This week's Question: Google Wallet, an Android mobile app launched earlier this month, is slowly being rolled out to the public. The application allows users to make purchases with their phones. The technology uses near field communication (NFC) chips to store and remit credit card data,...

The 2220 Series brushless DC oil-less air compressor from Thomas Division (Sheboygan, WI) is designed for applications requiring a compact compressor with variable output. The unit weighs 1.48 pounds and measures 3.8 × 2.64 × 4.7". It features a variable speed motor that produces flow to 1.2 cfm and pressure to 30 psi. It uses...

Improved devices have been proposed for collecting sweat for biochemical analysis — especially for determination of the concentration of Ca2+ ions in sweat as a measure of loss of Ca from bones. Unlike commercially available sweat-collection patches used previously in monitoring...

Phil McAlister, acting director of commercial spaceflight development, oversees the efforts of the Commercial Crew Development and Cargo programs. The dual initiatives spur efforts within the private sector to boost human spaceflight...

For safety and efficiency, nuclear reactors must be carefully monitored to provide feedback that enables the fission rate to be held at a constant target level via adjustments in the position of neutron- absorbing rods and moderating coolant flow rates. For automated reactor control, the...

In the past, solid electrolytes have mainly been used as oxygen sensors for automobiles. This type of sensor measures the difference between the oxygen partial pressures of a reference electrode and a measurement electrode, and always requires a...

A cytometer now under development exploits spatial sorting of sampled cells on a microarray chip followed by use of grating-coupled surface-plasmon-resonance imaging (GCSPRI) to detect the sorted cells. This cytometer on a chip is a prototype of contemplated future miniature cytometers that would be suitable for rapidly...

A process has been examined for bonding a platinum resistance thermometer (PRT) onto potential aerospace materials such as flat aluminum surfaces and a flexible copper tube to simulate coaxial cables for flight applications. Primarily, PRTs were inserted into a...

Tactile sensors are currently being designed to sense interactions with human hands or pen-like interfaces. They are generally embedded in screens, keyboards, mousepads, and pushbuttons. However, they are not well fitted to sense interactions with all kinds of objects.

A paper describes the laser truss sensor (LTS) for detecting piston motion between two adjacent telescope segment edges. LTS is formed by two point-topoint laser metrology gauges in a crossed geometry.

A symmetric reflectarray, consisting of variable-size square patch elements with a commonly used mathematical model for the horn in the form of a cosine function, has been designed using the transmit mode technique for different f/D ratios with –10 dB edge taper. Subsequently,...

Cables are very important electrical devices that carry power and signals across multiple instruments. Any fault in a cable can easily result in a catastrophic outcome. Therefore, verifying that all cables are built to spec is a very important part of Electrical Integration Procedures. Currently, there are two methods used in lab...

Commercial digital signal processors (DSPs) for use in high-speed satellite computers are challenged by the damaging effects of space radiation, mainly single event upsets (SEUs) and single event functional interrupts (SEFIs). Inno vations have been developed for mitigating the effects of SEUs and SEFIs, enabling...

Low-current, high-impedance microelectronic devices can be affected by electric current shot noise more than they are affected by Nyquist noise, even at room temperature. An approach to implementing a sub-shot noise current source for powering such devices is based on direct conversion of amplitude-...

A critical PECL (positive emitter-coupled logic) interface to Xilinx interface needed to be changed on an existing flight board. The new Xilinx input interface used a CMOS (complementary metal-oxide semiconductor) type of input, and the driver could meet its thresholds typically, but not in...

A programmable oscillator is a frequency synthesizer with an output phase that tracks an arbitrary function. An offset, phase-locked loop circuit is used in combination with an error control feedback loop to precisely control the output phase of the oscillator.

This software provides a library of middleware functions with a simple application programming interface, enabling implementation of distributed applications in conformance with the CCSDS AMS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems Asynchronous Message Service) specification.

Zero-copy objects (ZCOs) are abstract data access representations designed to minimize I/O (input/output) in the encapsulation of application source data within one or more layers of communication protocol structure. They are constructed within the heap space of a “Simple Data Recorder” (SDR) data store to which all...

To verify satisfaction of communication requirements imposed by unique missions, as early as 2000, the Communications Networking Group at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) saw the need for an environment to support interplanetary communication protocol design, validation, and characterization....

Contact Graph Routing (CGR) is a dynamic routing system that computes routes through a time-varying topology of scheduled communication contacts in a network based on the DTN (Delay-Tolerant Networking) architecture. It is designed to enable dynamic selection of data transmission routes in a space network based on DTN. This...

Parallel Eclipse Project Checkout (PEPC) is a program written to leverage parallelism and to automate the checkout process of plug-ins created in Eclipse RCP (Rich Client Platform). Eclipse plug-ins can be aggregated in a “feature project.” This innovation digests a feature description (xml file) and...

As the recycling of plastic continues in the United States, there is a great need for the increased utilization of recycled products. Some of the plastic being recycled is extruded into a product known as plastic lumber, which is similar in shape and texture to its wood...

Broad area cooling shields are a massefficient alternative to conductively cooled thermal radiation shielding. The shield would actively intercept a large portion of incident thermal radiation and transport the heat away using cryogenic helium gas. The design concept...