NASA Space Station Research Articles

NASA space station rolling bearings anomaly detection based on PARA-LSTM model

NASA space station rolling bearings anomaly detection based on PARA-LSTM model

INVESTIGATION ON THE USE OF FRICKE DOSIMETRY FOR COSMIC RADIATION

The dosimetry of cosmic radiation outside Earth's atmosphere is a significant challenge due to the high complexity of radiation fields encountered in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and interplanetary space, in addition to the constraints imposed by instrument spaceflight. The Fricke dosimeter is a water-based (96% by mass) chemical dosimetry system that offers the potential to measure the absorbed dose in water in an arbitrary geometry, for doses of up to 400 Gy, for different energy spectra. The LCR/UERJ was part of the Cubes in Space project. The main goal of this work was to obtain absorbed doses in water at different altitudes in the atmosphere using rocket and balloon systems sent by NASA's space station, using the Fricke dosimeter. For each project, 10 polyethylene bags with the Fricke dosimeter were made. The dosimeters were sent on a 20-cubic-meter helium balloon to a target altitude of at least 36.5 km, where they experienced conditions close to space. The average dose in the Fricke solution in the balloon was 9.3 ± 1.5 Gy and in the rocket was 20.4 ± 1.4 Gy. The maximum altitude reached by the balloon is 36.5 km, with a flight duration of approximately 12 hours. On the other hand, the rocket reaches a maximum altitude of 120 km, but it remains in flight for only a few minutes. The 54% difference in the absorbed dose can be explained by the different particles that are responsible for the cosmic radiation in different altitudes. Cosmic radiation increases with altitude in the atmosphere and can vary from hour to hour. The Fricke dosimeter has proven to be effective for aerospace dosimetry, as it was utilized according to the presented boundary conditions. Gathering more technical flight information can lead to future results with greater precision and lower uncertainties.

NASA Space Station Rolling Bearings Anomaly Detection Based on PARA-LSTM Model

NASA Space Station Rolling Bearings Anomaly Detection Based on PARA-LSTM Model

Virtual and Space Tourism as New Trends in Travelling at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The first European COVID-19 infection was recorded in February 2020, and Poland followed in mid-March. Restrictions were imposed on traveling between states and using public space. These movement restrictions forced a search for new, often innovative, forms of tourism. Google Earth virtual reality (VR), Google Street View, and the Chernobyl VR Project are just some of the selected opportunities to create virtual tours. Different activities using VR mean that people can experience the illusion of travelling in time and space, outside of their everyday surroundings, in a digitally constructed three-dimensional (3D) environment, for cognition or entertainment. Therefore, this study aimed to present virtual and space tourism as new traveling trends during various crises, such as health, economic, etc. A diagnostic survey with a developed questionnaire was conducted in June and July 2021 in Poland. A total of 564 fully answered responses were collected from randomly selected respondents. We found that around 82% of Polish people were aware of VR technology, and 70% believed that new technologies determine VR tourism development. VR presents the possibility of travelling to places that no longer exist in their original form, but have been reconstructed only in VR. Around 75% of the respondents agreed that VR tourism plays an essential role in tourism promotion in Poland and throughout the world. Moreover, VR and augmented tourism lets us visit fictitious and dangerous, politically restricted, and geographically as well as economically difficult destinations. For example, our results revealed that many people want to experience North Korea, the USA, Antarctica, Syria, etc. At the same time, people recommended the NASA space station as a visiting destination using VR and augmented reality. VR offers an alternative form of tourism during crises and pandemics such as COVID-19. We found over 26% of the respondents were satisfied with contemporary tourists’ cognitional needs during VR sightseeing. More than 87% of the respondents believed that VR tourism cannot substitute real-world tourism in the long run. However, VR tourism will be more beneficial for developing countries facing difficulties in economic aspects, and easier than attaining visas to enter developed countries. Furthermore, virtual sightseeing may also constitute an alternative for people who are disabled or sick, and who cannot undertake the effort of active tourism and explore tourist resources of the world on their own.

Emergency Repair

This article states one of the extravehicular activity (EVA) incidence that happened in NASA space station. It also highlights how NASA carefully considers checklists for the emergency repairs and EVAs. EVAs – spacewalks – are planned months, even years in advance. The astronauts who are scheduled to perform them spend hour upon hour practicing them in the controlled environment of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. Expedition 46 Commander Scott Kelly and Flight Engineer Tim Kopra successfully repaired the International Space Station's Mobile Transporter rail car during a three-hour and 16-minute spacewalk—the third for Kelly, and the second for Kopra. The smoothness of the EVA is a testimony to NASA’s ability to handle emergencies. The major lesson learned from the EVA is that a thorough worksite inspection checklist should be made to ensure crew do not leave ISS in a poor configuration after an EVA.

