Volume 08 | September 2019
NAMS Highlights - September 2019
The Latest News from the NASA Academic Mission Services Program
Aeronautics: NAMS Aeronautics Team Present at ATD-2 Industry Workshop 
The ATD-2 project team has developed an Integrated Arrival/Departure/Surface technology, which has been demonstrated in an operational environment. The NAMS Aeronautics team supported the ATD-2 Industry Workshop in Dallas, Texas, on September 4th and 5th. This workshop presented lessons learned and provided the opportunity for airport operators, airline operators, and vendors who supply aviation tools and/or services to engage with the NASA ATD-2 team. The workshop was attended by 181 people, of which 139 were participants who came to learn about ATD-2 and the future of the aviation surface system. The NAMS Aeronautics team organized the Workshop, presented at 21 of the breakout sessions and provided demonstrations of the ATD-2 system.
Pictured above: USRA NAMS Aero team supporting the ATD-2 Industry Workshop in Dallas. Front row (L to R): Melody Lin (OSI), Easter Wang (USRA), Keenan Roach (USRA), Kevin Day (Mosaic ATM). Back row: Jody Null (USRA), Liang Chen (MTI), Isaac Robeson (Mosaic ATM), Cynthia Freedman (USRA), Andrew Churchill (Mosaic ATM), Brian Phipps (Mosaic ATM), Amanda Gower (Mosaic ATM). Not pictured: Shawn Gorman (Mosaic ATM), Dave Hicenbothem (Mosaic ATM), JD Sanders (USRA), Stuart Wilson (Mosaic ATM).
Aeronautics: Dr. Banavar Sridhar Presents Project at the NASA University Leadership Initiative 
Dr. Banavar Sridhar, USRA’s Chief Scientist for Aeronautics, attended the annual review of the NASA University Leadership Initiative funded project on “Information fusion for real-time national air transportation system prognostics under uncertainty” at Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX on August 28-29, 2019. The project is a collaboration between Arizona State University, Vanderbilt University, Optimal Synthesis Inc. and Southwest Research Institute. A novel feature of the ULI project is feedback about the progress of the project to NASA from an External Advisory Board (EAB) selected by the Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigators. Banavar is a member of the EAB, organized the written response to questionnaire about the progress, led the discussion of the EAB members and provided feedback on the progress to NASA personnel (Dr. John Cavolowsky, Dr.Koushik Datta and Dr. Anupa Bajwa).
Pictured above: Hari Iyer (Optimal Synthesis), Banavar Sridhar, Ph.D. (USRA), and Prof. Shankaran Mahadevan (Vanderbilt University)
Bioscience: ExMC Team Successfully Deployed MDA Software in the Gateway Habitat Environments
Over the past 6 months, the Human Research Program’s Exploration Medical Capability (ExMC) Medical Data Architecture (MDA) team successfully completed engineering and crew tests in several Gateway habitat prototypes. These tests were part of a larger evaluation effort of the Gateway habitat prototypes that were developed under the Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) program. Taking place at various NASA centers, the MDA software was deployed on the Gateway habitat network that included the One Portal exercise software. This software was used by personnel to operate a compact, mechanical apparatus capable of providing multiple types of exercise. Upon completion of exercise routines, the resulting files from One Portal were pushed to a share directory where the MDA software was automatically able to access and ingest the files. For each exercise routine performed, the MDA system received and stored the associated data files. Also, the team demonstrated software operability by logging into the system as a Crew Medical Officer or Crew Member, and by displaying stored medical relevant data within a crew member’s health record. These test results were included in NextSTEP evaluation summaries for each of the habitats.
Pictured above : ExMC MDA team member, Michael Krihak, Ph.D. is shown operating the MDA software during an engineering test at NASA Johnson Space Center.
Aeroflightdynamics: Major Release of Flight Control Design and Optimization Tool – CONDUIT® 6.0
The NAMS Flight Control System Software Development team under the Aeroflightdynamics Technical Area has recently announced the major version 6.0 release of CONDUIT® – a flight control design and optimization tool that allows the user to rapidly evaluate and optimize designs against relevant performance specifications and design criteria. Developed jointly with the U.S. Army Aviation Development Directorate – Ames (ADD-A, NASA Code Y), CONDUIT® is one of the flagship tools of the flight control design software suite that is used not only for supporting ADD-A’s research and development missions, but has also been deployed to and widely-used by many aerospace companies, academia, and government agencies worldwide. 

Over the years, CONDUIT® and the associated methodologies have been successfully applied to many rotorcraft and fixed-wing aircraft programs, as well as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), especially the small-scale Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) configurations. In this major 6.0 release, many new capabilities and improvements are incorporated in the software since the last major release in 2017. Most notably, the new Design Tracker feature is introduced that enables the users to track design changes and key results over the course of their projects. The users can load and save selected states of the design problem, or “snapshots,” at various points during design, optimization, and analysis in CONDUIT®. Also, to address the growing demand from the user community, especially the midsize and small UAV companies, who prefer to use Macs as their primary research platforms, a new native macOS version of CONDUIT® is introduced in this release in addition to the currently supported Windows and Linux platforms.

