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Discipline: Flight Mechanics<br><br>Abstract: <br>This presentation discussion best practices and lessons learned for flight research and airworthiness with respect to the aerodynamics and performance disciplines. Preflight analyses, instrumentation, flight test techniques, and post flight analyses are all discussed. Specific examples of lessons learned from previous flight research efforts are provided and best practices for future flight research are suggested.<br><br>Presenter Bio: <br>Stephen Cumming is currently the Assistant Branch Head for the Aerothermodynamics Branch at NASA Langley Research Center and serves as a senior advisor to the Scientifically Calibrated In-Flight Imagery (SCIFLI) team. He joined NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (now NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center) in 2004 and was a member of the Aerodynamics and Propulsion branch for 18 years, focusing on flight research and test aerodynamics, including aerodynamic modeling, in-flight measurements, and aircraft acoustics. Throughout his career, Stephen served as a lead research engineer on various projects, including Active<br>Aeroelastic Wing (AAW), F-15B Quiet Spike, Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), and Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge (ACTE). He served as the Branch Chief of the Aerodynamics and Propulsion Branch at NASA Armstrong for seven years prior to transferring to NASA Langley in 2022. He received a bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University.<br>

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Discipline: Thermal Control & Protection<br><br>Abstract:<br>The main thermal design considerations in a solid rocket motor (SRM) nozzle are erosion and char of the insulation liner and the bondline temperature between the liner and overwrap. The bondline between the liner and overwrap usually has a temperature limit it must not exceed by end of burn (EOB). The ACE/CMA code calculates the thermal erosion and char of the carbon phenolic in the nozzle exit cone at each station and the heat conduction into the aft exit cone which provides bondline temperatures used for requirement validation. The ACE/CMA model results can be validated by data obtained from a static motor test. With the validated model, bondline temperature predictions can be made using 3σ erosion and char. <br><br>This presentation will illustrate the various steps involved in creating this analysis. Included will be a description of the various codes, inputs required and how the various outputs from codes are used as inputs for other codes to arrive at a solution. The process used to match data and validate the model will be discussed. The results will demonstrate what looked like an issue, the bondline exceeding the required temperature, is not because the predicted bondline temperature transient shows the exceedance occurs significantly after EOB.<br><br>About the Presenter:<br>Mr. O’Malley received his B.S. in Chemical engineering from Arizona State University in 1979 and his M.S. in Mechanical engineering from University of Iowa in 1985. He was employed by Thiokol Corporation at Promontory, Utah for 13 years in the thermal group specializing in SRM motor joint flow/thermal analysis and nozzle ablation analysis. Significant experience was gained while involved in the redesigned solid rocket motor effort after the Challenger accident. Presently employed by NASA, supporting the LSP program for the last 20 years. LSP specializes in integration of spacecraft to launch vehicles, qualification of spacecraft components and entire launch vehicles, thermal analysis, anomaly resolution and launch console support. Supported from its inception, the qualification effort for the GEM63 and GEM63XL SRM program for the Atlas V and Vulcan programs.

