Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Briefs: Aerospace
Sublimable Propellant Source for Iodine-Fed Ion Propulsion System
NASA Marshall has developed a system for generating iodine vapor from solid iodine for use as a propellant in a Hall or ion thruster propulsion system. Xenon has generally been the preferred propellant for these spacecraft ion propulsion systems but more recently, iodine-based...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Check valves are traditionally designed as a simple poppet/spring system where the spring is designed to equal the force created from the sealing area of the valve seat multiplied by...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
In many chemical processes, it is often desirable to detect the presence, quantity, and/or qualities of certain chemicals of interest; for example, in many closed chemical processes (either batch or...
Briefs: Communications
Video Distribution & Storage Unit (VDSU)
Engineers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Satellite Services Projects Division (SSPD) have designed a high-performance, space-qualified video distribution and storage unit for Restore-L, a spacecraft that will rendezvous, grasp, refuel, and relocate client spacecraft. While previous...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC) has created the Cryo-Fluid Capacitor (CFC) that capitalizes on the energy storage capacity of liquefied gases, and the relative simplicity of high-pressure gas bottles while...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Panoramic irradiators are commonly used to disinfect and sterilize products such as medical supplies, cosmetic raw materials, food, food containers, and medical supplies. The irradiators...
Briefs: Propulsion
The advent of cryocooler technology ushers in an era where a cryogenic environment is created and maintained locally. It is no longer necessary to transport cryogen from a factory where it is produced to the...
Briefs: Energy
Cryo-Fluid Capacitor (CFC) for Solid-State Storage and Supply-on-Demand of Cryogenic Fluids
Storage and transfer of fluid commodities such as oxygen, hydrogen, natural gas, nitrogen, argon, etc. are absolute necessities in virtually every industry. These fluids are typically contained in one of two ways: as low-pressure cryogenic liquids, or as...
Briefs: Medical
Infectious diseases remain the world’s top contributors to human death and disability, and with recent outbreaks of Zika virus infections, there is a keen need for...
Briefs: Imaging
A large-area detector without any dead space capable of handling a large dynamic range does not currently exist. Current large-area detectors have dead zones created by abutting several modules...
Briefs: Green Design & Manufacturing
Detecting Low-Level Harmful Substances in a Large Volume of Fluid
There are many applications requiring the detection and concentration of harmful substances in a fluid; for example, detecting the presence and concentration of a microbial pathogen in a source of drinking water such as a lake, reservoir, river, stream, storage tank, water main,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Novel Vent Design Features Variable Flow Control and Rain Protection
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center scientists have designed a vent that can be useful for purging closed compartments, while preventing backflow and foreign object entry. The technology uses a system of configurable devices to provide variable flow control and prevent water,...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
In storage and/or transport of certain items, the ability to detect tampering with a container or compartment for such items can be necessary and valuable. In the transport of hazardous substances or nuclear materials...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
Stennis Space Center has the need to measure the inner wall thickness of cryogenic storage tanks without entering the inner tank of the double-walled vessels. It was proposed that an ultrasonic probe be...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Currently, when a patient arrives at the hospital or doctor's office feeling ill, they are first examined by the doctor, sent to a blood lab where vials of blood are taken, and then sent home to wait for results. This...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
NASA's Langley Research Center has developed a Floating Ultrasonic System for improved nondestructive testing. Most ultrasonic scanners require an...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
NASA’s Johnson Space Center innovators have designed a Robotic Inspection System that is capable of surveying deep sea structures such as oil platform storage cells/tanks and pipelines in order to determine...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center’s Fluid Structure Coupling (FSC) technology is a highly efficient and passive method to control the way fluids and structures communicate and dictate the behavior of a system. This...
Briefs: Information Technology
XDB3 Extension for Equality and Relational Operators
While keyword full-text searches work well for textual data, they do not work well for numeric, date, or other more highly structured information. In particular, Netmark/XDB could retrieve any record where the author contained “Knight” in the text, but could not return only those records...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Planetary Ice Mining by Down-Hole Energy Injection
Ice has been discovered on Mars and is present in the permanently shadowed craters on the Moon and on many asteroids. The ice is usually buried beneath an overburden of regolith. Evidence indicates this overburden may be a meter deep in some locations for the Moon; for Mars, it varies with...
Briefs: Test & Measurement
High-Channel-Count, High-Scan-Rate Data Acquisition System for the NASA Langley Transonic Dynamics Tunnel
The NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) Transonic Dynamics Tunnel (TDT) has been operational since 1960, investigating a wide range of aeroelastic and non-aeroelastic phenomena. A dedicated aeroelastic test facility, the TDT is a large,...
Briefs: Propulsion
There are difficulties related to storing enough gas to propel a CubeSat within an onboard tank. Currently, a CubeSat requiring a large volume of gas for extended...
Briefs: Information Technology
Tool to Analyze a Leaking Source of Saturated Ammonia
Containers of ammonia are used to supply cooling to different modules of the International Space Station. Each container has an attachment piece used to extract the ammonia. The attachment piece may allow ammonia to exit when not connected, and may also allow ammonia to exit to an outside...
INSIDER: Electronics & Computers
A research group from ITMO University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have invented unique conductive magnetic films that will be applied to transparent data storage, flexible...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Outlier Detection Via Estimating Clusters
The Outlier Detection Via Estimating Clusters (ODVEC) software provides an efficient method for real-time or offline analysis of multivariate sensor data for use in anomaly detection, fault detection, and system health monitoring. ODVEC uses models automatically derived from archived system data to...
Briefs: Information Technology
The Advanced Data Analytics Platform (ADAPT): Concept, Design, Architecture, and Operation
NASA scientists are uniquely positioned to research and understand the processes affecting the Earth’s climate. To study these important processes, scientists must address the Big Data challenges posed by working with massive amounts of observational and...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
For many years, stencil printing has been the standard method of depositing solder paste on surface mount assembly printed circuit boards (PCBs). It has provided a durable method of applying solder...
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