2021 NIA Key Activities
Week Ending Dec. 31, 2021
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Finalist Teams Present to Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s Lunar Dust Mitigation Focus Group
On Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2021, the 2021 BIG Idea Challenge Finalist Teams were invited to present their work at a special 2-hour focus group meeting to the Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium’s (LSIC’s) Lunar Dust Mitigation Focus Group, held virtually via Zoom. Each of the seven teams were given fifteen minutes to present a condensed version of their work from the past year designing, building, and testing novel dust mitigation (or dust tolerant) technologies that could be used for future applications. Afterwards, the focus group members were able to ask questions and continue discussing areas of interest. More information on the 2021 BIG Idea Challenge Finalists can be found on the BIG Idea Challenge Website.
The BIG Idea Challenge is an annual university-level engineering design competition sponsored by NASA through a collaboration between the Space Technology Mission Directorate’s Game Changing Development program and the Office of STEM Engagement’s Space Grant Consortium. The challenge is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace.
BIG Idea Website: http://bigidea.nianet.org
NIA Senior Principal Engineer Chairs Delta Final Engineering Review
On Dec. 8, 2021, the final NASA approved minutes for the Delta Final Engineering Review (FER) for the Land, Vegetation, and Ice Sensor (LVIS) were released for this FER. The FER was chaired by Leslie Kagey, Senior Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), on Nov. 18, 2021.
This review was conducted as a Center mid-level Technical Quality Review (TQR) in accordance with Langley Procedural Requirement LPR 7130. The presenters were David W. Klassman and Martin N. Nowicki, both of the Aircraft Operations and Engineering Branch (AOEB), Research Services Directorate (RSD). Recording Secretary was Mr. Bruce Fisher, Chief Engineer (RSD).
NIA Senior Research Scientist Co-Authors Published Paper in Physics of Plasmas
Dr. Suleiman Baraka, Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), recently co-authored a paper, “Investigation of Homogeneity of Energy Conversion Processes at Dipolarization Fronts from MMS,” published in Physics of Plasmas.
Abstract:
We report on six dipolarization fronts (DF) embedded in fast earthward flows detected by the Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission during a substorm event on 23rd of July 2017.We analyzed the Ohm’s law for each event and found that ions are mostly decoupled from the magnetic field by the Hall fields. However, the electron pressure gradient term is also contributing to the ion decoupling and likely responsible for an electron decoupling at DF. We also analyzed the energy conversion process and found that the energy in the spacecraft frame is transferred from the electromagnetic field to the plasma ($\mathbf{J}\cdot \mathbf{E}>0$) ahead or at the DF whereas it is the opposite ($\mathbf{J}\cdot \mathbf{E}<0$) behind the front. This reversal is mainly due to a local reversal of the cross-tail current indicating a substructure of the DF. In the fluid frame, we found that the energy is mostly transferred from the plasma to the electromagnetic field ($\mathbf{J}\cdot \mathbf{E’}<0$) and should contribute to the deceleration of the fast flow. However, we show that the energy conversion process is not homogeneous at the electron scales due to electric field fluctuations likely related to lower-hybrid drift waves. Our results suggest that the role of DF in the global energy cycle of the magnetosphere still deserves more investigation. In particular, statistical studies on DF require to be carried out with caution due to these electron scale substructures.
Full list of co-authors:
Soboh Alqeeq, Olivier Le Contel, Patrick Canu, Alessandro Retino, Thomas Chust, Alexandra Alexandrova, Laurent Mirioni, Suleiman Baraka, Louis Richard, Yuri Khotyaintsev, Rumi Nakamura, Frederick Wilder, Narges Ahmadi, Hanying Wei, Matthew Argall, David Fischer, Daniel Gershman, James Burch, Roy Torbert, Barbara Giles, and the MMS Team
NIA Associate Research Fellow Presents Talk at AGU 2021
Dr. Carolyn Jordan, Associate Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), presented a talk at the American Geophysical Union meeting in New Orleans on Dec. 17th, titled “Examination of the information in the spectral curvature of in situ aerosol hyperspectral (300-700 nm) optical properties measured from wildfire aerosols from a ground-based mobile lab during FIREX-AQ.”
Recently developed techniques by the Langley Aerosol Research Group (LARGE) at LaRC to measure ambient atmospheric aerosol optical properties at hyperspectral resolution over a wide range of ultraviolet and visible wavelengths has shown that there is curvature over this spectral range not captured by Angstrom exponent parameterizations. Data is presented in this talk from the 2019 FIREX-AQ field campaign that suggests accounting for spectral curvature may provide an improved ability to discriminate differences in smoke aerosol optical properties that arise from differences in biofuels combusted, fire intensity, and/or atmospheric processing downwind from emissions.
Full list of co-authors:
Carolyn E. Jordan, Bruce E. Anderson, John D. Barrick, Dani Blum, Kathleen Brunke, Jiajue Chai, Gao Chen, Ewan C. Crosbie, Jack E. Dibb, Ann M. Dillner, Emily Gargulinski, Charles H. Hudgins, Emily Joyce, Jackson Kaspari, Robert F. Martin, Richard H. Moore, Rachel O’Brien, Claire E. Robinson, Gregory L. Schuster, Taylor J. Shingler, Michael A. Shook, Amber J. Soja, Kenneth L. Thornhill, Andrew T. Weakley, Elizabeth B. Wiggins, Edward L. Winstead, and Luke D. Ziemba
Week Ending Nov. 19, 2021
National Institute of Aerospace Presents NASA eClips Activity at the 2021 VAASL Hybrid Conference
The National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Center for Integrative STEM Education (CISE) presented an asynchronous session and interacted with conference participants who visited the in-person exhibit booth at the Virginia Association of School Librarians (VAASL) Conference held Nov 3-5, 2021, in Williamsburg, Virginia. Joan Harper-Neely, STEM Education Specialist, and Betsy McAllister, Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence, showcased the NASA eClips, NASA Spotlite Design Challenge.
The pre-recorded session was made available to over 400 conference attendees. It showed participants how the Spotlite Design Challenge addresses information literacy standards for state and national library and media specialists. The Spotlite Design Challenge invites students to work in teams to produce videos addressing science misconceptions and show other students how to set up and conduct scientific investigations. Selected NASA Spotlite videos are made available on the NASA eClips website.
To learn more about NASA eClips, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov.
NASA eClips and Partners Host STEM Exploration Community Event Highlighting James Webb Space Telescope
The National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Center for Integrative STEM Education (CISE) Educators Joan Harper-Neely (STEM Education Specialist) and Betsy McAllister (Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence) partnered with Hampton City and Newport News Public Schools, Brooks Crossing Innovation and Opportunity Center (BCIOC), the City of Newport News, Old Dominion University, and Virginia Space Grant Consortium to plan and implement a STEM community event highlighting the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The STEM Exploration Community Event, held Nov. 6, 2021, at BCIOC, was one of the estimated 500 official national events to celebrate the upcoming launch of NASA’s next great space science observatory.
Sharon Bowers (Senior STEM Educator) and NASA’s Langley Research Center interns Kim Nichols and Kamaria Horton staffed the NASA eClips exhibit, sharing eClips resources with more than 256 middle school students and their families. They engaged participants in creating star life cycle bracelets that illustrate the journeys of Sun-like and massive stars. Joan Harper-Neely mentored students from Hampton City School’s Brave Hearts. This organization works with middle school girls from underrepresented and underserved populations, as they led attendees in making a pinwheel of the Pinwheel Galaxy through the NASA Space Place “Make a Pinwheel Galaxy Pinwheel” activity.
Attendees used the Brooks Crossing computer lab to watch the videos Launchpad “Cryogenics – The Cold Hard Facts,” Launchpad “Life Cycle of a Star,” Launchpad “Engineering Design to Support Scientific Discovery,” and Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Center Chief Technologist – Julie Williams-Byrd.”
Featured speakers included Julie Williams-Byrd (Center Chief Technologist at NASA’s Langley Research Center), Chris Long (Flight Systems Engineering Manager for the James Webb Space Telescope at the Space Telescope Science Institute), and former NASA mathematician, data analyst, aeronautical engineer, and Congressional Gold Medal awardee Dr. Christine Mann Darden.
Resources:
To watch Launchpad “Cryogenics – The Cold Hard Facts,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/launchpad/launchpad-cryogenics-the-cold-hard-facts.
To watch Launchpad “Engineering Design to Support Scientific Discovery,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/launchpad/launchpad-engineering-design-to-support-scientific-discovery.
To watch Launchpad “Life Cycle of a Star,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/launchpad/launchpad-life-cycle-of-a-star.
To watch Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Center Chief Technologist – Julie Williams-Byrd,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/videosingular/asksme/center-chief-technologist-julie-williams-byrd.
To view the NASA Space Place Pinwheel Galaxy Pinwheel activity, please visit: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/pinwheel-galaxy/en/.
To view the NASA/MAD Science Seeing Starlight with the James Webb Space Telescope, please visit: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/education/SeeingStarlightMadScience.8.11.21.pdf.
NIA Hosts Q&A Session for 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition
On Nov. 15, 2021, the National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Program Team hosted a virtual Question & Answer (Q&A) Session for those interested in participating in the 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition via Cisco Webex Meetings. Challenge staff sent invitations to teams that completed an Expression of Interest (EOI) by the Oct. 31, 2021 deadline. Teams were also given the opportunity to submit any questions about each of this year’s four categories in advance to the Program Team and Steering Committee.
Thirty-two participants (students, faculty advisors, program staff, and Steering Committee members) attended, and 18 pre-submitted questions were answered during the session. FAA Challenge Chairman Edward Marciano, members of the Steering Committee, and Jon Schleifer, Manager of the Research & Development Management Division at the FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center, provided in-depth backgrounds of each category to engage the potential participants further.
To be considered for the competition, teams must submit a Project Plan Proposal by 11:59 PM ET, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022.
To view full details about the competition, please visit the FAA Challenge Website: https://faachallenge.nianet.org/.
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Virtual Forum and Challenge Winners
One of NASA’s Artemis Student Challenges, the 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge was presented as a 2-day virtual forum on November 17-18, 2021. Seven finalist teams from nine universities presented their research results and results of year-long testing of innovative concepts that demonstrated lunar dust mitigation technology needed to facilitate space exploration missions in the Artemis Program, as lunar dust is highly abrasive and can damage things, including spacesuits, equipment, spacecraft and habitats.
NIA’s Higher Education Challenges team (Shelley Spears, Stacy Dees, Victoria O’Leary, and Janice Miller) and NIA’s Media and Communication Group (Robin Ford, Jim Lucas and David Shelton) supported the forum. One hundred forty-four (144) individuals (students, faculty advisors, NASA/industry representatives, and NIA program staff) participated in the event, with 129 students and faculty members actively participating in the competition on finalist teams throughout the academic year. Each team was evaluated on a pre-recorded video presentation, technical paper, technical poster, and Q&A session with the judges.
The program welcomed NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy to the Closing Awards Ceremony on Nov. 18. Together with NASA STMD Associate Administrator Jim Reuter, she congratulated teams for 18 months of innovative work. NASA’s STMD Deputy Associate Administrator of Programs Walt Engelund, and Kris Brown, NASA Deputy Associate Administrator for STEM Engagement, made introductory and welcome remarks to teams and the public at the Virtual Forum opening via the Livestream broadcast on Nov. 17.
Awardees of the 2021 BIG Idea Challenge:
- Best Human Factors Design
- Georgia Institute of Technology
- Best Collaboration and Systems Engineering
- Colorado School of Mines
- Most Creative Concept
- Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design
- Best Subsystem Design
- Missouri University of Science and Technology
- Best Product Development
- California Institute of Technology
- Best Technical Poster
- University of Central Florida
- Best Technical Paper
- Washington State University
The most prestigious award of the 2021 BIG Idea Challenge, the Artemis Award, was given by STMD Associate Administrator Reuter to Washington State University for excellence in innovation with an elegant and creative solution to a complex technical challenge. The award recognizes their project, “Leidenfrost Dusting as a Novel Tool for Lunar Dust Mitigation,” as having the best potential to contribute to and be integrated into an Artemis mission, showing methodological and rigorous testing through 522 trials that proved the technology to be very effective. Judges noted that it is a completely new method of removing dust that NASA has not explored, and the team showed the technique to be viable in real-world situations. They found the project a truly innovative, game-changing concept with a solid path to flight.
Student presentations were live-streamed and archived online: https://livestream.com/viewnow/bigideachallenge.
To view the 2021 BIG Idea Challenge presentations, posters, and technical papers, please visit: https://bigidea.nianet.org/2021-challenge/2021-forum-results/.
To read NASA’s feature Story, Washington State University Conquers Lunar Dust With BIG Idea Dust Mitigation Concept” please visit: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/washington-state-university-conquers-lunar-dust-with-big-idea-dust-mitigation-concept.
BIG Idea Challenge Website: http://bigidea.nianet.org.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Presents Papers at SC'21 and MCHPC'21
Dr. Christopher Stone, a Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), presented “Accelerating unstructured-grid CFD algorithms on NVIDIA and AMD GPUs” during the Irregular Applications Algorithms and Architectures (IA^3) workshop, which is part of the Supercomputing 2021 (SC’21) conference. Co-authors include Aaron Walden (LaRC), Eric Nielsen (LaRC) and Mohammad Zubiar (ODU).
Dr. Stone was also co-author on the presentation of “Memory Optimizations for Sparse Linear Algebra on GPU Hardware,” by Aaron Walden (LaRC), Mohammad Zubair (ODU), Christopher P. Stone (NIA), and Eric Nielsen (LaRC), at the Memory-centric High-Performance Computing workshop (MCHPC’21) at SC’21.
Week Ending Nov 5, 2021
NIA Receives 20 Expressions of Interest for 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition
Twenty eligible teams submitted an Expression of Interest (EOI) to participate in the 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition. Sponsored by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and managed by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), the FAA Challenge invites U.S.-based undergraduate and/or graduate student teams to design, build, and test smart technology that could improve the traveler’s transportation experiences and the efficiency of the national aviation ecosystem. Through this year’s competition, the FAA seeks innovative ideas that take advantage of a future info-centric National Airspace System (NAS) that will benefit all users in the following four categories:
- Commercial Air Transportation
- General Aviation
- Emerging Operations
- Traveling Public
EOI submissions were received from 16 academic institutions:
- Aims Community College
- Arizona State University
- Elizabeth City State University
- Georgia Institute of Technology (4 Submissions)
- Hampton University
- Howard University
- Jackson State University
- Liberty University
- Morgan State University
- Purdue University
- Texas Tech University
- The Citadel (2 Submissions)
- University of California, Irvine
- University of Cincinnati
- University of Pennsylvania
- Vanderbilt University
To view full details about the competition, information on this year’s judges, and a detailed timeline, please visit the FAA Challenge Website: https://faachallenge.nianet.org.
