Articles: Imaging
FLCOS Technology: Enabling a New Generation of Display-Based Products
The multi-billion-dollar display market has grown to encompass everything from notebook PCs to desktop monitors, televisions, cell phone displays, and much more. As the...
Who's Who: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Ginger N. Flores, LOCAD Project Manager, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
Diagnosis on Earth is a fairly simple procedure, done at any hospital or medical center. In space flight, however, where doctors and even basic...
Products
UEILogger
United Electronics Industries, Canton, MA, has introduced the UEILogger series of data loggers and recorders. The logger "Cube" contains the logger engine and either three or six I/O slots. The logger is matched to the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Calibration Test Set for a Phase-Comparison Digital Tracker
An apparatus that generates four signals at a frequency of 7.1 GHz having precisely controlled relative phases and equal amplitudes has been designed and built. This apparatus is...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Arrays of Miniature Microphones for Aeroacoustic Testing
A phased-array system comprised of custom-made and commercially available microelectromechanical system (MEMS) silicon microphones and custom ancillary hardware has been developed for...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Wireless Acoustic Measurement System
A prototype wireless acoustic measurement system (WAMS) is one of two main subsystems of the Acoustic Prediction/ Measurement Tool, which comprises software, acoustic instrumentation, and electronic hardware combined to afford integrated capabilities for predicting and measuring noise emitted by rocket and...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Spiral Orbit Tribometer
The spiral orbit tribometer (SOT) bridges the gap between full-scale life testing and typically unrealistic accelerated life testing of ball-bearing lubricants in conjunction with bearing ball and race materials. The...
Briefs: Information Technology
Predicting Rocket or Jet Noise in Real Time
A semi-empirical theoretical model and a C++ computer program that implements the model have been developed for use in predicting the noise generated by a rocket or jet engine. The computer program, entitled the Realtime Rocket and Jet Engine Noise Analysis and Prediction Software, is one of two main...
Briefs: Software
Computational Workbench for Multibody Dynamics
PyCraft is a computer program that provides an interactive, workbench-like computing environment for developing and testing algorithms for multibody dynamics. Examples of multibody dynamic systems amenable to analysis with the help of PyCraft include land vehicles, spacecraft, robots, and...
Briefs: Semiconductors & ICs
SiC Multi-Chip Power Modules as Power-System Building Blocks
The term “SiC MCPMs” (wherein “MCPM” signifies “multi-chip power module”) denotes electronic power-supply modules containing multiple silicon carbide power devices and silicon-on-insulator (SOI) control integrated-circuit chips. SiC MCPMs are being developed as building...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
High-Power, High-Efficiency Ka-Band Space Traveling-Wave Tube
The L-3 Communications Model 999H traveling-wave tube (TWT) has been demonstrated to generate an output power of 144 W at 60-percent overall efficiency in continuous-wave operation over the frequency band from 31.8 to 32.3 GHz. The best TWT heretofore commercially available for...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Gratings and Random Reflectors for Near-Infrared PIN Diodes
Crossed diffraction gratings and random reflectors have been proposed as means to increase the quantum efficiencies of InGaAs/InP positive/intrinsic/ negative (PIN) diodes designed...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Aerial Videography From Locally Launched Rockets
A method of quickly collecting digital imagery of ground areas from video cameras carried aboard locally launched rockets has been developed. The method can be used, for example, to record...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Optically Transparent Split-Ring Antennas for 1 to 10 GHz
Split-ring antennas made from optically transparent, electrically conductive films have been invented for applications in which there are requirements for compact antennas capable of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Power-Amplifier Module for 145 to 165 GHz
A power-amplifier module that operates in the frequency range of 145 to 165 GHz has been designed and constructed as a combination of (1) a previously developed monolithic microwave integrated...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Ice-Penetrating Robot for Scientific Exploration
The cryo-hydro integrated robotic penetrator system (CHIRPS) is a partially developed instrumentation system that includes a probe designed to deeply penetrate the Europan ice sheet in a search for signs of life. The CHIRPS could also be used on Earth for similar exploration of the polar ice caps...