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Abstract:<br>Expandable modules for use in space and on the Moon or Mars offer a great opportunity for volume and mass savings in future space exploration missions. This type of module can be compressed into a relatively small shape on the ground, allowing them to fit into space vehicles with a smaller cargo/fairing size than a traditional solid, metallic structure-based module would allow. In April 2016, the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) was berthed to the International Space Station (ISS). BEAM is the first human-rated expandable habitat/module to be deployed and crewed in space. BEAM was developed as a NASA managed ISS payload project in partnership with Bigelow Aerospace. BEAM has been installed on ISS for a total of 8 years although initially was intended to only stay attached to ISS for an operational period of 2 years to help advance the technology readiness for future expandable modules. BEAM has been instrumented with a suite of space flight certified sensors systems which will help characterize the module’s performance for thermal, radiation shielding and impact monitoring against potential Micro Meteoroid/Orbital Debris (MM/OD) providing fundamental information on the BEAM environment for potential health monitoring requirements and capabilities. <br><br>This presentation will focus on the Distributed Impact Detection System (DIDS) which is actively being utilized 24/7 for MM/OD impact detection. This will provide an overview of how the sensors/instrumentation systems were developed, tested, installed and an overview of the current sensor system operations and how its data is being reviewed on the ground by the ISS loads and dynamics team.<br><br>Presenter Bio:<br>Nathan Wells currently serves as the Instrumentation Technical Discipline Lead for the Avionic Systems Division at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, Texas where he supports the International Space Station (ISS) Program for various Structural Health Monitoring systems as well supporting the Gateway Program as a Project Manager for development/testing work of a Time Triggered Ethernet Network for Northrop Grumman in their Habitation and Logistics Outpost (HALO) module design. In his capacity he also serves as a JSC representative for the NESC Sensor and Instruments Technical Discipline Team and is deputy lead for the NESC In-Situ and Proximity Community of Practice. Nathan earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (ERAU) and completed studies for a Master of Science degree in Technical Management in a Technical Position. His past work involved working on various International Space Station (ISS) countermeasures/exercise device projects serving as a project engineer and project manager as well as serving as the Project Manager for a Shuttle Program Return to Flight project called the “Wing Leading Edge Impact Detection System” (WLEIDS) between 2007-2011 and working as the lead Development Flight Instrumentation (DFI) engineer for the Morpheus project between 2010 and 2013. Nathan has received numerous awards and honors including the NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal in 2016 and Silver Snoopy Award in 2021.<br><br>Aaron Trott is a Program Director who has been employed with Invocon, Inc. for over twenty-seven years. His present roles include product manager for launch vehicle control systems and project manager for aerospace data acquisition systems. Other activities include business development, research & development, and systems engineering. Specific focus areas are instrumentation system developments for applications in the aerospace industry. Aaron earned his Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Mississippi State University, during which time he participated in the cooperative education program at NASA Langley Research Center. During his graduate studies, he also worked at the National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center for Computational Field Simulation.

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Discipline: Human Factors<br><br>This presentation will give an overview of the proof-of-concept approaching being taken to quantify Crew Health and Performance (CHP) risk. By leveraging existing, robust tools for medical risk quantification (MEDPRAT), we present an approach for integrating CHP system capabilities in a manner consistent with other NASA risk characterizations that allows for trades on mass and volume.

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Abstract:<br>Understanding an individual’s metabolic rate is important in a wide range of terrestrial and extraterrestrial applications. For extraterrestrial applications, devices to measure metabolic rate should be compact, low power, and require little maintenance and/or calibration. This presentation discusses the effort to develop a new portable metabolic device (PUMA - Portable Unit for Metabolic Analysis) at the NASA Glenn Research Center. PUMA is a battery-operated, wearable unit to measure metabolic rate (minute ventilation, oxygen uptake, carbon dioxide output and heart rate) in a clinical setting, in the field or in remote, extreme environments. The critical sensors in PUMA that measure oxygen, carbon dioxide and ventilatory flow are located close to the mouth and sampled at 10 Hz to allow intra-breath measurements. The engineering efforts to develop PUMA will be presented, followed by limited validation studies of the final device. Finally, the application of PUMA and the underlying technologies for a range of applications will be presented.