Week Ending Oct. 29, 2021
2022 RASC-AL Competition Question and Answer Session
The National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) and NASA hosted an online Question and Answer Session with the program sponsors for teams interested in participating in the 2022 RASC-AL Competition on Thursday, Oct. 28, 2021.
Fifty-five (55) teams received invitations to participate, submitting more than 150 questions in advance. NIA’s RASC-AL Program Team compiled these into a summary document provided to teams, complete with answers from Patrick Troutman and Christopher Jones, RASC-AL Competition Sponsors from NASA’s Langley Research Center. Together, the NIA Program Team and RASC-AL Program Sponsors highlighted questions to be expounded upon during the live Q&A Session and compiled them into a visual chart deck for the webinar. During the Q&A, Patrick Troutman and Christopher Jones responded to technical questions, while Stacy Dees (Program Manager) answered programmatic questions. Victoria O’Leary (Senior Program Coordinator) hosted the webinar.
The 2022 RASC-AL themes address elements required to move Moon exploration missions forward with Mars in mind:
- Portable Utility Pallet
- Universal Sample Containment System
- Mars Water-based ISRU Architecture
- SuitPort Logistics Carrier (SPLC)
In celebration of its 20th year (postponed due to COVID-19), teams are invited to develop prototypes of their concepts to demonstrate at the annual RASC-AL Forum in Cocoa Beach, Florida in June 2022.
A summary document and audio recording of the Q&A Session will be posted on the FAQs Page of the RASC-AL website (http://rascal.nianet.org/faqs) the first week in November.
52 University Teams Invited to Participate in 2022 BIG Idea Challenge Question and Answer Session
Teams interested in participating in the 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge attended an online Question and Answer session on October 26, 2021, hosted by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) Program Team and the Challenge Steering Committee Chair and members.
Fifty-two (52) teams submitted Notices of Intent (NOIs) prior to the Q&A Session, and subsequently received invitations to attend the webinar. The NOI deadline is rolling until the first program deliverable, the Jan. 18, 2022 proposal and video deadline.
Teams submitted more than 90 questions in advance. NIA’s BIG Idea Program Team compiled these into a summary document provided to teams, complete with answers provided by the BIG Idea Challenge Steering Committee at large and finalized by Challenge Steering Committee Chairman Dr. Adrian Stoica (JPL). For the webinar, the NIA Team created a visual chart deck of questions that were answered live by Dr. Adrian Stoica (JPL) and judge Kevin Kempton (LaRC) with input from additional judges in attendance. NIA Program Manager Stacy Dees answered programmatic questions while NIA Senior Program Coordinator Victoria O’Leary hosted.
The 2022 Challenge features Extreme Terrain Mobility solutions, with competition guidelines intentionally left open-ended to encourage a wide array of concepts. Robotic solutions will incorporate new mobility solutions to navigate extreme terrain such as:
- Fluffy/high-porosity regolith expected at the lunar poles
- Steep, rugged slopes (state of the art for a wheeled rover is ~30 degrees)
- Uneven terrain with possible ice content at the bottom of deep-shadowed craters
- Subterranean features, such as caves, lava tubes, and pits
Between 5 – 10 finalist teams will be selected in February 2022 to receive funding (in the range of $50-$180K) to build and test their technologies. These teams will be invited to present their verification testing results to NASA and industry judges at the 2022 BIG Idea Forum, currently scheduled for November 15-18, 2022, in Pasadena, CA.
LaRC’s Game Changing Development (GCD) Program and NASA’s Office of STEM Engagement (Space Grant Program) sponsor the BIG Idea Challenge, supporting efforts to engage university students in rapidly maturing innovative / high-impact capabilities and technologies for infusion in a broad array of future NASA missions. Participating university teams must be affiliated with their state’s Space Grant Consortium (or have partnered with an affiliated school).
The 52 eligible NOI submissions received to date are from the following schools across 26 states/territories (partnering universities in blue, partnering industry in red):
- Arizona State University
- Auburn University
- California Institute of Technology
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (x2) Minority Serving Institution: HSI
- California State University, Fullerton with the University of California, Irvine and JPL Minority Serving Institution: AANAPISI, HSI
- Capitol Technology University
- Colorado School of Mines (x2)
- Colorado State University
- Columbia University in the City of New York
- Dartmouth College
- Drexel University
- Florida State University
- Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering
- Georgia Institute of Technology (x2)
- Iowa State University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Michigan Technological University
- Mississippi State University
- North Carolina State University
- Northeastern University
- Northeastern University, with the University of California, Berkeley
- Rowan University
- South Dakota School of Mines and Technology
- South Dakota State University (x3)
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- Temple University
- Texas A&M University (x2)
- University at Buffalo – The State University of New York
- University of Central Florida (x3) Minority Serving Institution: HSI
- University of Cincinnati
- University of Connecticut
- University of Kentucky
- University of Maryland, College Park
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- University of Nevada, Las Vegas Minority Serving Institution: AANAPISI, HSI
- University of Pittsburgh (x2)
- University of Southern California
- University of Texas at Austin (x2)
- University of Utah
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Minority Serving Institution: AANAPISI
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (x2)
Full competition details, information on judges, and a full detailed timeline can also be found on the BIG Idea Challenge Website: https://bigidea.nianet.org.
Week Ending Oct. 22, 202
NASA eClips Advisory Boards Provide Feedback on VALUE Bundles
Educators from the National Institute of Aerospace’s Center For Integrative STEM Education (NIA-CISE) Dr. Sharon Bowers (Senior STEM Educator), Joan Harper-Neely (STEM Education Specialist), Betsy McAllister (Educator-in-Residence), along with external evaluator Bradford Davey (Technology for Learning Consortium) hosted two virtual focus group discussions with several members of the NASA eClips Advisory Boards to solicit feedback on their Varied & Accessible Learning Resources for Universal Engagement (VALUE) Bundles.
VALUE Bundles, envisioned and originated in 2019, are carefully curated and organized NASA eClips and partner resources that focus on a particular topic. The engaging resources that make up these thematic bundles are designed to meet the needs of a wide variety of learners. Utilizing guiding principles from the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework, VALUE Bundles provide “voice and choice,” allowing students to explore a topic in their preferred learning style.
Eight Advisory Board members joined the virtual focus group discussions to provide recommendations on how the VALUE Bundles could be enhanced for use by formal and nonformal educators. Advisory Board members unable to attend the virtual sessions contributed their suggestions through a survey. Board members compared the formats of earlier VALUE Bundles such as Sound to newly designed Bundles such as Earth’s Moon and Magnets.
To view the collection of NASA eClips VALUE Bundles, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/resources/valuebundle.
To view The UDL Guidelines from the Universal Design for Learning, please visit: https://udlguidelines.cast.org.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Publishes Article and Presents at NATO STO AVT-346
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzalez, a Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), recently published “Recurrent Neural Network for End-to-End Modeling of Laminar-Turbulent Transition” in Data-Centric Engineering, along with co-authors M. Zafar, M. Choudhari, and H. Xiao.
Dr. Paredes Gonzalez also presented “Boundary layer Instabilities in Cone-Cylinder-Flar and Cone-Flare Wind-Tunnel Configurations,” co-authored by A. Scholten, M. Choudhari, and F. Li, during the NATO STO AVT-346 Technical Team Meeting. The meeting was held virtually Oct. 18-19, 2021.
Week Ending Oct. 15, 2021
NIA Senior Research Engineer Serves as Lead Instructor for AIAA Short Course
Dr. Xiaowen Wang, Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), AIAA Associate Fellow and Education Subcommittee chair of AIAA Thermophysics Technical Committee, led the Hypersonic Applications: Physical Models for Interdisciplinary Simulation online short course, along with three AIAA committee members. Fifty-eight domestic and international students attended the two-week course.
The course focused on understanding physical characteristics of high-enthalpy hypersonic flows, hypersonic numerical simulation, internal energy excitations, non-equilibrium chemical kinetics, transport properties, energy relaxations, radiative heat transfer, weakly ionized gases, and surface ablation. The short course was held Sept. 15–24, 2021.
NIA Senior Research Scientist Publishes Online Article in JGR Space Physics
Dr. Suleiman Baraka, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), recently published “The impact of Radial and Non-Radial IMF on the Earth’s Magnetopause Size, Shape, and Dawn-Dusk Asymmetry from Global 3D Kinetic Simulations” in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics.
In the article, Dr. Baraka, and co-authors, O. Le Contel (Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas), L. Ben-Jaffel (Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris), and W.B. Moore (NIA/Hampton University), investigate the effects of the orientation of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) on the magnetopause size, location, and shape by using a numerical technique that uses macro-ions and macro-electrons to mimic the real charged species and explicitly resolve their motion.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JA029528
NIA Research Scientist Completes First Spiral Wrap AOA Simulation Activity
The first spiral wrap of the Advanced Onboard Automation (AOA) Simulation activity has concluded. The AOA simulation is the High-Density Vertiplex (HDV) subproject’s first step toward supporting Remote Operations for Autonomous Missions (ROAM).
The purpose of this activity was to verify system-in-test software, connectivity, and human performance using a simulated environment to determine gaps and verify assumptions made regarding the HDV system-in-test design for the AOA spiral wrap. In support of this, a human factors assessment of ROAM was conducted during the AOA Simulation to evaluate if workstation configurations and display elements provide adequate situation awareness, facilitate manageable workload levels, and that operators appropriately trust automated aids.
James Unverricht, a Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), was an integral part of the simulation, planning, administering, and executing the human factors portion throughout the study. With the conclusion of data collection, Unverricht and his team will now gather and clean all data collected before performing planned and exploratory analyses.
Week Ending Oct. 8, 2021
2022 NEW Gateways to Blue Skies: Airports of Tomorrow Competition Announced
On Oct. 5, 2021, NIA and NASA officially announced an all-new Gateways to Blue Skies: Airports of Tomorrow competition, a university-level research and design challenge in which undergraduate and graduate teams will conceptualize infrastructure updates and overhauls to airport exteriors to accommodate technology advancements expected in the push towards climate-friendly aviation and new emerging aviation markets of the future. The challenge is designed to engage as many university students as possible at all levels of education – freshman to graduate – in ARMD’s body of research on sustainable aviation technologies.
Teams of 2-6 will submit a 5–7-page research paper, create an infographic that summarizes the design, and record a video that highlights and enhances the proposed concept. In a March-to-April selection process, up to eight teams will have the opportunity to earn a $6,000 stipend to present their concepts in person during the June 2022 Blue Skies Forum in Hampton, VA. Up to six internships will be available to members of the winning team through NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.
A Notice of Intent is due Oct. 25, 2021, with proposals due March 3, 2022.
The 2022 Blue Skies Competition is sponsored by NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate’s University Innovation Project.
NASA feature story: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/airports-of-tomorrow-is-the-focus-of-new-nasa-competition
Blue Skies Website: http://blueskies.nianet.org
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Accomplishes T3 Project Milestone
Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), accomplished a T3 project milestone with the release of a perception metric tool outside of NASA. The noise produced by machines could adversely impact those exposed to it. With the advent of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and Unmanned Air (UA) vehicles there is a concern about the operation of these vehicles close to the public and the impact of their noise. This milestone captures the completion and release of computer code (a library of routines) to enable an analysis of noise by UAM and UA vehicles during their design. As such it will enable assessment of noise intrinsic to the design and operation of these vehicles while saving time and resources associated with the development of the vehicles.
NIA Principal Engineer Visits Sikorsky Aircraft
On Oct. 5, along with several NASA civil servants and other contractors, Dr. David Karr, Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), made a site visit to the Sikorsky manufacturing plant at their headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut. During the visit, Dr. Karr spoke with Sikorsky engineers and viewed a demonstration of the Sikorsky Autonomy Research Aircraft (SARA), a modified S-76B helicopter. NASA plans to use SARA as a research platform for various aspects of Advanced Air Mobility, including efforts in Flight Path Management.
On Oct. 6 the same group continued with a technical interchange in the nearby town of Trumbull, CT, concerning the use of SARA in AAM flight testing.
Week Ending Oct. 1, 2021
NIA and FAA Launch the 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition
On Sept. 30, 2021, the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) launched the 2022 FAA Challenge: Smart Connected Aviation Student Competition. Open to undergraduate and graduate students of U.S.-based colleges and universities, the competition recognizes students with the ability to demonstrate innovative thinking focused on improving the efficiency and effectiveness of smart technology in and around the airport environment while enhancing the overall traveling experience.
The FAA is developing a vision for an info-centric National Airspace System (NAS). Full connectivity will come from infrastructure supporting NAS operations that enable all systems to share data. This ubiquitous system-to-system communication can be used to share location and intent information across vehicles, subsystems, and Air Traffic Management stakeholders from airspace users to airports. This year’s challenge seeks innovative ideas from the academic community that take advantage of a future info-centric NAS (including connected aircraft) that will benefit NAS users in four categories:
- Commercial Air Transportation
- General Aviation
- Emerging Operations
- Traveling Public
Four Finalist Teams will receive a $10,000 development award and a monetary travel stipend to facilitate full participation in the FAA Challenge Forum to be held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The overall winner of the challenge will receive an additional $15,000 cash prize.
Expressions of Interest are due Oct. 15, 2021, with Project Plan Proposals due Jan. 20, 2022.
For full details about this year’s challenge, please visit the FAA Challenge Website at https://faachallenge.nianet.org.
2021 RASC-AL Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge Onsite Forum
NASA’s 2021 RASC-AL Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting (MMIP) Challenge was held at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, VA, from Sept. 23–25, 2021, where university teams tested prototypes that could extract water and assess subsurface density profiles from a simulated off-world testbed environment during the competition. The competition was initially planned for June 2021 but was rescheduled due to COVID-19.