Briefs: Software
Automated Design of Restraint Layer of an Inflatable Vessel
A Mathcad computer program largely automates the design and analysis of the restraint layer (the primary load-bearing layer) of an inflatable vessel that consists of one or more sections having cylindrical, toroidal, and/or spherical shape(s). A restraint layer typically comprises...
Briefs: Software
TMS for Instantiating a Knowledge Base With Incomplete Data
A computer program that belongs to the class known among software experts as output truth-maintenance systems (output TMSs) has been devised as one of a number of software tools for reducing the size of the knowledge base that must be searched during execution of...
Briefs: Software
Simulating Flights of Future Launch Vehicles and Spacecraft
Marshall Aerospace Vehicle Representation in C (MAVERIC) is a computer program for generic, low-to-high-fidelity simulation of the flight(s) of one or more launch vehicle(s) or spacecraft. MAVERIC is designed to accommodate multi-staged vehicles, powered serially or in parallel, with...
Briefs: Software
Control Code for Bearingless Switched-Reluctance Motor
A computer program has been devised for controlling a machine that is an integral combination of magnetic bearings and a switched-reluctance motor. The motor contains an eightpole stator and a hybrid rotor, which has both (1) a circular lamination stack for levitation and (2) a six-pole...
Briefs: Software
Machine Aided Indexing and the NASA Thesaurus
Machine Aided Indexing (MAI) is a Web-based application program for aiding the indexing of literature in the NASA Scientific and Technical Information (STI) Database. MAI was designed to be a convenient, fully interactive tool for determining the subject matter of documents and identifying keywords....
Briefs: Software
Arbitrating Control of Control and Display Units
The ARINC 739 Switch is a computer program that arbitrates control of two multi-function control and display units (MCDUs) between (1) a commercial flight-management computer (FMC) and (2) NASA software used in research on transport aircraft. (MCDUs are the primary interfaces between pilots and...
Briefs: Software
Web-Based Software for Managing Research
aeroCOMPASS is a software system, originally designed to aid in the management of wind tunnels at Langley Research Center, that could be adapted to provide similar aid to other enterprises in which research is performed in common laboratory facilities by users who may be geographically dispersed. Included...
Briefs: Software
Driver Code for Adaptive Optics
A special-purpose computer code for a deformable-mirror adaptive-optics control system transmits pixel-registered control from (1) a personal computer running software that generates the control data to (2) a circuit board with 128 digital-to-analog converters (DACs) that generate voltages to drive the...
Briefs: Materials
Ceramic Paste for Patching High-Temperature Insulation
A ceramic paste that can be applied relatively easily, either by itself or in combination with one or more layer(s) of high temperature ceramic fabrics, such as silicon carbide or zirconia, has been invented as a means of patching cracks or holes in the reinforced carbon-carbon forward...
Briefs: Materials
Protective Skins for Aerogel Monoliths
A method of imparting relatively hard protective outer skins to aerogel monoliths has been developed. Even more than aerogel beads, aerogel monoliths are attractive as thermal-insulation materials, but the commercial utilization of aerogel monoliths in thermal-insulation panels has been inhibited by their...
Briefs: Materials
Fabrication of Polyimide-Matrix/Carbon and Boron-Fiber Tape
The term "HYCARB" denotes a hybrid composite of polyimide matrices reinforced with carbon and boron fibers. HYCARB and an improved process for fabricating dry HYCARB tapes have been...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Asymmetric Bulkheads for Cylindrical Pressure Vessels
Asymmetric bulkheads are proposed for the ends of vertically oriented cylindrical pressure vessels. These bulkheads, which would feature both convex and concave contours, would offer...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Code Assesses Risks Posed by Meteoroids and Orbital Debris
BUMPER II version 1.92e is a computer code for assessing the risk of damage from impacts of micrometeoroids and orbital debris on the International Space Station (ISS), including those parts of the ISS covered by shielding that affords partial protection against such impacts. (Other...
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