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This document is intended to serve as a record of KSC events and is a reference source for historians and other researchers. Arrangement is by day and month and individual articles are attributed to published sources. Materials were researched and described by the KSC Library .Archivist for KSC Library Services Contractor, InDyne, Inc.
Maintaining and repairing spacecraft systems hardware to achieve required levels of operational availability during long-duration exploration missions will be challenged by limited resupply opportunities, constraints on the mass and volume available for spares and other maintenance-related provisions, and extended communications times. These factors will force the adoption of new approaches to the integrated logistics support of spacecraft systems hardware. For missions beyond the Moon, all spares, equipment, and supplies must either be prepositioned prior to departure from Earth of human crews or carried with the crews. The mass and volume of spares must be minimized by enabling repair at the lowest hardware levels, imposing commonality and standardization across all mission elements at all hardware levels, and providing the capability to fabricate structural and mechanical spares as required. Long round-trip communications times will require increasing levels of autonomy by the crews for most operations including spacecraft maintenance. Effective implementation of these approaches will only be possible when their need is recognized at the earliest stages of the program, when they are incorporated in operational concepts and programmatic requirements, and when diligence is applied in enforcing these requirements throughout system design in an integrated way across all contractors and suppliers. These approaches will be essential for the success of missions to Mars. Although limited duration lunar missions may be successfully accomplished with more traditional approaches to supportability, those missions will offer an opportunity to refine these concepts, associated technologies, and programmatic implementation methodologies so that they can be most effectively applied to later missions.
A research project is underway at NASA Glenn Research Center to produce computer software that can accurately predict ice growth for any meteorological conditions for any aircraft surface. This report will present results from version 3.2 of this software, which is called LEWICE. This version differs from previous releases in that it incorporates additional thermal analysis capabilities, a pneumatic boot model, interfaces to external computational fluid dynamics (CFD) flow solvers and has an empirical model for the supercooled large droplet (SLD) regime. An extensive comparison against the database of ice shapes and collection efficiencies that have been generated in the NASA Glenn Icing Research Tunnel (IRT) has also been performed. The complete set of data used for this comparison will eventually be available in a contractor report. This paper will show the differences in collection efficiency and ice shape between LEWICE 3.2 and experimental data. This report will first describe the LEWICE 3.2 SLD model. A semi-empirical approach was used to incorporate first order physical effects of large droplet phenomena into icing software. Comparisons are then made to every two-dimensional case in the water collection database and the ice shape database. Each collection efficiency condition was run using the following four assumptions: 1) potential flow, no splashing; 2) potential flow, with splashing; 3) Navior-Stokes, no splashing; 4) Navi r-Stokes, with splashing. All cases were run with 21 bin drop size distributions and a lift correction (angle of attack adjustment). Quantitative comparisons are shown for impingement limit, maximum water catch, and total collection efficiency. Due to the large number of ice shape cases, comprehensive comparisons were limited to potential flow cases with and without splashing. Quantitative comparisons are shown for horn height, horn angle, icing limit, area, and leading edge thickness. The results show that the predicted results for both ice shape and water collection are within the accuracy limits of the experimental data for the majority of cases.