To best mimic Martian and lunar subsurfaces in this ISRU challenge, the test stations, 4-foot tall commercial fishing coolers, were layered with alternating 20”-thick blocks of ice, 8”-thick Aircrete Slabs, 5” of sand mixed with river rock, and 2″ of pitcher’s mound clay. Over two days, teams competed to extract as much water from their testbeds as possible. They were also required to submit 15-page technical papers and display posters on their system’s path-to-flight (i.e., how their systems would be modified for use on the moon and/or Mars).
Prizes were awarded as follows:
- First Place ($6,000 Prize), Most Water Collected (24,335 mL) and Best Digital Poster – MIT with HYDRATION III: High Yield Dihydrogen-monoxide RetrievalAnd Terrain Identification On New worlds
- Second Place ($4,000 Prize) and Best Technical Paper – Northeastern University
- Lightest System Mass: University of Pittsburgh, 89.84 pounds (40.75 kilograms)
- Most Innovative Concept: University of Pittsburgh
- Most Accurate Digital Core: California Polytechnic Institute
- Clearest Water: South Dakota State University
NASA Feature Story Announcing 2021 MMIP Challenge Winners: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/university-teams-demonstrate-cool-new-technologies-for-the-moon-mars
NASA Science Live conducted a live, one-hour broadcast of the challenge on Friday, Sept. 24. The story has had nearly 240,000 views across three social media platforms.
The FY21 Challenge was sponsored by STMD at HQ, SMD at HQ, Office of the Chief Technologist, and HEOMD/SACD at LaRC, and received additional onsite volunteer support from LaRC’s SMAB. Several industry companies also offered in-kind, monetary, or onsite support for the challenge, including Aercon AAC, Honeybee Robotics, and Pancopia.
2021 Onsite Competing Teams:
- Auburn University
- California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Northeastern University
- San Diego State University
- South Dakota State University
- Stevens Institute of Technology
- Texas A&M University
- University of Pittsburgh
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
The 2021 Steering Committee for this competition included Benjamin Galke, Sharon Jeffries, Christopher Jones, Kevin Kempton, Robert Moses, and Lemuel Carpenter from NASA LaRC; Gerald Sanders from NASA JSC; Stephen Hoffman from Aerospace Corporation; Kris Zacny and Dean Bergman from Honeybee Robotics; and Keith Nicewarner from SpaceX. Shelley Spears represented the National Institute of Aerospace as Program Director, Stacy Dees as Program Manager, and Victoria O’Leary/Janice Kurbjun-Miller as Program Coordinators.
Week Ending Sept. 10, 2021
NASA eClips Interns Support Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve Summer Camp 2021
The NASA eClips Summer Interns supported 18 learners ages 10-12 attending the summer camp at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas (GTM) National Estuarine Research Reserve in Ponte Vedra Beach, FL. The Adventures in the Estuary and Ecology Summer Camps immerses campers into the four different ecosystems at GTM: beach, ocean, estuary, and forest. Each week campers were engaged in environmentally exciting educational activities and lessons to develop the knowledge needed to create a NASA Spotlite video. NASA Spotlites are short (90-120 second) student-produced videos designed to address science misconceptions. Summer Interns, who are communications and digital media majors, met with learners on the first day of camp to explain the NASA Spotlite Video Design Challenge and provide tips for filming and editing. The Interns held client meetings with the eight teams of campers throughout the week to review and give feedback on their videos and helped them problem-solve filming and editing issues.
To learn more about NASA Spotlites and NASA eClips resources, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
NASA STEM Engagement and Educator Professional Development Collaborative and NASA eClips Conduct Educator Webinar
Dr. Barbie Buckner, Educator Professional Development Specialist, and Dr. Sharon Bowers, NASA eClips Senior STEM Educator, presented NASA STEM: Science and Engineering – Similar, but Different to 27 participants on Aug. 5, 2021, as part of the Texas State University NASA STEM Engagement and Educator Professional Development Collaborative (EPDC) series.
Dr. Bowers and Dr. Buckner guided educators to compare the Nature of Science (NOS) and the Engineering Design Process (EDP) and explore how these processes can be integrated into classrooms and/or nonformal learning environments. Participants discovered how to engage their students to think and act like scientists and engineers through NASA and NASA eClips resources that were shared. Participants were also introduced to current and future NASA explorations that can be used to help bring real-world STEM experiences to learners.
Dr. Bowers guided participants through a comparison of the Scientific Method and the EDP to highlight similarities and differences in the processes. Participants also considered the process skills identified in the Science and Engineering Practices (SEP) of the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and those used in other disciplines, identifying the significant overlap that exists between processes applied across the disciplines. Dr. Bowers used the NASA eClips video Real World “The Nature of Science” to help participants envision the Nature of Science as an attitude rather than a series of steps to follow. Participants also explored NASA eClips Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert videos, reviewing the Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Dr. Nicholeen Viall – Research Astrophysicist” to see how this collection can help students make career connections and see themselves in the role of scientist or engineer.
Dr. Bowers walked participants through the recently revised and soon-to-be-released Elementary and Secondary Engineering Design Packets using NASA’s Our World: Designing a Shower Clock Educator Guideas an example. This Engineering Design Packet can be used with any engineering challenge to guide students through the iterative design process.
Dr. Buckner compared the EDP in the NASA eClips Engineering Design Packets to other EDPs, such as both the initial and revised NASA’s Beginning Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST) models and NASA’s JPL model. She introduced participants to a plethora of NASA resources for bringing engineering design into the learning environment to provide hands-on learning and assess learners’ skills and knowledge in nontraditional ways. The resources shared include:
- NASA’s BEST Educator Guides to the Engineering Design Process
- NASA’s BEST Next Generation Activity Guides to Technology Demonstration Missions (Grades 6-8)
- NASA BEST Engineering Design Process YouTube Playlist and NASA Engineering Design Challenges YouTube Playlist
- NASA’s JPL engineering resources
- NASA’s Glenn Research Center Engineering Design Challenges
Dr. Buckner and Dr. Bowers also shared ways to engage learners in current and future NASA ventures through NASA Citizen Science and Artemis Student Challenges.
All resources shared during the webinar can be found at this Live Binder link: https://www.livebinders.com/b/2827822
To watch the video, “Real World ‘The Nature of Science,'” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-the-nature-of-science.
To watch the video Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Dr. Nicholeen Viall – Research Astrophysicist,” please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/videosingular/asksme/research-astrophysicist-dr-nicholeen-viall.
To view the Our World: Designing a Shower Clock Educator Guide, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/resources/download/60.
NASA eClips Releases New Ask SME Video Resources Featuring NASA Harvest Subject Matter Experts
NASA eClips collaborated with NASA Harvest to create educational resources focusing on agriculture. Among these new resources are three new Ask SME videos highlighting NASA Harvest scientists who use Earth-observing satellite data to monitor the relationship between the Earth systems and the health of the crops. The information is used to help strengthen global food security and support market stability.
In Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Dr. Inbar Becker-Reshef – Program Director,” Dr. Becker-Reshef describes her journey and how her travels as a child helped her choose a career in science over her passion for art. She shares how cameras on satellites provide data to help farmers and agricultural leaders grow more food and work toward food security worldwide.
In Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Dr. Hannah Kerner – Artificial Intelligence Lead,” Dr. Kerner shares her experiences in writing code and developing machine learning algorithms that enable NASA satellites to monitor where food is grown. She describes how her hobbies of hiking, scuba diving, and volunteering intersect with her work.
In Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Dr. Catherine Nakalembe – Remote Sensing Scientist,” Dr. Nakalembe shares her passion for helping farmers worldwide using NASA satellites to monitor crops from space to increase sustainability. She also describes how her love for hiking, photography, and travel supports her work.
To view the collection of Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert videos, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/careerconnection.
To learn more about NASA eClips resources, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
NASA eClips Releases New Ask SME Video Featuring Dr. Danny Glavin
NASA eClips has added a new video, Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert, “Dr. Danny Glavin – Astrobiologist,” to its resource collection. This video is an opportunity for viewers to “meet” Dr. Glavin from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. This video provides a behind-the-scenes glimpse of his interests and NASA career journey. He shares his travel experiences to help students visualize places where people in STEM careers work and how communication is an essential part of his job.
To view the collection of Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert videos, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/careerconnection.
To learn more about NASA eClips resources, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
NASA eClips and NASA’s Langley Research Center Science Directorate Educators Partner with Hampton City Schools
National Institute of Aerospace’s Center for Integrative STEM Education (NIA-CISE) Educators partnered with NASA’s Langley Research Center (LaRC) Science Directorate Educators and Hampton City School (HCS) teachers and administrators to incorporate NASA eClips and Elementary GLOBE resources into Hampton City School’s third-grade science and English/language arts (ELA) curricula. Hampton City Schools serves a diverse student population (60% Black, 23% White, 8% two or more races, 7% Hispanic, 2% Asian). All third-grade students (approximately 1,500) will benefit from the implementation of the Elementary GLOBE Earth Systems Module during the first nine weeks of school.
Dr. Sharon Bowers (NIA’s Senior STEM Educator) and Betsy McAllister (NIA’s Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence and STEM Teacher Specialist) began planning for the collaboration in 2019 with Jessica Taylor (NASA’s LaRC Science Education Team Lead), Tina Harte (NASA’s LaRC Senior Education Specialist Team Lead), and Angela Rizzi (NASA GLOBE Education Outreach Specialist), as well as numerous teachers and curriculum leaders from HCS. The implementation start was postponed until the 2021-2022 academic year due to complications surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Aug. 30, 2021, Rizzi and Elizabeth Joyner (NASA Senior Education Specialist) engaged 69 third grade teachers in Best Practices for integrating the Elementary GLOBE Earth Systems Module resources into their classrooms through an interactive virtual professional development. HCS teacher participants explored the Elementary GLOBE website and the Earth System Module. They were introduced to NASA eClips videos, such as the Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Astrobiologist – Dr. Danny Glavin,” that are linked in the HCS science and ELA curricula.
Teachers will be trained in the spring of 2022 to implement the Elementary GLOBE Soils Module during the fourth nine weeks of the school year. Additional training will take place in the summer of 2022 for third-grade teachers interested in learning how to collect cloud data with their students. In subsequent years, teachers in other grades will be trained on how to implement GLOBE and related NASA eClips learning experiences with students.
This work is supported under NASA eClips 4D and GLOBE Mission Earth, part of NASA’s Science Activation.
To view the Elementary GLOBE Earth System Module (storybook All About Earth: Our World on Stage and activities), please visit https://www.globe.gov/web/elementary-globe/overview/earth-system.
To view the Elementary GLOBE Teacher Implementation Guide, please visit https://www.globe.gov/web/elementary-globe/overview/teacher-implementation-guide.
To view the NASA eClips Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert “Astrobiologist – Dr. Danny Glavin,” please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/videosingular/asksme/astrobiologist-dr-danny-glavin.
To view the NASA eClips Real World “Earth Systems” video, please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-earth-systems.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Publishes and Presents During AIAA Aviation and ICTAM
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzalez, a Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), published four conference proceedings for the virtual 2021 AIAA Aviation Forum and presented “Hypersonic Boundary-Layer Transition on Blunted Cones at Angle of Attack.” Dr. Paredes Gonzalez also presented “Toward Physics-Based Transition Modeling for Subsonic to Hypersonic Boundary Layers” during the International Congress of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (ICTAM) 2020+1.
Conference Proceedings
- Paredes, P., Choudhari, M., Li, F. “Hypersonic Boundary-Layer Transition on Blunted Cones at Angle of Attack,” AIAA AVIATION 2021 Forum, Virtual, USA, 7 – 11 June 2021. AIAA 2021-2886.
- Li, F., Choudhari, M., Paredes, P., “Transition Analysis for Isolated Trips on BOLT-II Wind-Tunnel and Flight Configurations,” AIAA AVIATION 2021 Forum, Virtual, USA, 7 – 11 June 2021. AIAA 2021-2905.
- Hildebrand, N., Mysore, P., Choudhari, M., Paredes, P., “Modeling the Effects of a Backward-Facing Step on Boundary-Layer Transition,” AIAA AVIATION 2021 Forum, Virtual, USA, 7 – 11 June 2021. AIAA 2021-2944.
- Venkatachari, B., Paredes, P., Choudhari, M., Li, F., Chang, C.-L., “Pretest Computational Assessment of Boundary Layer Transition in the NASA Juncture Flow Model with a NACA 0015-Based Wing”, AIAA AVIATION 2021 Forum, Virtual, 7 – 11 June 2021. AIAA 2021-2502.
Presentations
- Paredes, P., Choudhari, M., Li, F. “Hypersonic Boundary-Layer Transition on Blunted Cones at Angle of Attack,” AIAA AVIATION 2021 Forum, Virtual, 7 – 11 June 2021. AIAA 2021-2886.
- Paredes, P., Venkatachi, B., Choudhari, M., Li, F., Hildebrand, N., Chang, C.-L., Zafar, M., Xiao, H. “Toward Physics-Based Transition Modeling for Subsonic to Hypersonic Boundary Layers,” ICTAM 2020+1, Virtual, Aug 22-27, 2021.
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Publishes Paper in Journal of the Audio Engineering Society: Audio/Acoustics/Applications
Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), published “An Algorithm for Statistical Audibility Prediction (SAP) of an Arbitrary Signal in the Presence of Noise” in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society, co-authored by Kyle Wendling, NIFS intern. The paper, published Sept. 3, 2021, describes a method for predicting the audibility of an arbitrary time-varying noise (signal) in the presence of masking noise.
Week Ending Aug. 6, 2021
2022 BIG Idea Challenge – Official Announcement
On Aug. 3, 2021, NASA and NIA announced the 2022 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-changing (BIG) Idea Challenge, a collegiate-level design competition that invites multi-disciplinary teams to propose innovative ideas for a wide range of alternative rover locomotion modalities to either enhance or replace traditional wheeled mobility systems that can expand our access to extreme terrain on the Moon and (later) on Mars. Interested teams will submit proposals for non-traditional robotic assets with alternative modalities that could be achieved with rigid bodies, soft bodies, or morphing bodies. These modalities can include, but are not limited to:
- Walking on “legs”
- Slithering
- Tumbling
- Hopping
- Magnetic or electrostatic levitation
- Ballistically deployed
The 2022 BIG Idea Challenge is open to teams of up to 25 students from universities officially affiliated with their state’s Space Grant Consortium (or partnered with an affiliated school). 5 – 10 teams will be selected to build their proposed robotic systems and will be responsible for setting up and executing their own high-fidelity verification testing, based on what was described in the proposal. A wide range of award sizes is expected (up to $180,000), depending on the scope of the work proposed. Minority serving institutions are encouraged to apply. Students from finalist teams will be invited to the 2022 BIG Idea Forum, scheduled for mid-November 2022 in Pasadena, CA.
