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All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator (PTD) Status

This paper will provide the status of the NASA Small Spacecraft Technology (SST) program’s Pathfinder Technology Demonstrator (PTD) series. Details on the development, launch, and operations of the recently completed PTD-1, as well as the planned operations of the upcoming PTD-3 and PTD-4 flights will be presented. Significant advances in the capabilities of nano-spacecraft over the past 15 years, coupled with improved access to space for CubeSats, have created new opportunities for scientific exploration using these high-value platforms. Continued development and demonstration of key technologies are improving the performance of the 1-unit (U) and 3U class CubeSats while expanding the reach of nano-spacecraft technologies into larger platforms, such as the 12-kilogram class “6U” buses. NASA’s PTD series is demonstrating a variety of new technologies on-orbit, providing proof of the maturity of these significant new technologies, and enhancing the performance of future CubeSats. Each of the four PTD flights consists of one 6U CubeSat weighing approximately 12 kilograms and measuring approximately 36 centimeters x 25 centimeters x 10 centimeters. Each flight is planned to characterize its payload within 90 days of insertion into low-Earth orbit. The PTD flights will demonstrate key technologies such as novel nano-spacecraft compatible propulsion systems, which enable deep space and maneuverable CubeSat flights; optical communications systems to facilitate high data rate collection and communications; and highly integrated systems that combine power and communication system elements to enable high power generation and novel integrated communication systems. The first PTD spacecraft, PTD-1, was placed in orbit by a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch in January of 2021 and demonstrated the functionality of the HYDROS propulsion system, developed by Tethers Unlimited of Bothell, Washington, over a period of six months. The PTD-3 flight, scheduled for launch in summer 2022, will demonstrate the TeraByte InfraRed Delivery, or TBIRD, optical communications payload developed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington. The PTD-4 flight will demonstrate the Lightweight Integrated Solar Array and anTenna, or LISA-T, a payload that consists of an integrated solar array and transceiver developed by NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The PTD spacecraft bus, integration and test, and flight operations services are provided by Tyvak Nano-Satellite Systems, Inc. (“Tyvak”) of Irvine, California. NASA’s SST program within the agency’s Space Technology Mission Directorate funds the PTD demonstration flights. The SST program rapidly develops and demonstrates capabilities for small spacecraft applicable to exploration, science, and the commercial sector. The program is based at NASA’s Ames Research Center.

Small Spacecraft↗
NASA NTRS2022

What would it take to manufacture perovskite solar cells in space?

Imagine, astronauts land on the moon. They verify their arrival with mission control, and perform system checks and validations. After the dust settles, they open the airlock of the landing vehicle and venture outside. A side hatch opens, and a flexible substrate slowly unfurls on a boom. A series of printer heads raster, hovering over the substrate and sequentially vapor-depositing the constituent layers of a perovskite solar module (Figure 1). In time, a 1-megawatt array has been manufactured on the moon and can now be connected to supply power to the Artemis Base Camp. This ambitious vision could someday become a reality. On August 29, 2021, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched a commercial resupply payload from Kennedy Space Center en route to the International Space Station (ISS). On board were perovskite solar cells that will fly for 6 months outside the ISS in low earth orbit (LEO) on the 15th Materials International Space Station Experiment (MISSE-15). This will be the first long duration flight of perovskite solar cell devices in LEO and a major step toward realizing the in-space operation and, potentially, manufacture of perovskite solar cells.

Lyndsey McMillon-Brown↗
NASA NTRS2021

GRACE Follow-On Early In-Flight Challenges

The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) Follow-On Mission is a successor to the highly successful GRACE Mission, which operated from 2002-2017. It is a partnership between the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the German Research Center for Geosciences, GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam (GFZ). Under this partnership, the United States provides the project management, satellites and instruments, Germany provides the launch and mission operations. The partners share responsibilities for producing science data products. GRACE Follow-On, like its predecessor GRACE, consists of twin satellites which fly in a tandem formation at a near polar orbit separated by about 200 km along track. The mission continues the work of GRACE by tracking the movement of water, observing changes in ice sheets and sea level to provide a unique view of Earth’s changing climate. The satellites were launched May 22, 2018 from Vandenberg Air Force Base, in California, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket. Launch and Early Operations (LEOP) were completed within the first week and on-orbit commissioning proceeded for the next 8 months. The GRACE Follow-On mission is designed to last five years. The mission operations team has had to address several technical challenges early into the planned five-year mission life. The commissioning period was extended by 5 months to successfully address these issues, making it possible for the mission to meet key requirements for delivery and quality of the science data products. This paper will address the challenges faced by GRACE Follow-On and the actions taken by the mission operations team to continue to safely operate the mission.

