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Department of the Air Force launches NIPRGPT
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By Space Force
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced seven initiatives to improve the quality of life for service members and their families.
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By NASA
4 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
Urban air mobility means a safe and efficient system for vehicles, piloted or not, to move passengers and cargo within a city.NASA As the aviation industry evolves, new air vehicles and operators are entering the airspace. NASA is working to ensure these new diverse set of operations can be safely integrated into the current airspace. The agency is researching how traditional and emerging aircraft operations can efficiently operate in a shared airspace.
NASA’s Air Traffic Management-eXploration (ATM-X) project is a holistic approach to advancing a digital aviation ecosystem through research, development and testing. To accommodate the growing complexity and scale of new operations in Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), ATM-X leverages technologies that contribute to transforming the national airspace, improving airspace access, and making operations safer and more efficient for all users.
ATM-X fosters access to data by enhancing the availability of digital information and predictive services – including flight traffic predictions – for airspace operations.
ATM-X works closely with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), commercial partners, industry experts, and stakeholders in evaluating the sustainable impacts of emerging mobility solutions. ATM-X is conducting research to augment current key stakeholders that enable safe operations today such as pilots and air traffic controllers. Through these cooperations, ATM-X researches and validates technological advances in computing, communications, and increasingly automated technologies to support the continued evolution of aviation operations.
ATM-X supports the modernization of today’s air transportation system through a diverse portfolio of core capabilities, which include remotely supervised missions up through high-altitude operations. The four research subprojects under ATM-X work collaboratively to enable a robust transformation of the National Airspace System (NAS).
NASA/Maria Werries Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management Beyond-Visual-Line-of Sight (UTM-BVLOS)
UTM BVLOS is supporting the future of aviation by operationalizing UTM for safe use of drones in our everyday lives. UTM BVLOS is part of a new traffic management paradigm called Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) that will use digital information exchange, cooperative operating practices, and automation to provide air traffic management for remotely piloted operations for small UAS beyond an operator’s visual line of sight. This project focuses on enabling operations in a low- altitude airspace, including drone package delivery and public safety operations.
As the FAA works to authorize these types of flights, NASA’s UTM BVLOS team is working with industry to ensure these operations can be routine, safe, and efficient. One such effort is the industry-driven “Key Site Operational Evaluation” out of North Texas, where UTM BVLOS is helping to test UTM tools and services in an operational context.
Digital Information Platform (DIP)
DIP is focused on increasing access to digital information to enable increasingly sustainable and efficient operations for today and future airspace systems. DIP is prototyping a digital service-oriented framework that uses machine learning to provide information, including traffic predictions, weather information, and in-time flight trajectory updates. DIP tests and validates key services for end-to-end trajectory planning and surface operations.
DIP is engaging with the FAA, industry, flight operators, and relevant stakeholders, in a series of Sustainable Flight National Partnership – Operations demonstrations to support the United States Climate Action Plan objective of net-zero emissions by 2050. Through these types of collaborations, DIP tests and validates key services and capabilities for end-to-end trajectory planning and surface operations.
Pathfinding for Airspace with Autonomous Vehicles (PAAV)
PAAV is focused on enabling remotely piloted operations in today’s airspace, which includes assessing increasingly automated capabilities to allow safe operations across all phases of flight.
PAAV is working with key stakeholders, including the FAA, industry standards organizations, and industry partners to develop an ecosystem which helps validate standards, concepts, procedures, and technology. This research will help test and validate a broad range of tools and services that could provide critical information and functions necessary for remotely piloted operations at lower complexity airspace shared with conventional aircrafts. This includes ground-based surveillance to detect and avoid hazards, command and control communications, and relevant weather information, which is critical for safe, seamless, and scalable UAS cargo operations.
NAS Exploratory Concepts & Technologies (NExCT)
Advancements in aircraft design, power, and propulsion systems are enabling high-altitude long-endurance vehicles, such as balloons, airships, and solar aircraft to operate at altitudes of 60,000 feet and above. This airspace is referred to as “Upper Class E” airspace in the United States, or ETM. These advancements open doors to benefits ranging from increased internet coverage, improved disaster response, expanded scientific missions, to even supersonic flight. To accommodate and foster this growth, NExCT is developing a new traffic management concept in this airspace.