Notice of Intent Deadline: Sept.24, 2021
Entry Deadline: Jan. 18, 2022
The BIG Idea Challenge is a sponsored by NASA through a unique collaboration between the Space Technology Mission Directorate (Game Changing Development Program) and the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Project, and is managed by the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA).
Full competition details, including design constraints and submission guidelines, can also be found on the BIG Idea Challenge Website (http://bigidea.nianet.org/).
NIA Associate Principal Research Engineer Presents at Inter-Noise 2021 Conference
Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), presented a summary of work under the Revolutionary Vertical Life Technology (RVLT) project titled, “Community Noise Assessment of Urban Air Mobility Vehicle Operations Using the FAA Aviation Environmental Design Tool.” Rafaelof also presented on the outcome of collaboration with NASA Ames, “The AIRNOISE UAM Tool and Validation with FAA Environmental Design Tool”. Both presentations were held during the INTER-NOISE 2021 Conference, Aug. 1-5 in Washington, DC.
Stephen A. Rizzi and Rafaelof Menachem, “Community noise assessment of urban air mobility vehicle operations using the FAA Aviation Environmental Design Tool,” INTER-NOISE 2021, Aug 1-5, Washington DC, 2021.
Jinhua Li, Yun Zheng, Menachem Rafaelof, Hok Ng and Stephen A. Rizzi ” The AIRNOISEUAM Tool and Validation with FAA Aviation Environmental Design Tool,” INTER-NOISE 2021, Aug. 1-5, Washington DC, 2021.
Regional Air Mobility Research Presented at AIAA AVIATION Forum
THE GEORGIA TECH AEROSPACE SYSTEMS DESIGN LABORATORY (ASDL), UNDER THE DIRECTION OF LANGLEY PROFESSOR DR. DIMITRI MAVRIS, PRESENTED TWO PAPERS AT THE 2021 AIAA AVIATION FORUM THAT ARE RELATED TO RESEARCH ASDL HAS CONDUCTED FOR NASA LANGLEY. THE CITATIONS AND ABSTRACTS FOR THESE PAPERS ARE:
Justin, C.Y., Payan, A., and Mavris, D. “Demand Modeling and Operations Optimization for Advanced Regional Air Mobility,” DOI: 10.2514/6.2021-3179
Abstract:
Commuter operations refer to the transportation of passengers on small capacity aircraft over short distances. These services have historically been plagued by high operating costs, yielding marginally profitable operations. The recent convergence of new technologies in autonomy and electric propulsion brings a step change in aircraft operating efficiency which may significantly improve the economics and environmental footprint of these vehicles. The next challenge is to optimize operations to match the demand and best utilize these assets. To do so, forecasting the demand for these new services is critical. First, we develop a demand model based on an empirically-calibrated generalized cost of travel combined with a multinomial logit model. Next, we investigate the design of sustainable and profitable regional air mobility operations by optimizing the network, schedule, and assignment of aircraft to flights. We develop a novel half-leg half-itinerary mixed-integer linear program to solve the integrated flight scheduling and fleet assignment problem using a multi-objective hierarchical optimization balancing the maximization of operating profits and the minimization of operating emissions. This helps identify promising regional air mobility markets, assess their economical viability, and select an optimum fleet composition to best serve these markets. The proposed framework is implemented in the United States Northeast Corridor using a fleet of three small-gauge electrified aircraft ranging in size from 9 passengers to 48 passengers. Several what-if scenarios are investigated with respect to the battery technology, the relative importance of profit and carbon emission objectives, and the network topology to identify their impact on the operations in terms of number of profitable routes, number of airports served, number of passengers carried, operating profits and operating emissions. Results highlight a significant potential for profitable regional air mobility services that will dramatically improve the connectivity and reach of rural and under-served communities, provided efficient and environmentally friendly aircraft are used.
Ramírez, L.M., Decroix, J., Justin, C.Y., Payan, A., and Mavris, D., “Design and Operation Considerations for the Integration of Fleets of Regional Air Mobility Aircraft at Large Hubs,” DOI: 10.2514/6.2021-3178
Abstract:
Thin-haul and commuter aviation have mostly disappeared from the United States skies as regional airlines have focused in recent years on more profitable routes with larger volume, using aircraft with larger capacity and longer range. This has led to a progressive disappearance of these regional services despite the fact that there is, in aggregate, a significant demand for these. Many communities are now under-served and the existing airport infrastructure is under-utilized in many places. The emergence of many efficiency-related technologies may enable the development of new state-of-the-art electric and hybrid-electric aircraft. The objective of this research is to investigate the design of a fleet of regional aircraft of various capacities that can be seamlessly integrated at medium and large hubs. Congestion at hubs compounded with extended spacing requirements between small and large aircraft require the investigation of new concept of operations to integrate these new flights without disrupting existing traffic and without adversely impacting airport throughput capacity. This research describes various considerations and requirements to meet these objectives and proposes a fleet of four vehicles of 9-seat, 19-seat, 30-seat, and 48-seat capacity. The design exercise is articulated around three steps: the selection and modeling of baseline aircraft for advanced regional operations, the infusion of new technologies to represent aircraft with entry-into-service in 2040, the resizing of these 2040-aircraft to meet the requirements for future regional missions. Special attention is given to short take-off and landing capabilities in order to operate from shorter and under-used runways at large hubs. Preliminary estimates of vehicle performance, economics, and environmental footprint are provided.
Week Ending July 30, 2021
2022 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition Announced
On July 27, 2021, NIA and NASA officially announced the 2022 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkages (RASC-AL) Competition, a university-level design competition that provides undergraduate and graduate teams the opportunity to develop new concepts that leverage innovation to improve our ability to operate on the moon, Mars, and beyond. This year’s themes range from operations for extending mobility and enabling sample return on the Moon to large-scale in-situ resource utilization of water on Mars. The themes are:
- Portable Utility Pallet Theme
- Universal Sample Containment System Theme
- Mars Water-based ISRU Architecture Theme
- SuitPort Logistics Carrier (SPLC) Theme
Up to 15 teams will be invited to submit a technical paper and receive a $6,000 stipend to present their projects in person at a design review during the June 2022 RASC-AL Forum in Cocoa Beach, Florida. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the program, finalist teams will be encouraged to bring their concepts to life by building a prototype, which will be showcased at the culminating forum. The top two overall winning teams will receive a travel stipend to present their projects at a major aerospace conference.
Interested teams are asked to submit a 7-9-page proposal by March 1, 2022.
The 2022 RASC-AL Competition is sponsored by NASA’s Human Exploration Operations Mission Directorate’s Advanced Explorations System.
NASA feature story: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-opens-call-for-20th-annual-student-competition-to-design-space-exploration-concepts
RASC-AL Website: http://rascal.nianet.org/
Week Ending July 16, 2021
NIA-CISE Educators Challenge First Grade Engineers to Build and Test Paper Mars Helicopters
The National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Center for Integrative STEM Education (CISE) educators met virtually on June 18, 2021, with 70 first graders from Carver Elementary in Newport News, Va. Joan Harper-Neely, STEM Education Specialist, and Betsy McAllister, Hampton City School Educator-in-Residence at NIA asked students to think and work like NASA engineers to build and test different versions of paper Mars helicopters. Students learned that NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover carried the first helicopter to Mars. To be able to fly on Mars, the helicopter has to be lightweight with propeller blades that can rotate really fast so it can lift off the ground. Five classroom educators monitored the young engineers meeting in person and online as they tried to land their helicopters on the target. NASA eClips videos were shown for further explanations:
- Real World “Computer Simulations – Turning Complex Ideas Into Solvable Equations,” https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-computer-simulations-turning-complex-ideas-into-solvable-equations
- Our World “What Is a Solar System?,” https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/ourworld/our-world-what-is-a-solar-system.
NIA-CISE Educators Present NASA eClip Resources for Challenger Center’s Professional Development Institute
National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) Educators presented at the Mission Mars: A STEM Problem Based Learning Teacher Professional Development Institute on June 22, 2021, at the Children’s Museum of Virginia in Portsmouth, Va. Dr. Sharon Bowers (Senior STEM Educator), Joan Harper-Neely (STEM Specialist), and Betsy McAllister (Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence at NIA) from NIA’s Center for Integrative STEM Education (CISE) collaborated with Daniel Borick, Director of the Beazley Planetarium at the Children’s Museum, to plan an engaging professional development for Portsmouth Public School educators. Bowers, Harper-Neely, and McAllister engaged teachers as they prepared for, participated in, and extended learning as a part of the Challenger Center’s virtual mission Destination Mars.
BOWERS INTRODUCED THE SIX EDUCATORS TO THE NASA ECLIPS WEBSITE AND REPOSITORY OF EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES FOR USE IN THE GRADES 3-12 FORMAL CLASSROOM AND NONFORMAL SETTINGS. SHE DIVIDED THE EDUCATORS INTO THREE PRE-MISSION PREPARATION TEAMS: ROVER TEAM, RADIATION TEAM, AND SOLAR ENERGY TEAM, WHERE THEY EACH GAINED NECESSARY MISSION INFORMATION THROUGH WATCHING THE NASA ECLIPS VIDEOS Launchpad “CURIOSITY GOES TO MARS” (ROVER TEAM), Real World “SPACE WEATHER” (RADIATION TEAM), AND Real World “STS-119 BRINGS MORE POWER TO THE SPACE STATION” (SOLAR ENERGY TEAM). TEACHERS EXPERIENCED THE Destination Mars MISSION WITH CHALLENGER LEARNING CENTER OF MAINE’S FLIGHT DIRECTOR SARAH RAYMOND FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A STUDENT. RAYMOND GUIDED THE TEACHERS AS THEY DETERMINED WHETHER A HUMAN OUTPOST WOULD BE BETTER PLACED ON MARS’ MOONS, PHOBOS OR DEIMOS. HARPER-NEELY GUIDED PARTICIPANTS AS THEY EXTENDED THEIR MISSION LEARNING THROUGH THE VIRTUAL MISSION: DESTINATION MARS SPOTLITE CHALLENGE AND THE CREATION OF A SPOTLITE VIDEO. MCALLISTER SHARED RESOURCES THAT COULD BE USED TO HELP CONFRONT COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS. TEACHERS SET UP TWO DEMONSTRATIONS TARGETED AT CONFRONTING THE MISCONCEPTION THAT “MARS IS RED BECAUSE IT IS HOT.” SHE ALSO INTRODUCED TEACHERS TO NASA’S EYES ON THE SOLAR SYSTEM AS A WAY TO CONFRONT THE MISCONCEPTION “ALL PLANETS HAVE ONE MOON.”
NASA eClips and Challenger Center resources shared:
- NASA eClips website, please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
- Launchpad “Curiosity Goes to Mars,” https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/launchpad/launchpad-curiosity-goes-to-mars.
- Real World “Space Weather,” https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-space-weather.
- Real World “STS-119 Brings More Power to the Space Station,” https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-sts-119-brings-more-power-to-the-space-station.
- NASA eClips Virtual Mission Spotlite Design Challenge, https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/resources/sdchallenge/2.
- Challenger Center Virtual Missions,
https://www.challenger.org/what-we-do/virtual-missions/. - Destination Mars Teachers’ Guide,
https://www.challenger.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Destination-Mars-PrePost-TeacherGuide_FINAL.pdf
National Institute of Aerospace Develops Aviation-Themed Activities with North Carolina State’s College of Education for the Experimental Aircraft Association
Rebecca Jaramillo, Senior Communications Manager, and Dr. Sharon Bowers, Senior STEM Education Specialist, at the National Institute of Aerospace, have been working collaboratively with North Carolina State’s College of Education to develop K-12 aviation-themed activities for the Experimental Aircraft Association (EAA).
Jaramillo and Bowers created 24 activities, six activities each for grade bands K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Examples of lesson topics include how moving air creates lift (K-2), how nose cone shape affects drag (3-5), how jet engine noise can be reduced (6-8), and how the flight of airships can be controlled (9-12). The K-2 and 3-5 activities are being field tested with more than 400 students participating in a summer STEM Magnet program through the York County School Division in Yorktown Va. The activities will be introduced to educators at the EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wi., July 26 – Aug. 1, 2021. Following the summer field testing phase, EAA will post a registration link on their website where educators and parents can access the activities free of charge.
To explore the EAA website, please visit: https://www.eaa.org/eaa.
NIA Senior Research Scientists and NASA Researchers Organize PVS Tutorial for International Conference
Senior Researcher Scientists from the National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Formal Methods Team, Mariano Moscato, Paolo Masci, Marco Feliu, and NASA LaRC, Aaron Dutle, Tanner Slagel, organized a tutorial on the Prototype Verification System (PVS) at the 28th International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE-28). The tutorial introduced new users to PVS, which NASA uses for formal verification of airspace algorithms and concepts, highlighted many of the enhancements to PVS that NASA has enabled, including the NASALib library (https://github.com/nasa/pvslib) and the VSCode-PVS environment (https://github.com/nasa/vscode-pvs) created by the NIA Formal Methods Team. The participants attended virtual lectures prepared by the researchers, completed instructional exercises in real-time, and held discussions on proper use and best practices in using PVS for formal verification.
More information can be found at http://precisa.nianet.org/pvs-cade-2021/
Week Ending July 9, 2021
NIA Senior Research Scientist Lead Coordinator for Taal Volcano Activation for NASA Applied Science Disasters Program
Following recent volcanic activities at the Taal Volcano in Batangas, Philippines, Dr. Jean-Paul Vernier, Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), has been named lead coordinator of the event for the NASA Applied Science Disasters Program. Vernier will coordinate the response of the program related to the volcano across NASA centers and stakeholders including the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP).
For more information, visit: https://appliedsciences.nasa.gov/what-we-do/disasters/volcanoes.