Witkowski, M.M.↗
NASA NTRS2021

Venus Flagship Mission Concept: A Decadal Survey Study

More than any other known planet, Venus is essential to our understanding of the evolution and habitability of Earth-size planets throughout the galaxy. We address two critical questions for planetary science: 1) How, if at all, did Venus evolve through a habitable phase? 2) What circumstances affect how volatiles shape habitable worlds? More than any other group, volatile elements have a strong influence on the evolutionary paths of rocky bodies and are critical to understanding solar system evolution. It is clear that Venus experienced a different volatile element history from the Earth and provides the only accessible example of one end-state of habitable Earth-size planets. Venus will allow us to identify the mechanisms that operate together to produce and maintain habitable worlds like our own.The (VFM) concept architecture relies on five collaborative platforms: an Orbiter, Lander, variable-altitude Aerobot and two Small Satellites (SmallSats) delivered via a single launch on a Falcon 9 heavy expendable. The platforms would use multiple instruments to measure the exosphere, atmosphere and surface at multiple scales with high precision and over time. VFM would provide the first measurements of mineralogy and geochemistry of tessera terrain to examine rocks considered to be among the most likely to have formed in a habitable climate regime. Landed, descent, aerial and orbital platforms would work synergistically to measure the chemical composition of the atmosphere including the Aerobot operating for 60 days in the Venus clouds. Loss mechanisms would be constrained by the SmallSats in two key orbits. The baseline payload for VFM includes instruments to make the first measurements of seismicity and remanent magnetism, the first long-lived (60 day) surface platform and the first life detection instrument at Venus to interrogate what could be an inhabited world.The VFM concept directly addresses each of the three Venus Exploration Analysis Group (VEXAG) goals as well as several of the strategic objectives of the 2020 NASA Science Plan, Planetary Science Division, Heliophysics and Astrophysics. The simultaneous, synergistic measurements of the solid body, surface, atmosphere and space environment provided by the VFM would allow us to target the most accessible Earth-size planet in our galaxy, and gain a profound new understanding of the evolution of our solar system and habitable worlds.

Segura, Marcia↗
NASA NTRS2022

Seasonal Updraft Speeds Change Cloud Droplet Number Concentrations in Low Level Clouds Over the Western North Atlantic

To determine the impact of dynamic and aerosol processes on marine low clouds, we examine the seasonal impact of updraft speed w and cloud condensation nuclei concentration at 0.43 % supersaturation () on the cloud droplet number concentration (N(C)) of low-level clouds over the western North Atlantic Ocean. Aerosol and cloud properties were measured with instruments on board the NASA LaRC Falcon HU-25 during the ACTIVATE (Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment) mission in summer (August) and winter (February–March) 2020. The data are grouped into different loadings, and the density functions of NC and w near the cloud bases are compared. For low updrafts (w < 1.3 m s−1), NC in winter is mainly limited by the updraft speed and in summer additionally by aerosols. At larger updrafts (w > 3 m s−1), NC is impacted by the aerosol population, while at clean marine conditions cloud nucleation is aerosol-limited, and for high it is influenced by aerosols and updraft. The aerosol size distribution in winter shows a bimodal distribution in clean marine environments, which transforms to a unimodal distribution in high due to chemical and physical aerosol processes, whereas unimodal distributions prevail in summer, with a significant difference in their aerosol concentration and composition. The increase of is accompanied with an increase of organic aerosol and sulfate compounds in both seasons. We demonstrate that NC can be explained by cloud condensation nuclei activation through upwards processed air masses with varying fractions of activated aerosols. The activation highly depends on w and thus supersaturation between the different seasons, while the aerosol size distribution additionally affects NC within a season. Our results quantify the seasonal influence of w and on NC and can be used to improve the representation of low marine clouds in models.

