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;...

Galvanic isolated monitoring of voltages for launch vehicle, missiles, and space-deployed systems can be very challenging. Radiation exposure makes use of optics-based sensors difficult, as they can latch-up and become corrupted by the radiation environment; such devices can moreover be thermally challenged....

In this innovation, a method makes use of a new technique for describing analog information based on the roots of polynomial functions of infinite degree. Monotonic analog signals are transformed into characters that are fused into a two-dimensional composite visualization of the generating signal...

Investigation of sonic boom has been one of the major areas of study in aeronautics due to the benefits a low-boom aircraft has in both civilian and military applications. Current Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibit supersonic flight over land due to...

The objective of this work was to increase the interfacial strength between aramid fiber and epoxy matrix. This was achieved by functionalizing the aramid fiber followed by growth of a layer of ZnO nanowires on the fiber surface such that when embedded into the...

A monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) receiver can be used as a building block for next-generation radio astronomy instruments that are scalable to hundreds or thousands of pixels. W- band (75–110 GHz) low-noise receivers are needed for radio astronomy interfer- ometers and spectrometers,...

A set of extensions of the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) enables simultaneous and/or sequential presentation of information from multiple sources. SOAP is used in the aerospace community as a means of collaborative visualization and analysis of data on planned spacecraft missions. The following...

The Transmission Control Protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP) interface for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) provides the means for the software to establish real-time interfaces with other software. Such interfaces can operate between two programs, either on the same...

The Expressions Module is a software module that has been incorporated into the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP). The module includes an expressions-parser submodule built on top of an analytical system, enabling the user to define logical and numerical variables and constants. The...

An extension to the SOAP software allows users to work with tri-axial ellipsoid-based representations of planetary bodies, primarily for working with small, natural satellites, asteroids, and comets. SOAP is a widely used tool for the visualization and analysis of space missions....

This add-on module to the SOAP software can perform changes to simulation objects based on the occurrence of specific conditions. This allows the software to encompass simulation response of scheduled or physical events. Users can manipulate objects in the simulation environment under...

A SPICE module for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) precisely represents complex motion and maneuvers in an interactive, 3D animated environment with support for user-defined quantitative outputs. (“SPICE” stands for Spacecraft, Planet, Instrument, Camera-matrix, and...

This software innovation speeds up the computation time of the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) tool by parallelizing the code using the message- passing interface (MPI) library. The speed increases almost linearly with the number of processors, allowing the perstudy duration of the...

A report describes an emerging class of miniature, highly capable, relatively inexpensive satellites that could be launched rapidly by nontraditional methods. Of particular interest is a subclass of proposed launch-on-demand microsatellites for inspecting and servicing other satellites (targets)...