Traditional altitude switch designs for harsh environments are mechanical in nature and operate by means of an inflatable bladder or bellows that mechanically depresses a pushbutton switch. The altitude trip point is set by mechanically adjusting the distance of the switch to the bellows. The mechanical action of...

Micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) are lightweight, highly dynamic vehicles with limited payload, sensing, and computation capabilities. There is significant interest to automate MAVs for military surveillance, reconnaissance, and search-and-rescue missions. The current...

The purpose of this work was to develop and demonstrate technologies for a next-generation, efficient, swath-mapping space laser altimeter. The Lidar Surface Topography (LIST) mission concept allows simultaneous measurements of 5-meter-spatial-resolution topography and vegetation...

This IRAD (Internal Research and Development) project was conceived as an aircraft instrument and designed with specifications that are closely aligned with the science requirements of the Geostationary Coastal and Air Pollution Events (GEO-CAPE) mission. The work has been used to both advance the technology...

The Twin Head Efficient Oscillator (THEO) concept uses a pair of smaller, identical laser pump modules, oriented to remove asymmetrical thermo-optical effects typical in single-slab lasers such as HOMER (High Output Maximum Efficiency Resonator), MLA (Mercury...

A high-rate data system was required to capture the data for an airborne lidar system. A data system was developed that achieved up to 22 million (64-bit) events per second sustained data rate (1408 million bits per second), as well as short bursts (

Managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, the Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite-2 (ICESat-2) mission is scheduled to launch in 2016. The satellite will...

Because of their small size, high maneuverability, and easy deployment, micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) are used for a wide variety of both civilian and military missions. One of their current drawbacks is the vast array of sensors

(such as GPS, altimeter, radar, and the like) required to make a landing. Due...

A sequencer for a radar altimeter provides accurate attitude information for a reliable soft landing of the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL). This is a field-programmable-gate-array (FPGA)-only implementation. A table loaded externally into the FPGA controls timing, processing, and decision...

The Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) in Houston is part of the Universities Space Research Association, and is a NASAfunded institute that conducts research in the lunar, planetary, and terrestrial sciences on behalf of university science departments and NASA. The most recent...

Mercury Laser Altimeter Science Algorithms is a software system for controlling the laser altimeter aboard the Messenger spacecraft, which is to enter into orbit about Mercury in 2011. The software will control the altimeter by dynamically modifying hardware inputs for gain, threshold, channel-...

A computer program has been written to perform several analyses of radar altimeter data. The program was designed to improve on previous methods of analysis of altimeter engineering data by (1) facilitating and accelerating the analysis of large amounts of data in a more direct manner and (2) improving the...

Laser Ranging Simulation Program (LRSP) is a computer program that predicts selected aspects of the performances of a laser altimeter or other laser ranging or remote-sensing systems and is especially applicable to a laser-based system used to map terrain from a distance of several kilometers. Designed to run in...