Briefs: Propulsion
Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Integration for Shock Noise (RISN)
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) Integration for Shock- Noise (RISN) is a computer program that evaluates acoustic analogies to predict jet noise. Jet noise is due to turbulence from the chaotic flow within the exhaust of a rocket or air-breathing jet engine. The source of...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
The largest supersonic parachute ever developed is one of the test articles on the Supersonic Flight Dynamics Test (SFDT) vehicle of the Low Density Supersonic Decelerator (LDSD)...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Solar sail technology depends heavily on the total surface area of the sail. In other words, minimizing mass and volume of its support structure is the main objective,...
Briefs: Aerospace
Multi-Pulse Motor (MPM) Designed for Use with Electric Solid Propellants
The multi-pulse motor is a solid-propellant rocket motor that is able to produce a number of pulses for various thrust levels (5 to 30 pulses and thrusts between 0.25 and 1.5 N, depending on electric power delivery system) and can be turned on and off through the...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Rocket Sled Parachute Design Verification
Historically, parachutes have been load-tested by various methods including release from an aircraft, deploying in a wind tunnel, dragging through water, and shooting out of an air cannon. Each type of testing has its own advantages and drawbacks. Due to the loading mechanics particular to parachutes...
Briefs: Aerospace
Adaptive Augmenting Control
Adaptive augmenting control (AAC) is a forward gain, multiplicative adaptive algorithm for launch vehicle flight control that meets three summary-level design objectives: Do no harm — return to baseline control design when not needed; respond to errors in the ability of the vehicle to track commands to increase...
Briefs: Aerospace
Regeneratively Cooled Porous Media Jacket
A non-toxic nitrous oxide fuel blend (NOFB) monopropellant with a high adiabatic flame temperature reaching and probably exceeding 3,450 K and a very high thermal decomposition limit (>390 °C) is under development. To design an optimal rocket engine that can handle the high adiabatic temperature...
Briefs: Aerospace
Daily Mesoscale Sea Surface Salinity from Evaporation and Precipitation
Quantification of salinity is hampered by the lack of time and space resolution of existing measurements and models. At present, skin salinity measurements are available every few days with limited spatial resolution. Daily skin salinity products are full of gaps, which some...
Briefs: Aerospace
Software for Inferring the Aerosol Water and Soot Fractions from Remote Sensing Measurements
Aerosol water content and soot concentrations are important components of aerosol forcing. Aerosols contain varying amounts of water depending upon their aerosol hygroscopicity, and anthropogenic aerosols are among the most hygroscopic aerosols; hence,...
Briefs: Aerospace
Algae Photobioreactor Using Floating Enclosures With Semi-Permeable Membranes
Various species of algae are known to produce valuable products ranging from food to fertilizer to biofuels. Methods have been developed for producing biofuels by processing algae and other micro-organisms that grow in aquatic environments, but the largescale...
Briefs: Aerospace
Parallelization of Snowflake Growth Simulation
Gravner and Griffeath have developed a serial numerical model that simulates the growth of snowflakes in three dimensions under the assumptions of 24-fold symmetry. To allow for much larger and asymmetric snowflakes as well as to reduce simulation time, their model was re-implemented using...
