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Nano Dust Analyzer Project
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2020-01-29T04:54:41.000Z<p> We propose to develop a new highly sensitive instrument to confirm the existence of the so-called nano-dust particles, characterize their impact parameters, and measure their chemical composition. Simultaneous theoretical studies will be used to derive the expected&nbsp; mass and velocity ranges of these putative particles to formulate science and measurement requirements for the future deployment of&nbsp; the proposed Nano-Dust Analyzer (NDA)&nbsp;</p> <p> Early dust instruments onboard Pioneer 8 and 9 and Helios spacecraft detected a flow of submicron sized dust particles coming from the direction of the Sun. These particles originate in the inner solar system from mutual collisions among meteoroids and move on&nbsp; hyperbolic orbits that leave the Solar System under the prevailing radiation pressure force. Later dust instruments with higher&nbsp; sensitivity had to avoid looking toward the Sun because of interference from the solar wind and UV radiation and thus contributed&nbsp; little to the characterization of the dust stream. The one exception is the Ulysses dust detector that observed escaping dust particles&nbsp; high above the solar poles, which confirm the suspicion that charged nanometer sized dust grains are carried to high heliographic&nbsp; latitudes by electromagnetic interactions with the Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF). Recently, the STEREO WAVES instruments&nbsp; recorded a large number of intense electric field signals, which were interpreted as impacts from nanometer sized particles striking the&nbsp; spacecraft with velocities of about the solar wind speed. This high flux and strong spatial and/or temporal variations of nanometer&nbsp; sized dust grains at low latitude appears to be uncorrelated with the solar wind properties. This is a mystery as it would require that&nbsp; the total collisional meteoroid debris inside 1 AU is cast in nanometer sized fragments. The observed fluxes of inner-source pickup ions&nbsp; also point to the existence of a much enhanced dust population in the nanometer size range.&nbsp;</p> <p> This new heliospherical phenomenon of nano-dust streams may have consequences throughout the planetary system, but as of yet no dust instrument exists that could be used to shed light on their properties. &nbsp;We propose to develop a dust analyzer capable to detect and&nbsp; analyze these mysterious dust particles coming from the solar direction and to embark upon complementary theoretical studies to&nbsp; understand their characteristics. The instrument is based on the Cassini Dust Analyzer (CDA) that has analyzed the composition of&nbsp; nanometer sized dust particles emanating from the Jovian and Saturnian systems but could not be pointed towards the Sun. By&nbsp; applying technologies implemented in solar wind instruments and coronagraphs a highly sensitive dust analyzer will be developed and&nbsp; tested in the laboratory. The dust analyzer shall be able to characterize impact properties (impact charge and energy distribution of&nbsp; ions from which mass and speed of the impacting grains may be derived) and chemical composition of individual nanometer sized&nbsp; particles while exposed to solar wind and UV radiation. The measurements will enable us to identify the source of the dust by&nbsp; comparing their elemental composition with that of larger micrometeoroid particles of cometary and asteroid origin and will reveal&nbsp; interaction of nano-dust with the interplanetary medium by investigating the relation of the dust flux with solar wind and IMF&nbsp; properties.&nbsp;</p> <p> Complementary theoretically studies will be performed to understand the characteristics of nano-dust particles at 1 AU to answer the&nbsp; following questions:&nbsp; - What is the speed range at which nanometer sized particles impact
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Metrics for Offline Evaluation of Prognostic Performance
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2020-01-29T01:57:42.000ZPrognostic performance evaluation has gained significant attention in the past few years.*Currently, prognostics concepts lack standard definitions and suffer from ambiguous and inconsistent interpretations. This lack of standards is in part due to the varied end- user requirements for different applications, time scales, available information, domain dynamics, etc. to name a few. The research community has used a variety of metrics largely based on convenience and their respective requirements. Very little attention has been focused on establishing a standardized approach to compare different efforts. This paper presents several new evaluation metrics tailored for prognostics that were recently introduced and were shown to effectively evaluate various algorithms as compared to other conventional metrics. Specifically, this paper presents a detailed discussion on how these metrics should be interpreted and used. These metrics have the capability of incorporating probabilistic uncertainty estimates from prognostic algorithms. In addition to quantitative assessment they also offer a comprehensive visual perspective that can be used in designing the prognostic system. Several methods are suggested to customize these metrics for different applications. Guidelines are provided to help choose one method over another based on distribution characteristics. Various issues faced by prognostics and its performance evaluation are discussed followed by a formal notational framework to help standardize subsequent developments.
