Engineering PapersSearch

SEARCH · Engineering Papers

Results for “numpy”

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.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

The Profile Envision and Splice Tool (PRESTO): Developing an Atmospheric Wind Analysis Tool for Space Launch Vehicles Using Python

Tropospheric winds are an important driver of the design and operation of space launch vehicles. Multiple types of weather balloons and Doppler Radar Wind Profiler (DRWP) systems exist at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), co-located on the United States Air Force's (USAF) Eastern Range (ER) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS), that are capable of measuring atmospheric winds. Meteorological data gathered by these instruments are being used in the design of NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) and other space launch vehicles, and will be used during the day-of-launch (DOL) of SLS to aid in loads and trajectory analyses. For the purpose of SLS day-of-launch needs, the balloons have the altitude coverage needed, but take over an hour to reach the maximum altitude and can drift far from the vehicle's path. The DRWPs have the spatial and temporal resolutions needed, but do not provide complete altitude coverage. Therefore, the Natural Environments Branch (EV44) at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) developed the Profile Envision and Splice Tool (PRESTO) to combine balloon profiles and profiles from multiple DRWPs, filter the spliced profile to a common wavelength, and allow the operator to generate output files as well as to visualize the inputs and the spliced profile for SLS DOL operations. PRESTO was developed in Python taking advantage of NumPy and SciPy for the splicing procedure, matplotlib for the visualization, and Tkinter for the execution of the graphical user interface (GUI). This paper describes in detail the Python coding implementation for the splicing, filtering, and visualization methodology used in PRESTO.

Orcutt, John M.

The Weather Analysis Display (WAND) Tool: Developing a Meteorological Data Display Tool for Situational Awareness During Day-Of-Launch of Space Launch Vehicles Using Python

Atmospheric conditions are an important driver in the design and operation of space launch vehicles. The Profile Envision and Splicing Tool (PRESTO) was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Natural Environments Branch (NE) to generate vertically complete atmospheric profiles from various data sources at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC), co-located on the United States Air Force (USAF) Eastern Range (ER), for NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) day-of-launch (DOL) loads and trajectory analysis. PRESTO was designed solely to generate a vertically complete atmospheric profile (Orcutt et al., 2017). However, NE has also been tasked to provide a quality assessment of meteorological data examined on DOL, which goes beyond PRESTO’s utility. Thus, NE developed the Weather Analysis Display (WAND) to visualize data from all available observation systems in conjunction with climatological databases. WAND can display data from various sources in multiple ways, including Skew-T Log-P plots, time-height cross sections, and time series. WAND was developed in Python 3 taking advantage of common packages, such as NumPy for data handling, SciPy for mathematical functions, Matplotlib for data visualization, and Tkinter for the execution of the Graphical User Interface (GUI).

Orcutt, John M.

MONTE: the Next Generation of Mission Design and Navigation Software

The Mission Analysis, Operations and Navigation Toolkit Environment (MONTE) is an astrodynamic toolkit produced by the Mission Design and Navigation Software Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It provides a single integrated environment for all phases of deep space and Earth orbiting missions. Capabilities include: trajectory optimization and analysis, operational orbit determination, flight path control, and 2D/3D visualization. MONTE is presented to the user as an importable Python language module. This allows a simple but powerful user interface via CLUI or script. In addition, the Python interface allows MONTE to be used seamlessly with other canonical scientific programming tools such as SciPy, NumPy, and Matplotlib. MONTE is the prime operational orbit determination software for all JPL navigated missions.

Optimization

PyDDA: A New Pythonic Wind Retrieval Package

PyDDA (Pythonic Direct Data Assimilation) is a new community framework aimed at wind retrievals that depends only upon utilities in the SciPy ecosystem such as scipy, numpy, and dask. It can support retrievals of winds using information from weather radar networks constrained by high resolution forecast models over grids that cover thousands of kilometers at kilometer-scale resolution. Unlike past wind retrieval packages, this package can be installed using anaconda for easy installation and, with a focus on ease of use can retrieve winds from gridded radar and model data with just a few lines of code. The package is currently available for download at https://github.com/openradar/PyDDA.

