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Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration in the National Airspace System Project

There is an increasing need to fly Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS) to perform missions of vital importance to national security and defense, emergency management, science, and to enable commercial applications. However, routine access by UAS to the NAS remains unrealized.&nbsp; The UAS community needs routine access to the global airspace for all classes of UAS. Based on this need, NASA&#39;s UAS Integration in the NAS Project identified the following goal: To provide research findings to reduce technical barriers associated with integrating UAS into the NAS utilizing integrated system level tests in a relevant environment. These barriers include: a lack of sense-and-avoid concepts and technologies that can operate within the NAS, robust communication technologies, robust human systems integration, and a relevant environment for use in testing the developed technologies. The project&#39;s goal will be accomplished by developing system-level integration of key concepts, technologies and/or procedures, as well as demonstrating those integrated capabilities in an operationally relevant environment.&nbsp; The project conducts research to address technical&nbsp;barriers in the following areas:<ul><li>Sense and Avoid (SAA) [synonymous with Detect and Avoid (DAA)] Performance Standards: Provide research findings to develop and validate UAS Minimum Operational Performance Standards (MOPS) for SAA performance and interoperability.</li><li>Command and Control (C2) Performance Standards: Provide research findings to develop and validate UAS MOPS for terrestrial C2 communication.</li><li>Human Systems Integration (HSI): Provide research findings to develop and validate HSI ground control station (GCS) guidelines enabling implementation of the SAA and C2 performance standards.</li><li>Integrated Test and Evaluation (IT&amp;E): Develop a relevant test environment that is a live virtual constructive (LVC) distributed environment (DE), for use in generating research findings to develop and validate HSI guidelines, DAA, and C2 MOPS with test scenarios supporting integration of UAS into the NAS.</li></ul>These activities support research within the aeronautics strategic thrust area 6.&nbsp;

University of Southern Mississippi (USM) - partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) project

Measurements of pCO2 taken by the University of Southern Mississippi in the Gulf of Mexico near the Louisiana coast in 2005 and 2006

Rapid Advanced Heliocentric Mission Design for L3, L4, L5, NEO Rendezvous, Capture, Sample Return Project

Provide fast, new capability for Loose SmallSat Constellation with solar sail and impulsive propulsion to nonlinear heliocentric orbits, high inclination, low energy transfer (see tubes). These include orbits around L3, 4, 5, NEO rendezvous (e.g. Earth Trojans), capture, sample return &amp; for space weather monitoring.

An Advanced Learning Framework for High Dimensional Multi-Sensor Remote Sensing Data Project

Improve the use of land cover data by developing an advanced framework for robust classification using multi-source datasets: Develop, validate and optimize a generalized multi-kernel, active learning (MKL-AL) pattern recognition framework for multi-source data fusion. Develop both single- and ensemble-classifier versions (MKL-AL and Ensemble-MKL-AL) of the system. Utilize multi-source remotely sensed and in situ data to create land-cover classification and perform accuracy assessment with available labeled data; utilize first results to query new samples that, if inducted into the training of the system, will significantly improve classification performance and accuracy. &nbsp;

Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1): Urban Extents Grid

The Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1): Urban Extents Grid distinguishes urban and rural areas based on a combination of population counts (persons), settlement points, and the presence of Nighttime Lights. Areas are defined as urban where contiguous lighted cells from the Nighttime Lights or approximated urban extents based on buffered settlement points for which the total population is greater than 5,000 persons. This data set is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), The World Bank, and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Urban-Rural Population Estimates, Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), Alpha Version

The Low Elevation Coastal Zone (LECZ) Urban-Rural Population Estimates consists of country-level estimates of urban, rural and total population and land area country-wide and in the LECZ, if applicable. Additionally, the data set provides the number of urban extents, their population and land area that intersect the LECZ, by city-size population classifications of less than 100,000, 100,000 to 500,000, 500,000 to 1,000,000, 1,000,000 to 5,000,000, and more than 5,000,000. All estimates are based on GRUMP Alpha data products. The LECZ was generated using SRTM Digital Elevation Model data and includes all land area that is contiguous with the coast and 10 meters or less in elevation. All grids used for population, land area, urban mask, and LECZ were of 30 arc-second (~1 km ) resolution. This data set is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).