Knowledge–based dynamic scheduling and decision support

The purpose of this article is to illustrate the role that knowledge–based system technologies can play in the development and implementation of more effective decision–support systems. The prototyping of a knowledge–based decision–support system (KBDSS) for supporting the complex, resource–constrained problem of scheduling subsystems and experiments for NASA's space station programme is discussed and serves to highlight various concepts. The dynamic payload scheduling (DYPAS) system, unlike most previous scheduling approaches, is capable of handling the many dynamic elements which characterise a broader class of scheduling problems such as those related to flexible manufacturing systems and computer–integrated manufacturing environments. Also, the integration of knowledge–based decision support, and operations research technologies into a more generic knowledge–based, scheduling shell is discussed, as well as, directions for future research for accomplishment of this shell.

Congress Examines NASA Budget, Space Station, and Relations With Russia

Concerns about recent Russian activities related to Ukraine loomed over an 8 April congressional hearing focusing on NASA's fiscal year (FY) 2015 budget request. Rep. Frank Wolf (R‐Va.), chair of the House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies, and several other committee members questioned NASA administrator Charles Bolden about the agency's contingency plans if tensions between Russia and the United States cause key joint scientific endeavors between the two countries to break off. That concern is particularly critical given the countries' longtime partnership on the International Space Station (ISS) and with the United States currently relying on Russian transport to and from the station until U.S. commercial vehicles are ready to transport astronauts back and forth.

Space station faces research cuts to cover risk of Russian default

washington NASA space station managers are bracing for a 30 per cent cut in funds for research on the station to protect against a possible Russian default on delivering key elements of the station.

NASA space station chief resigns

washington Wilbur Trafton, the official in charge of the US space station and space shuttle programmes, announced his resignation last week after less than two years in the post.

Construction Costs May Bite Into Science

NASA space station officials are planning to divert money that has been set aside for scientific facilities to pay for engineering problems that have surfaced in the construction of the orbiting laboratory. The move likely would delay research programs planned for the station, which will be launched in pieces starting in November 1997. It also heightens the concerns of researchers already worried about the agency's commitment to science aboard the station. “Our cynicism is well-honed,” says Claude Canizares, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology astrophysicist who chairs the National Research Council's Space Studies Board.

4.1.4 System Engineering in an Integrated Product Team Organization

AbstractThis paper presents a discussion of the functions of a system engineering organization in an integrated product team (IPT) setting. IPTs are being adapted widely as a more efficient means for accomplishing large product developments. Recent examples include the US Air Force F‐22 fighter program. Additionally, when management difficulties plagued NASA's Space Station Freedom program, NASA responded by implementing an IPT management structure for the program.A brief review of classical system engineering functions as described by government and academic texts and a resultant synopsis are followed by a brief review of the IPT organizational schema. Subsequent discussion presents a paradigm for system engineering within an IPT setting, and describes the similarity in function of the analysis and integration teams (AITs) within an IPT versus classical systems engineering functions. A conclusion is supported that by controlling the scope of the system engineering task, the function of AITs is comparable to that of classical system engineering organizations. Finally, system engineering within NASA's International Space Station Alpha (ISSA) program is presented as example of a system engineering application within an IPT setting.

Acoustic emissions applications on the NASA space station : Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Brunswick, Maine (United States), 28 Jul.-2 Aug. 1991. Vol. 11A, pp. 725–732. Edited by D.O. Thompson and D.E. Chimenti. Plenum Press (1992)

Acoustic emissions applications on the NASA space station : Review of Progress in Quantitative Nondestructive Evaluation, Brunswick, Maine (United States), 28 Jul.-2 Aug. 1991. Vol. 11A, pp. 725–732. Edited by D.O. Thompson and D.E. Chimenti. Plenum Press (1992)

Acoustic emissions applications on the NASA space station

The space station is an internally pressurized container carrying inside it everything necessary to support human life in space. Since the shell of the space station contains numerous penetrations it will always be susceptible to seal failure, and when in orbit it will also be exposed to impacts from meteoroids and debris. Although designed to minimize the effects of impacts, damage which breaches the shell threatens the lives of the astronauts. Even small penetrations may require an unacceptable amount of time and effort to locate if a manual scan is necessary. Monitoring under these conditions is best done with acoustic emission (AE), which can be configured as a continuous, remote, and operator-independent monitoring system capable of detecting and locating large and small damage sources.

Overview of the Third NASA Space Station Freedom scheduling workshop

No abstract available.

Space committee weighs cost of space station redesign

NASA's Space Station Redesign Team has completed the task of reducing its spending by a total of $15 billion over the next 5 years through redesigning the Space Station. President Clinton mandated the redesign last February.The team, led by NASA Administrator Daniel Goldin, presented its study to the House space subcommittee at an over‐crowded hearing on June 8. Several times throughout the hearing, Goldin repeated that it was inappropriate for NASA to indicate which of the three options for redesign it favored. “NASA will not establish which configuration it prefers… this is a decision to be made by the president,” Goldin said. The goal of the redesign process, he noted, was to indicate pros and cons of different options.