Simon Kirschler↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Aerocapture Trajectory Design for Uranus Orbiter

Introduction: The recently released National Academies Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey 2023-2032 [1] identified the Ice Giants as the top priority science destination. While the survey acknowledged the potential for either a Uranus Orbiter and Probe (UOP) mission or a Neptune-Triton Odyssey mission, it ultimately identified the former as the highest priority new flagship mission. UOP missions calls for a launch window of opportunity between 2031-2038 with 12-15 year interplanetary cruise time along with a fully-propulsive Uranus Orbit Insertion burn on the order of a few km/s. However, a mission to Uranus with the same science payload could utilize aerocapture for orbit insertion to achieve both a significant reduction in the interplanetary cruise time and reduction in propulsive burn costs. Why Aerocapture: Aerocapture is a promising propellant and time-saving orbital insertion technique for planetary destinations with an atmosphere. Although not flight-proven, previous aerocapture systems studies in the literature have demonstrated both the validity and robustness of the technique at various planetary destinations. With respect to the Ice Giant planets, Neptune has seen more of the analysis in the literature. For science missions at Neptune, aerocapture can enable 1.4 times more delivered mass to orbit than an all-propulsive mission for the same launch vehicle while reducing interplanetary cruise times by more than 3 years [2] Additionally with modern guidance and control, Neptune aerocapture with blunt-body aeroshells is realizable [3][4]. There are limited papers in the literature investigating Uranus aerocapture with those available providing a preliminary feasibility assessment [5]. Consequently, the two-year funded NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate (STMD)-funded project, titled Aerocapture System as an Enabling Technology for Ice Giants Missions, aims to mature the analysis and technology state of Uranus aerocapture. Trajectory Design: This paper presents the current state of the trajectory design in support of the new aerocapture project. The project design philosophy is inspired from recent Neptune aerocapture studies, which employed modern guidance and control, in the sense that blunt-body aeroshells are analyzed. An assessment of the theoretical flight path angle corridor width is conducted for a range of ballistic coefficients and lift-to-drag ratios for both Space Launch System and Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle interplanetary trajectory solutions. The results from the corridor width assessment provide an assessment of the aerocapture design-space and qualitative metrics on trajectory design considerations. The Program to Optimize Simulated Trajectories II (POST2) is utilized to run Monte Carlo simulations of Uranus aerocapture three-degree-of-freedom bank angle modulated trajectories using a closed-loop numerical-predictor corrector guidance algorithm. UranusGRAM 2021 is utilized as the atmospheric model [6]. A Uranus-developed aerodatabase, originally derived from Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), is utilized to provide vehicle aerodynamics over a wide range of hypersonic flow regimes. A MSL-derived 70 deg 4.5m diameter sphere-cone aeroshell that houses the UOP payload mass is assumed. Robustness testing and performance analysis is conducted, including the assessment of entry state errors, atmosphere density variations, and aerodynamic dispersions. Post-aerocapture Delta-V and aerothermal statistics are formulated into propellant mass and TPS requirements. The results presented in the paper will demonstrate the trajectory viability of Uranus aerocapture. Preliminary Results: Preliminary trajectory design results indicates successful Uranus aerocapture with a blunt-body aeroshell housing the same payload mass as the UOP mission from an Earth-to-Uranus interplanetary trajectory arriving in less than 7 years. From this interplanetary trajectory, aerocapture provides an orbit insertion Delta-V capability of 6.9 km/s requiring less than 300 m/s for post-aerocapture correction burns (15% of wet mass allocated to propellant). To put this into perspective, the UOP study utilized an Earth-to-Uranus trajectory that arrives in 13 years and requires more than 1000 m/s for fully-propulsive orbit insertion (40% of wet mass allocated to propellant). Achieving the same 6.9 km/s Delta-V capability fully-propulsively is mass prohibitive (97% of wet mass allocated to propellant). Nevertheless, aerocapture has the potential to reduce interplanetary transit times to Uranus by half while delivering the same payload mass to orbit in a reduced propellant mass footprint.

Rohan Deshmukh↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA Support for Commercial Crew Launch Capabilities

Since the earliest days of U.S. human spaceflight, NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, has played a key role in American crew launch capability, from engineering support for the first Mercury-Redstone launches, to the Saturn launches to the Moon, through Shuttle and now Artemis. Today, Marshall brings that expertise gained through decades of crewed space launches to NASA’s Commercial Crew Program (CCP), providing launch vehicle engineering and programmatic support. The team’s responsibilities have included human certification of commercial launch systems for the CCP missions, including Atlas V and Falcon 9, and verifying each launch vehicle complies with flight certification. MSFC provides expertise in nearly all aspects of launch vehicle design and performance including solid motors and liquid engines, stage propulsion, thrust vector control, structural and dynamics, safety and mission assurance. During each commercial crew launch, an engineering support team is on console at Marshall’s Huntsville Operations Support Center, which has provided launch operations support since Apollo, providing real-time oversight to safety standards for the vehicle and verifying data. Launch vehicle support for Commercial Crew has come as a paradigm shift for the MSFC team, inspiring new approaches that leverage expertise and best practices from past NASA-developed launch vehicle missions, while at the same time providing new synergies from work with commercial partners on CCP. This paper will explore the role that the Marshall launch vehicle services team plays in the Commercial Crew Program, as well as lessons learned from the program that will continue to benefit a new era of spaceflight partnerships.