Week Ending July 2, 2021
NIA Senior Research Scientist Co-Organizing CoSim-CPS 2021 Workshop
Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace, Dr. Paolo Masci, is co-organizing the 5th edition of the CoSim-CPS workshop on co-simulation of cyber-physical systems. The workshop will be held virtually on 6-10 December 2021, as a satellite event of the Software Engineering and Formal Methods (SEFM) conference. More information on the workshop can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/cosim-cps-2021.
NIA Senior Research Scientist Presents at 12th ITP Conference
Dr. Mariano Moscato, Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), presented the paper titled “Formal Verification of Termination Criteria for First-Order Recursive Functions” at the 12th International Conference on Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP) 2021. Co-authors include Cesar A. Muñoz (NASA Langley Research Center), Mauricio Ayala-Rincón (Departments of Computer Science and Mathematics, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil), Aaron M. Dutle (NASA Langley Research Center), Anthony J. Narkawicz (NASA Langley Research Center), Ariane A. Almeida (Department of Computer Science, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil), Andréia B. Avelar (Faculdade de Planaltina, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil), and Thiago M. Ferreira Ramos (Department of Computer Science, Universidade de Brasília, Brazil). ITP 2021 took place June 29 – July 1.
Abstract:
This paper presents a formalization of several termination criteria for first-order recursive functions. The formalization, which is developed in the Prototype Verification System (PVS), includes the specification and proof of equivalence of semantic termination, Turing termination, size change principle, calling context graphs, and matrix-weighted graphs. These termination criteria are defined on a computational model that consists of a basic functional language called PVS0, which is an embedding of recursive first-order functions. Through this embedding, the native mechanism for checking termination of recursive functions in PVS could be soundly extended with semi-automatic termination criteria such as calling contexts graphs.
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Completes L2 Milestone
With an objective to further develop a method to assess the acoustic impact of realistic UAM fleet operations on the community with an emphasis on the vertiport vicinity, Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), has completed the Gen 2 Fleet Noise Assessment (RVLT.02.03.L216). The Gen 1 fleet noise assessment (RVLT.02.03.L215) indicated the most significant noise impact was associated with takeoff and landing operations. The method developed for the Gen 1 assessment was further refined to focus on noise exposure in the vicinity of vertiports. Improved data management using Structured Query Language (SQL) is planned as part of the next assessment incorporating helicopter NPD modes. An abstract on the Gen 2 assessment has been submitted for presentation at the 2022 AIAA SciTech Forum.
Week Ending June 25, 2021
2021 FAA Challenge Virtual Forum & Winner
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – “Applying UAS for Wildlife Hazard Management at Airports”
- Hampton University – “Inspector Drover”
- Rowan University – “ARKE: The Situational Intelligence Platform for Rapid Emergency First Response”
NIA Principal Engineer to Present at AIAA Aviation Forum 2021
Dr. David Karr, Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), will be presenting “Initial Design Guidelines for Onboard Automation of Flight Path Management” at the ATM-03/ATOMS-16, Trajectory-Based Operations III session during the AIAA Aviation Forum virtual event Aug. 2-6, 2021. Co-authors include David Wing (NASA LaRC), Terique Barney (NASA LaRC), Timothy Etherington (AMA), and James Sturdy (KBR).
Week Ending June 11, 2021
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Mid-Project Review
On May 20, 2021, each of seven finalist teams in the 2021 Breakthrough, Innovative, and Game-Changing (BIG) Idea Challenge submitted a 5-8-page Mid-Project Report on their proposed concepts for the 2021 theme: Dust Mitigation Technologies for Lunar Applications. Reports detailed progress made on the design, analysis, and development of their concepts since it was first proposed in January 2021, including a safety plan as well as any impacts from COVID-19 schedule disruptions and timeline mitigation plans. From May 21-June 7, the BIG Idea Challenge Steering Committee reviewed the reports and provided written feedback to the teams about their submission. All teams ultimately successfully passed their review and will be awarded the 2nd and final installment stipend through their State’s Space Grant Consortium.
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Finalists:
- Brown University with Rhode Island School of Design (Note: prior to receiving a “Passing” Status, this team was asked to submit a Recovery Plan for approval, due to some unexpected schedule slips).
TEST-RAD: Tufted Electrostatic Solution To Regolith Adhesion Dilemma - California Institute of Technology
Habitat Orientable and Modular Electrodynamic Shield - Colorado School of Mines with ICON, Masten Space Systems and Adherent Technologies Inc.
Lunar In-Situ Landing/Launch Environment (LILL-E) Pad - Georgia Institute of Technology
Hybrid Dust Mitigation Brush Utilizing EDS and UV Technologies - Missouri University of Science & Technology
Contaminant Ultrasonic Removal via Vibration Ejection from Solar Cells - University of Central Florida with Morphotonics
LETO – Lunar Dust Mitigating Electrostatic micro-Textured Overlay - Washington State University
Leidenfrost Dusting as a Novel Tool for Lunar Dust Mitigation
- Brown University with Rhode Island School of Design (Note: prior to receiving a “Passing” Status, this team was asked to submit a Recovery Plan for approval, due to some unexpected schedule slips).
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Steering Committee:
- Carlos Calle, NASA KSC
- Michael Johansen, NASA STMD, Chairman
- Kristen John, NASA JSC
- Kevin Kempton, NASA LaRC
- Damian Ludwiczak, NASA GRC
- Michael Manginelli, NASA MSFC
- Philip Metzger, University of Central Florida
- R. Vijaykumar, AERFIL
- Valerie Wiesner, NASA LaRC
BIG Idea Challenge Website: http://bigidea.nianet.org
Week Ending May 28, 2021
NIA Research Proposal Selected by NASA for Funding
The National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) proposal titled, “Investigating the impacts of wet scavenging on tropospheric aerosols using campaign observations of aerosols and radionuclide tracer Pb-210 in conjunction with FLEXPART air mass history and GEOS-Chem simulations,” was selected for funding under the ROSES-20 Program Element A.23: Atmospheric Composition Campaign Data Analysis and Modeling (ACCDAM).
The investigation team includes Dr. Bo Zhang (PI, NIA Senior Research Scientist), Dr. Hongyu Liu (Co-I, NIA Research Fellow), Dr. Gan Luo (Co-I, State University of New York at Albany), Dr. Jim Crawford (Collaborator, NASA LaRC), Dr. Duncan Fairlie (Collaborator, NASA LaRC), and Dr. Rich Moore (Collaborator, NASA LaRC), Dr. Min Deng (Collaborator, University of Wyoming), and Dr. Jack Dibb (Collaborator, University of New Hampshire).
Proposal Abstract:
Wet scavenging is the dominant loss process for aerosols, but model parameterizations of this process are highly uncertain, substantially contributing to large uncertainties in the simulated loadings and radiative forcing of aerosols. Characterizing the role of wet scavenging in the processing and removal of aerosols has also been identified as one of the major objectives of the NASA Aerosol-Cloud-Convection-Precipitation (ACCP) study. We hypothesize that the role of wet scavenging in reforming aerosol mass and vertical distribution can be better determined by building a statistical relationship between a large number of airborne aerosol measurements and cloud and precipitation regimes experienced during the air mass transport history. This project will investigate the impacts of wet scavenging on tropospheric aerosols using campaign observations of aerosols and radionuclide tracer Pb-210 in conjunction with the FLEXible PARTicle dispersion model (FLEXPART) air mass history and GEOS-Chem model simulations. Research tasks include: (1) Assess the uncertainties in aerosol wet scavenging in GEOS-Chem due to biases in MERRA-2 cloud water content and phase partitioning; (2) Determine aerosol loss due to wet scavenging in different cloud and precipitation regimes using aircraft observations of Pb-210 and black carbon from multiple NASA missions; (3). Examine the roles of wet scavenging in reforming aerosol composition in characterized transport patterns. This project will lead to an improved representation of aerosol wet scavenging in a NASA-supported model. It will establish a novel method that integrates a Lagrangian Particle Dispersion Model with satellite and reanalysis data to quantify upwind meteorological conditions associated with air masses encountered by aircraft, facilitating future analysis of campaign observations of aerosols.
NIA Formal Methods Team of Senior Research Scientists Organize 13th NASA Formal Methods Symposium
The National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) Formal Methods team, Sr. Research Scientists Mariano Moscato (NIA) and Laura Titolo (NIA) served as Program Chairs for the 13th NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM 2021) event together with other scientists from NASA Langley, including Aaron Dutle (NASA). Cesar Muñoz (NASA) and Sr. Research Scientist Ivan Perez (NIA) served as General chairs. Sr. Research Scientist Paolo Masci (NIA) coordinated the F-IDE affiliated workshop.
The 13th NASA Formal Methods Symposium (NFM 2021) took place May 24-28, 2021. More than 150 people from Academia, Industry, and Government participated in the event. Researchers and practitioners from institutions such as FAA, ONERA, NASA, as well from universities around the world contributed to the program.
The program, which spanned over five days, included 24 research papers, five internationally renowned keynote speakers, and an affiliated workshop (F-IDE 2021).
Week Ending May 21, 2021
NASA eClips™ Releases New Video Resource for Middle School Students
On Tuesday, May 4, 2021, NASA eClips released a new video resource for middle school students, titled Real World “The Nature of Science” that weaves together core ideas, practices, and crosscutting concepts on which scientific knowledge is built. Adhering to social distancing guidelines, this video was created by individually recording segments through online collaboration platforms, edited, and pieced together by NIA’s Media and Communications Group to create a seamless video resource. Joining NASA astrophysicists, Dr. Nicholeen Viall and Dr. Marilia Samara, students learn about the work they do, whether in the lab or at home, and the importance of observations and data collection. Amber Verstynen, an undergraduate student studying atmospheric science, challenges the audience to become citizen scientists, developing the critical skills needed to make informed decisions in today’s complex world.
To watch the video, Real World “The Nature of Science,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-the-nature-of-science.
Week Ending May 7, 2021
NIA Senior Research Engineer Gives Two Presentations at NATO STO AVT-346 Task Group
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzalez, Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), gave two talks at the NATO STO AVT-346 task group meeting, “Boundary Layer Stability for Wind Tunnel Configurations with Local Regions of Separation” (Scholten, Choudhari, and Li) and “BOLT: Streak Instability Analysis (Including AoA and Yaw Effects)” (Choudhari, Li, Leidy, and King). The AVT-346 Task Group facilitates international collaboration towards improved hypersonic prediction capabilities. The simulation approaches are mechanism-based and the Group will use new opportunities for validation in ground facilities. The Task Group meeting was held virtually April 29-30, 2021.
Directorate: E4 – Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate
Key POCs: E402 – Dale Arney; E403 – Michael Patterson, Nick Borer
Event Date: 5/5-5/6/21
Title: Grand Challenge Reviews
Langley Professor Dr. Dimitri Mavris of the Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory hosted a virtual event this past week in which graduate student teams presented the results of their two-semester Grand Challenge projects. Two of the projects were conducted under the auspices of the Langley Professor Program.
A-STARC: Advanced STOL Aircraft for Regional Connectivity
Grand Challenge Abstract:
Regional aviation has seen a steady increase in aircraft gauge and average trip length during the last decades, retiring many smaller aircraft, leaving behind many shorter routes, and leaving inhabitants of many communities unconnected to the rest of the national airspace system. Operation of larger aircraft over longer routes is indeed more profitable for airlines as it is easier to amortize high fixed costs and high maintenance costs over a larger number of seat-miles. Manufacturers-alike have focused most of their new products on vehicles with more capabilities. This has resulted in an ageing fleet of small-capacity vehicles, which are costly to operate and unprofitable on many low-volume thin haul routes. Passengers affected by this shift are left having to drive long distances, or book inconvenient connecting itineraries from larger gateway airports. Fortunately, largely underused airport infrastructure already exists in most of these small cities, and in some cases, tax money is going into their maintenance and upkeep. Bringing new air services to these underserved airports has the potential to boost the economies of the surrounding communities provided new state-of-the-art vehicles can be designed with significantly lower operating costs. This research aims at highlighting that a fleet of more electric regional aircraft can reenergize many thin haul market segments, while ensuring profitability for airlines, affordability for passengers, and sustainability for the environment.
LaRC POCs:
E403 – Michael Patterson, Nick Borer
Technical Advisor:
Dr. Cédric Justin, Research Engineer II, Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory, and Dr. Gokcin Cinar, Research Engineer II
Graduate Student Team Members:
Ezgi Balkas, Jeremy Decroix, and Laura Morejon Ramirez
LEGO: Lagrange Point Exploitation for Galactic Observations
Grand Challenge Abstract:
A Persistent Observatory (P.O.) is an emergent spacecraft concept that focuses on leveraging the current and future advances in On-Orbit Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (OSAM) capabilities to construct an on-orbit observatory capable of novel scientific missions. The Persistent Observatory is designed to host multiple large optical telescope assemblies while providing a hybrid approach of both monolithic and federated support system architectures, all of which are implemented with the goal of maximizing potential scientific return while minimizing cost. The hybrid approach to the support system architectures is critical to the persistent nature of this observatory, such that as the platform progresses through its indefinite lifetime it can be continually maintained, serviced, and upgraded to ensure it can continue to provide the maximum scientific return possible. In traditional vehicle architecture design, sizing and synthesis exercises are crucial steps that rely on empirical relations that have been derived from historical data and missions. However, as an emerging concept, a Persistent Observatory has very few similar existing designs to draw from with regards to the traditional empirical relationships required for sizing and synthesis. Thus, this paper describes a design approach for sizing and synthesizing a Persistent Observatory with the objective of maximizing science and exploration potential of future missions. In addition, this paper explores how limitations to the overall design change when mass and volume are no longer major constraints, as well as understanding the design space and the impact of decisions made when designing a Persistent Observatory that leverages advances in OSAM capabilities. The design approach begins with defining and sizing the scientific payload which establishes the driving requirements for the support subsystems followed by iteratively sizing each subsystem to include the power, thermal, communication, attitude determination and control systems. The final step involves defining the assembly requirements to include number of launches and the construction sequence. A multi-attribute decision making (MADM) process is used to down select among converged alternatives the design that best meets the established objectives.
