NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation Projects Propulsion Technology Phase I Overview and Highlights of Accomplishments

The NASA Environmentally Responsible Aviation (ERA) Project is focused on developing and demonstrating integrated systems technologies to TRL 4-6 by 2020 that enable reduced fuel burn, emissions, and noise for futuristic air vehicles. The specific goals aim to simultaneously reduce fuel burn by 50%, reduce Landing and Take-off Nitrous Oxides emissions by 75% relative to the CAEP 6 guidelines, and reduce cumulative noise by 42 Decibels relative to the Stage 4 guidelines. These goals apply to the integrated vehicle and propulsion system and are based on a reference mission of 3000nm flight of a Boeing 777-200 with GE90 engines. This paper will focus primarily on the ERA propulsion technology portfolio, which consists of advanced combustion, propulsor, and core technologies to enable these integrated air vehicle systems goals. An overview of the ERA propulsion technologies will be described and highlights of the results obtained during the first phase of ERA will be presented

Simulation-To-Flight 1 (STF-1): Automating the Planning, Scheduling, Assessment and Data Processing/Reduction for a Small Satellite

On December 16, 2019, a 3-U CubeSat named STF-1 launched as West Virginia’s first spacecraft. This event marked the culmination of a run-up to launch involving the production of the spacecraft, creation/configuration of command and control infrastructure, and the evolution of its co-creation, the NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3). This event also marked the beginning of a new phase: operations. While plans, procedures, and infrastructure were already in place or started for operations, many lessons were learned during the operations phase, especially during early operations (first month/commissioning phase). Additional plans, procedures, and infrastructure, especially related to communication planning and automated data processing, were created and developed to fill needs for the operation of the STF-1 mission. This paper and presentation will overview the STF-1 operations team’s solutions to addressing the many needs of operating a low-earth orbiting CubeSat mission with a single ground antenna that is shared and scheduled with several other missions. The STF-1 operations team deployed a combination of virtualization technologies, ground station technology solutions, collaboration software, custom planning software solutions, and existing ground antenna scheduling solutions to create an effective and efficient CubeSat operations environment. The end-solution satisfied the operations stakeholders, which include NASA, its industry partner TMC Technologies, and four independent professor-student teams at West Virginia University

NASA Operational Simulator for SmallSats (NOS3) – Design Reference Mission

The NASA Operational Simulator for Small Satellites (NOS3) has undergone significant advances including updating the framework to be component based and expanding the open-source code to include a generic design reference mission to enable advanced technologies. This paper details the changes to the framework as well as a number of innovative use-cases the team is currently supporting such as 1) the expansion of NOS3 to support distributed systems missions in collaboration with NASA GSFC, 2) the integration of NASA JPL’s Science Yield improvemeNt via Onboard Prioritization and Summary of Information Systems (SYNOPSIS) for on-orbit science data prioritization, and 3) the inclusion of NASA IV&V JSTAR’s software-only CCSDS encryption library (CryptoLib). NOS3 continues to serve the SmallSat community by providing an open-source digital twin that can significantly reduce costs associated with spacecraft software development, test, and operations. The NOS3 team plans to continue to expand the resources available to the community and partner with others to resolve issues and add new features requested via the NASA GitHub

Using shock control bumps to improve transonic fan/compressor blade performance

Shock control bumps can help to delay and weaken shocks, reducing loss generation and shock-induced separation and delaying stall inception for transonic turbomachinery components. The use of shock control bumps on turbomachinery blades is investigated here for the first time using 3D analysis. The aerodynamic optimisation of a modern research fan blade and a highly loaded compressor blade are carried out using shock control bumps to improve their performance. Both the efficiency and stall margin of transonic fan and compressor blades may be increased through the addition of shock control bumps to the geometry. It is shown how shock induced separation can be delayed and reduced for both cases. A significant efficiency improvement is shown for the compressor blade across its characteristic, and the stall margin of the fan blade is increased by designing bumps that reduce shock-induced separation near to stall. Adjoint surface sensitivities are used to highlight the critical regions of the blade geometries, and it is shown how adding bumps in these regions improves blade performance. Finally, the performance of the optimised geometries at conditions away from where they are designed is analysed in detail

Retrospective Review of the Patient Cases at a Major Trauma Center in Nairobi, Kenya and Implications for Emergency Care Development