Commercial Crew↗
NASA NTRS2023

Overview and Statistical Analysis of Boundary Layer Clouds and Precipitation Over the Western North Atlantic Ocean

Due to their fast evolution and large natural variability in macro- and microphysical properties, the accurate representation of boundary layer clouds in current climate models remains a challenge. One of the regions with large intermodel spread in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 ensemble is the western North Atlantic Ocean. Here, statistically representative in situ measurements can help to develop and constrain the parameterization of clouds in global models. To this end, we performed comprehensive measurements of boundary layer clouds, aerosol, trace gases, and radiation in the western North Atlantic Ocean during the NASA Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment (ACTIVATE) mission. In total, 174 research flights with 574 flight hours for cloud and precipitation measurements were performed with the HU-25 Falcon during three winter (February–March 2020, January–April 2021, and November 2021–March 2022) and three summer seasons (August–September 2020, May–June 2021, and May–June 2022). Here we present a statistical evaluation of 16 140 individual cloud events probed by the fast cloud droplet probe and the two-dimensional stereo cloud probe during 155 research flights in a representative and repetitive flight strategy allowing for robust statistical data analyses. We show that the vertical profiles of distributions of the liquid water content and the cloud droplet effective diameter (ED) increase with altitude in the marine boundary layer. Due to higher updraft speeds, higher cloud droplet number concentrations (N liquid ) were measured in winter compared to summer despite lower cloud condensation nucleus abundance. Flight cloud cover derived from statistical analysis of in situ data is reduced in summer and shows large variability. This seasonal contrast in cloud coverage is consistent with a dominance of a synoptic pattern in winter that favors conditions for the formation of stratiform clouds at the western edge of cyclones (post-cyclonic). In contrast, a dominant summer anticyclone is concomitant with the occurrence of shallow cumulus clouds and lower cloud coverage. The evaluation of boundary layer clouds and precipitation in the N liquid ED phase space sheds light on liquid, mixed-phase, and ice cloud properties and helps to categorize the cloud data. Ice and liquid precipitation, often masked in cloud statistics by a high abundance of liquid clouds, is often observed throughout the cloud. The ACTIVATE in situ cloud measurements provide a wealth of cloud information useful for assessing airborne and satellite remote-sensing products, for global climate and weather model evaluations, and for dedicated process studies that address precipitation and aerosol–cloud interactions.

Aerosol↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

On the Making of IXPE

The joint NASA and ASI mission, a Small NASA Explorer, named the Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) was launched aboard a Falcon 9 and successfully put into an equatorial low-earth orbit on December 9, 2021. The mission has been an outstanding success, programmatically and scientifically as this conference demonstrates. We present a brief, but detailed overview of what IXPE is and how it works. We also review the background of the development of IXPE and explain how a fifty-year goal of wanting to add imaging X-ray polarimetry to our arsenal of tools was finally accomplished.

Martin C. Weisskopf↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

Three Years of Airborne Observations During NASA Activate: A Statistical Summary of Chemical, Optical, and Microphysical Aerosol Properties Over the Western North Atlantic Ocean

Airborne observations are critical to understanding Earth’s climate system and surface-level air quality by providing both spatial and vertical information that is not possible through ground measurement networks or satellite observations. Airborne platforms allow assessments of long-range transport, vertical redistribution, boundary-layer dynamics, and cloud-aerosol-interactions that are critical to model evaluation and satellite validation. Still, the high cost and effort of aircraft operations can limit measurement campaigns to short, focused time periods. Multiple deployments are often necessary for seasonal comparisons, and results can be limited if target phenomenon are infrequent. Subsequent analyses typically focus on case studies, especially if deployment conditions are climatologically anomalous. The NASA ACTIVATE (Aerosol Cloud meTeorology Interactions oVer the western ATlantic Experiment) mission was designed to overcome these limitations by operating semi-continuously over multiple months during multiple seasons. Flight plans were intentionally simple, repetitive, and systematic to provide a statistically robust dataset that could be utilized similarly to a ground-network. Here, we present an overview of three years (2020-2022) of aerosol measurements from the NASA HU-25 Falcon aircraft supporting the ACTIVATE mission. Data from 179 flights were considered, the majority of which were based at NASA Langley Research Center and flown locally over the Wester North Atlantic Ocean just east of Hampton, VA, USA. Airmass characteristics tended to transition from continental outflow near the coast to mostly marine over the open ocean. Seasonal, diurnal, spatial, and vertical trends in aerosol microphysical, optical, and chemical properties are discussed in the context of synoptic scale meteorology. Statistical benefits of the ACTIVATE sampling strategy are discussed with regard to future model evaluation.