Creating long-duration, high-powered lasers, for satellites, that can withstand the type of optical misalignment and damage dished out by the unforgiving environment of space, is work that is unique to NASA. It is complicated, specific work, where each step forward is into uncharted territory. In the 1990s, as this technology was first being created, NASA gave free reign to a group of "laser jocks" to develop their own business model and supply the Space Agency with the technology it needed. It was still to be a part of NASA as a division of Goddard Space Flight Center, but would operate independently out of a remote office. The idea for this satellite laboratory was based on the Skunk Works concept at Lockheed Martin Corporation. Formerly known as the Lockheed Corporation, in 1943, the aerospace firm, realizing that the type of advanced research it needed done could not be performed within the confines of a larger company, allowed a group of researchers and engineers to essentially run their own microbusiness without the corporate oversight. The Skunk Works project, in Burbank, California, produced America s first jet fighter, the world s most successful spy plane (U-2), the first 3-times-the-speed-of-sound surveillance aircraft, and the F-117A Nighthawk Stealth Fighter. Boeing followed suit with its Phantom Works, an advanced research and development branch of the company that operates independent of the larger unit and is responsible for a great deal of its most cutting-edge research. NASA s version of this advanced business model was the Space Lidar Technology Center (SLTC), just south of Goddard, in College Park, Maryland. Established in 1998 under a Cooperative Agreement between Goddard and the University of Maryland s A. James Clark School of Engineering, it was a high-tech laser shop where a small group of specialists, never more than 20 employees, worked all hours of the day and night to create the cutting- edge technology the Agency required of them. Drs. Robert Afzal and Joseph Dallas were directors of the SLTC, and led the development and production of active spaceborne, remote-sensing, optical instruments. As a pioneer in the area of photonics, Dr. Dallas led basic research, development, and production of semiconductor laser diode products, improving coupling efficiency through novel physical optics modeling and intracavity phase-correction techniques. He worked for NASA for 15 years, 11 of which were as a civil servant, and 4 of which were as a contractor.
Attempting to locate a malfunctioning wire in a complex bundle of wires or in a cable that is concealed behind a wall is as difficult as trying to find a needle in a haystack. The result of such an effort can also be costly, time-consuming, and frustrating, whether it is the tedious process of examining cable connections for the Space Shuttle or troubleshooting a cable television hookup. Furthermore, other maintenance restrictions can compound the effort required to locate and repair a particular wiring problem. For example, on the Space Shuttle, once a repair is completed, all systems that have a wire passing through any of the connectors that were disconnected during troubleshooting are affected and, therefore, must undergo retesting, an arduous task that is completely unrelated to the original problem. In an effort to streamline wire inspection and maintenance, two contractors supporting NASA's Kennedy Space Center invented the Standing Wave Reflectometer (SWR) in 1999. In doing so, they leveraged technology that was first developed to detect problems that could lead to aircraft accidents, such as the one that resulted in the catastrophic failure of TWA flight 800 in 1996. The SWR performs a non-intrusive inspection that verifies the condition of electrical power and signal-distribution systems inside the Space Shuttle orbiters. Such testing reduces processing delays and ensures safe operation of these systems.
The Chandra X-Ray Observatory, one of NASA's Great Observatories, has an outstanding record of scientific and technical success. This success results from the efforts of a team comprising NASA, its contractors, the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the instrument groups, and other elements of the scientific community, including thousands of scientists who utilize this powerful facility for astrophysical research. We discuss the role of NASA Project Science in the formulation, development, calibration, and operation of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. In addition to representing the scientific community within the Project, Project Science performed what we term "science systems engineering". This activity encompasses translation of science requirements into technical requirements and assessment of the scientific impact of programmatic and technical trades. We briefly describe several examples of science systems engineering conducted by Chandra Project Science.
When the systems are developed and in place to provide the services needed to operate en route and on the Lunar and Martian surfaces, an Earth based replication will need to be in place for the safety and protection of mission success. The replication will entail all aspects of the flight configuration end to end but will not include any closed loop systems. This would replicate the infrastructure from Lunar and Martian robots, manned surface excursions, through man and unmanned terrestrial bases, through the various types of communication systems and technologies, manned and un-manned space vehicles (large and small), to Earth based systems and control centers. An Earth based replicated infrastructure will enable checkout and test of new technologies, hardware, software updates and upgrades and procedures without putting humans and missions at risk. Analysis of events, what ifs and trouble resolution could be played out on the ground to remove as much risk as possible from any type of proposed change to flight operational systems. With adequate detail, it is possible that failures could be predicted with a high probability and action taken to eliminate failures. A major factor in any mission to the Moon and to Mars is the complexity of systems, interfaces, processes, their limitations, associated risks and the factor of the unknown including the development by many contractors and NASA centers. The need to be able to introduce new technologies over the life of the program requires an end to end test bed to analyze and evaluate these technologies and what will happen when they are introduced into the flight system. The ability to analyze system behaviors end to end under varying conditions would enhance safety e.g. fault tolerances. This analysis along with the ability to mine data from the development environment (e.g. test data), flight ops and modeling/simulations data would provide a level of information not currently available to operations and astronauts. In this paper we will analyze the beginnings of such a replication and what it could do in terms of reducing risk in the near term for development. We will analyze the Space Shuttle Main Engine (SSME) test lab which has to a large extent accomplished this replication for the SSME and has been highly successful in analyzing hardware and software problems and changes. The cost of replicating the flight system as proposed here could be very high if attempted as an afterthought. We will describe the initial steps for the development of a replication of this infrastructure starting with the communication infrastructure. The Constellation of Labs (CofL) under the Command, Control, Communication and Information (C3I) project for the NASA Exploration Initiative will provide the initial foundation upon which to base this replication. Simply put, there is very little margin for error in high latency situations e.g. en-route to/from Mars or in an autonomous process on the Lunar far side. Any thought out approach to reduce risk and increase safety needs to be accomplished end to end with the actual systems configuration.