Last of the Wild Project, Version 1, 2002 (LWP-1): Last of the Wild Dataset (Geographic)

The Last of the Wild Dataset of the Last of the Wild Project, Version 1, 2002 (LWP-1) is derived from the LWP-1 Human Footprint Dataset. The gridded data are classified according to their raster value (wild = 0-10; not wild >10). The ten largest polygons of more than 5 square kilometers within each biome by realm are selected and identified. The dataset in Clarke 1866 Geographic Coordinate System is produced by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

Project Birdseye Aerial Photograph Collection, 1970 - 1984, Version 1

This collection consists of both analog and digital aerial photographs from Arctic areas in and around Baffin Bay, the Labrador Sea, the Arctic Ocean, the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, and the Bering Sea and Strait from 1962 to 1984 as well as data reports from 1962 through 1971.

Global 1-km Downscaled Population Base Year and Projection Grids Based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, Revision 01

The Global 1-km Downscaled Population Base Year and Projection Grids Based on the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways, Revision 01, data set consists of global urban, rural, and total populaton for the base year 2000, and population projections at ten-year intervals for 2010-2100 at a resolution of 1-km (about 30 arc-seconds), consistent both quantitatively and qualitatively with the SSPs. This 1-km data set is a downscaled version of the one-eighth degree (7.5 arc-minutes) data published in Jones and O'Neill (2016). The downscaling methods were published in Gao (2017). Spatial demographic data are key inputs for the analysis of land use, energy use, and emissions, as well as for the assessment of climate change vulnerability, impacts, and adaptation. The SSPs are developed to support future climate and global change research and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6).

Combined HSRL and Optical Autocovarience Wind Lidar (HOAWL) Demonstration Project

Demonstrate 2&beta; + 2&alpha; + 2&delta; High Spectral Resolution Lidar (HSRL) and Doppler wind lidar measurements simultaneously at 355nm and 532nm using a single multiwavelength interferometric receiver. &nbsp;Demonstrate system components: High efficiency multi-wavelength optical autocovariance interferometer and integrated 2&beta; + 2&alpha; + 2&delta; receiver HOAWL calibration and retrieval algorithms Validated radiometric and integrated HOAWL receiver performance models &nbsp;

Real-Time Structural Overload Control via Control Allocation Optimization Project

This control methodology utilizes real-time vehicle structural load and&nbsp;shape measurements to actively respond to and protect against vehicle&nbsp;damage due to structural overload. The innovation utilizes critical point&nbsp;load feedback within an optimal control allocation architecture that&nbsp;constrains the load at those critical points while still producing the&nbsp;control response commanded by a pilot. Specifically, the technology&nbsp;monitors the loads at critical control points and shifts the loading away&nbsp;from points at or near their limits.Work to date: Using NASA&rsquo;s Full-Scale Advanced Systems Testbed&nbsp;(FAST) aircraft, the Armstrong team targeted the aileron hinge connection&nbsp;as a critical control point. The experiment produced successful results in simulation and flight, preventing structural overload and yielding good handling&nbsp;characteristics for optimization metrics and load constraint types.Looking ahead:&nbsp;This effort led to being awarded an ARMD seedling fund phase one to further develop the technique and expand the work to other autonomy efforts.&nbsp;Future tests will&nbsp;employ more advanced and unique sensor technologies, such as fiber&nbsp;optic strain sensors. This technology could open the door to truly novel&nbsp;approaches to vehicle and control system design.Benefits<ul><li>Effective: Identifies the optimum control&nbsp;surface usage for a given maneuver for both&nbsp;performance and structural loading</li><li>Automated: Monitors and alleviates stress&nbsp;on critical load points in real time</li><li>Economical: Decreases the need for&nbsp;repairs and general maintenance</li></ul>Applications<ul><li>Jet aircraft</li><li>Rocket controls</li><li>Industrial robotics</li><li>Structural health monitoring and load alleviation</li></ul>

A Multi University Research Initiative (MURI) Camouflage Project

A Multi University Research Initiative was funded to study the biological response to the dynamic, polarized light field in distinct water types. During June 2010, a campaign was undertaken in the coastal waters off Port Aransas, Texas to study the angular/temporal distribution of polarization in multiple environment types (eutrophic sediment laden coastal waters, oligotrophic off-shore), as well as the polarization-reflectance responses of several organisms. In addition to radiometric polarization measurements, water column IOPs, Rrs, benthic reflectance, and pigment concentration measurements were collected. Later campaigns expanded this research in the coastal waters off the Florida Keys.

