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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 19 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS2026

Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) Capability Maturity Levels for Ecosystems Enabling Digital Transformation

Digital engineering (DE) and integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) are widely recognized as critical enablers of faster, more affordable, and more reliable aerospace systems. However, many organizations have struggled to realize the promised return on investment (ROI) from digital initiatives. A primary reason is the absence of a shared, decision-focused framework that distinguishes simple digitization of existing workflows from true digital transformation that fundamentally changes how engineering decisions are made. This paper introduces an ICME capability maturity framework that fills this gap. The framework defines six cumulative ICME capability maturity levels (CMLs), explicitly tied to decision authority, engineering integration, optimization, and uncertainty management across material, process, structure, and performance scales. It is designed to complement established readiness metrics such as technology readiness levels (TRLs), manufacturing readiness levels (MRLs), and integration readiness levels (IRLs), by addressing a missing dimension: the conditions required for model-informed decision authority across scales. A unifying figure and capability table illustrate the six-level ICME Capability Maturity Framework, showing how organizations progress from digitization—with limited or negative ROI—to true digital transformation, where ICME-enabled workflows deliver measurable improvements in decision quality, cycle time, risk reduction, and reuse. The framework is intended for both technical practitioners and executive leadership, providing a common language to assess current state, guide roadmaps, align software ecosystem investments, and set realistic expectations for digital transformation outcomes. A regulatory-relevant statement clarifying the relationship between ICME capability and existing certification frameworks is provided.

ICME↗
NASA NTRS2023

Digital Engineering at Goddard: Exploring the Digital Thread

Systems are changing and engineering practices must mind the balance between evolutionary and revolutionary change as we move towards increasingly agile processes, enabled by interconnected tools, to best provide for partnered collaboration. The Digital Thread is a foundational capability for a functional Digital Engineering Ecosystem, which is Phase 1 of Goddard's Digital Engineering strategy in an effort to achieve Goddard 2040 vision.

Digital Engineering↗
NASA NTRS2023

NASA's Collaborative Digital Departure Rerouting (CDDR) Technology Reduces Flight Delays and Emissions

NASA’s Digital Information Platform is creating a digital information ecosystem to exchange services and provide access to airspace information to enable fuel efficient operations. This system allows providers to make their services more accessible and consumers to access information and services they need to optimize their operations. In this video we will focus on the Collaborative Digital Departure Rerouting service, which provides airlines with routing options similar to how drivers navigate using cellphone apps.

Keenan Roach↗
NASA NTRS2000

BOREAS Landsat MSS Imagery: Digital Counts

The Boreal Ecosystem-Atmospheric Study (BOREAS) Staff Science Satellite Data Acquisition Program focused on providing the research teams with the remotely sensed satellite data products they needed to compare and spatially extend point results. The Earth Resources Technology Satellite (ERTS) Program launched the first of a series of satellites (ERTS-1) in 1972. Part of the NASA Earth Resources Survey Program, the ERTS Program and the ERTS satellites were later renamed Landsat to better represent the civil satellite program's prime emphasis on remote sensing of land resources. Landsat satellites 1 through 5 carry the Multispectral Scanner (MSS) sensor. Canada for Remote Sensing (CCRS) and BOREAS personnel gathered a set of MSS images of the BOREAS region from Landsat satellites 1, 2, 4, and 5 covering the dates of 21 Aug 1972 to 05 Sep 1988. The data are provided in binary image format files of various formats. The Landsat MSS imagery is available from the Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC).

Hall, Forrest G.↗
NASA NTRS2023

NASA’s Digital Information Platform to Accelerate the Transformation of the National Airspace System

In order to accelerate the digital transformation of airspace operations, a foundational framework and infrastructure for providing sustainable, data-driven, and cohesive decision-making digital services for both traditional and emergent air vehicles is being developed. The reference implementation of Digital Information Platform builds an ecosystem for the aviation community by providing access to a secure and trusted source of aviation data and services. Several key features and services have been implemented to enable secure data sharing, communication, and service registration on the Platform. The technical approach used to implement these features is presented here. NASA-developed integrated aviation data and machine learning based prediction services to optimize airspace operations are available on the Platform. These services are being evaluated in an operational environment by flight operators and the real-world benefits are being captured. The Platform fosters collaboration among industry and researchers to develop complex aviation services and the aim is to make it publicly accessible for consumption by the aviation community.

Digital Transformation↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

NASA’s Digital Information Platform to Accelerate the Transformation of the National Airspace System

In order to accelerate the digital transformation of airspace operations, a foundational framework and infrastructure for providing sustainable, data-driven, and cohesive decision-making digital services for both traditional and emergent air vehicles is being developed. The reference implementation of Digital Information Platform builds an ecosystem for the aviation community by providing access to a secure and trusted source of aviation data and services. Several key features and services have been implemented to enable secure data sharing, communication, and service registration on the Platform. The technical approach used to implement these features is presented here. NASA-developed integrated aviation data and machine learning based prediction services to optimize airspace operations are available on the Platform. These services are being evaluated in an operational environment by flight operators and the real-world benefits are being captured. The Platform fosters collaboration among industry and researchers to develop complex aviation services and the aim is to make it publicly accessible for consumption by the aviation community.

Digital Transformation↗
NASA NTRS1999

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission: A Global DEM

Digital topographic data are critical for a variety of civilian, commercial, and military applications. Scientists use Digital Elevation Models (DEM) to map drainage patterns and ecosystems, and to monitor land surface changes over time.

