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Research Title:LocationResearch FieldsMission Directorate Name and Last name:Phone Number:Email:Research Area Description:
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1. ISRU - Resource Acquisition – Regolith / Trash & Gases, Liquids - #1NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govThis area includes gathering resources from:
1) In Situ Atmosphere/Gas Resources: collection of CO2 from Mars atmosphere; collection of gas evolved from regolith; dust filtration of gas streams; purification, cleaning, and separation of mixed gas streams.
2) Planetary Material Resources: collection of regolith or other ores of interest; robotic resources’ excavation; robotic sampling systems; swarming robot system (collaborative robots) applications for prospecting and mining; prospecting for resources; and beneficiation, crushing, and size-sorting of raw materials for feedstocks.
3) Discarded Material/Trash Resources: methods for collection of discarded materials and conversion of discarded materials into useful products; includes trash, human metabolic waste, waste products from other ISRU process, waste water, and biomass waste.
4) Recovery of Liquids and Gases
5) Dust Characterization/Mitigation: Technology efforts to develop computational codes and flight instrumentation, conduct validation studies and ground testing, and reconstruct/analyze flight data. Methods, tools, and approaches to facilitate and enable collaboration within NASA and with industry and academia to bring together SMEs, technologists, and management to define environment prediction capability within this discipline.
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2. ISRU - Consumable Production – Extract / Produce Fuel - #2NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govConversion of acquired resources into products with immediate use, or as feedstock for construction and manufacturing. This area includes:
1) Extract/Produce Oxygen
2) Extract/Produce Fuel
3) Extract/Produce Water
4) Extract/Separate Gases for Life Support/Science
5) Extract/Produce Manufacturing Feedstock
6) Extract/Produce Construction Feedstock
7) Extract/Produce Food Production Feedstock
8) Specialized ISRU Plumbing and Storage
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3. Food Production and Waste Management - #3NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govThese areas of food production are critical to exploration, nutrient production and calorie production.
1) Nutrient production will be needed for missions longer than one year and require limited volume.
2) Calorie production will become part of the food supply system when production trades well against continuous delivery.
3) Waste stream management and reutilization: waste treatment for ISS/Moon/Planetary habitats that converts plant waste into nutrient solutions to continue to feed the plants.
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4. Storage, Distribution, and Conservation of Cryogenic Fluids and Commodities - #4NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govTechnologies developed in this area include on-demand fluid production; high-efficiency and configurable propellant storage, transfer, and recovery systems; conservation of critical, expensive resources; and active/passive thermal control of the fluids themselves at critical points in the fluid servicing process. Research has been funded for the following projects:
1) Hydrogen Zero Boil-off: solutions to recapture/reduce/eliminate the hydrogen vented when storing and transferring, zero loss storage using active refrigeration, high-efficiency flexible transfer lines.
2) Improved Insulation: solutions to improve storage and distribution thermal losses (reduce conductive heat transfer) while providing higher efficiency, lower maintenance and longer life.
3) Improved Fill Rate and Reduce Transfer Losses: solutions to increase liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen fill rates by a factor of 4x while maintaining liquid properties, i.e., quality; Hydrogen pooling mitigation. Includes instrumentation to support improved fill rates and transfer losses, such as quality sensors. Also, modeling and simulation of systems to optimize fill rates and minimize transfer losses.
4) Autonomous Propellant Loading Operations: solutions to reduce reliance on expert operators; for routine, labor-intensive activities (autonomous mate/demate of umbilicals), for periodic surveillance (autonomous control systems – new ground to vehicle protocols, distributed control, intelligent oversight systems), and universal propellant servicing system. Also includes modeling and simulation of cryogenic systems for autonomous control, integrated health management capabilities prediction, diagnosis, and problem resolution in support of autonomous control.
5) Behavior of Propellants in Microgravity: solutions to obtain microgravity data sets for a variety of conditions of interest to properly anchor/ validate the modeling techniques/conditions employed (e.g. microgravity stratification, microgravity droplet evaporation, etc.). Current modeling capabilities of cryogenic upper stages are based upon first principles and ground based empirical data; however, the presence of gravity in the empirical data is the dominate term.
6) Production of Propellants: on-site, on-demand production of propellants.
7) Propellant Storage and Distribution: optimize storage and distribution of propellants (e.g., green, toxic, or cryogenic) for use at launch complex.
8) Helium (He) Conservation and Recovery: solutions for helium conservation and recovery to eliminate/reduce/substitute the use of helium where possible and to recycle instead of venting to atmosphere; real-time in-situ measurement to allow using only the minimum amount of He needed to meet the engine specifications, purge systems optimization, recapture vented He from tanks and purges and store large He volumes created during high-flow-rate purge operations, He waste stream recovery, and alternative purge approaches for hydrogen.
9) Propellant Densification and Re-liquefaction.
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5. R&T Technologies on In-Space Platforms - #5NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govTechnologies for enabling logistics, payload processing, spacecraft processing, and space biology of human spaceflight vehicles and elements (e.g., International Space Station, Gateway, Human Habitats, Small Satellites). Develop space biology research requirements for the Gateway and participate in their implementation, including Radiation Monitoring.
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6. Automated and Autonomous Detection and Repair - #6NASA Kennedy Space CenterInterdisciplinary/Other, Technology DevelopmentHEOMD, STMDJose Nunez, PhD321-289-2479jose.l.nunez@nasa.govTechnologies include autonomous detection/neutralization/remediation systems, integrated system health management/fault detection, isolation, and recovery, and real-time in-situ measurements.
1) Automated prognostics, fault detection and isolation, anomaly detection, and fault recovery
2) Composite structures with diagnostic/prognostic capabilities: fault detection and self-repair.
3) Autonomous monitoring of ground testing and launch operations with notification to operators (or command and control software system) of anomalous conditions.
4) Intelligent devices (nonintrusive flow meters, wide area sensors, and point sensors for gaseous hydrogen, water vapor, and gaseous oxygen detection), and leak detection instrumentation.
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