Briefs: Aerospace
Soil Remediation with Plant-Fungal Combinations
This work applies to remediation and restoration of soil contaminated by fuel, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) wastes, etc. While there can be a beneficial effect of microbial communities, individual plant-fungus combinations can vary in their efficacy in removing pollutants from the environment....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Rigorous Antenna Noise Temperature Calculation Method for International Space Station Visiting Spacecraft
The temperature of the orbiting space station’s Sun-facing side could be up to 250 °F (≈120 °C) and will be a significant antenna noise temperature contributor for visiting spacecraft communication and tracking systems during...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Recurring Anomaly Detection System (ReADS)
NASA Engineering & Safety Center (NESC) subject matter experts analyze records in various International Space Station and shuttle databases to identify recurring anomalies. The key problems these experts face in analyzing such database records are:
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Method for Automatic Optimization of Yaw Maneuvers for Orbiting Space Vehicles
A new method for optimizing yaw attitude maneuvers on the International Space Station (ISS) was developed. Docking and undocking operations often require 180° yaw rotations, which are the most common large maneuvers on the ISS. When optimized, some large maneuvers,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Architecture Framework for Fault Management Assessment and Design
Modern spacecraft, aircraft, and surface vehicles support complex science missions in harsh environments. These spacecraft and vehicles provide diverse functionality that is deployed on increasingly complex and heterogeneous hardware and mechanical systems, with stringent...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Spacecraft Parameter Database Tool
The GOES-R Program has requirements to maintain knowledge of the GOES-R satellite onboard memory contents, including managing general satellite operations tables; processor memory dumps for memory verification; creating command loads, memory (table) loads, and command sequences to operate the satellite;...
Briefs: Information Technology
Eliminating the Need for Payload-Specific Coupled Loads Analyses Without Mission Risk
Amore efficient structural verification process for small satellites has been demonstrated. This new process eliminates the need for payload-specific coupled loads analysis (CLA) and simplifies structural testing while not increasing mission risk. The process...
Briefs: Information Technology
Moon Tours Android
This Android app provides a native interface to the Lunar Mapping and Modeling Portal’s (LMMP) lunar data archive and analysis tools. It complements the iOS app previously released, incorporating a very similar feature set. Both apps contain a subset of the functionality available in the desktop/Web version. Compared to the...
Briefs: Imaging
The Adélie penguin has a circum-Antarctic distribution and is widely considered a useful indicator of status and change in the Antarctic and Southern Ocean...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Photogrammetric-Based Pose Initialization and Propagation for Inertial Navigation Systems
The purpose of the Pose Initialization and Propagation (PIP) system is to provide an absolute navigational solution (position, velocity, and attitude) to a moving vehicle without using GPS. This was developed as a navigation system for rocket launches in a...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
3D Imaging Technology and System
All current cameras and imaging systems have the same classical problem in practical applications. To complete the observation task, a large amount of data is captured, processed, and transmitted; then most of the data is discarded because it is not essential for the given observation task. The problem comes from...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Tunable laser absorption spectrometer (TLAS) sensors enable gas monitoring with high accuracy and gas specificity, and can be optimized for continuous,...
Briefs: Imaging
Virtual Windows to Supplement Conventional Spacecraft Windows
Legacy NASA spacecraft windows suffer from specialized costs and operational constraints associated with embedding optically transparent apertures within structures that are designed to maximize strength, safety, and environmental integrity. A new approach to the legacy window...
Briefs: Imaging
All imaging systems from space are affected by disturbances originating in the spacecraft in the form of mechanical noise from thruster and reaction/momentum wheels, and sensor noise. A...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Optical Correlation Receiver
Precise distance, time, and pulse width measurements are required for many areas of science and engineering. Time-of-flight methods are often used to measure remote distances. Optical signals are attractive because the small wavelength allows small transmit and receive telescopes. Short pulsed lasers are attractive...
Briefs: Software
The mercury linear ion trap frequency standard (LITS) at JPL has been demonstrated to have multiple potential applications in NASA deep space missions. An increase of the...
Briefs: Imaging
Exploration Visualization Environment
The Exploration Visualization Environment (EVE) is a simulation, visualization, and analysis system designed to integrate engineering data with a virtual environment in support of the design and planning of space-based missions. Through the integration of time-dependent data with detailed graphical models...
Briefs: Imaging
SCaN Optical Link Assessment Tool Version 2
In response to the requirements of the Space-Based Relay Study (SBRS) undertaken by NASA in 2013, as well as the Integrated Radio and Optical Communications (iROC) project being conducted by NASA Glenn Research Center (GRC) beginning in 2012, a calculation procedure was required to rapidly assess the...
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