NASA Tech Briefs - September 2010 - Vol. 34 No. 9

Features

• Application Briefs

  Robotic 3D Scanner Automatically Scans Spacecraft Heat Shields

  Automated Data Acquisition and Analysis Test Station for NASA’s CEV

• Who's Who

  Dr. Jaiwon Shin, Associate Administrator, Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters, Washington, DC

• Articles

  Is It Time to Try Direct Digital Manufacturing?

  NASA Awards 2009 Software of the Year

Tech Briefs

• Physical Sciences

  Instrument for Measuring Thermal Conductivity of Materials at Low Temperatures

  A Safe, Self-Calibrating, Wireless System for Measuring Volume of Any Fuel at Non-Horizontal Orientation

  Multi-Axis Accelerometer Calibration System

  Pupil Alignment Measuring Technique and Alignment Reference for Instruments or Optical Systems

  Autonomous System for Monitoring the Integrity of Composite Fan Housings

  True Shear Parallel Plate Viscometer

  Maglev Facility for Simulating Variable Gravity

  Focusing Diffraction Grating Element With Aberration Control

  Universal Millimeter-Wave Radar Front End

• Manufacturing & Prototyping

  Producing Hydrogen by Plasma Pyrolysis of Methane

  Self-Deployable Membrane Structures

  Reactivation of a Tin-Oxide-Containing Catalyst

• Software

  World Wide Web Metaphors for Search Mission Data

  Phenological Parameters Estimation Tool

  Numerical Mean Element Orbital Analysis With Morbiter

• Materials

  Low-Outgassing Adhesives

  Functionalization of Single-Wall Carbon Nanotubes by Photo-Oxidation

• Information Sciences

  3D GeoWall Analysis System for Shuttle External Tank Foreign Object Debris Events

  Hidden Statistics Approach to Quantum Simulations

  Determining Atmospheric-Density Profile of Titan

• Mechanics & Machinery

  Miniature Piezoelectric Macro-Mass Balance

  Acoustic Liner for Turbomachinery Applications

  Water Tank With Capillary Air/Liquid Separation

  Large-Flow-Area Flow-Selective Liquid/Gas Separator

  Metering Gas Strut for Separating Rocket Stages

  Counterflowing Jet Subsystem Design

• Electronics & Computers

  Advanced Flip Chips in Extreme Temperature Environments

  Adaptation of the Camera Link Interface for Flight-Instrument Applications

  High-Performance CCSDS AOS Protocol Implementation in FPGA

  High-Performance CCSDS Encapsulation Service Implementation in FPGA

Products

• EPOCH 600

• Briefs

  Qualification and Selection of Flight Diode Lasers for Space Applications

  High-Speed Operation of Interband Cascade Lasers

  Hybrid AlGaN-SiC Avalanche Photodiode for Deep-UV Photon Detection

  Mode Selection for a Single-Frequency Fiber Laser

• Applications

  New Scanning Probe Microscopy Techniques for Analyzing Organic Photovoltaic Materials

• Articles

  Calibrating Photovoltaic Cells

• Products

  Product of the Month: PoE Compact Vision System

  Fuse and Fuseholder

  LED Power Supplies

  CCD Microscope Cameras

  Thermal Imaging Camera Core

  Counter-Rotating Doublet Prisms

  CCTV Lens

  Machine Vision Solution

  Electron and Ion-Beam Microscope System

  Optical Table

  Hyperspectral Imaging Sensor

  Low-Energy Laser Measurement Sensor

  Plastic-Coated Silica Fibers

  Optical Receiver

  Semiconductor Tapered Amplifiers

  Infrared LED

• Briefs

  Plenoptic Imager for Automated Surface Navigation

  Reconstituted Three-Dimensional Interactive Imaging

• Articles

  Advancements in Full-Motion Video for Military UAS Surveillance Applications

• Applications

  Imaging Technology Enables 3D Monitoring for Surveillance and Missile Defense

• Products

  Frame Grabber

  Low-Light Lens

  Vision Appliance

  Graphics Adapter Board

  Image Processor

  Color Cameras

  Digital Microscope

  SWIR Lenses

  Touch Screen Display

  Machine Vision Software

  Microscope Cameras

  Microscopy Camera

• Products

  High-Density Rad-Hard Reconfigurable FPGA

  Video Frame Grabber

  Multi-Touch Controller Chip

  Electrical Test and Measurement CD

  16-Bit Microcontroller

  6U OpenVPX Radar System Upgrade

  OpenVPX/VITA-65 Serial RapidIO® GEN-2 Switch

  6U OpenVPX Rugged Single Board Computer

  6U VPX Load Board

  Forced Air-Cooled Enclosure

  Two-Slot OpenVPX Development Platform

  IPv4/IPv6 Gigabit Ethernet Switch

• Applications

  Moving From System Specification to Software Development

  Testing DC Power Systems

• Articles

  Using the Intel® Architecture in High-Performance Military Embedded DSP Applications

  Protecting COTS Military Electronics From Shock and Vibration

  Let the Show Begin

  OpenVPX — From Concept to Specification

  Transitioning to OpenVPX for Next-Generation C4ISR Systems

  Putting OpenVPX To Work

• Briefs

  Multiphysics Analysis of a Burning Candle

  Capacitively Coupled Plasma Analysis

  3D Direct Modeling Streamlines Micro-Cogeneration System Design and Analysis Processes

  Microwaving Moondust with COMSOL

  TEAMS Model Analyzer

  Observing System Simulation Experiment (OSSE) for the HyspIRI Spectrometer Mission

  Probabilistic Design and Analysis Framework

  Excavator Design Validation

  Momentum Management Tool for Low-Thrust Missions

  Mixed Real/Virtual Operator Interface for ATHLETE

  Antenna Controller Replacement Software

  Efficient Parallel Engineering Computing on Linux Workstations

  FAILSAFE Health Management for Embedded Systems

  Water Detection Based on Sky Reflections

  Nonlinear Combustion Instability Prediction

  JMISR INteractive eXplorer

  Characterization of Cloud Water-Content Distribution

  Autonomous Planning and Replanning for Mine-Sweeping Unmanned Underwater Vehicles

  'In-Situ' Pointing Correction and Rover Microlocalization

  Dayside Ionospheric Superfountain

  Hybrid-PIC Computer Simulation of the Plasma and Erosion Processes in Hall Thrusters

  BioNet Digital Communications Framework

  Operation Program for the Spatially Phase-Shifted Digital Speckle Pattern Interferometer — SPS-DSPI

  Intelligent Patching of Conceptual Geometry for CFD Analysis

  Autonomous Exploration for Gathering Increased Science

  Space Images for NASA/JPL

  Real-Time Feature Tracking Using Homography

  Stereo Imaging Tactical Helper

  XMbodyinfo

  Sparse Superpixel Unmixing for Hyperspectral Image Analysis

  NAIF Toolkit — Extended

  Systems Maintenance Automated Repair Tasks (SMART)

  Centralized Alert-Processing and Asset Planning for Sensorwebs

  Support for Systematic Code Reviews With the SCRUB Tool

  Planning and Execution for an Autonomous Aerobot

  Real-Time Exponential Curve Fits Using Discrete Calculus

  Optimal Codes for the Burst Erasure Channel

  Short-Block Protograph-Based LDPC Codes

  Situational Lightning Climatologies

  GOATS - Orbitology Component