impact crew performance. To date, no systematic data collection has taken place to understand the effects of such loads on crew members’ ability to retain trained knowledge and skills, and to transfer such knowledge and skills to novel situations. The research described here was originally designed to be the first such study to systematically collect data on the effects of long duration space flight on training retention and transfer. Because current theories of retention and transfer are based on results obtained in university laboratories using undergraduate students as research participants, and because crew time in space is very expensive, this study was designed to compare the performance of 4 groups of subjects: crew members in space, crew members on the ground, crew-like subjects, and university undergraduate students. Results from the ground-phase of the study reported here demonstrate that crew members’ performance under cognitive load can not be predicted from the performance of university undergraduate students. It is still an open question the extent to which crew members’ cognitive performance in space can be predicted from the performance of crew members on the ground.

training↗
NASA NTRS2021

Secondary Science Teachers’ Implementation of a Curricular Intervention When Teaching With Global Climate Models

In the past decade, emphasis on promoting “climate literacy” in K-16 science classrooms has increased. Teachers play a critical role in cultivating these opportunities, especially in secondary science classrooms. However, most prior climate education research has focused on students and student learning; little is known about how teachers implement climate-focused curricular interventions. Here, we report findings from a concurrent mixed methods, multiple-case study of four secondary science teachers’ implementation of a new, NGSS-aligned, model-centric climate curriculum module grounded in the use of a data-driven, computer-based climate modeling tool—Easy Global Climate Model (EzGCM). We employ multiple data sources, including video-recorded classroom observations, interviews, and instructional artifacts, and both qualitative and quantitative analyses, to investigate how teachers implemented the curriculum. Findings show that, overall, teachers implemented the curriculum in ways that were less model-centric than designed, placing greater emphasis on EzGCM itself rather than using the model to investigate Earth’s changing climate. Additionally, we present detailed single-case studies of each participant teacher that highlight differences in teachers’ implementation of the curriculum module and their reasoning for making observed instructional decisions. This research sheds light on the design of secondary science learning environments by illustrating the varied ways teachers implement a climate-focused curriculum to support students’ developing climate literacy. This has important implications for the design of climate-focused curriculum and supports for teachers.

Secondary science teaching↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA GeneLab: Open Science for Life in Space

The NASA GeneLab project capitalizes on multi-omic technologies to maximize the return on spaceflight experiments. To do this, GeneLab maintains a publicly accessible database (GLDS) that houses spaceflight and spaceflight relevant multi-omics data and collaborates with NASA principal investigators and projects to generate additional omics data. GeneLab houses more than 350 transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and epigenomic datasets from plant, animal and microbial experiments, with a growing number of these having been produced by the GeneLab Sequencing Lab. The GLDS contains rich metadata about each experiment and has integrated radiation dosimetry data from experiments flown on the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Free Flying spacecrafts. With the increasing amount and complexity of omics data being generated, GeneLab utilizes community-defined, common models for metadata and terminology so that omics data and results are discoverable and reliably reproducible. GeneLab uses the ISA-Tab specification and semantic model for organizing and representing omics metadata. In addition to metadata standards, data files must be open-source file or common exchange formats to ensure accessibility and usability by all users. To ease data ingestion and transfer, the web-based submission tool allows PIs a user-friendly user interface to curate, organize, and publish their space relevant omics data. In the more recent years, data curation and submission portal has incorporated the FAIR principles making data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. To increase reusability of data, GeneLab has implemented an effort to present processed data in the GLDS in addition to the raw omics data. The processed data will enable interpretation of the data by a larger group of students, scientists and the general public. Standard pipelines for the transformation of raw data into visualizations were developed by four GeneLab Analysis Working Groups (animals, plants, microbes, multi-omics) comprised of over 200 scientists from NASA, industry, and academia. To explore the data, the GLDS provides users various tools for data analysis, collaborative workspace for file storage and sharing, and a visualization portal. The analysis platform built using the Galaxy toolshed provides access to a broad variety of users including those with limited bioinformatics experience and students to learn how to analyze spaceflight omics data. The visualization portal takes GeneLab one step closer to data democratization by removing all bioinformatics requisites to interpret transcriptomics data hosted in the repository. To train the next generation of scientists, NASA offers training programs such as GeneLab 4 High School (GL4HS) and GeneLab 4 Universities. NLM Curation at a Scale Workshop 2022 | NASA GeneLab (GL4U) to teach students bioinformatics and computational biology methods to analyze omics data. Discoveries made using GeneLab have begun and will continue to deepen our understanding of biology, advance the field of genomics, and help to discover cures for diseases, create better diagnostic tools, and ultimately allow astronauts to better withstand the rigors of long-duration spaceflight.