OWLETS-1 NASA GSFC Pandora Spectrometer Project Data

OWLETS1_Pandora_Data_1 is the Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS-1) ozone and nitrogen dioxide data collected by the NASA GSFC Pandora Spectrometer Project located at NASA Langley Research Center, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, SERC Research Vessel, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) and Wallops Flight Facility during the OWLETS field campaign. OWLETS was supported by the NASA Science Innovation Fund (SIF). Data collection is complete.Coastal regions have typically posed a challenge for air quality researchers due to a lack of measurements available over water and water-land boundary transitions. Supported by NASA’s Science Innovation Fund (SIF), the Ozone Water-Land Environmental Transition Study (OWLETS) field campaign examined ozone concentrations and gradients over the Chesapeake Bay from July 5, 2017 – August 3, 2017, with twelve intensive measurement days occurring during this time period. OWLETS utilized a unique combination of instrumentation, including aircraft, TOLNet ozone lidars (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Tropospheric Ozone Differential Absorption Lidar and NASA Langley Research Center Mobile Ozone Lidar), UAV/drones, ozonesondes, AERONET sun photometers, and mobile and ship-based measurements, to characterize the land-water differences in ozone and other pollutants. Two main research sites were established as part of the campaign: an over-land site at NASA LaRC, and an over-water site at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. These two research sites were established to provide synchronous vertical measurements of meteorology and pollutants over water and over land. In combination with mobile observations between the two sites, pollutant gradients were able to be observed and used to better understand the fundamental processes occurring at the land-water interface. OWLETS-2 was completed from June 6, 2018 – July 6, 2018 in the upper Chesapeake Bay region. Research sites were established at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), Hart Miller Island (HMI), and Howard University Beltsville (HUBV), with HMI representing the over-water location and UMBC and HUBV representing the over-land sites. Similar measurements were carried out to further characterize water-land gradients in the upper Chesapeake Bay. The measurements completed during OWLETS are of importance in enhancing air quality models, and improving future satellite retrievals, particularly, NASA’s Tropospheric Emissions: Monitoring of Pollution, which is scheduled to launch in 2022.

Developing Castable Metal Harmonic Drives Project

This effort utilizes the high elastic strain limit and net-shaped processing of metallic glasses to fabricate low-cost harmonic drives that outperform steel.&nbsp; The harmonic drive design and performance will be modeled and a 3D polymer version will be printed.&nbsp; A harmonic drive will be fabricated from commercially die cast bulk metallic glass parts.

Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1): National Identifier Grid

The Global Rural-Urban Mapping Project, Version 1 (GRUMPv1): National Identifier Grid is derived from the land area grid to create a raster surface where pixels (cells) that cover the same nation or territory have the same value. The countries and territories are not official representations of country boundaries; rather they represent the area covered by the statistical data as provided. This data set is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN) in collaboration with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), The World Bank, and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT).

Poverty Mapping Project: Global Subnational Prevalence of Child Malnutrition

The Poverty Mapping Project: Global Subnational Prevalence of Child Malnutrition data set consists of estimates of the percentage of children with weight-for-age z-scores that are more than two standard deviations below the median of the NCHS/CDC/WHO International Reference Population. Data are reported for the most recent year with subnational information available at the time of development. The data products include a shapefile (vector data) of percentage rates, grids (raster data) of rates (per thousand in order to preserve precision in integer format), the number of children under five (the rate denominator), and the number of underweight children under five (the rate numerator), and a tabular data set of the same and associated data. This data set is produced by the Columbia University Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN).

