A safe and precise landing system for Mars will match features seen in descent imagery against a map constructed from orbital imagery. The spacecraft attitude and altitude are known, but lateral position is known only poorly. From attitude and altitude, one can generate a mapping (homography) that...

A small, adaptable, and stable thermal imaging system was developed that can be flown on an aircraft, deployed on the International Space Station as an attached payload, launched on a ride-share as an entirely self-contained 3U CubeSat, flown on a small satellite, or be a co-manifested...

A landing system for Mars matches features seen in descent imagery against a map constructed from orbital imagery. The spacecraft attitude and altitude are known, but lateral position is known only poorly. From attitude and altitude, one can generate a mapping (homography) that allows the descent image to...

Existing scientific research balloons such as those launched from Wallops Flight Facility could be placed in near- Earth space where they would perform as solar sails, providing relatively inexpensive propulsion systems for interplanetary missions. The balloons would accelerate at rates comparable with the ion...

A recently developed 1,500-lbf (6,672-N) thrust-class liquid oxygen/liquid methane (LO2/LCH4) rocket engine was tested at both sea level and simulated altitude conditions. Sea-level tests were conducted using both a static horizontal test bed, and...

An optical-fiber sensor based on Faraday Effect was developed for measuring total lightning current. Designed for aircraft installation, it is lightweight, non-conducting, structure conforming, and is immune to electromagnetic interference, hysteresis, and saturation. It can also...

The Earth’s magnetosphere offers a wealth of information on particle dynamics, acceleration, and trapping. Fast neutrons, produced in the Earth’s atmosphere by the impact of galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) and solar energetic particles (SEPs), are an important but poorly measured component of...

Accurate measurements of airflow angles are among the most expensive and difficult to obtain in flight testing because of the complexity of the airflow near the aircraft and the consequent need to carefully mount and calibrate the sensors. A novel technique was developed...

A new technology has been developed for improving performance and stability of control systems. This method represents a significant advancement in the state-of-the-art of adaptive control technology. The present invention is a new type of adaptive...

The health and integrity of aircraft sensors and instruments play a critical role in aviation safety. Inaccurate or false readings due to icing of airspeed sensors in flight can lead to improper decision-making, resulting in serious consequences. Icing or blockages of pitot airspeed sensors provide very...

To accommodate the predicted increase in air traffic, the next generation of air traffic management (ATM) systems relies on operational concepts where the responsibility for separation is distributed between airborne and ground systems. These distributed modes of operation...

The NASA Aircraft Management Information System (NAMIS) is an Enterprise Resource Planning/Mission Support software suite designed to meet both the mission support requirements and the business management requirements of NASA Johnson Space Center’s (JSC) Aircraft Operations Division (AOD). The...

An aircraft pilot would prefer to receive information on weather patterns, obstructions, and other conditions that may interfere with a flight plan, formal or informal, as the pilot’s flight proceeds, with a latency of no more than a few minutes. Learning of, and reacting to, a changing environment...

Flight research has shown that adaptive flight control systems can be susceptible to adverse pilot-controller interactions, including pilot-in-the-loop oscillations (PIO). Conventional PIO analysis is performed using a static pilot model and a linear, time-invariant model of the aircraft and its control...

A high level of autonomy is desired for future unmanned combat systems because lethality and survivability can be improved with much less communication bandwidth than would be necessary for preprogrammed or remotely operated systems. However, there are a number of technical...

A prototype horizontal electromagnetic rail launcher has been demonstrated along with a corresponding theory. This system builds out of published work in augmented rail guns, but modifies this technology so that the motor can operate for seconds rather than milliseconds,...

Researchers at NASA’s Armstrong Flight Research Center are developing a concept aircraft for testing turbo-electric distributed propulsion (TeDP) experiments. TeDP generally involves providing thrust to an aircraft via wing-mounted ducted electric fans, which consist of...