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Instructions:<br>- Please register to be kept in the loop should a schedule change occur.<br>- Add this to your calendar for a convenient 15-minute reminder.<br>- Slides and confirmation of attendance will be available to download approximately 30 minutes prior to the event. Refresh this page if not yet visible.<br>- Please submit questions as they arise rather than waiting until the end.<br>- Enjoy!<br><br>Abstract:<br>“Spacecraft large enough for crew to move around inside them have traditionally used handrails and foot restraints to enable crew mobility. The mass of this hardware can become significant in large spacecraft such as the Common Habitat. Additionally, handrails and foot restraints in a multi-gravity habitat are trip hazards when the habitat is in a gravity environment. Further, ISS crew have noted risks of breaking ankles and wrists when using handrails for translation and have noted places where not enough handrails are present. Robotic gecko-derived grippers developed by JPL to retrieve satellites can be adapted to crew-worn pads that can adhere to surfaces to enable crew translation in microgravity. <br><br>This technology will help to eliminate the need for handrails and foot restraints for mobility in crewed microgravity spacecraft cabins. It has the potential to achieve significant mass reductions in future space habitats, with application to suborbital flight, LEO, cislunar space, interplanetary space, the Moon, and Mars. Additionally, it can prevent crew injury and discomfort. Project goals and objectives are to prepare gecko uniform prototypes for use in multi-gravity testing and conduct initial investigations into human factors of postures and motions needed for intravehicular activity (IVA) translation and restraint in multiple gravity environments, without the use of handrails or foot restraints. Gecko grippers have been tested for use as robotic end effectors terrestrially, on microgravity aircraft, and aboard the ISS.<br><br>Using the grippers as a body-mounted system to achieve IVA crew mobility is a new application that has not been pursued outside of this effort. This work will continue paper studies performed by NASA student interns by developing physical prototypes of spacecraft crew uniforms with gecko-derived body-mounted grippers. Clothing prototypes may include long sleeves, short sleeves, long pants, shorts, gloves, and/or booties equipped with gecko gripper pads. Forward work is to test these uniforms in a 1g environment to verify that the design does not introduce obstructions, trip hazards, or other consequences when used in terrestrial gravity. Based on the 1g test results, the uniform prototypes will be refined, and a test plan developed for testing at 0g, (1/6)g, and (3/8)g.

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Active thermal control of human spacecraft has evolved greatly over the more than 55 years of U.S. human spaceflight. The design of thermal control systems is traced from the Mercury capsule, through the International Space Station, and to Orion – NASA’s next crewed vehicle. Dr. Ungar delivered a presentation that gives perspective on historical design decisions, and how the factors that drive the designs have evolved over time.

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Discipline: Human Factors<br><br>Abstract:<br>With the advent of Foundation Models (e.g., large language models like ChatGPT) and stunning successes such as AlphaGo’s creation of a new and surprising winning strategy, dire predictions of human obsolescence have reemerged. However, current developments are in line with past AI trends which suggest that AI will be amazing but with regard to real-world operations (i.e., not games), there will still be a non-negligible (10-20%) portion of operations where AI will perform poorly or simply fail. These situations will continue to require a human to make the overall system work successfully. In a previous academy talk, I discussed how best to use a human not only in these situations but many others as well. In this talk I will expand on certain aspects of human/machine teaming including how to make the most of your machine.<br><br>About the Presenter:<br>Paul Schutte is a Principal researcher in Human-Machine Teaming in Applied Cognitive Science at Sandia National Laboratories in NM. He has worked at Sandia for 5 years. He is currently leading research efforts in Human Machine Teaming with regard to Foundation Models (e.g., GPT) and Machine Learning, Function Allocation, Trust, and Transparency. Prior to Sandia, he worked 35 years for NASA LaRC developing AI decision aids and cockpit interfaces for commercial aviation. He has expertise in Human-Machine Teaming, Naturalistic Decision Making, Function Allocation, and Aviation. Schutte has a MS in Experimental Psychology and an MS in Computer Science.

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Discipline: Systems Engineering<br><br>Abstract:<br>This presentation will provide an overview of the current in-space rescue capability gap along with analogies to maritime explorers, submarine rescue, and past plans for space rescue. Existing capabilities are summarized, space rescue scenarios are described and recommendations are provided.<br><br>About the Speaker:<br>Grant Cates is a Senior Project Leader at The Aerospace Corporation. Prior to joining Aerospace in 2014, he was a Chief Scientist at SAIC. He retired from NASA in 2006 after 25 combined years in federal service, including 7 years on active duty in the Air Force. At NASA he served in varying capacities on the Space Shuttle Program, including Space Shuttle Columbia Vehicle Manager and Flow Director. He received a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 2004.

