ALBERT

Description: The International Space Station will provide a multitude of opportunities for an expanding customer base to make use of this international resource. One such opportunity is servicing of various visiting vehicles that are in a similar orbit to the station. Servicing may include change-out of payloads, replenishment of consumables, repair, and refurbishment operations. Previous studies have been conducted in which "paper" free flyers have been assessed against the station s ability to accommodate them. Over the last several months though, an already flown free flyer, EURECA, was assessed as a real-life visiting free flyer design reference mission. Issues such as capture/berthing, servicing, logistics support, and stowage were assessed for station design and operational approaches. This paper will highlight critical visiting vehicle design considerations, identify station issues, and provide recommendations for accommodation of a wide range of visiting vehicle requirements of the future.

Description: The evolution and enhancement of the International Space Station (ISS) is currently being planned in conjunction with the on-orbit construction of the baseline configuration. Three principal areas have been identified that will contribute to the evolution of ISS: Pre-Planned Program Improvement (P3I), Utilization & Commercialization, and Human Exploration and Development of Space (HEDS) missions. The ISS Evolution Strategy, under development by the Spacecraft and Sensors Branch of NASA Langley Research Center, seeks to coordinate the P3I technology development with Commercialization/Utilization activities and HEDS advanced mission accommodation to provide synergistic technology developments for all three areas. The focal point of this proposed strategy is the ISS Evolution Data Book (EDB), a tool for aiding the evolution and enhancement of ISS beyond Assembly Complete. This paper will discuss the strategy and provide an overview of the EDB, describing the contents of each section. It will also discuss potential applications of the EDB and present an example Design Reference Mission (DRM). The latest status of the EDB and the plans for completing and enhancing the book will also be summarized.

Description: The enabling technologies required for the development of a viable Comet/Asteroid Protection System (CAPS) can be divided into two principal areas: detection and deflection/orbit modification. With the proper funding levels, many of the technologies needed to support a CAPS architecture could be achievable within the next 15 to 20 years. In fact, many advanced detection technologies are currently in development for future in-space telescope systems such as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), formerly known as the Next Generation Space Telescope. It is anticipated that many of the JWST technologies would be available for application for CAPS detection concepts. Deflection/orbit modification technologies are also currently being studied as part of advanced power and propulsion research. However, many of these technologies, such as extremely high-output power systems, advanced propulsion, heat rejection, and directed energy systems, would likely be farther term in availability than many of the detection technologies. Discussed subsequently is a preliminary examination of the main technologies that have been identified as being essential to providing the element functionality defined during the CAPS conceptual study. The detailed requirements for many of the technology areas are still unknown, and many additional technologies will be identified as future in-depth studies are conducted in this area.

Description: The path from Earth to Mars requires exploration missions to be increasingly Earth-independent as the foundation is laid for a sustained human presence in the following decades. NASA pioneering of Mars will expand the boundaries of human exploration, as a sustainable presence on the surface requires humans to successfully reproduce in a partial gravity environment independent from Earth intervention. Before significant investment is made in capabilities leading to such pioneering efforts, the challenges of multigenerational mammalian reproduction in a partial gravity environment need be investigated. The Multi-generational Independent Colony for Extraterrestrial Habitation, Autonomy, and Behavior health is designed to study these challenges. The proposed concept is a conceptual, long duration, autonomous habitat designed to house rodents in a partial gravity environment with the goal of understanding the effects of partial gravity on mammalian reproduction over multiple generations and how to effectively design such a facility to operate autonomously while keeping the rodents healthy in order to achieve multiple generations. All systems are designed to feed forward directly to full-scale human missions to Mars. This paper presents the baseline design concept formulated after considering challenges in the mission and vehicle architectures such as: vehicle automation, automated crew health management/medical care, unique automated waste disposal and hygiene, handling of deceased crew members, reliable long-duration crew support systems, and radiation protection. This concept was selected from an architectural trade space considering the balance between mission science return and robotic and autonomy capabilities. The baseline design is described in detail including: transportation and facility operation constraints, artificial gravity system design, habitat design, and a full-scale mock-up demonstration of autonomous rodent care facilities. The proposed concept has the potential to integrate into existing mission architectures in order to achieve exploration objectives, and to demonstrate and mature common capabilities that enable a range of destinations and missions.