In addition to the deployment of the Pro version, the Student version, which serves as a companion to the USRA co-authored AIAA textbook “Practical Methods for Aircraft and Rotorcraft Flight Control Design: An Optimization-Based Approach,” has also been updated and made available through the AIAA website to the book owners. More information on CONDUIT® can be found here:  https://nams.usra.edu/flight-control/conduit .
Pictured above: Collage of the CONDUIT® runtime environment
Awards
Data Integration: SMA Crystal Ball Team is Awarded the NASA Group Achievement Award 
The NAMS-supported SMA Crystal Ball Team has been awarded the NASA Group Achievement Award for their outstanding contributions in the completion of Phase 1 – Data Integration of the SMA Crystal Ball Project. This award will be presented at the annual Honor Awards ceremony tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, September 10, 2019 at Stennis Space Center. USRA team members being recognized include John Dunn, Anastasia Glyantseva Carrozzo and Irina Patrikeeva.

The ultimate goal is for the SMA Crystal Ball to predict future safety incidents based on past data to potentially reduce center incidents and help SSC management better allocate center resources. The collaborative efforts of this highly skilled team of civil servants and contractors resulted in a tool that is easy to use and, in some cases, displays data in ways that are not easily extracted from the authoritative source. SMA personnel are currently using the tool to do relational trending and data analysis which will result in improved Agency and Center situational awareness and process and operational improvements.
Pictured above : Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen (NASA Associate Administrator, Science Mission Directorate), John Dunn (USRA Task Lead),  Kamili J. Shaw (Lead - Safety, Quality and Management Systems Division (QA-10) at Stennis Space Center, and Richard J. Gilbrech (Stennis Center Director)

John Dunn receiving the Crystal Ball Team Group Award, on behalf of the USRA team members (John Dunn, Irina Patrikeeva and Anastasia Carrozzo)
USRA Community Engagement
USRA Staff Celebrates 1 st Annual Picnic
On September 19th, 1st Annual USRA Picnic took place at NASA ARC Park. The picnic included USRA employees, students and subcontractors, which allowed for networking across directorates. At the picnic, staff enjoyed catered lunch from the Ames Exchange and participated in team building activities. The picnic was spearheaded by Susan DeKom, Program Specialist, who formed four teams to organize the big event that consisted of over 100 attendees. The individual raffle was won by Andrea Skolik, an intern from Germany, who was excited to win the USRA swag bag. The "Venus" team won the team competition raffle, which resulted in the team choosing who would get pies thrown at them. Dr. Davide Venturelli was selected to receive the honors.
Pictured above: USRA NAMS Team at 1st Annual Picnic, NASA Ames Research Center
University Engagement and Student Highlights
R&D Collaborations for Airborne Science: CubeSat Technology Team (Cal-Poly SLO) Visits Palmdale
The Cal Poly team presented the current design and analysis at Palmdale, CA. The Armstrong team gave great feedback for how to simplify the design and make the analysis more robust. The Cal Poly team is taking the feedback into consideration while preparing for Critical Design Review (CDR) and greatly appreciated all the guidance the teams at NASA Ames and Armstrong have been able to provide.The team also attended the SmallSat Conference in Logan, UT to meet with the NASA and industry members to discuss this topic.
Pictured above : Cal-Poly SLO students and faculty visiting NASA AFRC and Small Satellite Conference
NASA Showcase at Mountain View’s Art & Wine Festival
On September 7th-8th, NAMS staff and interns volunteered at the Mountain View's Art & Wine Festival. They enjoyed the displays at different booths and spent time at the NASA booth, learning about science, technology and lunar exploration.
Pictured above: Staff and students volunteering at Mountain View’s Art & Wine Festival
USRA NAMS Staff and Students Network at the Ames Happy Hour
On September 11th, NAMS technical staff talked about science and technology at the Ames Happy Hour.
Pictured above: USRA staff at Ames Happy Hour
Fall 2019 I-Squared Program International Cultural Night
On September 19th, interns from across the center were invited to the Fall 2019 I-Squared International Cultural Night held at Ames. Students were able to share fun facts about their countries and sample food from around the world.
Pictured above: I-Squared interns learning about various cultures at International Cultural Night
Welcome New Hires and Interns!
New Hires for September 2019
David Rapettie Serra, Ph.D. – Intelligent Systems
Zeal Panchal – NAMS Program Coordinator
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Website:  NAMS News Submission

Submittal Date : News submission form for NASA Academic Mission Services (NAMS) Newsletter. Please submit submission form by the 15th of the month to be featured in the monthly newsletter. 

For more information on requesting interns through the NAMS Student R&D Program , please email  NAMS-studentRD@usra.edu