Scientific missions in the Earth sciences frequently require cost-effective, highly reliable, and easy-to-use software, which can be a challenge for software developers to provide. The NASA Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) spends a significant amount of resources developing software components and other software development artifacts that may also be of value if reused in other projects requiring similar functionality. In general, software reuse is often defined as utilizing existing software artifacts. Software reuse can improve productivity and quality while decreasing the cost of software development, as documented by case studies in the literature. Since large software systems are often the results of the integration of many smaller and sometimes reusable components, ensuring reusability of such software components becomes a necessity. Indeed, designing software components with reusability as a requirement can increase the software reuse potential within a community such as the NASA ESE community. The NASA Earth Science Data Systems (ESDS) Software Reuse Working Group is chartered to oversee the development of a process that will maximize the reuse potential of existing software components while recommending strategies for maximizing the reusability potential of yet-to-be-designed components. As part of this work, two surveys of the Earth science community were conducted. The first was performed in 2004 and distributed among government employees and contractors. A follow-up survey was performed in 2005 and distributed among a wider community, to include members of industry and academia. The surveys were designed to collect information on subjects such as the current software reuse practices of Earth science software developers, why they choose to reuse software, and what perceived barriers prevent them from reusing software. In this paper, we compare the results of these surveys, summarize the observed trends, and discuss the findings. The results are very similar, with the second, larger survey confirming the basic results of the first, smaller survey. The results suggest that reuse of ESE software can drive down the cost and time of system development, increase flexibility and responsiveness of these systems to new technologies and requirements, and increase effective and accountable community participation.
Developing production-quality software to process the large volumes of scientific data is the responsibility of the TES Ground Data System, which is being developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory together with support contractor Raytheon/ITSS. The large data volume and processing requirements of the TES pose significant challenges to the design.
The Mission And Computing Support (MACS) Contractor in accordance with contract number 958226 shall provide engineering, operations, and maintenance support to JPL core systems and Flight Projects.
The Library, Archives, and Records Section (LARS) will host its annual Open House for JPL employees and on-site contractors Tuesday, June 27 through Thursday, June 29, 2000.
The goal for EIS File Service is to develop and deploy a service which encourages all JPL employees and contractors to use DFS to effiently share files, publish web pages, & access tools.
This Final Report serves as an executive summary of the Prometheus Project's activities and deliverables from November 2002 through September 2005. It focuses on the challenges from a technical and management perspective, what was different and innovative about this project, and identifies the major options, decisions, and accomplishments of the Project team as a whole. However, the details of the activities performed by DOE NR and its contractors will be documented separately in accordance with closeout requirements of the DOE NR and consistent with agreements between NASA and NR.
The Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate (SACD) has been in the systems analysis business line supporting National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) aeronautics, exploration, space operations and science since the 1960 s. Our current organization structure is shown in Figure 1. SACD mission can be summed up in the following statements: 1. We conduct advanced concepts for Agency decision makers and programs. 2. We provide aerospace systems analysis products such as mission architectures, advanced system concepts, system and technology trades, life cycle cost and risk analysis, system integration and pre-decisional sensitive information. 3. Our work enables informed technical, programmatic and budgetary decisions. SACD has a complement of 114 government employees and approximately 50 on-site contractors which is equally split between supporting aeronautics and exploration. SACD strives for technical excellence and creditability of the systems analysis products delivered to its customers. The Directorate office is continuously building market intelligence and working with other NASA centers and external partners to expand our business base. The Branches strive for technical excellence and credibility of our systems analysis products by seeking out existing and new partnerships that are critical for successful systems analysis. The Directorates long term goal is to grow the amount of science systems analysis business base.
The Exploration Systems Architecture defines missions that require rendezvous, proximity operations, and docking (RPOD) of two spacecraft both in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and in Low Lunar Orbit (LLO). Uncrewed spacecraft must perform automated and/or autonomous rendezvous, proximity operations and docking operations (commonly known as Automated Rendezvous and Docking, AR&D). The crewed versions may also perform AR&D, possibly with a different level of automation and/or autonomy, and must also provide the crew with relative navigation information for manual piloting. The capabilities of the RPOD sensors are critical to the success of the Exploration Program. NASA has the responsibility to determine whether the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) contractor-proposed relative navigation sensor suite will meet the CEV requirements. The relatively low technology readiness of relative navigation sensors for AR&D has been carried as one of the CEV Projects top risks. The AR&D Sensor Technology Project seeks to reduce this risk by increasing technology maturation of selected relative navigation sensor technologies through testing and simulation, and to allow the CEV Project to assess the relative navigation sensors.
This Technical Memorandum (TM) presents formal NASA technical reports, papers published in technical journals, and presentations by Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) personnel FY 2004. It also includes papers of MSFC contractors. After being announced in STAR, all NASA series reports may be obtained from the National Technical Information Service, 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA 22161. The information in this TM maybe of value to the scientific and engineering community in determining what information has been published and what is available.
This report selectively summarizes NASA Glenn Research Center's research and technology accomplishments for fiscal year 2005. It comprises 126 short articles submitted by the staff scientists and engineers. The report is organized into three major sections: Programs and Projects, Research and Technology, and Engineering and Technical Services. A table of contents and an author index have been developed to assist readers in finding articles of special interest. This report is not intended to be a comprehensive summary of all the research and technology work done over the past fiscal year. Most of the work is reported in Glenn-published technical reports, journal articles, and presentations prepared by Glenn staff and contractors. In addition, university grants have enabled faculty members and graduate students to engage in sponsored research that is reported at technical meetings or in journal articles. For each article in this report, a Glenn contact person has been identified, and where possible, a reference document is listed so that additional information can be easily obtained. The diversity of topics attests to the breadth of research and technology being pursued and to the skill mix of the staff that makes it possible. For more information, visit Glenn's Web site at http://www.nasa.gov/glenn/. This document is available online (http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/RT/). For publicly available reports, visit the Glenn Technical Report Server (http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov).
NASA s Advanced Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS) development program is funding the advancement of next generation power conversion technologies that will enable future missions that have requirements that can not be met by either the ubiquitous photovoltaic systems or by current Radioisotope Power Systems (RPS). Requirements of advanced radioisotope power systems include high efficiency and high specific power (watts/kilogram) in order to meet mission requirements with less radioisotope fuel and lower mass. Other Advanced RPS development goals include long-life, reliability, and scalability so that these systems can meet requirements for a variety of future space applications including continual operation surface missions, outer-planetary missions, and solar probe. This paper provides an update on the Radioisotope Power Conversion Technology Project which awarded ten Phase I contracts for research and development of a variety of power conversion technologies consisting of Brayton, Stirling, thermoelectrics, and thermophotovoltaics. Three of the contracts continue during the current Phase II in the areas of thermoelectric and Stirling power conversion. The accomplishments to date of the contractors, project plans, and status will be summarized.