NExCT is working with the FAA and industry partners to extend a new concept for safely integrating and scaling air traffic across UTM, UAM, and ETM, collectively referenced as the Extensible Traffic Management (xTM) domain. Together, this research project will enable, test, and validate a common xTM framework that is efficient and safe.
ATM-X
AOSP
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Last Updated Sep 11, 2024 EditorJim BankeContactHillary Smithhillary.smith@nasa.gov Related Terms
Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate Air Traffic Management – Exploration View the full article
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By NASA
On Sept. 10, 2009, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) launched its first cargo delivery spacecraft, the H-II Transfer Vehicle-1 (HTV-1), to the International Space Station. The HTV cargo vehicles, also called Kounotori, meaning white stork in Japanese, not only maintained the Japanese Experiment Module Kibo but also resupplied the space station in general with pressurized and unpressurized cargo and payloads. Following its rendezvous with the space station, Expedition 20 astronauts grappled and berthed HTV-1 on Sept. 17, and spent the next month transferring its 9,900 pounds of internal and external cargo to the space station and filling the HTV-1 with trash and unneeded equipment. They released the craft on Oct. 30 and ground controllers commanded it to a destructive reentry on Nov. 1.
Left and middle: Two views of the HTV-1 Kounotori cargo spacecraft during prelaunch processing at the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Right: Schematic illustration showing the HTV’s major components. Image credits: courtesy JAXA.
The HTV formed part of a fleet of cargo vehicles that at the time included NASA’s space shuttle until its retirement in 2011, Roscosmos’ Progress, and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Automated Transfer Vehicle that flew five missions between 2008 and 2015. The SpaceX Cargo Dragon and Orbital (later Northrup Grumman) Cygnus commercial cargo vehicles supplemented the fleet starting in 2012 and 2013, respectively. The HTV weighed 23,000 pounds empty and could carry up to 13,000 pounds of cargo, although on this first flight carried only 9,900 pounds. The vehicle included both a pressurized and an unpressurized logistics carrier. Following its rendezvous with the space station, it approached to within 33 feet, at which point astronauts grappled it with the station’s robotic arm and berthed it to the Harmony Node 2 module’s Earth facing port. Space station managers added two flights to the originally planned seven, with the last HTV flying in 2020. An upgraded HTV-X vehicle will soon make its debut to carry cargo to the space station, incorporating the lessons learned from the nine-mission HTV program.
Left: Technicians place HTV-1 inside its launch protective shroud at the Tanegashima Space Center. Middle left: Workers truck the HTV-1 to Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Middle right: The HTV-1 atop its H-II rolls out of the VAB on its way to the launch pad. Right: The HTV-1 mission patch. Image credits: courtesy JAXA.
Prelaunch processing of HTV-1 took place at the Tanegashima Space Center, where engineers inspected and assembled the spacecraft’s components. Workers installed the internal cargo into the pressurized logistics carrier and external payloads onto the External Pallet that they installed into the unpressurized logistics carrier. HTV-1 carried two external payloads, the Japanese Superconducting submillimeter-wave Limb Emission Sounder (SMILES) and the U.S. Hyperspectral Imager for Coastal Ocean (HICO)-Remote Atmospheric and Ionospheric detection System (RAIDS) Experiment Payload (HREP). On Aug. 23, 2009, workers encapsulated the assembled HTV into its payload shroud and a week later moved it into the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), where they mounted it atop the H-IIB rocket. Rollout from the VAB to the pad took place on the day of launch.
Liftoff of HTV-1 from the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. Image credit: courtesy JAXA.
Left: The launch control center at the Tanegahsima Space Center in Japan. Middle: The mission control room at the Tsukuba Space Center in Japan. Image credits: courtesy JAXA. Right: The HTV-1 control team in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
On Sept. 10 – Sept. 11 Japan time – HTV-1 lifted off its pad at Tanegashima on the maiden flight of the H-IIB rocket. Controllers in Tanegashima’s launch control center monitored the flight until HTV-1 separated from the booster’s second stage. At that point, HTV-1 automatically activated its systems and established communications with NASA’s Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System. Control of the flight shifted to the mission control room at the Tsukuba Space Center outside Tokyo. Controllers in the Mission Control Center at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston also monitored the mission’s progress.
Left: HTV-1 approaches the space station. Middle: NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott grapples HTV-1 with the station’s robotic arm and prepares to berth it to the Node 2 module. Right: European Space Agency astronaut Frank DeWinne, left, Stott, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk in the Destiny module following the robotic operations to capture and berth HTV-1.