Radar

Updating the Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) Link Tool Executable Software to Version 5

NASA’s Space Communications and Navigation (SCaN) program is responsible for providing space communication channels in low Earth orbit, geosynchronous orbit, and deep space for a variety of space missions. The SCaN Link Tool is a standalone, executable, and personal computer (PC)-based software operated via a user interface, which provides NASA civil servants and contractors, as well as the public by way of the tool’s inclusion in the NASA Software Catalog, with in-depth satellite communications link analysis capability. Version 4 of the tool was built using PythonTM (Python Software Foundation) with the help of libraries such as NumPy and SciPy for numerical calculations, Matplotlib for graphical visualizations, and PyQt5 for the graphical user interface. It utilizes radiofrequency (RF) and optical communications link analysis calculations to give users the ability to input known link parameters and calculate select link performance outputs. With the development of the next-generation architecture for space satellite communications in the coming decade, NASA will benefit by having more in-depth communications link analysis tools at its disposal. The tool’s update from version 4 to version 5 aims to provide higher output value accuracy, the ability to solve for a more diverse set of output variables, as well as analog and digital repeater capabilities. Options included in the tool’s functionality, such as the ability to save configuration parameter values, graphs, and results, as well as the provision of default parameter values, increase the tool’s versatility. Users will have access to in-depth, accurate communications link analysis as more advanced satellite constellations are designed and deployed by NASA and the growing commercial aerospace community.

Green, Jack L.

Derivation of Effective Properties Based on Porous Scale Simulations Using Filtering Techniques

This study presents a method for derivation of effective properties at the interface and in-depth of porous materials. The method defines a Representative Elementary Volume (REV) and applies filtering techniques to computer effective properties such as porosity and flow quantities, such as velocity and pressure. The script, developed to process the data was tested on the VTK type files that contain the mesh information and the flow solution. The method allows to choose between two types of filters, such as cellular and top-hat and define the size of the REV and number of samples along the domain. Extraction of the REV from the domain is performed to exact boundaries requested for the user. This is done using a triangulation technique and cutting through the cells to comply to the requested boundaries of the volume. The method can be applied to both structured and unstructured meshes. Filtering the material porosity and flow quantities involves integration of the numerical data. The algorithm provides three integration methods, such as Riemann sum, Monte Carlo and Quadrature rule to perform the integration. The Monte-Carlo technique permits the use of either uniform or linearly spaced distribution of points. The Quadrature rule is currently applicable to tetrahedral element types. The Monte Carlo and Quadrature rule methods require interpolation of the flow quantities at the sample points. For interpolation, two methods were tested and are readily available, Gaussian interpolation and re-sampling. It has been shown that re-sampling method has better consistency and acceptable accuracy in interpolation of the data. The algorithm was written in Python language and uses a number of modules. The major module besides numpy is PyVista. It is used to process the computational domain, clip the REV and interpolate the data. Quadrature rule integration was performed using a quadpy module. ParaView software was used externally to convert the flow solution to the VTK (or more specifically VTU) format. Integration of ParaView in the same environment with PyVista encountered problems and could not be implemented in this work. The developed algorithm is expected to be applicable to unstructured meshes and more complex porous structures as soon as the data can be passed in VTK type format. With the report is provided Python script for filtering the solution and a Matlab script for simple generation and processing of 2-D and 3-D porous channel geometries. The two scripts don't communicate.

Alexsander Zibitsker

Development of a Display Tool to Quality Control Weather Balloon Data for Space Launch Vehicles Using Python

Continuous atmospheric data analysis is an important factor for space launch vehicle design and operations. The balloon quality control tool was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Natural Environments Branch (NEB) for monitoring quality control processes and verifying the automated flags created on the balloon data sets analyzed. The data sets currently analyzed are comprised of high-resolution and low-resolution balloon data from NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC), co-located on the United States Air Force’s Eastern range (ER) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The NEB was tasked to perform a quality assessment of these data sets and needed a tool to confirm the quality control (QC) flags produced from an automated process and add additional QC flags if necessary. This Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed to visualize all of the data from these balloon sets, display any flags from the automated QC process, and add additional flags to variables if necessary. The GUI was developed in Python 3.6 utilizing different packages available such as pandas for data analysis and manipulation, NumPy for high-performance multidimensional array and tools to compute with and manipulate arrays, Matplotlib for plotting data and Tkinter to build the GUI.

Jessica K Headley

Development of a Display Tool to Quality Control Weather Balloon Data for Space Launch Vehicles

Continuous atmospheric data analysis is an important factor for space launch vehicle design and operations. The balloon quality control tool was developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) Natural Environments Branch (NEB) for monitoring quality control processes and verifying the automated flags created on the balloon data sets analyzed. The data sets currently analyzed are comprised of high-resolution and low-resolution balloon data from NASA Kennedy Space Center (KSC), co-located on the United States Air Force’s Eastern range (ER) at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The NEB was tasked to perform a quality assessment of these data sets and needed a tool to confirm the quality control (QC) flags produced from an automated process and add additional QC flags if necessary. This Graphical User Interface (GUI) was developed to visualize all of the data from these balloon sets, display any flags from the automated QC process, and add additional flags to variables if necessary. The GUI was developed in Python 3.6 utilizing different packages available such as pandas for data analysis and manipulation, NumPy for high-performance multidimensional array and tools to compute with and manipulate arrays, Matplotlib for plotting data and Tkinter to build the GUI.

Jessica K Headley