GeneLab↗
NASA NTRS2022

Geophysical Observations Toolkit For Evaluating Coral Health (GOTECH) Fall 2021 Final Report

The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Data Science Team (DST), under the Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO), is investigating the capacity of the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation (CALIPSO) satellite to infer the vitality of coral reefs. This report describes the Fall 2021 period of performance for the Geophysical Observations Toolkit for Evaluating Coral Health (GOTECH) project. During this effort, two student teams at Georgia Tech developed machine-learning models to predict the vitality of coral reefs in targeted geographic regions based on backscatter data from the CALIPSO satellite. To train these models, students fused data to form a common operating picture of how coral reefs have grown and decayed worldwide. This report describes the student assignment, background, and results of the semester's research.

Machine Learning↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Astrobee's Multi-year Activities at the International Space Station's Japanese Experimental Module

The Astrobee free-flying robots recently completed their third successful year of operations, housed in the Japanese Experimental Module (JEM) on the International Space Station. We summarize the three years of operation, giving special attention to JAXA's 1st and 2nd Kibo Robot Programming Challenge (RPC) and the mapping processes and tools that make Astrobees' autonomous operation possible. The JEM is an ever changing, dynamic environment where light settings, cargo, payloads, and crew members constantly move and interact with one another. The 1st JAXA Kibo RPC event, a collaboration between JAXA and NASA, was held in 2020. Students from several countries in the Asia-Pacific region competed in programming challenges with a simulated Astrobee. The finalists were then invited to run their code on an actual Astrobee in the JEM. For the final round, students programmed Astrobee to visit three different locations to obtain data that would instruct the robot to complete a final task with the participation of ISS crew. The first competition was a tremendous success, leading to an equally successful 2nd JAXA Kibo RPC in 2021 with even larger participation. The 3rd JAXA Kibo RPC will occur in 2022 expanding further to incorporate US participants. These activities led to several firsts in Astrobee’s history: operation of an Astrobee free-flying robot without crew supervision in preparation for on-orbit operations, autonomous image acquisition towards updates of the navigation map, non-NASA code running on the robot (both from JAXA and participating students), two heterogeneous free-flying robots from two different space agencies working together (Int-Ball and Astrobee) during the final event in 2020, the first payload using Astrobee, and having Astrobee controlled from a non-NASA location (Tsukuba Space Center). The preparation towards these activities involved constant evaluation of the different components of Astrobee's systems, specially mapping and localization. The paper describes the evolution of these systems such as the improvements made in localization to reduce localization drift by using graph-based optimization instead of the extended Kalman Filter localizer. Additionally, it reports on the mapping process and analysis tools created to validate map consistency across different activities in the constantly changing JEM environment. These enhancements have enabled the Astrobee facility to successfully execute over 100 ISS activities supporting over a dozen researchers and partners around the world.

Astrobee↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Maryland Space Weather UnderGround (SWUG) Educational Outreach Program for Solar Eclipse Study

Space Weather UnderGround (SWUG) is an educational outreach program that provides hands-on experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to high school and undergraduate students. It has three ultimate goals: 1. Educating the future STEM workforce. 2. Building a cost-effective, research-capable ground 3. magnetometer array across the United States. Collecting geomagnetic field data at high spatial resolution for heliophysics research. SWUG students build, test, and deploy the Simple Aurora Monitor (SAM)-III kit, purchased by Reeve Engineers. The SAM-III kit is a fluxgate magnetometer that measures geomagnetic field changes at a resolution of 1 nT/sec. Dr. Charles Smith initiated the SWUG program at the University of New Hampshire, and it has since expanded to Alaska and Maryland. This presentation introduces the Maryland SWUG activities. The MD-SWUG program was started in the Fall of 2022 with the goal of deploying magnetometers to the solar eclipse sites in 2023 and 2024. Two student-built magnetometers were deployed to the Southwest Research Institute and the Los Alamos National Laboratory for the 2023 annular solar eclipse, with plans to deploy at least four magnetometers to the 2024 total solar eclipse sites, including the University of Texas at Dallas. During a solar eclipse, reduced solar irradiance weakens ionospheric currents and reduces geomagnetic fields by up to 30 nT at the eclipse sites. A recent study suggested that solar eclipses impact geomagnetic fields not only along the eclipse path but also at their magnetic conjugate locations. The SWUG program will help us understand this electrodynamic coupling between the conjugate locations during a solar eclipse by providing better data coverage along the solar eclipse path.

Hyunju Connor↗