Description: The 2010 National Space Policy encourages federal agencies to actively explore the use of inventive, nontraditional arrangements for acquiring commercial space goods and services to meet United States Government requirements, including...hosting government capabilities on commercial spacecraft. NASA's Science Mission Directorate has taken an important step towards this goal by adding an option for hosted payload responses to its recent Announcement of Opportunity (AO) for Earth Venture-2 missions. Since NASA selects a significant portion of its science missions through a competitive process, it is useful to understand the implications that this process has on the feasibility of successfully proposing a commercially hosted payload mission. This paper describes some of the impediments associated with proposing a hosted payload mission to NASA, and offers suggestions on how these impediments might be addressed. Commercially hosted payloads provide a novel way to serve the needs of the science and technology demonstration communities at a fraction of the cost of a traditional Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO) mission. The commercial communications industry launches over 20 satellites to GEO each year. By exercising this repeatable commercial paradigm of privately financed access to space with proven vendors, NASA can achieve science goals at a significantly lower cost than the current dedicated spacecraft and launch vehicle approach affords. Commercial hosting could open up a new realm of opportunities for NASA science missions to make measurements from GEO. This paper also briefly describes two GEO missions recommended by the National Academies of Science Earth Science Decadal Survey, the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission and the Precipitation and All-weather Temperature and Humidity (PATH) mission. Hosted payload missions recently selected for implementation by the Office of the Chief Technologist are also discussed. Finally, there are technical differences specific to hosted payloads and the GEO environment that must be considered when planning and developing a hosted payload mission. This paper addresses some of payload accommodation differences from the typical NASA LEO mission, including spacecraft interfaces, attitude control and knowledge, communications, data handling, mission operations, ground systems, and the thermal, radiation, and electromagnetic environment. The paper also discusses technical and programmatic differences such as limits to NASA's involvement with commercial quality assurance processes to conform to the commercial schedule and minimizing the price that makes hosted payloads an attractive option.

Description: This paper summarizes the results of a NASA lead study performed to identify synergistic opportunities and concepts between human exploration initiatives and commercialization of space. The goal of this initiative, called Orbital Aggregation & Space Infrastructure Systems (OASIS), is to develop an in-space architecture and associated concepts that provide common infrastructure for enabling a large class of space missions. The concepts include communications, navigation and power systems, propellant modules, tank farms, habitats, and in-space transportation systems using several propulsion technologies. OASIS features in-space aggregation of systems and resources in support of mission objectives. The concepts feature a high level of reusability and are supported by inexpensive launch of propellant and logistics payloads from the Earth/moon system. Industry, NASA and other users could share infrastructure costs. The anticipated benefits of synergistic utilization of space infrastructure are reduced mission costs and increased mission flexibility for future space exploration and commercialization initiatives.

Description: There exists an infrequent, but significant hazard to life and property due to impacting asteroids and comets. There is currently no specific search for long-period comets, smaller near-Earth asteroids, or smaller short-period comets. These objects represent a threat with potentially little or no warning time using conventional ground-based telescopes. These planetary bodies also represent a significant resource for commercial exploitation, long-term sustained space exploration, and scientific research. The Comet/Asteroid Protection System (CAPS) would expand the current detection effort to include long-period comets, as well as small asteroids and short-period comets capable of regional destruction. A space-based detection system, despite being more costly and complex than Earth-based initiatives, is the most promising way of expanding the range of detectable objects, and surveying the entire celestial sky on a regular basis. CAPS is a future spacebased system concept that provides permanent, continuous asteroid and comet monitoring, and rapid, controlled modification of the orbital trajectories of selected bodies. CAPS would provide an orbit modification system capable of diverting kilometer class objects, and modifying the orbits of smaller asteroids for impact defense and resource utilization. This paper provides a summary of CAPS and discusses several key areas and technologies that are being investigated.

Description: Mars Tumbleweed is a concept for an autonomous rover that would achieve mobility through use of the natural winds on Mars. The wind-blown nature of this vehicle make it an ideal platform for conducting random surveys of the surface, scouting for signs of past or present life as well as examining the potential habitability of sites for future human exploration. NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) has been studying the dynamics, aerodynamics, and mission concepts of Tumbleweed rovers and has recently developed a prototype Mars Tumbleweed Rover for demonstrating mission concepts and science measurement techniques. This paper will provide an overview of the prototype design, instrumentation to be accommodated, preliminary test results, and plans for future development and testing of the vehicle.

Description: Gully features have been observed on the slopes of numerous Martian crater walls, valleys, pits, and graben. Several mechanisms for gully formation have been proposed, including: liquid water aquifers (shallow and deep), melting ground ice, snow melt, CO2 aquifers, and dry debris flow. Remote sensing observations indicate that the most likely erosional agent is liquid water. Debate concerns the source of this water. Observations favor a liquid water aquifer as the primary candidate. The current strategy in the search for life on Mars is to "follow the water." A new vehicle known as a Tumbleweed rover may be able to conduct in-situ investigations in the gullies, which are currently inaccessible by conventional rovers. Deriving mobility through use of the surface winds on Mars, Tumbleweed rovers would be lightweight and relatively inexpensive thus allowing multiple rovers to be deployed in a single mission to survey areas for future exploration. NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) is developing deployable structure Tumbleweed concepts. An extremely lightweight measurement acquisition system and sensors are proposed for the Tumbleweed rover that greatly increases the number of measurements performed while having negligible mass increase. The key to this method is the use of magnetic field response sensors designed as passive inductor-capacitor circuits that produce magnetic field responses whose attributes correspond to values of physical properties for which the sensors measure. The sensors do not need a physical connection to a power source or to data acquisition equipment resulting in additional weight reduction. Many of the sensors and interrogating antennae can be directly placed on the Tumbleweed using film deposition methods such as photolithography thus providing further weight reduction. Concepts are presented herein for methods to measure subsurface water, subsurface metals, planetary winds and environmental gases.