Digital↗
NASA NTRS2013

Advances in Digital Calibration Techniques Enabling Real-Time Beamforming SweepSAR Architectures

Real-time digital beamforming, combined with lightweight, large aperture reflectors, enable SweepSAR architectures, which promise significant increases in instrument capability for solid earth and biomass remote sensing. These new instrument concepts require new methods for calibrating the multiple channels, which are combined on-board, in real-time. The benefit of this effort is that it enables a new class of lightweight radar architecture, Digital Beamforming with SweepSAR, providing significantly larger swath coverage than conventional SAR architectures for reduced mass and cost. This paper will review the on-going development of the digital calibration architecture for digital beamforming radar instrument, such as the proposed Earth Radar Mission's DESDynI (Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice) instrument. This proposed instrument's baseline design employs SweepSAR digital beamforming and requires digital calibration. We will review the overall concepts and status of the system architecture, algorithm development, and the digital calibration testbed currently being developed. We will present results from a preliminary hardware demonstration. We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities specific to this novel architecture.

TR (Transmit/Receive)↗
NASA NTRSDate not supplied

DIP - Digital Information Platform

Brief updates of Digital Information Platform (DIP) plans for platform-enabled sustainable aviation services. DIP will provide the capability to integrate key flight information from multiple sources and make it easier to access data critical to developing services using advanced techniques such as machine learning. NASA will share ML-based microservices on the platform for industry to use as reference implementations. The platform will support an ecosystem to share reusable services and promote innovation for digital information.

DIP update↗
NASA NTRS2023

NASA GRC ICME Schema for Materials Data Management: An Executive Summary

Integrated Computational Materials Engineering (ICME) has received a growing emphasis in attention due its potential impact on rapid material design, reduction in cost and time to market for new applications, and the promise of ‘fit-for-purpose’ materials coupled with recent advances in high performance computing and material characterization tools. However, for an organization to implement ICME practices for material discovery and design, a series of both technical and cultural challenges must be overcome to foster an environment that enables efficient, traceable, and predictive multiscale simulations of material behavior to enable virtual design of materials. In 2016, NASA sponsored a 2040 Vision study to define the potential 25-year future state required for integrated multiscale modeling of materials and systems to improve both the associated time and cost for aerospace and aeronautical innovation. The study envisions a cyber-physical-social ecosystem of experimentally validated computational models, tools, and techniques, along with the associated digital tapestry, that can enable rapid, optimized, ‘fit-for-purpose’ design of materials, components, and systems. A key requirement for such an ecosystem is the development of a robust information management system for materials across their full lifecycle, including material pedigree, experimental (real) and virtual (simulation) data, developed material models, and the implementation of models in engineering applications, such that process-structure-property-performance relationships can be established, thereby enabling the virtual design and optimization of materials. Such an information management system must be able to effectively capture: i) material information at each length scale; ii) test data and analysis; iii) associated material models; and iv) material and model deployment in engineering applications. These systems must also provide traceability between experimental and virtual representations of the material to ensure, when appropriate, the material digital twin is maintained. Additionally, this robust material information management system must be able to seamlessly connect with both commercial and an organization’s in-house software tools, be they analysis tools, other material databases, product lifecycle management (PLM) or simulation data management (SDM) tools, etc., such that automation of the design and analysis of a material across multiple length scales is possible. In this paper, an executive summary of the NASA GRC ICME Schema for materials information management is presented. The database best practices and schema design philosophy specifically for ICME materials data management and an overview description of each element in the schema is given, along with its associated role in an ICME workflow. Additionally, auxiliary tools that interact with the database and provide judicious automation with regards to importing, exporting, and analyzing materials data are presented. Such tools are critical to an ICME ecosystem, not only for their role in enabling optimization, but also in relieving users of tedious manual tasks, thus helping to promote adoption and combat the cultural challenges organizations face in enabling ICME.

Materials↗
NASA NTRS2011

Digitally Calibrated TR Modules Enabling Real-Time Beamforming SweepSAR Architectures for DESDynI-Class Radar Instruments

Real-time digital beamforming, combined with lightweight, large aperture reflectors, enable SweepSAR architectures such as that of the proposed DESDynI [Deformation, Ecosystem Structure, and Dynamics of Ice] SAR [Synthetic Aperture Radar] Instrument (or DSI). SweepSAR promises significant increases in instrument capability for solid earth and biomass remote sensing, while reducing mission mass and cost. This new instrument concept requires new methods for calibrating the multiple channels, which must be combined on-board, in real-time. We are developing new methods for digitally calibrating digital beamforming arrays to reduce development time, risk and cost of precision calibrated TR modules for array architectures by accurately tracking modules' characteristics through closed-loop Digital Calibration, thus tracking systematic changes regardless of temperature

SweepSar↗
NASA NTRS2000

The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission: A Global DEM

Digital topographic data are critical for a variety of civilian, commercial, and military applications. Scientists use Digital Elevation Models (DEM) to map drainage patterns and ecosystems, and to monitor land surface changes over time. The mountain-building effects of tectonics and the climatic effects of erosion can also be modeled with DEW The data's military applications include mission planning and rehearsal, modeling and simulation. Commercial applications include determining locations for cellular phone towers, enhanced ground proximity warning systems for aircraft, and improved maps for backpackers. The Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) (Fig. 1), is a cooperative project between NASA and the National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) of the U.S. Department of Defense. The mission is designed to use a single-pass radar interferometer to produce a digital elevation model of the Earth's land surface between about 60 degrees north and south latitude. The DEM will have 30 m pixel spacing and about 15 m vertical errors.

Farr, Tom G.↗