LaRC POC: E402 – Dale Arney
Technical Advisor:
Dr. Bradford Robertson, Research Engineer II, Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory
Graduate Student Team Members:
Mark Bateman, Paul Boillot, Maxime Varoqui, Pierre Binet, and Alexandre Blanchet
Week Ending April 30, 2021
NASA eClips™ Presents at the She Can STEM Academy’s Spring Break STEM Explosion
On Thursday, April 8, 2021, Joan Harper-Neely, STEM Education Specialist from the National Institute of Aerospace’s Center for Integrative STEM Education and Karen Whitfield, NASA Community College Aerospace Scholars (NCAS) Instructional Coach at NASA’s Langley Research Center, presented at the virtual She Can STEM Academy: Spring Break STEM Explosion hosted by Butterfly Village, Inc. Over the Spring Break week, 30 middle school girls engaged with hands-on, project-based learning opportunities aligned with the following STEM goals and objectives:
- Increase student awareness and interest in STEM-related careers.
- Motivate students to pursue an education that develops their knowledge in STEM content and skills needed to enter the STEM workforce.
- Improve self-efficacy among student participants.
The presentation entitled “Women in STEM: Past, Present, Future,” utilized a variety of NASA eClips and NASA resources in gamification format. Participants played along in a Celebrity Look-Alike trivia contest learning about women working in various STEM careers including Mae Jemison, Dr. Jedidah Isler, and Nina Tandon. The session culminated in a STEM challenge in which the girls were encouraged to explore STEM topics and create solutions or models inspired by Margaret Hamilton, Dorothy Vaughn, and Sally Ride. NASA-funded projects strive to attract a diverse group of students to STEM through learning opportunities that spark interest and provide connections to NASA’s mission and work.
To view the collection of Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert videos, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/careerconnection.
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Publishes Article in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society
Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), and co-author Kyle Wendling’s (NIFS) article “An algorithm for Statistical Audibility Prediction (SAP) of an arbitrary signal in the presence of noise” has been accepted for publishing in the Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. The SAP algorithm has been conceived, developed and validated using low frequency sound samples at Structural Acoustic Branch at Langley Research Center. The algorithm is based on the nonlinear model of the loudness while accounting for the ability of humans, through higher decision-making process, to focus and track signals in presence of noise or another signal. A provisional patent application was filed by NASA for SAP under LAR-19735-1.
Week Ending April 23, 2021
NIA Senior Research Engineer 3rd Place Winner of AIAA HRS Lawrence J. Bemont Young Professional Paper Competition
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzalez, Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), was awarded third place in the AIAA Hampton Roads Section (HRS) Lawrence J. Bemont Young Professional Paper Competition. Dr. Gonzalez’s paper, “Mechanism for Frustum Transition over Blunt Cones at Hypersonic Speeds” was co-authored by M. Choudhari and F. Li (NASA LaRC). The competition recognizes outstanding on-the-job technical accomplishments via a significant first-author journal publication by a young professional member of the Hampton Roads Section.
Week Ending April 16, 2021
NIA Senior Research Scientists Activate Response Plan with NASA Disasters Program After Eruption of La Soufrière
After several months of increasing volcanic activities, The La Soufrière volcano in St. Vincent and Grenadines erupted on April 9, 2021 injecting ash and sulfur dioxide up the lower stratosphere. Volcanic eruptions pose threats for local people living near volcanoes due to pyroclastic flows and ash deposition, aviation safety because of the abrasive ash particles that can damage aircraft engines and climate and stratospheric ozone chemistry. The NASA Applied Sciences Disasters program, with LaRC involvements including John Murray, Ricardo Quiroga, Kris Bedka, and National Institute of Aerospace Senior Research Scientists Hyundoek Choi and Jean-Paul Vernier, activated a response plan after the La Soufrière eruption and provided damage proxy and ash deposition maps, plume heights information, with CALIPSO & MISR, and sulfur dioxide injected mass to local observatories (Seismic Research Center and Montserrat Volcano Observatory) as well as the Bureau of Humanitarian Affair/ USAID and the American Red Cross. The program continues coordinating with international partners including the Japanese space agency (JAXA) and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP). Jean-Paul Vernier is currently serving as lead-coordinator for the Disasters program for this event.
To better understand the impacts of this eruption on climate and ozone chemistry, in situ balloon measurements would provide critical information on aerosol optical and physical properties. Therefore, field deployments are under considerations as a part of recently awarded balloon project from the NASA Upper Atmospheric Composition Observation program and the current LaRC-NIA balloon project including the involvements of Travis Knepp, Johnny Mau, Amit Pandit and Jean-Paul Vernier.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Publishes Article in Energies Journal
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzales, Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), published “Transition Prediction in Incompressible Boundary Layer with Finite-Amplitude Streaks” on April 12, 2021. Paredes, along with co-author Juan Angel Martin (ETSI Universidad Politecnica de Madrid), employ efficient numerical methods to perform a parametric stability investigation of the three-dimensional incompressible flat-plate boundary layer with finite-amplitude streaks.
Week Ending April 9, 2021
NIA Researchers Organize HAQAST Discussion Group: Science for Societal Benefit
Dr. Amber Soja, Associate Research Fellow, and Emily Gargulinski, Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA) organized and held a community Air Quality and Health Discussion Group in response to a recently funded proposal, A.38 Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Teams (HAQAST): “Quantifying Pollution from Prescribed and Smaller Fires: The massive conundrum in our National Emission Inventory”. The purpose of the group is to provide a voice to Stakeholder communities and gather relevant community requirements and opinions to guide Applied research. The ultimate goal is to use NASA’s technology, science, and data to provide the information necessary to explore health effects from persistent human-dominated fires, in comparison to extreme wildland fires thereby increasing scientific understanding to address a key gap in fire knowledge for societal benefit (Health and Air Quality).
“Wildland Fire in High Northern Latitudes” Manuscript Published, Co-Authored by NIA Researchers
The manuscript “Wildland Fire in High Northern Latitudes” co-authored by Dr. Amber Soja, Associate Research Fellow, and Emily Gargulinski, Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), was published as part of the NOAA Arctic Report Card 2020 by A. York, U. S. Bhatt, Z. Grabinski, P. Jain, R. L. Thoman, and R. Ziel. This is the first year there was an explicit focus on changes in Arctic motivated by changing fire regimes. Alterations in fire regimes were described and related directly to changes in Fire Weather, which is a combination of cumulative 2m temperature, wind speed, relative humidity and local noon-noon precipitation. The concern about the depth of carbon fuels stored and released is also raised.
Manuscripts Returned with Reviewer Responses
The Wilkins et al. manuscript was returned to the ‘International Journal of Wildland Fire’ in response to reviewer suggestions. Co-authors on the manuscript, “Evaluation of smoke plume injection height parameterizations using a variety of techniques for air quality models” include: Dr. Amber J. Soja, Associate Research Fellow, Dr. Hyundeok Choi, Senior Research Scientist, and Emily Gargulinski, Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA). This manuscript is focused on using wildland and prescribed fires to enhance EPA’s CMAQ model for air quality, particularly the relationships between the vertical allocation of smoke in the atmosphere with Fire Radiative Power and ecosystem types. CALIOP data were critical to this manuscript in assessing the reality of the vertical distribution smoke in the atmosphere and its transport.
Manuscript Submitted for Review
A review was submitted to Biogeosciences by McCarty et al. with Dr. Amber Soja, Associate Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), serving as a co-author, “Reviews & Syntheses: Arctic Fire Regimes and Emissions in the 21st Century,” to a Special Issue: Arctic climate, air quality, and health impacts from short-lived climate forcers (SLCFs): contributions from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme Expert Group. The purpose of this manuscript is to review state-of-the-art science, cumulative knowledge, and publications related to increasing fire regimes and fire-induced vegetation change, under the control of rapidly changing weather and climate in Arctic and boreal ecosystems.
Dr. Soja and Emily Gargulinski, NIA Research Engineer, are crucial co-authors on a manuscript submitted to the Arctic Chapter of the BAMS State of the Climate, “Wildland Fire Sidebar 5.1: Wildland Fire in High Northern Latitudes”. Authors include A. York, U. S. Bhatt, E. Gargulinski, Z. Grabinski, P. Jain, A. Soja, R. Thoman, S. Veraverbeke, R. Ziel. In this manuscript, we clearly demonstrated increases in the amount of burning in Arctic Circle and the changes in length of the season, with the greatest change in early seasons in both 2019 and 2020, which is evident in both MODIS and both VIIRS instruments. These alterations are most prevalent at High Northern Latitudes and related to changes in Fire Weather, overwintering ground fires, and early season record-breaking temperatures in Siberia.
Week Ending April 2, 2021
Nine Finalists Selected in the 2021 RASC-AL Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge; Three Teams Vie for 10th and Final Slot
The 2021 RASC-AL Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge Steering Committee met on April 1, 2021, for the second down-select in this year’s competition. Judges deliberated the merits of 12 Mid-Project Reports and videos, seeking the projects that show a balance of innovation and ability to meet challenge criteria with appropriate project readiness at the mid-project point. Teams’ prototype hardware explores critical ISRU water extraction techniques from simulated Lunar and Martian subsurface ice and assesses subsurface density profiles of the overburden material in the analog testbed.
The Steering Committee selected the following nine teams to proceed to the onsite competition:
Auburn University
- Obtaining Access to Subsurface Ice Sources (OASIS)
Advisors: Davide Guzzetti, Ehsan Taheri, Eldon Triggs
- Obtaining Access to Subsurface Ice Sources (OASIS)
California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
- Sub-lunar Tap Yielding eXplorer & Surface Telemetry Op. and Next-gen. Excavation Syst. (STYX&STONES)
- Advisor: Peter Schuster
Colorado School of Mines
- Moon/Mars Ice New Exploratory System
- Advisors: Angel Abbud-Madrid, Mark Florida, Deep Joshi
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- HYDRATION III: High Yield Dihydrogen-monoxide Retrieval And Terrain Identification On New worlds
- Advisors: Jeffrey Hoffman, Olivier de Weck, Martin Culpepper, Herbert Einstein, Michael Hecht
Northeastern University with Design Automation Associates
- PARSEC: Percussive And Rotary Surveying & Extracting Carousel
- Advisor: Taskin Padir
San Diego State University with Collins Aerospace
- Aztec in-situ Resource Extraction System (ARES)
- Advisors: Scott Shaffar, Saeed Manshadi, Barry Dorr
South Dakota State University
- JAMMER: Jackrabbit Automated Moon to Mars Extractor and prospectoR
- Advisor: Todd Letcher
Stevens Institute of Technology
- EXT.R.A.C.T.I.N.A.T.O.R.
- Advisor: Eric Williams
University of Pittsburgh
- Vaporizer of Underground Liquid for Consumption by Astronaut coloNists (VULCAN)
- Advisors: Matthew Barry (U Pitt), Ismael Mercier (Boeing)
State University of New York Polytechnic Institute
- Polytechnic Ice Surveyal, Collection, and Extraction System (PISCES)
- Advisors: William Durgin (SUNY), Barry Smith (Retired NASA)
- Polytechnic Ice Surveyal, Collection, and Extraction System (PISCES)
Texas A&M University, College Station
- DRilling and Extraction Automated System (DREAMS)
- Advisors: Eduardo Gildin, Robert Skelton, Sam Noynaert
- DRilling and Extraction Automated System (DREAMS)
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- Two-probe AUtomated Regolith Upheaval System (TAURUS)
- Advisor: Kevin Shinpaugh
- Two-probe AUtomated Regolith Upheaval System (TAURUS)
Onsite Competition Update: Typically, the RASC-AL Special Edition onsite technology demonstration occurs in June. Due to the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the competition is being postponed to early Fall instead of cancellation. A date will be selected in July with new information and input from NASA’s Langley Research Center, judges and teams to ensure the highest possible level of participation.
Onsite Competition Details: At the onsite challenge, teams compete to extract the most water from simulated off-world subsurface ice while using system telemetry to distinguish between overburden layers and create a digital core of the various layers with their extraction concept. The challenge winner will be determined based on an evaluation of a 10-15-page technical paper (including path-to-flight), technical poster presentation, and the technology demonstration at LaRC.
Steering Committee: The Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge Steering Committee consists of Benjamin Galke, Sharon Jefferies, Christopher Jones, Kevin Kempton, Robert Moses (NASA LaRC), Keith Nicewarner (SpaceX), Stephen Hoffman (Aerospace Corporation/JSC), Gerald Sanders (NASA JSC), Dean Bergman and Kris Zacny (Honeybee Robotics).
RASC-AL Special Edition: Moon to Mars Ice & Prospecting Challenge Competition website: http://specialedition.rascal.nianet.org
Week Ending March 26, 2021
2021 FAA Challenge: Smart Airport Student Competition Finalist Teams Selected
The FAA Challenge Steering Committee met virtually on March 25, 2021, to evaluate and discuss the merits of 21 Project Plan Proposal submissions for the 2021 FAA Challenge: Smart Airport Student Competition. Ultimately, three teams were selected as Challenge Finalists to present their innovative concepts at the 2021 FAA Challenge Virtual Forum, to be held June 22-23, 2021.
After a thorough assessment, the three finalist teams are:
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (Daytona Beach, Florida)
- Project Title: “Applying UAS for Wildlife Hazard Management at Airports”
- Faculty Advisors: Flavio Mendonca, Nickolas Macchiarella, John Robbins, Ryan Wallace
Hampton University (Hampton, Virginia)
- Project Title: “Inspector Drover”
- Faculty Advisor: Andrew Smith
- MSI: Historically Black College or University
Rowan University (Glassboro, New Jersey)
- Project Title: “ARKE: The Situational Intelligence Platform for Rapid Emergency First Response”
- Faculty Advisor: Hong Zhang
Finalist teams will submit a 15–20-page Technical Paper to describe their concept by June 6, 2021. The teams will present their posters and technical demonstrations at the Virtual Forum.
To learn more about the FAA Challenge: Smart Airport Student Competition, please visit: http://faachallenge.nianet.org
2021 RASC-AL Competition Finalist Teams Selected and Announced
On March 25, 2021, the 2021 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems Concepts – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Steering Committee met to review and deliberate the merits of 66 proposal and video submissions. Sixteen university teams were chosen to present their concepts at the 2021 RASC-AL Forum, currently scheduled to occur virtually June 15-17, 2021.
The finalist teams were notified of their selection status via individual emails on Monday, March 29. Competition submissions are judged by a Steering Committee comprised of members from NASA, Aerojet Rocketdyne, AST & Science, Blue Origin, Boeing, the Cislunar Space Development Company, Northrop Grumman, SpaceWorks Enterprises, and SpaceX.
