The Trick Simulation Environment is a generic simulation toolkit used for constructing and running simulations. This release includes a Monte Carlo analysis simulation framework and a data analysis package. It produces all auto documentation in XML. Also, the software is capable of inserting a malfunction at any...

This software has been designed to detect water bodies that are out in the open on cross-country terrain at close range (out to 30 meters), using imagery acquired from a stereo pair of color cameras mounted on a terrestrial, unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). This detector exploits the fact that the color...

An important aspect of mission planning for NASA’s operation of the International Space Station is the allocation and management of space for supplies and equipment. The Stowage, Configuration Analysis, and Operations Planning teams collaborate to perform the bulk of that planning. A Geometric...

It is known that the impedance at the center of a patch antenna element is a short circuit, implying that a wire or post can be connected from the patch to the groundplane at this point without impacting radiation performance. In principle, this central post can be used to support...

This prototype innovation is a novel design that achieves very long, effective laser path lengths that are able to yield ppb (parts per billion) and sub-ppb measurements of trace gases. SLIMS can also accommodate multiple laser channels covering a wide range of wavelengths, resulting in...

A next-generation microshutter array, LArge Microshutter Array (LAMA), was developed as a multi-object field selector. LAMA consists of small-scaled microshutter arrays that can be combined to form large-scale microshutter array mosaics. Microshutter actuation is...

Carbon nanotubes previously grown on silicon have extremely low reflectance, making them a good candidate for stray light suppression. Silicon, however, is not a good structural material for stray light components such as tubes, stops, and baffles....

Post-fire air constituents that are of interest to NASA include CO and some acid gases (HCl and HCN). CO is an important analyte to be able to sense in human habitats since it is a marker for both pre-fire detection and post-fire cleanup.

Microcellular nanocomposite foams and sandwich structures have been created to have excellent electrical conductivity and radiation-resistant properties using a new method that does not involve or release any toxicity. The nanocomposite structures have...

Optical absorber coatings have been developed from carbon-based paints, metal blacks, or glassy carbon. However, such materials are not truly black and have poor absorption characteristics at longer wavelengths. The blackness of such coatings is...

Earlier studies have confirmed that a tenacious hardy bacterial population manages to persist and survive throughout a spacecraft assembly process. The widespread detection of these organisms underscores the challenges in eliminating them...

A polarized scene, which may occur at oblique illumination angles, creates a radiometric signal that varies as a function of viewing angle. One common optical component that is used to minimize such an effect is a polarization scrambler or depolarizer. As part of the CLARREO mission, the...

To demodulate a communication signal, a receiver must recover and synchronize to the symbol timing of a received waveform. In a system that utilizes digital sampling, the fidelity of synchronization is limited by the time between the symbol boundary and closest sample time location. To reduce this error, one...

The performance of cold atom experiments relying on three-dimensional magneto-optical trap techniques can be greatly enhanced by employing a highflux cold atom beam to obtain high atom loading rates while maintaining low background pressures in the UHV MOT (ultra-high vacuum magneto-optical trap)...

Reclamation and re-use of water is critical for space-based life support systems. A number of functions must be performed by any such system including removal of various contaminants and oxygenation. For long-duration space missions, this must be done with a compact, reliable system...

Autonomous navigation and control for unmanned sea surface vehicles requires a visual sensing system to provide a 360° view from the vehicle deck for situational awareness. Successful operation required a sensing system mechanically packaged to withstand weather, sea spray, and an environment...

Verilog-A based cryogenic bulk CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) compact models are built for state-of-the-art silicon CMOS processes. These models accurately predict device operation at cryogenic temperatures down to 4 K. The models are...

The task of evaluating obstructions in the optical throughput of an optical system requires the use of two disciplines, and hence, two models: optical models for the details of optical propagation, and mechanical models for determining the actual structure that exists in the...

Modern parallel file systems achieve high performance using a variety of techniques, such as striping files across multiple disks to increase aggregate I/O bandwidth and spreading disks across multiple servers to increase aggregate interconnect bandwidth. To...

The proposed Space Operations Learning Center (SOLC) Facebook module, initially code-named “Spaceville,” is intended to be an educational online game utilizing the latest social networking technology to reach a broad audience base and inspire young audiences to be interested in math,...

Foil gas bearings are a key technology in many commercial and emerging oilfree turbomachinery systems. These bearings are nonlinear and have been difficult to analytically model in terms of performance characteristics such as load capacity,...

This technology is based on sampling considerations for a band-limited function, which has application to optical estimation generally, and to phase retrieval specifically. The analysis begins with the observation that the Fourier transform of an optical aperture...

Health management (HM) in any engineering systems requires adequate understanding about the system’s functioning; a sufficient amount of monitored data; the capability to extract, analyze, and collate information; and the capability to combine understanding and information for HM-related estimation and decision-making....

This innovation is a variation of a simulated- annealing optimization algorithm that uses a recursive-branching structure to parallelize the search of a parameter space for the globally optimal solution to an objective. The algorithm has been demonstrated to be more effective at searching a...

This software allows one to up-sample or down-sample a measured surface map for model validation, not only without introducing any re-sampling errors, but also eliminating the existing measurement noise and measurement errors. Because the re-sampling of a surface map...

A document highlights an Li-based fluxing agent that enables sample fusion and quantitative Ar-release at relatively low temperatures (900–1,000 ºC), readily achievable with current flight resistance furnace designs. A solid, double spike containing known quantities...