When designing or analyzing electrical systems, it is important to understand the relationship between input and output. Power conversion occurs in a “black box,” and transfer functions can be used to provide a better understanding of the processes occurring in this black box. Although they provide a useful...

LDSD (Low Density Supersonic Decelerator) is a Mars EDL (entry, descent, and landing) Technology Development Project that launches three test vehicles out of the Pacific Missile Range Facility in Kauai. On the test vehicle, most mission science data can be recorded safely on land;...

Safe-to-mate testing is a common hardware safety practice where impedance measurements are made on unpowered hardware to verify isolation, continuity, or impedance between pins of an interface connector. Performing this on critical flight hardware under test and its associated GSE ensures minimal risk when...

Common Bolted Joint Analysis Tool (comBAT) is an Excel/VB-based bolted joint analysis/optimization program that lays out a systematic foundation for an inexperienced or seasoned analyst to determine fastener size, material, and assembly torque for a given design. Analysts are able to perform numerous “what-if”...

In recent years, some remote-sensing applications require advanced airborne multi-sensor systems to provide high performance reflective and emissive spectral imaging measurement rapidly over large areas. The key or unique problem of characteristics is associated with a black box back-end system...

Marsviewer 2008 is designed for quality control, browsing, and operational and science analysis of images and derived image products returned by spacecraft. This program allows all derived products (reduced data records, or RDRs) associated with each original image (experiment data record, or EDR) to be viewed in various ways,...

The Product Operations Status Summary Metrics (POSSUM) computer program provides a readable view into the state of the Phoenix Operations Product Generation Subsystem (OPGS) data pipeline. POSSUM provides a user interface that can search the data store, collect product metadata, and display the results in...

This software addresses the problem of how to efficiently execute a knowledge base in the presence of missing data. Computationally, this is an exponentially expensive operation that without heuristics generates a search space of 1 + 2n possible scenarios, where n is the number of rules...

Java EDR Display Interface (JEDI) is software for either local display or secure Internet distribution, to authorized clients, of image data acquired from cameras aboard spacecraft engaged in exploration of remote planets. ("EDR" signifies "experimental data record," which, in effect, signifies image...

JSDTImport is a computer program for translating native Shuttle Data Tape (SDT) files from American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) format into databases in other formats. JSDTImport solves the problem of organizing the SDT content, affording flexibility to enable users to choose how to store the...

A spacecraft may be unable to communicate critical data associated with a serious or catastrophic failure. A brief report proposes a system, somewhat like a commercial aircraft "black box," for retrieving these data. A microspacecraft attached to the prime spacecraft would continually store recent...

Failure-reporting devices somewhat similar to the “black box” data recorders on aircraft have been proposed. These devices were conceived for use on spacecraft, but might also be useful on terrestrial autonomous underwater vessels or terrestrial remote exploratory robots. The...