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ORACLES Navigational and Meteorological Data
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2022-08-22T13:04:33.000ZORACLES_MetNav_AircraftInSitu_Data are in situ meteorological and navigational measurements collected onboard the P-3 Orion or ER-2 aircraft during the ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) campaign. These measurements were collected from August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2016, August 1, 2017 – September 4, 2017 and September 21, 2018 – October 27, 2018. ORACLES provides multi-year airborne observations over the complete vertical column of key parameters that drive aerosol-cloud interactions in the southeast Atlantic, an area with some of the largest inter-model differences in aerosol forcing assessments on the planet. The P-3 Orion aircraft was utilized as a low-flying platform for simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols and clouds and was supplemented by ER-2 remote sensing during the 2016 campaign. Data collection for this product is complete. Southern Africa produces almost one-third of the Earth’s biomass burning aerosol particles. The ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) experiment was a five year investigation with three intensive observation periods (August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2016; August 1, 2017 – September 4, 2017; September 21, 2018 – October 27, 2018) and was designed to study key processes that determine the climate impacts of African biomass burning aerosols. ORACLES provided multi-year airborne observations over the complete vertical column of the key parameters that drive aerosol-cloud interactions in the southeast Atlantic, an area with some of the largest inter-model differences in aerosol forcing assessments. These inter-model differences in aerosol and cloud distributions, as well as their combined climatic effects in the SE Atlantic are partly due to the persistence of aerosols above clouds. The varying separation of cloud and aerosol layers sampled during ORACLES allow for a process-oriented understanding of how variations in radiative heating profiles impact cloud properties, which is expected to improve model simulations for other remote regions experience long-range aerosol transport above clouds. ORACLES utilized two NASA aircraft, the P-3 and ER-2. The P-3 was used as a low-flying platform for simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols and clouds in all three campaigns, supplemented by ER-2 remote sensing in 2016. ER-2 observations will be used to enhance satellite-based remote sensing by resolving variability within a particular scene, and by guiding the development of new and improved remote sensing techniques.
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Global gene expression analysis highlights microgravity sensitive key genes in soleus and EDL of 30 days space flown mice
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2023-01-26T18:49:58.000ZMicrogravity exposure as well as chronic muscle disuse are two of the main causes of physiological adaptive skeletal muscle atrophy in humans and murine animals in physiological condition. The aim of this study was to investigate at both morphological and global gene expression level skeletal muscle adaptation to microgravity in mouse soleus and extensor digitorum longus (EDL). Adult male mice C57BL/N6 were flown aboard the BION-M1 biosatellite for 30 days on orbit (BF) or housed in a replicate flight habitat on Earth (BG) as reference flight control. In this study we investigated for the first time gene expression adaptation to 30 days of microgravity exposure in mouse soleus and EDL highlighting potential new targets for improvement of countermeasures able to ameliorate or even prevent microgravity-induced atrophy in future spaceflights. Overall Design: C57BL/N6 mice were randomly divided in 3 groups: Bion Flown (BF) mice flown aboard the Bion M1 biosatellite in microgravity environment for 30 days; Bion Ground (BG) mice housed in the same habitat of flown animals but exposed to earth gravity; and Flight Control (FC) mice housed in a standard animal facility.