Following several days of systems checks, HTV-1 approached the space station on Sept. 17. Members of Expedition 20 monitored its approach, as it stopped within 33 feet of the orbiting laboratory. Using the space station’s Canadarm2 robotic arm, Expedition 20 Flight Engineer and NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott grappled HTV-1. Fellow crew member Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk berthed the vehicle on the Harmony Node 2 module’s Earth-facing port. The following day, the Expedition 20 crew opened the hatch to HTV-1 to begin the cargo transfers.
Left: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk inside HTV-1. Middle: NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott transferring cargo from HTV-1 to the space station. Right: Stott in HTV-1 after completion of much of the cargo transfer.
Over the next several weeks, the Expedition 20 and 21 crews transferred more than 7,900 pounds of cargo from the pressurized logistics carrier to the space station. The items included food, science experiments, robotic arm and other hardware for the Kibo module, crew supplies including clothing, toiletries, and personal items, fluorescent lights, and other supplies. They then loaded the module with trash and unneeded equipment, altogether weighing 3,580 pounds.
Left: The space station’s robotic arm grapples the Exposed Pallet (EP) to transfer it to the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF). Right: Canadian Space Agency astronaut Robert Thirsk and NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott operate the station’s robotic arm to temporarily transfer the EP and its payloads to the JEM-EF.
Left: The Japanese robotic arm grapples one of the payloads from the Exposed Pallet (EP) to transfer it to the Japanese Experiment Module-Exposed Facility (JEM-EF). Right: European Space Agency astronaut Frank DeWinne, left, and NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott operate the Japanese robotic arm from inside the JEM.
Working as a team, NASA astronauts Stott and Michael R. Barratt along with Thirsk and ESA astronaut Frank DeWinne performed the transfer of the external payloads. On Sept. 23, using the station’s robotic arm, they grappled the Exposed Pallet (EP) and removed it from HTV-1’s unpressurized logistics carrier, handing it off to the Japanese remote manipulator system arm that temporarily stowed it on the JEM’s Exposed Facility (JEM-EF). The next day, using the Japanese arm, DeWinne and Stott transferred the SMILES and HREP experiments to their designated locations on the JEM-EF. On Sept. 25, they grappled the now empty EP and placed it back into HTV-1’s unpressurized logistics carrier.
Left: Astronauts transfer the empty Exposed Pallet back to HTV-1. Middle: NASA astronaut Nicole P. Stott poses in front of the now-closed hatch to HTV-1. Right: European Space Agency astronaut Frank DeWinne, left, and Stott operate the station’s robotic arm to grapple HTV-1 for release.
Left: The space station’s robotic arm grapples HTV-1 in preparation for its unberthing. Middle: The station’s robotic arm has unberthed HTV-1 in preparation for its release. Right: The arm has released HTV-1 and it begins its separation from the space station.
Following completion of all the transfers, Expedition 21 astronauts aboard the space station closed the hatch to HTV-1 on Oct. 29. The next day, Stott and DeWinne grappled the vehicle and unberthed it from Node 2. While passing over the Pacific Ocean, they released HTV-1 and it began its departure maneuvers from the station. On Nov. 1, the flight control team in Tsukuba sent commands to HTV-1 to execute three deorbit burns. The vehicle reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, burning up off the coast of New Zealand, having completed the highly successful 52-day first HTV resupply mission. Eight more HTV missions followed, all successful, with HTV-9 completing its mission in August 2020.
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By NASA
The NASA Ames Fire Department will conduct emergency response fire training on the west ramp of the Moffett Federal Airfield between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. PDT Tuesday, Sept. 10 through Saturday, Sept. 14. The media and the public are advised that sirens may be audible and smoke plumes and flames may be visible from U.S. Highway 101 during this time. However, officials generally expect little to no smoke.
The session will include a live burn created by a propane-fueled aircraft fire simulator at the field. The drill is intended to prepare Ames fire responders and Ames Emergency Operations Center staff for real-life fire emergencies.
For more information about NASA’s Ames Research Center, visit:
https://www.nasa.gov/ames
-end-
Rachel Hoover
Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley
650-604-4789
rachel.hoover@nasa.gov
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By Space Force
History was made on Aug. 16, as six Space Force students out of basic military training became the first Guardians to graduate technical training at the U.S. Air Force Honor Guard at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.
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