Solid-State Thermionic Nuclear Power for Megawatt Propulsion, Planetary Surface and Commercial Power Project

Thermionic (TI) power conversion is a promising technology first investigated for power conversion in the 1960&rsquo;s, and of renewed interest due to modern advances in nanotechnology, MEMS, materials and manufacturing. Benefits include high conversion efficiency (20%), static operation with no moving parts and the potential for high reliability, greatly reduced plant complexity, and the potential for low Design, Development. Test and Evaluation (DDT&amp;E) costs. Thermionic emission, credited to Edison in 1880, forms the basis of vacuum tubes and much of 20th century electronics. Heat can be converted into electricity when electrons emitted from a hot surface are collected across a small gap. For example, two &ldquo;small&rdquo; (6 kWe) Thermionic Space Reactors were flown by the USSR in 1987-88 for ocean radar reconnaissance. Higher powered Nuclear-Thermionic power systems driving Electric Propulsion (Q-thruster, VASIMR, etc.) may offer the breakthrough necessary for human Mars missions of &lt; 1 yr round trip.This project targets one of the most critical barriers to human deep space exploration &ndash; the means to efficiently power and rapidly propel human missions to Mars and beyond.&nbsp; The project will explore the implementation of a high efficiency &ldquo;Solid-State&rdquo; Thermionic-based nuclear fission power systems to serve Electric Propulsion systems such as Q-thrusters, VASIMR, Hall, or other approaches.&nbsp; A Solid-State approach centered around advanced Thermionic power converters would combine the high efficiency of traditional dynamic power conversion (Rankine, Brayton, Stirling) with the simplicity of a static converter with no moving parts.&nbsp; The resulting system could enable Human Mars missions of &lt; 1 year round trip by affording a system of megawatt power, low specific mass (&lt;10 kg/kWe), greatly reduced plant complexity, and associated savings in development cost.&nbsp;&nbsp; This project provides the initial foundation and confidence for high efficiency solid-state power converters, and early definition of enabled human exploration systems and missions (ex. Megawatt Electric Propulsion, Moon/Mars Surface Power).&nbsp; Subsequent converter development will improve readiness and lifetime, leading to &ldquo;flight ready&rdquo; articles.&nbsp; An intermediate NASA infusion step would demonstrate kilowatt-class nuclear power systems applicable to Moon or Mars surface.&nbsp; Human vehicle system development would then integrate these converters with DOE nuclear reactor technology, NASA balance of plant (ex. radiators, PMAD), and electric propulsion (ex. Q-thrusters, VASIMR, Hall thrusters) to develop an &ldquo;ultimate&rdquo; NASA application of a Human Mars Megawatt-class Nuclear Electric Propulsion vehicle and mission.&nbsp; Terrestrial applications would be informed/infused resulting in high efficiency power systems with greatly reduced complexity and cost.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Alternative Solvents through Green Chemistry Project

The purpose of this project is to develop state-of-the-art, green precision cleaning technologies for NASA&rsquo;s 21st Century Launch Complex thus eliminating long-term environmental costs to the Program.&nbsp; Precision cleaning is of critical importance in the aerospace industry.&nbsp; Failure to clean to specified levels may result in problems ranging from impaired performance to catastrophic failure.&nbsp;Of particular concern is the cleaning of systems containing strong oxidizers such as liquid oxygen (LOX) or hypergolic fuels.&nbsp; Currently, precision cleaning at Kennedy Space Center is performed using dual-solvent process in which the first solvent, Vertrel MCA, is used to clean the component and a second solvent, HFE-7100, is used as a final rinse and analytical test fluid.&nbsp; Highly fluorinated compounds such as those used in Vertrel MCA are extremely persistent in the environment and are potent greenhouse gases. Continued use of this or similar solvents will lead to high remediation costs that must be carried by the Program for years to come.Historically, precision cleaning has used chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), such as Freon, because it was non-toxic and performed extremely wll.&nbsp; When Freon, and other CFCs, were banned due to their harmful environmental effects, new solvents were identified that were similar compounds but were not yet regulated.&nbsp; Eventually, these solvents also become regulated and unavailable for use.&nbsp; This project specifically did not consider halogenated solvents in order to find solvents or technologies that would not face future environmental regulations.