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Metrics for Evaluating Performance of Prognostic Techniques
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2020-01-29T03:23:28.000ZPrognostics is an emerging concept in condition basedmaintenance(CBM)ofcriticalsystems.Alongwith developing the fundamentals of being able to confidently predict Remaining Useful Life (RUL), the technology calls for fielded applications as it inches towards maturation. This requires a stringent performance evaluation so that the significance of the concept can be fully exploited. Currently, prognostics concepts lack standard definitions and suffer from ambiguous and inconsistent interpretations. This lack of standards is in part due to the varied end-user requirements for different applications, time scales, available information, domain dynamics, etc. to name a few issues. Instead, the research community has used a variety of metrics based largely on convenience with respect to their respective requirements. Very little attention has been focused on establishing a common ground to compare different efforts. This paper surveys the metrics that are already used for prognostics in a variety of domains including medicine, nuclear, automotive, aerospace, and electronics. It also considers other domains that involve prediction-related tasks, such as weather and finance. Differences and similarities between these domains and health maintenancehave been analyzed to help understand what performance evaluation methods may or may not be borrowed. Further, these metrics have been categorized in several ways that may be useful in deciding upon a suitable subset for a specific application. Some important prognostic concepts have been defined using a notational framework that enables interpretation of different metrics coherently. Last, but not the least, a list of metrics has been suggested to assess critical aspects of RUL predictions before they are fielded in real applications.
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ORACLES Aerosol Aircraft InSitu Data
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2022-04-25T13:03:42.000ZORACLES_Aerosol_AircraftInSitu_Data are in situ aerosol measurements collected onboard the P-3 Orion or ER-2 aircraft during the ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS (ORACLES) campaign. These measurements were collected from August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2016, August 1, 2017 – September 4, 2017 and September 21, 2018 – October 27, 2018. ORACLES provides multi-year airborne observations over the complete vertical column of key parameters that drive aerosol-cloud interactions in the southeast Atlantic, an area with some of the largest inter-model differences in aerosol forcing assessments on the planet. The P-3 Orion aircraft was utilized as a low-flying platform for simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols and clouds and was supplemented by ER-2 remote sensing during the 2016 campaign. Data collection for this product is complete. Southern Africa produces almost one-third of the Earth’s biomass burning aerosol particles. The ORACLES (ObseRvations of Aerosols above CLouds and their intEractionS) experiment was a five year investigation with three intensive observation periods (August 19, 2016 – October 27, 2016; August 1, 2017 – September 4, 2017; September 21, 2018 – October 27, 2018) and was designed to study key processes that determine the climate impacts of African biomass burning aerosols. ORACLES provided multi-year airborne observations over the complete vertical column of the key parameters that drive aerosol-cloud interactions in the southeast Atlantic, an area with some of the largest inter-model differences in aerosol forcing assessments. These inter-model differences in aerosol and cloud distributions, as well as their combined climatic effects in the SE Atlantic are partly due to the persistence of aerosols above clouds. The varying separation of cloud and aerosol layers sampled during ORACLES allow for a process-oriented understanding of how variations in radiative heating profiles impact cloud properties, which is expected to improve model simulations for other remote regions experience long-range aerosol transport above clouds. ORACLES utilized two NASA aircraft, the P-3 and ER-2. The P-3 was used as a low-flying platform for simultaneous in situ and remote sensing measurements of aerosols and clouds in all three campaigns, supplemented by ER-2 remote sensing in 2016. ER-2 observations will be used to enhance satellite-based remote sensing by resolving variability within a particular scene, and by guiding the development of new and improved remote sensing techniques.