Introduction Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are continuing to experience a “triple burden” of disease - traumatic injury, non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and communicable disease with maternal and neonatal conditions (CD&Ms). The epidemiology of this triad is not well characterised and poses significant challenges to resource allocations, administration, and education of emergency care providers. The data collected in this study provide a comprehensive description of the emergency centre at Kenya\u27s largest public tertiary care hospital. Methods This study is a retrospective chart review conducted at Kenyatta National Hospital of all patient encounters over a four-month period. Data were collected from financial and emergency centre triage records along with admission and mortality logbooks. Chief complaints and discharge diagnoses collected by specially trained research assistants were manually converted to standardised diagnoses using International Classification of Disease 10 (ICD-10) codes. ICD-10 codes were categorised into groups based on the ICD-10 classification system for presentation. Results A total of 23,941 patients presented to the emergency centre during the study period for an estimated annual census of 71,823. The majority of patients were aged 18-64 years (58%) with 50% of patients being male and only 3% of unknown sex. The majority of patients (61%) were treated in the emergency centre, observed, and discharged home. Admission was the next most common disposition (33%) followed by death (6%). Head injury was the overall most common diagnosis (11%) associated with admission. Conclusions Trends toward NCDs and traumatic diseases have been described by this study and merit further investigation in both the urban and rural setting. Specifically, the significance of head injury on healthcare cost, utilisation, and patient death and disability points to the growing need of additional resources at Kenyatta National Hospital for acute care. It further demonstrates the mounting impact of trauma in Kenya and throughout the developing world

GTOSat: Radiation Belt Dynamics from the Inside

GTOSat, a 6U SmallSat integrated and tested at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), has a scheduled launch date of July 31st, 2022, on an Atlas V. From a low inclination geosynchronous transfer orbit (GTO), GTOSat has the primary science goal of advancing our quantitative understanding of acceleration and loss of relativistic electrons in the Earth’s outer radiation belt. It will measure energy spectra and pitch angles of both the seed and the energized electron populations simultaneously using a compact, high-heritage Relativistic Electron Magnetic Spectrometer (REMS) built by The Aerospace Corporation. A boom-mounted Fluxgate Magnetometer (FMAG), developed by NASA GSFC, will provide 3-axis knowledge of the ambient local magnetic field. The spacecraft bus uses a combination of commercial and in-house/custom designed components. Design, integration, and testing of the spacecraft bus was performed by a small, dedicated team at GSFC. Throughout development GTOSat has encountered numerous challenges, expected and unexpected, that we’re ready to share with the community

Recombinant Lloviu virus as a tool to study viral replication and host responses

Next generation sequencing has revealed the presence of numerous RNA viruses in animal reservoir hosts, including many closely related to known human pathogens. Despite their zoonotic potential, most of these viruses remain understudied due to not yet being cultured. While reverse genetic systems can facilitate virus rescue, this is often hindered by missing viral genome ends. A prime example is Lloviu virus (LLOV), an uncultured filovirus that is closely related to the highly pathogenic Ebola virus. Using minigenome systems, we complemented the missing LLOV genomic ends and identified cis-acting elements required for LLOV replication that were lacking in the published sequence. We leveraged these data to generate recombinant full-length LLOV clones and rescue infectious virus. Similar to other filoviruses, recombinant LLOV (rLLOV) forms filamentous virions and induces the formation of characteristic inclusions in the cytoplasm of the infected cells, as shown by electron microscopy. Known target cells of Ebola virus, including macrophages and hepatocytes, are permissive to rLLOV infection, suggesting that humans could be potential hosts. However, inflammatory responses in human macrophages, a hallmark of Ebola virus disease, are not induced by rLLOV. Additional tropism testing identified pneumocytes as capable of robust rLLOV and Ebola virus infection. We also used rLLOV to test antivirals targeting multiple facets of the replication cycle. Rescue of uncultured viruses of pathogenic concern represents a valuable tool in our arsenal for pandemic preparedness

A Defense of Religious Existentialism

(Statement of Responsibility) by John Suder(Thesis) Thesis (B.A.) -- New College of Florida, 2000(Electronic Access) RESTRICTED TO NCF STUDENTS, STAFF, FACULTY, AND ON-CAMPUS USE(Bibliography) Includes bibliographical references.(Source of Description) This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.(Local) Faculty Sponsor: Langston, Dougla