Thin Silicon Detector Technology for Use in Imaging Solar ENAs Project

Top Level Objective: To enable capabilities for imaging and spectral measurements of energetic neutral hydrogen atoms (ENAs) produced with energies &sim;1MeV/nuc in explosive solar events. Overarching Science Question: How and why does the Sun vary and affect the Earth and the rest of the solar system? [NASA 2010 Science Plan] Primary Scientific Application: Investigation of energetic particle acceleration by shocks and/or magnetic reconnection in the solar corona. Technology: Ultra-thin (&lt;&sim; 10 &mu;m) silicon strip detectors with spatial resolution an order of magnitude better than previously achieved. Approach: Detectors fabricated on thin membranes supported by a thick frame made using micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) techniques starting from commercially-available silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers. Technical Advantages: Ease of manufacture, mechanical robustness, excellent membrane uniformity, flexible approach that can be customized for numerous applications. Most Immediate Application: ENA imaging in SEP events using a combination of coded aperture imaging and dE/dx versus total energy particle identification with energy threshold below 1MeV. Benefits for Heliophysics: ENA imaging capability provides a fundamentally new probe of acceleration processes occurring in the corona. Status of Development: Simpler position-sensitive thin dE/dx detectors produced from SOI wafers has been demonstrated and are planned for use on the Solar Probe Plus mission. Proposed New Effort: 1) Produce and test thin detectors with position resolution &sim;0.1&ndash;0.2mm. 2) Produce thin dead layers suitable for detectors with overall thickness &lt;10 &mu;m. 3) Determine how thin dE/dx detectors can be made using the SOI technique. 4) Demonstrate how large a detector active area can be achieved using SOI. 5) Simulate application of this type of detector in a solar ENA imager. Technological Goal: Take the thin-silicon strip detector technology from TRL2 (technology concept and/or application formulated) to TRL3-4 (analytical and experimental critical function and/or characteristic proof-of-concept [TRL3]; component and/or breadboard validation in laboratory environment [TRL4]) to enable future prototyping of an optimized solar ENA imager. &nbsp; N/A

Autonomous Deep-Space Optical Navigation Project

Every one of the future exploration architectures being considered by NASA have, at their core, the need to rendezvous and dock with other vehicles or bodies.&nbsp; Future manned vehicles need to be able to do so with both cooperative and uncooperative vehicles and objects.&nbsp; To this end, the sensors being considered are all optical-based.&nbsp; In fact, passive sensors, such as IR cameras and visual cameras, are at the heart of any exploration architecture.&nbsp; There is a need for the onboard systems to be able to use the images provided by these sensors to rendezvous and dock/capture these objects.&nbsp; Therefore, this project will develop this capability to operate around a variety of objects, without a priori knowledge of their geometry.&nbsp; In particular, a technology called &lsquo;optical flow&rsquo; or &lsquo;visual odometry&rsquo; (VO), will be harnessed to develop a robust on-board capability using passive sensors; of course, if active sensors are available, they will be used as well. In fact, we will also apply this technique to navigating around a cratered object (such as an asteroid). This project will enhance the Agency&rsquo;s ability to operate at distant locations, without the need for ground intervention.To date, all of the on-board navigation development performed has focused on either Low Earth Orbit (LEO) or Low Lunar Orbit (LLO).&nbsp; We seek to advance deep-space navigation technology by focusing this Internal Research and Development (IRAD) upon rendezvous and navigation in a weak gravity environment, either at Lagrangian point 2 (L2) or around an asteroid.&nbsp; Of course, this will apply to any destinations that have a strong gravity field as well.&nbsp; As well, the technology developed in this Internal Research and Development will apply to rendezvousing with vehicles such as ISS.&nbsp; We choose to focus our IRAD effort on the navigation algorithms and software for the ARCM DRO Mission, thus broadening our scope, maintaining our cutting-edge capability, and advancing US manned space exploration.&nbsp; The goal is to be flexible enough to meet the needs of the NASA vision, as it applies to any destination the Agency chooses to embark upon.&nbsp;