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Metagenomic analysis of feces from mice flown on the RR-6 mission
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2023-01-26T18:46:14.000ZThe objective of the Rodent Research-6 (RR-6) study was to evaluate muscle atrophy in mice during spaceflight and to test the efficacy of a novel therapeutic to mitigate muscle wasting. The experiment involved an implantable subcutaneous nanochannel delivery system (nDS; between scapula) which delivered the drug formoterol (FMT; a selective xce xb22 adrenoceptor agonist) over the course of time. To this end a cohort of forty 32-weeks-old female C57BL/6NTac mice were either sham operated or implanted with vehicle or treatment-filled nDS launched in two Transporters (20 mice per Transporter) on SpaceX-13 on December 15 2017. They were transferred to Rodent Habitats onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and maintained in microgravity for 29 days (N=20 Live Animal Return Spaceflight [LAR FLT]) or >50 days (N=20 ISS Terminal Spaceflight [ISS-T FLT]). After 29 days the 20 LAR FLT animals were returned live to back to Earth on January 13 2018. After splashdown the animals were ambulatory on-ground for ~4 days until all subjects were processed during one day of dissections. There were two Basal (BSL) groups of animals sacrificed (LAR BSL & ISS-T BSL; N=20; 40 animals; ~36 weeks old) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC; 12/9/17). LAR BSL animals were dissected and samples were collected upon euthanasia. A Ground Control (GC) group LAR GC mimicked the LAR FLT group which was housed at KSC then shipped alive to Novartis xe2 x80 x99s Facilities where both the LAR FLT and LAR GC groups were processed (~41 weeks old; 1/16/18). All were anesthetized with isoflurane blood samples were obtained by closed-chest cardiac puncture and the animals were euthanized by exsanguination and thoracotomy. The 20 ISS-T FLT mice were anesthetized via intraperitoneal injection of ketamine/xylazine/acepromazine over the course of a four days of dissections (2/6/18 until 2/9/18; 53-56 days after launch; 44 weeks old at time of on-orbit dissections). Blood samples and euthanasia were conducted the same as LAR groups. Following blood draw and hind limb dissection the ISS-T FLT animal carcasses were wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a ziploc bag and placed in storage at -80 xcb x9aC or colder until return. The ISS-T Ground Control (ISS-T GC) (at KSC) followed the same euthanasia timeline methods and preservation. The final processing of frozen ISS-T FLT frozen ISS-T GC and frozen 0-day ISS-T BSL animals were completed at Houston Methodist Research Institute in Houston TX (5/21/18 until 5/24/18). GeneLab received feces from only sham treated animals (no drug treated animals) from the following groups. FLT: LAR (n=9) ISS-T (n=7); GC: LAR (N=7) ISS-T (N=9); BSL: LAR (n=7) ISS-T (n=9). DNA was extracted and analyzed by sequencing using a variety of different targeted and un-targeted metagenome profiling assays.
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Transcriptional analysis of dorsal skin from mice flown on the RR-6 mission
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2023-01-26T18:45:51.000ZThe objective of the Rodent Research-6 (RR-6) study was to evaluate muscle atrophy in mice during spaceflight and to test the efficacy of a novel therapeutic to mitigate muscle wasting. The experiment involved an implantable subcutaneous nanochannel delivery system (nDS; between scapula) which delivered the drug formoterol (FMT; a selective Beta-2 adrenoceptor agonist) over the course of time. To this end a cohort of forty 32-weeks-old female C57BL/6NTac mice were either sham operated. or implanted with vehicle or treatment-filled nDS and launched in two Transporters (20 mice per Transporter) on SpaceX-13 on December 15 2017. They were transferred to Rodent Habitats onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and maintained in microgravity for 29 days (N=20 Live Animal Return [LAR]) or >50 days (N=20 ISS Terminal). After 29 days the 20 LAR animals were returned live to back to Earth on January 13 2018. After splashdown the animals were ambulatory on-ground for ~4 days until all subjects were processed during one day of dissections. There were two Baseline groups of animals sacrificed (LAR Baseline & FLT Baseline; N=20; 40 animals; ~36 weeks old) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC; 12/9/17). A Ground Control group mimicked the Flight LAR group which was housed at KSC then shipped alive to Novartis facilities where both the LAR and LAR Ground Control groups were processed (~41 weeks old; 1/16/18). All were anesthetized with isoflurane blood samples were obtained by closed-chest cardiac puncture and the animals were euthanized by exsanguination and thoracotomy. The 20 ISS Terminal mice were anesthetized via intraperitoneal injection of ketamine/xylazine/acepromazine over the course of a four days of dissections (2/6/18 until 2/9/18; 53-56 days after launch; 44 weeks old at time of on-orbit dissections). Blood samples and euthanasia were conducted the same as LAR and Baseline. Following blood draw and hind limb dissection the ISS-terminal animal carcasses were wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a ziploc bag and placed in storage at -80C or colder until return. The ISS-terminal Ground Controls (at KSC) followed the same euthanasia timeline methods and preservation. The final processing of frozen ISS-terminal frozen ISS-terminal Ground Controls and frozen 0-day FLT baseline animals were completed at Houston Methodist Research Institute in Houston TX (5/21/18 until 5/24/18). GeneLab received samples of dorsal skin from only sham treated animals (no drug treated animals) from the following groups Flight: LAR (n=9) ISS Terminal (n=9); Ground Controls: LAR GC (N=9) ISS Terminal GC (N=10) LAR Baseline (n=10) ISS Terminal Baseline (n=6). Total RNA was extracted and sequenced at a target depth of 60 M clusters per sample (ribodepleted paired end 150).
