Magazine

Earlier studies have confirmed that a tenacious hardy bacterial population manages to persist and survive throughout a spacecraft assembly process. The widespread detection of these organisms underscores the challenges in eliminating them completely....

A polarized scene, which may occur at oblique illumination angles, creates a radiometric signal that varies as a function of viewing angle. One common optical component that is used to minimize such an effect is a polarization scrambler or depolarizer. As part of the CLARREO mission, the...

To demodulate a communication signal, a receiver must recover and synchronize to the symbol timing of a received waveform. In a system that utilizes digital sampling, the fidelity of synchronization is limited by the time between the symbol boundary and closest sample time location. To reduce this error, one...

The performance of cold atom experiments relying on three-dimensional magneto-optical trap techniques can be greatly enhanced by employing a highflux cold atom beam to obtain high atom loading rates while maintaining low background pressures in the UHV MOT (ultra-high vacuum magneto-optical trap) regions....

Reclamation and re-use of water is critical for space-based life support systems. A number of functions must be performed by any such system including removal of various contaminants and oxygenation. For long-duration space missions, this must be done with a compact, reliable system that...

Autonomous navigation and control for unmanned sea surface vehicles requires a visual sensing system to provide a 360° view from the vehicle deck for situational awareness. Successful operation required a sensing system mechanically packaged to withstand weather, sea spray, and an environment of...

Verilog-A based cryogenic bulk CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) compact models are built for state-of-the-art silicon CMOS processes. These models accurately predict device operation at cryogenic temperatures down to 4 K. The models are compatible...

The task of evaluating obstructions in the optical throughput of an optical system requires the use of two disciplines, and hence, two models: optical models for the details of optical propagation, and mechanical models for determining the actual structure that exists in the...

Modern parallel file systems achieve high performance using a variety of techniques, such as striping files across multiple disks to increase aggregate I/O bandwidth and spreading disks across multiple servers to increase aggregate interconnect bandwidth. To achieve...

The proposed Space Operations Learning Center (SOLC) Facebook module, initially code-named “Spaceville,” is intended to be an educational online game utilizing the latest social networking technology to reach a broad audience base and inspire young audiences to be interested in math,...

Foil gas bearings are a key technology in many commercial and emerging oilfree turbomachinery systems. These bearings are nonlinear and have been difficult to analytically model in terms of performance characteristics such as load capacity,...

This technology is based on sampling considerations for a band-limited function, which has application to optical estimation generally, and to phase retrieval specifically. The analysis begins with the observation that the Fourier transform of an optical aperture...

Health management (HM) in any engineering systems requires adequate understanding about the system’s functioning; a sufficient amount of monitored data; the capability to extract, analyze, and collate information; and the capability to combine understanding and information for HM-related estimation and decision-making....

This innovation is a variation of a simulated- annealing optimization algorithm that uses a recursive-branching structure to parallelize the search of a parameter space for the globally optimal solution to an objective. The algorithm has been demonstrated to be more effective at searching a...

This software allows one to up-sample or down-sample a measured surface map for model validation, not only without introducing any re-sampling errors, but also eliminating the existing measurement noise and measurement errors. Because the re-sampling of a surface map is...

A document highlights an Li-based fluxing agent that enables sample fusion and quantitative Ar-release at relatively low temperatures (900–1,000 ºC), readily achievable with current flight resistance furnace designs. A solid, double spike containing known quantities of...

A document describes a reliable, lightweight micrometeoroid/orbital debris (MMOD) detection system that can be located at strategic positions of “high consequence” to provide real-time warning of a penetration, its location, and the extent of the damage to a spacecraft.

A document discusses a nanostructure apodizing mask, made of multi-walled carbon nanotubes, that is applied to the centers (or in and around the holes) of the secondary mirrors of telescopes that are used to interferometrically measure the strain...

A document discusses an optical carbon monoxide sensor for early fire detection. During the sensor development, a concept was implemented to allow reliable carbon monoxide detection in the presence of interfering absorption signals.

NASA’s Conceptual Image Lab (CIL) at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD, solves problems for scientists and astronomers who are tasked with bringing hard science to the public. Breaking down complicated concepts into a stream of easily digestible visuals...