The Regolith Advanced Surface Systems Operations Robot (RASSOR) excavator robot is a teleoperated mobility platform with a space regolith excavation capability. This more compact, lightweight design (

A lightweight, cryogenically capable, scalable, deformable mirror has been developed for space telescopes. This innovation makes use of polymer-based membrane mirror technology to enable large-aperture mirrors that can be easily launched and...

Investigation of sonic boom has been one of the major areas of study in aeronautics due to the benefits a low-boom aircraft has in both civilian and military applications. Current Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibit supersonic flight over land due to...

A system was developed to provide a new mechanism for members of the mission community to create and contribute new science data to the rest of the community. Mission tools have allowed members of the mission community to share first order data (data that is created by the...

This software is a viewer program for maritime robotics software that provides a 3D visualization of the boat pose, its position history, ENC (Electrical Nautical Chart) information, camera images, map overlay, and detected tracks.

This software provides storage retrieval and analysis functionality for managing satellite altimetry data. It improves the efficiency and analysis capabilities of existing database software with improved flexibility and documentation. It offers flexibility in the type of data that can be stored. There is efficient retrieval...

This work covers two programs that accomplish the same goal: creation of a “reachability map” from stereo imagery that tells where operators of a robotic arm can reach or touch the surface, and with which instruments. The programs are “marsreach” (for MER) and “phxreach.” These programs make use...

A flight-qualified implementation of a Software Defined Radio (SDR) Operating Environment for the JPL-SDR built for the CoNNeCT Project has been developed. It is compliant with the NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) Architecture Standard, and provides the software...

RFI-SIM simulates the RFI environment to estimate the interference from terrestrial emitters into spacecraft, or vice versa. A high-fidelity simulation of the RFI environment has been developed by employing all antenna-related and radar systemrelated parameters of multiple emitters, as well as that of the desired...

The configuration of ION (Interplanetary Overlay Network) network nodes is a manual task that is complex, time-consuming, and error-prone. This program seeks to accelerate this job and produce reliable configurations.

This software runs a suite of arbitrary software tests spanning various software languages and types of tests (unit level, system level, or file comparison tests). The dtest utility can be set to automate periodic testing of large suites of software, as well as running individual tests. It supports distributing multiple tests...

IMPaCT enables comprehensive information on current NASA missions, prospective future missions, and the technologies that NASA is investing in, or considering investing in, to be accessed from a common Web-based interface. It allows dependencies to be established between missions...

A framework of software components has been implemented to facilitate the development of ISHM systems according to a methodology based on Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM). This framework is collectively referred to as the Toolkit and was developed using General Atomics’ Health MAP™...

Modeling and imaging the Earth’s ionosphere as well as understanding its structures, inhomogeneities, and disturbances is a key part of NASA’s Heliophysics Directorate science roadmap. This invention provides a design tool for...

There have been a number of missions with spacecraft flying by planetary moons with atmospheres; there will be future missions with similar flybys. When a spacecraft such as Cassini flies by a moon with an atmosphere, the spacecraft will experience an atmospheric torque. This torque could be...

flexplan is a mission planning and scheduling (MPS) tool that uses soft algorithms to define mission scheduling rules and constraints. This allows the operator to configure the tool for any mission without the need to modify or re-compile code. In addition, flexplan uses an ID...

PowderSim is a calculation tool that combines a discrete-element method (DEM) module, including calibrated interparticle- interaction relationships, with a mesh-free, continuum, SPH (smoothed-particle hydrodynamics) based module that utilizes enhanced,...

The Basic Operational Robotics Instructional System (BORIS) is a sixdegree- of-freedom rotational robotic manipulator system simulation used for training of fundamental robotics concepts, with in-line shoulder, offset elbow, and offset wrist. BORIS is used to provide generic robotics training to...

The new technology in this approach combines the subpixel detection information from multiple frames of a sequence to achieve a more sensitive detection result, using only the information found in the images themselves. It is taken as a constraint that the method is automated,...

Unsupervised hyperspectral image segmentation can reveal spatial trends that show the physical structure of the scene to an analyst. They highlight borders and reveal areas of homogeneity and change. Segmentations are independently helpful for object recognition, and assist with automated...

A document describes a sheet membrane spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME), which allows for the use of one common water tank that can supply cooling water to the astronaut and to the evaporator. Test data showed that heat rejection performance dropped only 6 percent after being subjected to...

Qualification of motors for deep space under extreme thermal environments to be encountered during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission is required to verify the reliability and validate mission assurance requirements. The motor assembly must survive all ground operations, plus the nominal...

A document describes the low-cost manufacturing of C103 niobium alloy combustion chambers, and the use of a high-temperature, oxidation-resistant coating that is superior to the standard silicide coating. The manufacturing process involved...

Small size, wide spectral bandwidth, and highly multiplexed detector readout are required to develop powerful multi-beam spectrometers for high-redshift observations. Currently available spectrometers at these frequencies are large and bulky. The grating sizes for...

Future NASA destinations will be challenging to get to, have extreme environmental conditions, and may present difficulty in retrieving a spacecraft or its data. Space Photonics is developing a radiationtolerant (rad-tolerant), high-speed, multichannel fiber-optic...

A Raman spectrometer employs two or more UV (ultraviolet) laser wavelengths to generate UV resonant Raman (UVRR) spectra in organic samples. Resonant Raman scattering results when the laser excitation is near an electronic transition of a molecule, and the enhancement of Raman signals...