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Transcriptional analysis of liver from mice flown on the RR-6 mission
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2023-01-26T18:45:47.000ZThe objective of the Rodent Research-6 (RR-6) study was to evaluate muscle atrophy in mice during spaceflight and to test the efficacy of a novel therapeutic to mitigate muscle wasting. The experiment involved an implantable subcutaneous nanochannel delivery system (nDS; between scapula) which delivered the drug formoterol (FMT; a selective Beta-2 adrenoceptor agonist) over the course of time. To this end a cohort of forty 32-weeks-old female C57BL/6NTac mice were either sham operated or implanted with vehicle or treatment-filled nDS launched in two Transporters (20 mice per Transporter) on SpaceX-13 on December 15 2017. They were transferred to Rodent Habitats onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and maintained in microgravity for 29 days (N=20 Live Animal Return [LAR]) or >50 days (N=20 ISS Terminal). After 29 days the 20 LAR animals were returned live to back to Earth on January 13 2018,. After splashdown the animals were ambulatory on-ground for ~4 days until all subjects were processed during one day of dissections. There were two Baseline groups of animals sacrificed (LAR Baseline & FLT Baseline; N=20; 40 animals; ~36 weeks old) at Kennedy Space Center (KSC; 12/9/17). A Ground Control group mimicked the Flight LAR group which was housed at KSC then shipped alive to Novartis Facilities where both the LAR and LAR Ground Control groups were processed (~41 weeks old; 1/16/18). All were anesthetized with isoflurane blood samples were obtained by closed-chest cardiac puncture and the animals were euthanized by exsanguination and thoracotomy. The 20 ISS Terminal mice were anesthetized via intraperitoneal injection of ketamine/xylazine/acepromazine over the course of a four days of dissections (2/6/18 until 2/9/18; 53-56 days after launch; 44 weeks old at time of on-orbit dissections). Blood samples and euthanasia were conducted the same as LAR and Baseline. Following blood draw and hind limb dissection the ISS-terminal animal carcasses were wrapped in aluminum foil placed in a ziploc bag and placed in storage at -80C or colder until return. The ISS-terminal Ground Controls (at KSC) followed the same euthanasia timeline methods and preservation. The final processing of frozen ISS-terminal frozen ISS-terminal Ground Controls and frozen 0-day FLT baseline animals were completed at Houston Methodist Research Institute in Houston TX (5/21/18 until 5/24/18). GeneLab received samples of liver from only sham treated animals (no drug treated animals) from the following groups Flight: LAR (n=10) ISS Terminal (n= 10); Ground Controls: LAR GC (N=9) ISS Terminal GC (N=10) LAR Baseline (n=10) ISS Terminal Baseline (n=10). Total RNA was extracted and sequenced at a target depth of 60 M clusters per sample (ribodepleted paired end 150).
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Trajectory Clustering with Applications to Airspace Monitoring
data.nasa.gov | Last Updated 2020-01-29T03:25:10.000ZThis paper presents a framework aimed at monitoring the behavior of aircraft in a given airspace. Trajectories that constitute typical operations are determined and learned using data-driven methods. Standard procedures are used by air traffic controllers (ATCs) to guide aircraft, ensure the safety of the airspace, and maximize runway occupancy. Even though standard procedures are used by ATCs, control of the aircraft remains with the pilots, leading to large variability in the flight patterns observed. Two methods for identifying typical operations and their variability from recorded radar tracks are presented. This knowledge base is then used to monitor the conformance of current operations against operations previously identified as typical. A tool called AirTrajectoryMiner is presented, aiming at monitoring the instantaneous health of the airspace, in real time. The airspace is “healthy” when all aircraft are flying according to typical operations. A measure of complexity is introduced, measuring the conformance of current flight to typical flight patterns. When an aircraft does not conform, the complexity increases as more attention from ATC is required to ensure safe separation between aircraft. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Dec. 2011, 12(4), pp. 1511 - 1524.