2021 RASC-AL Finalist Teams:
Theme 1: Durable Low-Mass Lunar Surface Habitat
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Project Title: Localized Initial Lunar Architecture Complex (LILAC)
- Faculty Advisors: Michael Lembeck, Zachary Putnam
- University of Maryland
- Project Title: Habitat for Exploration of the Lunar Polar Surfaces (HELPS)
- Faculty Advisors: Dave Akin, Mary Bowden
- University of Texas at Austin
- Project Title: Texas Crewed Artemis Mission Permanent Exploration Residence (CAMPER)
- Faculty Advisor: Adam Nokes
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- Project Title: Project DELPHI: Durable Extended-Stay Lunar Polar Habitat Inflatable
- Faculty Advisor: Kevin Shinpaugh
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Theme 2: Minimum Mars Ascent Vehicle
- University of Maryland
- Project Title: MALLARD: MArs Lightweight Low-cost Ascent Rocket Design
- Faculty Advisors: Dave Akin, Mary Bowden, Andrew Becnel, Jarred Young
- University of Southern California with the University of Chicago
- Project Title: Project MAVIC (Minimum Ascent Vehicle for Interplanetary Crew)
- Faculty Advisor: Anita Sengupta
- Villanova University with Drexel University and Rutgers University
- Project Title: VUDURU MAE Jemison Crewed Ascent Vehicle (JCAV)
- Faculty Advisor: Sergey Nersesov
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- Project Title: MAV-1
- Faculty Advisor: Kevin Shinpaugh
- University of Maryland
Theme 3: Venus Flyby Mission
- Northeastern University
- Project Title: Venusian Atmospheric and Land Exploration: a Human-Assisted Low-Latency Approach (VALHALLA)
- Faculty Advisor: Peter Whitney
- S. Naval Academy
- Project Title: Venus Interplanetary Researcher and Testbed for Uncharted Exploration (VIRTUE)
- Faculty Advisors: Jin Kang, Ken Reightler, Gurpartap Sandhoo, Tae Lim
- University of Maryland
- Project Title: Venusian Observation through Low-Latency Application of Novel Telerobotics (V.O.L.A.N.T.)
- Faculty Advisor: Andrew Becnel
- Northeastern University
Theme 4: Human Mission to Ceres
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Project Title: CHEATA: Ceres Human Exploration And Transit Architecture
- Faculty Advisor: Jeffrey Hoffman
- University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez
- Project Title: Discovery and Endeavor – Ceres Interplanetary Pathway for Human Exploration and Research (DECIPHER)
- Faculty Advisor: Bárbara Calcagno
- Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
- Project Title: Project Aurora
- Faculty Advisor: Kevin Shinpaugh
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Theme 5: Distributed Lunar Sample Aggregation, Analysis, and Return to ISS
- University of Arizona
- Project Title: Lunar Acquisition Vehicle and Analysis (LAVA)
- Faculty Advisors: Jekan Thanga and Erik Asphaug
- University of Texas at Austin
- Project Title: Regolith-Volatile Extraction and Return Expedition (ReVERE)
- Faculty Advisor: Adam Nokes
- University of Arizona
More information on RASC-AL can be found at: http://rascal.nianet.org.
Week Ending March 5, 2021
NASA ECLIPS™ EDUCATORS WORK WITH DOUGLAS WILDER MIDDLE SCHOOL STUDENTS TO DESIGN AND CONSTRUCT CLOUD COVER ESTIMATORS
Educators with the National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Center for Integrative STEM Education (CISE) worked virtually with 15 sixth-grade students from Douglas Wilder Middle School in Henrico County, Va. on February 10, 2021, to design and construct cloud cover estimators. Sarah Baker, a first-year teacher, won an opportunity to co-teach a lesson with NASA eClips educators through a NASA eClips raffle held during the 2020 Virginia Association of Science Teachers (VAST) Professional Development Institute in November 2020. Baker worked with Joan Harper-Neely (STEM Education Specialist) and Betsy McAllister (Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence) to select and plan the instructional topic, Earth’s Energy Balance.
Several weeks prior to the lesson, students were asked to gather the readily available supplies needed for the design challenge at their home. Students were able to explore more about the role clouds play in Earth’s Energy Balance through watching and discussing Real World “Earth’s Energy Balance – Energy In and Energy Out” and Real World “Earth’s Energy Balance – Small Changes, Big Impact.” Utilizing the “Our World: Designing a Cloud Cover Estimator Educator Guide,” Harper-Neely and McAllister guided students through the steps of the engineering design process and encouraged students to work collaboratively with classmates in break-out rooms to draw their cloud cover estimator designs. Afterward, students used their design and supplies to construct cloud cover estimators that could be used to safely calculate the percent of cloud cover in the sky and shared the results with their peers.
To learn more about NASA eClips, please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov.
To view the Our World: Designing a Cloud Cover Estimator Educator Guide, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/resources/download/83.
To watch Real World “Earth’s Energy Balance – Energy In and Energy Out,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-earths-energy-balance-energy-in-and-energy-out.
To watch Real World “Earth’s Energy Balance – Small Changes, Big Impact,” please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/video/realworld/real-world-earths-energy-balance-small-changes-big-impact.
To view NASA Earth’s Energy Budget Poster, please visit https://science-edu.larc.nasa.gov/energy_budget.
To view the GLOBE Cloud Identification Chart, please visit: https://www.globe.gov/documents/348614/24331082/GLOBE+Cloud+Chart
NIA Associate Research Fellow Serves on IAWF Board of Directors
Dr. Amber Soja, Associate Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), is serving on the International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) Board of Directors, as well as on Diversity and Inclusivity and Conference planning sub-committees that serve to keep NASA connected to the fire, fire weather, and smoke/health/AQ communities.
As part of Aerosol, Cloud, Convection and Precipitation (ACCP) Applications Impact Team, Dr. Soja works with the team to plan a broad-reaching AQ workshop that includes NOAA, NRL, Universities, the EPA and others. Her main focus is smoke and fire and how these future architectures can serve stakeholder communities.
For more information, visit: https://firesafety-humandimensions2021.com.
Week Ending Feb. 26, 2021
NASA eClips™ Holds Webinars for Educator and Technical Advisory Boards
NASA eClips educators Dr. Sharon Bowers (Senior STEM Specialist), Joan Harper-Neely (STEM Specialist), and Betsy McAllister (Hampton City Schools Educator-in-Residence) recently welcomed and oriented members of their 2021 Advisory Boards through informational webinars.
The informational webinar for the NASA eClips Educator Advisory Board was held on January 21, 2021. The 15-member Board consists of 11 formal educators, 3 non-formal educators, and 1 homeschool educator from nine U.S. states. The Educator Advisory Board will provide valuable feedback, both their own and that of their students, on newly developed resources such as professionally produced NASA eClips videos, Ask SME career videos, student-produced Spotlite videos, and corresponding Spotlite Interactive Lessons. An informational webinar for the five-member Technical Advisory Board was held on Jan. 26, 2021. The Technical Advisory Board consists of two formal educators and three non-formal educators from four states who will be tasked with providing expert advice on the development of educational resources and giving feedback on STEM content and pedagogy. Bowers, Harper-Neely, and McAllister familiarized both groups with the NASA eClips website, resources, and expectations for their work.
To learn more about NASA eClips, please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov.
NIA Senior Research Scientist Gives Invited Talk at Penn State Seminar
Dr. Prahladh Iyer, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), gave an invited talk as part of the Penn State Mechanical Engineering seminar series. Dr. Iyer’s talk, “Wall-modeled LES of High-Speed Turbulent Flows,” focuses on an efficient approach that models the effects of near-wall turbulence using a RANS-based wall model, and resolves the dominant large-scale eddies away from the wall using LES. The invited seminar took place virtually on Feb. 16, 2021.
Week Ending Feb. 12, 2021
NASA’s BIG Idea Challenge Program Staff & Chairman Conduct Feedback Sessions with Finalist Teams
On Friday, Feb. 5 and Friday, Feb. 12, 2021, the BIG Idea Challenge Program Staff (Stacy Dees, BIG Idea Challenge Program Manager and Victoria O’Leary, Program Coordinator) and 2021 BIG Idea Chairman (Michael Johansen) conducted virtual Feedback Sessions with each of the seven finalist university teams. Teams received feedback on their projects’ budget, scope, and timeline, and were given the opportunity to ask Chairman and Program Manager Stacy Dees technical or programmatic questions. Teams were also encouraged to join and actively contribute to NASA’s Lunar Surface Innovation Consortium (LSIC).
Overall, students on the BIG Idea Finalist Teams will continue to work toward their originally proposed concepts while incorporating the given feedback. Teams will submit a mid-project review in May detailing progress made during the first half of their work.
Find full competition details, information on judges, and a detailed timeline on the BIG Idea Challenge Website: http://bigidea.nianet.org.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Gives Invited Talk
Dr. Pedro Paredes Gonzalez, a Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), gave an invited virtual presentation of “Prediction of Hypersonic Boundary Layer Transition over Sharp and Blunt Cones” for the Ohio State University College of Engineering Aerospace Seminar. The seminar was held via Zoom on Feb. 12, 2021.
NIA RESEARCH FELLOW AND SENIOR RESEARCH SCIENTIST PUBLISH PAPER IN Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
The manuscript entitled, “Simulation of radon-222 with the GEOS-Chem global model: Emissions, seasonality, and convective transport,” has been published in the Journal of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/21/1861/2021/). The effort was led by Drs. Bo Zhang, Senior Research Fellow, and Hongyu Liu, Research Fellow, at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), and co-authored by Jim Crawford, Gao Chen, Duncan Fairlie (NASA LaRC), David Considine (NASA Headquarters), and other collaborators. Radon-222 is a short-lived radioactive gas naturally emitted from land surfaces, and has long been used to assess convective transport in atmospheric models. In this study, we simulate Rn-222 using the GEOS-Chem chemical transport model to improve our understanding of Rn-222 emissions and surface concentration seasonality, and characterize convective transport associated with two Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) meteorological products. We demonstrate the potential of a customized global Rn-222 emission scenario to improve simulated surface Rn-222 concentrations and seasonality. Results have important implications for using chemical transport models to interpret the transport of trace gases and aerosols. NASA Atmospheric Composition Campaign Data Analysis and Modeling program funded the work.
NIA Senior Research Scientist Co-Chairs 6th Edition Formal Integrated Development Environment Workshop
Dr. Paolo Masci, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), is co-chairing and serving on the steering committee of the 6th edition of the Formal Integrated Development Environment workshop (https://cister-labs.pt/f-ide2021). The workshop will be a virtual two-day event held on May 24 and 25 in conjunction with the NASA Formal Methods conference. The workshop is open to contributions on all aspects of a system development process, including specification, design, implementation, analysis and documentation.
Week Ending Feb. 5, 2021
NASA eClips Releases Three New Ask SME Video Resources
NASA eClips has added three new videos to its Ask SME (Subject Matter Expert) resource collection. Each video is an opportunity for viewers to “meet” the NASA SMEs featured in NASA eClips educational videos. The Ask SME videos provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse of their personal interests and career journeys while illustrating real-world connection experiences to help students visualize pathways to STEM careers.
- Ask SME: “Nicholeen Viall, Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert” highlights Dr. Viall, a Research Astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and her love for astronomy and ballet. She explains how her creativity has helped her ask questions about the sun that no one has explored before.
- Ask SME: “Marilé Colón Robles, Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert” introduces Márile Colón Robles, a Project Scientist for NASA GLOBE Clouds at NASA’s Langley Research Center, who works with people from around the world to collect data about clouds.
- Ask SME: “Julie Williams-Byrd, Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert” allows the audience to become acquainted with NASA’s Langley Research Center’s Chief Technologist. As an electro-optics engineer, she shares her passion for identifying technologies that support ongoing and future NASA missions.
To view the collection of Ask SME: Close-up with a NASA Subject Matter Expert videos, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/careerconnection.
To learn more about NASA eClips resources, please visit: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
NIA Senior Research Scientists Organize Tutorial for CADE-28 Conference
The National Institute of Aerospace’s (NIA) Formal Methods Team, including Sr. Research Scientists Drs. Paolo Masci and Mariano Moscato, will be organizing a tutorial at the 28th International Conference on Automated Deduction (CADE-28) in July. The tutorial will provide a gentle introduction to the latest release of the PVS verification system, including the NASALib library (https://github.com/nasa/pvslib) and the VSCode-PVS environment (https://github.com/nasa/vscode-pvs) created by the NIA Formal Methods Team. NASA collaborators include C. Muñoz, A. Dutle, and T. Slagel. Due to the pandemic, the tutorial and the conference will be held virtually.
More information can be found at https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mheule/CADE28.
Week Ending Jan. 29, 2021
2021 BIG Idea Challenge Team Finalists Selected
The 2021 BIG Idea Challenge Steering Committee and NIA Program Staff (Shelley Spears, Stacy Dees, and Victoria O’Leary) met virtually from Jan. 19-21, 2021 for a panel review of proposals submitted for the 2021 Challenge. They deliberated the merits of 40 university-submitted proposals for a wide range of lunar dust mitigation solutions. The following university proposals were ultimately selected for funding:
Brown University with Rhode Island School of Design
- TEST-RAD: Tufted Electrostatic Solution To Regolith Adhesion Dilemma
- Faculty Advisors: Rick Fleeter, Christopher Bull
California Institute of Technology
- Habitat Orientable and Modular Electrodynamic Shield
- Faculty Advisor: Soon-Jo Chung
Colorado School of Mines with ICON, Masten Space Systems and Adherent Technologies Inc.