The analysis of the magnetostatic fields surrounding a twisted-pair transmission line using integral methods

An integral formulation is derived from the Biot-Savart law in conjunction with Gaussian numerical integral methods and applied to the computation of magnetic fields surrounding a two-wire twisted-pair transmission line in the static case. The results show the effects of the length of the pitch of the twisted-pair line on magnetic fields surrounding these lines and the 3-D nature of this field. It appears that, to obtain uniform heating, one should try different shapes for the exciting coils. Increasing the length of the heating coils improves the uniformity near the center of the workpiece, but has the effect of overheating at the edges. Changing the distance between the coils or the supply frequency does not have a significant effect on the heating pattern. The significance of the analysis lies in its relation to electromagnetic compatibility considerations which must be taken into account in the design of the electric power transmission and distribution system of NASA's Space Station Freedom (SSF). >

Global steering of single gimballed control moment gyroscopes using a directed search

A guided depth-first search that manages null motion about torque-producing trajectories calculated with a singularity-robust inverse is proposed as a practical feedforward steering law that can globally avoid (or minimize the impact of) singular states in minimally redundant systems of single gimballed control moment gyroscopes. Cost and heuristic functions are defined to guide the search procedure in improving gimbal trajectories. On- orbit implementation of the steering law is proposed as an extension to momentum management algorithms. A set of simulation examples is presented, illustrating the search performance for a minimally redundant, pyramid- mounted array. Sensitivities o£ feedforward gimbal trajectories are examined in the presence of unmodeled disturbances, and techniques are proposed for avoiding excessive divergence. HE next generations of manned and unmanned space- craft will require enhanced control algorithms in order to efficiently achieve their proposed mission objectives. Reg- ularly coping with uncertainties in the orbital environment, dynamically changing spacecraft configurations (i.e., via docking and buildup), nonlinear actuator properties, and the need to tolerate potential hardware failures will mandate develop- ment of control strategies considerably beyond the available state-of-the-art. Because of the priority placed on minimizing cost, weight, and consumable requirements, future spacecraft will not always be able to rely on highly complex, multiply- redundant actuator systems (as is often now the case), but must employ more flexible and intelligent schemes that effi- ciently exploit all available onboard control capability. This study has examined methods of applying heuristic search techniques to perform adaptable inverse kinematics and ac- tuator management for spacecraft attitude control. In partic- ular, single gimballed control moment gyros (SGCMGs) were chosen as torque actuators. Although many existing al- gorithms may suffice for steering double gimballed CMG (DGCMG) arrays, such as envisioned for the NASA Space Station, no powerful techniques have been developed to man- age minimally redundant arrays of SGCMGs. These devices, however, are ideally suited as momentum-exchange effectors for a wide class of future spacecraft because of their large torque output and momentum capacity. They offer significant cost, power, weight, and reliability advantages over DGCMGs and could provide attitude control for a wide variety of future spacecraft, as torque requirements in many proposed mod- erate-sized vehicles may surpass the capability of available reaction wheels. Because of the complicated nonlinear map- ping between the input (gimbal) space and output (momen- tum) space, however, effective steering laws that reliably avoid problematic singular states have not been developed for min- imally redundant SGCMG systems, discouraging their appli- cation in many situations. To fully exploit the capability of SGCMGs, intelligent steering laws must be developed that address the system nonlinearities and avoid singular states over global trajectories.

A high rejection transition radiation detector prototype to distinguish positrons from protons in a cosmic ray space laboratory

We have carefully implemented a transition radiation detector prototype in order to design a similar device having 75 × 150 cm2 active surface that will discriminate positrons from protons. This detector will be part of the spectrometer of the experiment WIZARD, planned to fly at 180 miles altitude on the NASA Space Station “FREEDOM” to search for primordial antimatter. Since the positron to proton ratio is expected to be of the order of 10−4, we have pushed the proton rejection factor of the spectrometer beyond this value using a compact transition radiation detector equipped with properly designed “cluster counting” electronics.

Report looks at megaprojects

“Are large nondefense R&D projects being funded at the expense of other science and technology programs?” This question is examined by a Congressional Budget Office report, “ Large Nondefense R&D Projects in the Budget: 1980–1996,” which was issued in July. Congress is wrestling with this question as it determines how to fund such “megaprojects” as NASA's Space Station and Earth Observing System, and the Department of Energy's Superconducting Super Collider, while providing enough support for other research.The study avoids making policy recommendations on the best balance between large and small science, but states bluntly that “if cost overruns or budget constraints require choosing between large and small projects, it would be against the national interest to support large projects at the expense of small ones for nonscientific and nontechnical reasons.”

A system to study the stability of the wires of multiwire proportional chambers exposed to a 10 G time variable force field

We report the results of a system to test the behavior of the wires of multiwire proportional chambers (MWPC) exposed for 10 min to a uniform force field of about 10 G strength and variable in time in the frequency range 0–2000 Hz. This acceleration will be present when the chambers, mounted inside a cosmic ray spectrometer, are launched by the Space Shuttle towards the NASA Space Station ‘‘FREEDOM.’’ We have reproduced these conditions in the laboratory by an electronic device and we have found that, after repeated cycles of this treatment, the wire performance remained unchanged. This system can also be used to control the tension of the wires of a MWPC during its normal testing procedure.