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Heat pipes provide capillary driven heat transport. Simple constant conductance heat pipes are totally passive. More complex heat pipes, such as variable capacitance heat pipes and loop heat pipes, use heaters to maintain a constant heat acquisition temperature. Dr. Eugene Ungar presented the theory of operation for the different types of heat pipes and explored their design parameters and operational limits.

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The allowable leakage rate for space hardware is typically specified as standard cubic centimeters/second (scc/sec) of helium. It is important to be able to use the measured helium leakage rate to calculate the expected leakage rate of the working fluid. In this seminar, Dr. Eugene Ungar explored the physical configuration of typical leak paths, discussed the physics of molecular, transition, and continuum flow, and presented the accepted method of conservatively calculating the expected leakage rate of the working fluid.

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Instructions:<br>- Please register to be kept in the loop should a schedule change occur.<br>- Add this to your calendar for a convenient 15-minute reminder.<br>- Slides and confirmation of attendance will be available to download approximately 30 minutes prior to the event. Refresh this page if not yet visible.<br>- Please submit questions as they arise rather than waiting until the end.<br>- Enjoy!<br><br>Abstract: <br>This presentation will provide a very brief introduction to discrete event simulation and then provide detailed examples of how discrete event simulations were used to analyze the concept of operations for crewed lunar, asteroid and Mars exploration missions.<br><br>About the Presenter:<br>Grant Cates is a Senior Project Leader at The Aerospace Corporation. Prior to joining Aerospace in 2014, he was a Chief Scientist at SAIC. He retired from NASA in 2006 after 25 combined years in federal service, including 7 years on active duty in the Air Force. At NASA he served in varying capacities on the Space Shuttle Program, including Space Shuttle Columbia Vehicle Manager and Flow Director. He received a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 2004.

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Identify lessons learned related to the SHARE Heat Pipe Experiment. Analyze the testing issues and actions taken. Identify development, testing and analysis actions which could have resolved the issues more effectively.

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Identify lessons learned related to the SHARE Heat Pipe Experiment. Analyze the testing issues and actions taken. Identify development, testing and analysis actions which could have resolved the issues more effectively.

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Instructions:<br>- Add this to your calendar for a convenient 15-minute reminder.<br>- Slides and confirmation of attendance will be available to download approximately 30 minutes prior to the event. Refresh this page if not yet visible.<br>- Please submit questions as they arise rather than waiting until the end.<br>- Enjoy!<br><br>Abstract:<br>Astrophysical research into exoplanets has delivered thousands of confirmed planets orbiting distant stars. These planets span a wide range of size and composition, with diversity also being the hallmark of system configurations, the great majority of which do not resemble our own solar system. Unfortunately, only a handful of the known planets have been characterized spectroscopically thus far, leaving a gaping void in our understanding of planetary formation processes and planetary types. To make progress, astronomers studying exoplanets will need new and innovative technical solutions. Astrophotonics -- an emerging field focused on the application of photonic technologies to observational astronomy -- provides one promising avenue forward. In this paper we discuss various astrophotonic technologies that could aid in the detection and subsequent characterization of planets and in particular themes leading towards the detection of extraterrestrial life.<br><br>Bio:<br> Nemanja Jovanovic received his Ph.D. in laser physics from Macquarie University in 2010. He worked as a postdoc. on astrophotonics at the Australian Astronomical Observatory until 2012. He moved to Subaru Telescope where he was part of the SCExAO high contrast exoplanet imaging instrument team until 2017. Currently, Nemanja is the Optics and Systems Group Lead at Caltech developing advanced exoplanet instruments for the largest ground based telescopes while leading several technical developments in astrophotonics.

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Abstract:<br>NASA's goal in Astrophysics is to "Discover how the universe works, explore how it began and evolved, and search for life on planets around other stars." Addressing this ambitious goal requires a large astrophysics fleet that is capable of observing the universe in multiple wavelengths. This talk will focus on our ability to view X-rays emanating from some of the most extreme environments in space using full-shell grazing incidence optics flying on suborbital and space-based platforms.

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