Luke D Ziemba↗
DOE OSTI2024

Lessons Learned for Responsible Use of Cloud in the Cirrus Project, Following the CrowdStrike Outage Event

A disruption in CrowdStrike’s Falcon cybersecurity platform on July 19th, 2024, caused worldwide chaos. This event highlights the imperative need for cloud security measures for networks that are critically reliant on cloud technology. This incident negatively impacted air travel, government networks, and critical infrastructure sectors such as hospitals and financial institutions. While no electric utilities had a physical impact, and few had an IT impact, there were issues created by loss of cloud services, and other interrelated industries. For utilities and energy distribution organizations, understanding and mitigating these risks is essential. The Cirrus tool offers a strategic solution engineered to weave cloud integration seamlessly into the fabric of operational management, thereby enhancing resilience and streamlining efficiency in the face of digital challenges.

25 ENERGY STORAGE↗
DOE OSTI2023

Activity gradient mass transport accelerated corrosion of stainless steel in molten salt

Advanced energy systems based on molten salt technologies have gained increasing interest, and their design and construction are likely going to involve the use of materials of dissimilar chemistries. With dissimilar materials being used, galvanic coupling induced corrosion acceleration is one of the mechanisms believed to be an issue for the deployment of molten salt systems. However, non-galvanic interaction mechanisms such as activity gradient mass transport have also been theorized to represent a potential challenge. Unfortunately, the two effects have often been compounded in the literature, such that it is still unclear which degradation mechanisms are at play in these systems. In the following study, electrochemical measurements are used to predict the effect that galvanic coupling would have on dissimilar materials submerged in the same molten salt medium. Dissimilar material salt exposure tests are then performed to investigate whether galvanic coupling or activity gradient driven processes account for the levels of materials degradation observed. Finally, these separate effect electrochemical and corrosion experiments uniquely elucidate the degradation mechanisms in dissimilar materials systems.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2020

Investigation of impurity driven corrosion behavior in molten 2LiF-BeF 2 salt

A 1000 -h corrosion experiment of 316H stainless steel at 700 °C investigated the role of metal fluoride impurities CrF 2 and FeF 2 in LiF-BeF 2 (66-34 mole %) (FLiBe) salt. Inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) demonstrated the ability to measure changes in the concentration of these fluorides in FLiBe salt. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) showed the potential for real-time quantitative concentration measurement of corrosion products in the molten salt. Materials characterization revealed that both impurity species influence the dissolution of Cr from the alloy. The collective results from these analysis methods advance the understanding of the influence impurities have on materials corrosion.

2LiF-BeF2↗
DOE OSTI2020

Non-galvanic mass transport in molten fluoride salt isothermal corrosion cells

Mass transport of corrosion products between Ni-201 test samples and 316 L capsules in a 500-hour FLiNaK corrosion experiment has been investigated. In one experiment, the capsule and samples were electrically connected for galvanic coupling, while in the other they were electrically isolated using boron-nitride. Post-corrosion characterization of Ni-201 from the two experiments did not reveal any remarkable differences. Substantial transport of Fe and Cr from the 316 L to the Ni-201 via the salt was observed, with notable diffusion of these elements in the near-surface regions of the Ni-201 samples, while a Cr-rich film was also observed on their surfaces.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2021

Environmental degradation of electroplated nickel and copper coated SS316H in molten FLiNaK salt

Corrosion of nickel and copper electroplated coatings on SS316H in molten FLiNaK salt was studied. 500- and 1000-hour static corrosion tests were performed in molten FLiNaK at 700 degrees Celsius. Characterization of the coatings following corrosion indicated that they did not degrade in the molten salt during the corrosion experiment and fully protected the underlying SS316H from chromium dissolution. Interdiffusion between the copper coating and SS316H was extremely limited, interdiffusion between the nickel coating and SS316H. Diffusion modelling revealed that the nickel coatings still significantly reduced chromium dissolution over 60 years despite the interdiffusion.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