- Lunar In-Situ Landing/Launch Environment (LILL-E) Pad
- Faculty Advisors: George Sowers, Christopher Dreyer, Kevin Cannon, Jason Ballard, Matthew Kuhns, Ronald Allred
Georgia Institute of Technology
- Hybrid Dust Mitigation Brush Utilizing EDS and UV Technologies
- Faculty Advisors: Julie Linsey, Thomas Orlando, Edgar Lightsey, Zach Seibers
Missouri University of Science & Technology
- Contaminant Ultrasonic Removal via Vibration Ejection from Solar Cells
- Faculty Advisors: Daniel Stutts, Fatih Dogan, Ed Kinzel, Leslie Gertsch
University of Central Florida with Morphotonics
- LETO – Lunar Dust Mitigating Electrostatic micro-Textured Overlay
- Faculty Advisor: Lei Zhai
Washington State University
- Leidenfrost Dusting as a Novel Tool for Lunar Dust Mitigation
- Faculty Advisor: Jacob Leachman, John McCloy, Konstantin Matveev
NASA’s Langley Research Center published a feature story on February 1, 2021 announcing the awardees: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/langley/nasa-selects-university-teams-to-develop-ways-to-deal-with-moon-dust
Following the successful partnership in FY20, the Office of STEM Engagement/Space Grant leveraged the BIG Idea Challenge opportunity again in FY21 by providing additional funding to the Space Grant Universities that will enable them to expand their ability to participate successfully in the challenge. Teams were encouraged to only ask for the amount of funding needed to complete their project as proposed, up to a maximum of $180,000. With the addition of Space Grant funding, teams have the resources needed to perform and provide results for robust, high-fidelity verification testing. This increases the TRL of critical technologies needed for lunar exploration and the Artemis mission. Awardees will present the results of their testing to the Steering Committee in a face-to-face presentation in November 2021.
Full competition details, information on judges, and a full detailed timeline can also be found on the BIG Idea Challenge Website: http://bigidea.nianet.org.
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Publishes NASA Technical Memorandum
Edward Hogge, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), received approval and authorization to release the NASA Technical Memorandum 20205008059 titled “Mathematical Characterization of Battery Models”, co-authored by K. Eure. It will be published to the NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) and available to the public in February 2021.
Abstract
The purpose of this document is to demonstrate the use of the Extended Kalman Filter as a tool for battery state estimation and the estimation of battery state of charge. The mathematical details based on the equivalent circuit model are presented followed by an electrochemical engineering model. A simplified first-order model is used to demonstrate the procedure followed by second and third-order models. Next a simplified electrochemistry model is presented along with observer development. State observability is calculated for the simpler equivalent circuit models and the simplified electrochemistry model. An outline of the battery model parameter identification method is presented, and model performance based on experimental and flight data is demonstrated.
NIA Associate Research Fellow Publishes Two Papers in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques
Dr. Carolyn Jordan, Associate Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), published two papers in Atmospheric Measurement Techniques titled, “New in situ aerosol hyperspectral optical measurements over 300-700 nm, Part 1: Spectral Aerosol Extinction (SpEx) instrument field validation during the KORUS-OC cruise” and “New in situ aerosol hyperspectral optical measurements over 300-700 nm, Part 2: Extinction, total absorption, water- and methanol-soluble absorption observed during the KORUS-OC cruise.”
The first paper presents the first field data from our custom-built in-situ instrument for the measurement of hyperspectral aerosol extinction (SpEx) collected during the Korea – United States Ocean Color (KORUS-OC) cruise around the Korean peninsula in May-June 2016. The second paper presents additional in situ aerosol hyperspectral absorption measurements from filter-based techniques. Combining the extinction and total absorption spectra, we were able to calculate hyperspectral in situ aerosol single scattering albedo spectra revealing spectral details that would otherwise be missed from extrapolations of measurements made at a few wavelengths. These novel hyperspectral optical measurements of in situ aerosols (rather than remotely sensed measurements) enable direct comparison to other measured properties of in situ aerosols such as size distributions and composition.
This work was a collaborative effort with the Langley Aerosol Research Group (LARGE) at LaRC including Bruce Anderson, Charlie Hudgins, Lee Thornhill, Rich Moore, Ewan Crosbie, Eddie Winstead, Bobby Martin, Michael Shook, Luke Ziemba, Andreas Beyersdorf, Claire Robinson, and Chelsea Corr. Greg Schuster (also at LaRC) was a key collaborator in this work as well. This work could not have been performed without essential contributions from our colleagues at GSFC, Ryan Stauffer, Mike Novak, Antonio Mannino, and Maria Tzortziou, and Maria’s student at CUNY, Brian Lamb.
First publication: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-695-2021
Second publication: https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-715-2021
NIA Senior Research Scientist Co-Authors Two Papers and Chairs Sessions at SciTECH 2021
Dr. Prahladh Iyer, Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), co-authored two papers for SciTECH 2021 titled, “Wall-modeled LES of flow over a Gaussian bump”, in collaboration with Mujeeb Malik (NASA LaRC), and “Laminar to Turbulence Transition in Boundary Layers Due to Tripping Devices”, in collaboration with Ponnampalam Balakumar (NASA LaRC).
Dr. Iyer also served as the chair for the first and third sessions of RANS/LES/Hybrid Turbulence Modeling and Applications, held January 19-20, 2021.
First entry: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-1438
Second entry: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-1948
NIA Senior Research Scientist Publishes Paper in Nature Scientific Reports
Dr. Jean-Paul Vernier, Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), recently published “The role of tropical volcanic eruptions in exacerbating Indian droughts” in Nature Scientific Reports. Earth’s climate is often affected by large volcanic eruptions which trigger surface temperature cooling and modify precipitation patterns for several years at regional and/or around the globe. The consequences can have drastic impacts on precipitation during the Summer Asian Monson, vital for the livelihood of millions of people.
In this later study published in Nature Scientific Report, The Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology partners with European Institutes, the National Institute of Aerospace, NASA Langley Research Center and the National Center for Atmospheric Research to study the role of medium-to-large volcanic eruptions on the Indian Monsoon. They found a deficit of precipitation associated with volcanic events which can last for two years triggered by El-Niño-like event combined with solar dimming. Using the 2011 Nabro volcanic eruption, which significantly enhanced stratospheric aerosol loadings above the Summer Asian Monsoon, they show that model-response to such events can be quantified but remain a small perturbation to the climate system relative to much large volcanic event. Collaborators include Suvarna Fadnavis, Rolf Müller, Tanusri Chakraborty, T.P. Sabin, Anton Laakso, Alexandru Rap, Sabine Greissbach, and Simone Tilmes.
Week Ending Jan. 22, 2021
NASA eClips Resources Featured on PBS Learning Media
In collaboration with PBS member station GBH (formerly WGBH), NASA eClips released a collection of educational resources and made them available to teachers and students through PBS Learning Media.
The collection consists of 29 NASA eClips and 4 Ask SME (Subject Matter Expert) videos on a wide range of topics including the Moon, extremophiles, fire safety, planetary volcanoes, and STEM career exploration.These videos provide student-centered, standards-based resources that support instruction by increasing STEM literacy in both formal and nonformal settings. NASA’s Our World videos, for grades 3-5, help students understand the differences between science (the natural world) and engineering (the designed world), while NASA’s Real World segments, for grades 6-8, are designed to help students develop an appreciation for mathematics through 21st Century careers and innovations. Ask SME videos are motivational videos designed to broaden student perspectives about STEM careers and highlight the experiences and perspectives of diverse SMEs, helping students to visualize themselves on pathways to STEM careers. In this particularly challenging time of virtual and hybrid instruction for many K-12 settings, these free, short, and attention-grabbing NASA eClips videos are particularly relevant, bring learning to life by engaging students in NASA-inspired, real-world connections.
GBH is the largest producer of PBS content for television and the Web.
To learn more about NASA eClipsTM videos, please visit https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
To view NASA eClipsTM resources on PBS Learning Media, please visit: https://virginia.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/nasa-eclips/.
NASA eClips Selects Spring 2021 Advisory Board Members
NASA eClips is excited to announce the talented and diverse group of educators selected to serve on the program’s Spring 2021 Advisory Boards. Over 160 highly qualified formal, homeschool, and nonformal educators from across the nation submitted applications, making the down selection process extremely competitive. As a result, in addition to choosing an Educator Advisory Board, the NASA eClips Team decided to make the most of the specific skills of several candidates through the creation of a Technical Advisory Board.
The five-member Technical Advisory Board will provide expert advice on the development of educational resources, as well as give feedback on STEM content and pedagogical best practice. The 15-member Educator Advisory Board will provide valuable feedback, both their own and that of their students, on newly developed resources before dissemination, including professionally produced NASA eClips and Ask SME career videos and student-produced Spotlite videos with their corresponding Spotlite Interactive Lessons. These free resources will be made available on the NASA eClips website: https://nasaeclips.arc.nasa.gov/.
Members of the Advisory Boards include 13 formal, 6 nonformal and 1 homeschool educators, ranging in experience from 4 to 26 years and have backgrounds in elementary school, middle school, high school and undergraduate science; gifted and special education; STEM and technology education; museum and STEM/science organization education; after school and summer programs; and English as a Second Language, as well as library and media services. Board Members will receive training during the month of January and will serve through August 2021.
The NASA eClips Team is appreciative of the time and expertise the Advisory Board members will provide to inform and improve NASA eClips educational resources.
Grand Challenge Research Presented at AIAA SciTech Forum
The Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory under the direction of Langley Professor Dr. Dimitri Mavris presented 32 technical papers at the 2021 AIAA SciTech Forum, Jan. 11-21, 2021. One of these papers presented the results of the graduate student Grand Challenge project entitled “TOP2: Thin-Haul Operations Optimization” that was conducted for NASA Langley during the 2019-2020 academic year.
Paper citation:
Oliveira, T., Madar, S., Justin, C.Y., and Mavris, D.N., “Vehicle Design Considerations and Operations Optimization for Thin-haul Air Mobility Applications,” AIAA Scitech 2021 Forum, doi 10.2514/6.2021-1133
Paper abstract:
Commuter aviation has essentially vanished from the United States over the past twenty years as regional operators have focused their business model on more profitable routes with higher passenger volume. As a result, many communities have lost commercial air service when the demand is not sufficient to be served with larger gauge aircraft. The few commuter airlines still operating serve a geographically scattered demand using small propeller-driven aircraft. However, these aircraft are often associated with high operating costs and low community acceptance due to increased carbon emissions and noise.
The recent convergence of seemingly unrelated technologies offers opportunities to fundamentally change this paradigm through the design of new game-changing aircraft with compelling economics. The objective of this research is to develop an optimized thin-haul aviation operations model accounting for the benefits of these technologies. This facilitates the understanding of interrelationships between vehicle design, operating economics, and network operations. It also contributes to better assess the trade-off between profitability and environmental footprint, which are both impacted by aircraft technology advancements and aircraft economics.
This research is articulated around three major elements: the development of an electric 9-seat and a hybrid-electric 50-seat parametric aircraft, an economic model to quantify the revenue and operating costs associated with each flight, and a fleet allocation optimization to identify the best concept of operations and fleet composition to serve thin-haul markets. The thin-haul operations model is implemented in the New England corridor as a case study.
Results show a potential for profitable operations when electric propulsion technology is applied in a hub-and-spoke network. Sensitivity analyses are performed with respect to battery specific energy density, fuel price, and trade-off among conflicting objective functions.
Week Ending Jan. 1, 2021
NIA Senior Research Scientist Gives Opening Talk at Workshop on Autonomous Systems
Dr. Ivan Perez, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), gave the invited keynote at the 2nd Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems, organized by the Autonomy and Verification Lab of the University of Manchester (UK). Due to current travel restrictions, the event took place online, Dec. 7, 2020. In his opening talk, Dr. Perez discussed Copilot 3, a runtime verification framework created by NIA and Galois and initially funded by NASA. He showed how to use it to monitor the state of safety-critical systems and unmanned aerial systems during missions.
NIA Senior Research Scientists and Research Engineer Present Paper at Workshop on Autonomous Systems
Dr. Titolo, Dr. Perez, Senior Research Scientists, and Dr. Balachandran, Research Engineer, at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), published the paper, “From Requirements to Autonomous Flight: An Overview of the Monitoring ICAROUS Project” in the 2nd Workshop on Formal Methods for Autonomous Systems, held December 2020. Co-Authors include A. Dutle, C. Munoz, E. Conrad, A. Goodloe, D. Giannakopoulou (NASA) A. Mavridou (KBR, Inc.) and T. Pressburger (NASA). The paper proposes a connection between work done with NASA Langley Research Center and NASA Ames Research Center, which could help generate safety monitors for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles directly from requirements expressed in a restricted, natural language. The work combines the results and capabilities of multiple projects, including ICAROUS (NASA Langley Research Center), Copilot (NIA and Galois Inc), Ogma (NASA Langley Research Center and NIA) and FRET (NASA Ames Research Center).
NIA Senior Research Scientist Completes DARPA-funded Project
Dr. Ivan Perez, a Senior Research Scientist at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), concluded the project “Verifiable Modeling and Simulation Based on Computational Category Theory,” funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The work was led by Dr. William Edmonson, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Carolina A&E State University (NCAT) and former NIA Langley Professor, with Dr. Ivan Perez (NIA) and Dr. Holly Handley (Old Dominion University), as co-Principal Investigators. The project helped bridge the connection between languages used for modeling systems in engineering (SysML) and the programming languages used to simulate and implement such systems. NIA submitted their results in the project to the project partners and the funding organization.
NIA Senior Research Engineer Co-Authors Paper in Engineering Fracture Mechanics
Dr. Nelson V. De Carvalho, Senior Research Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), co-authored with Prof. M. Czabaj from the University of Utah, and Dr. James Ratcliffe from NASA Langley, a journal paper titled “Piecewise-linear Generalizable Cohesive Element Approach for Simulating Mixed-mode Delamination,” published in the Journal Engineering Fracture Mechanics. The paper proposes a general cohesive framework that enables the simulation of a wide range of cohesive responses while preserving accuracy under mixed-mode loading. The proposed approach provides a framework to incorporate such measurements as higher-fidelity measurements of complex cohesive responses are obtained, aiming at improving the fidelity of fracture simulations. This approach may be particularly valuable when the cohesive process zone may need to be accounted for, such as in the simulation fracture within a bondline.
NIA Associate Principal Engineer Co-Invents Provisional Patent Filed by NASA
Menachem Rafaelof, Associate Principal Engineer at the National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), is listed as co-inventor of a provisional patent application filed by NASA for LAR-19735-1using the NTR and publication. TPSAS Application was 36085 for: “An Algorithm for Statistical Audibility Prediction (SAP) of an Arbitrary Signal in Presence of Noise. Co-inventors include Andrew Christian (NASA) and Kyle Wendling (NASA, NIFS student 2019).