Electronics & Software

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed a nano-electro-mechanical resonator (NEMR) based on vertically aligned carbon nanofibers (CNFs) that is suitable for applications requiring high sensitivity, broad tenability, low loss (high...

Particle shape is a very important property in many fields of research, and with many practical, diverse, and commercially important applications including pharmaceuticals, civil engineering, metallurgy, health, and food processing. Many of the methods used to evaluate the shapes of...

Libibvpp provides a C++ wrapper API to the libibverbs library. Libibverbs is the OpenIB library that provides the Verbs API for programming Infiniband hardware. It is written in C and provides a C API. Because the API is in C, it is up to the library user to do explicit resource management for the objects created through the API.

The demands for high-sensitivity and high-resolution radiometry have recently led the science community to examine the use of large deployable mesh reflectors, which have heretofore only been used in telecommunications applications.

Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) are low-albedo features that appear and disappear seasonally on Martian slopes. They provide distinct surface markers that are thought to result from the activity of subsurface water. Reliable characterizations of RSL activity are needed to test this hypothesis....

JPL Operations Engineers (Operators) need to interact with their telemetry to assess the health of and successfully operate a spacecraft or rover. Operators must analyze the immediate data for health and understand the current state of these complex systems, but they also must be...

The technique of synthesizing state-machine-based hybrid controller flight software (FSW) from formal specifications is demonstrated utilizing two simple controller examples (i.e. a simple thermostat and a simple autonomous vehicle). Formal requirements for these...

The Intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) is a visible-spectrum astronomy survey aimed at detecting “transient” events such as supernovae. Every night, a telescope at the Palomar observatory collects images of various regions of the sky and compares them to a set of reference...

Source code analysis typically requires the use of expensive and difficult-to-configure tools that support only a predefined set of standard checks. In some cases, it is possible to add customized checks, but doing so can be laborious and requires a deep understanding of each tool’s internal...

As mission operations grow in scale and complexity, there is a prevailing need for automating operational processes to increase efficiency, mitigate risks, and reduce operational costs. The need for automating operational processes has produced a few disparate automation systems...

There is a need to calculate the radiative heating rate at the surface of a vehicle entering any atmosphere, (e.g., Earth, Saturn, Titan, Mars, Venus etc). NEQAIR simulates the actual chemical and physical actions and reactions of the gaseous species in high-temperature shock...

This application serves as Web-based management of the Systems Engi - neering Education and Development (SEED) program, and enables the SEED Program Manager to track and manage the applications and assignments. In the past, the handling of the applications and assignments was...

Many software applications have scripting needs including those based on the Goddard Mission Services Evolution Center (GMSEC) framework. In GMSEC, a user may want to automate the actions to take when a sequence of events occurs. Ideally, the scripting solution should allow the use of a familiar programming language and avoid unnecessary...

An assessment of a system’s safety requirements is required early in the design process when cost and time impacts are minimal. These requirements include fault detection, failure isolation, and failure recovery. Systems engineering groups at NASA have been exploring model-based products to better...

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has developed an advanced energy-storage device to accommodate portable devices, minimize emissions from automobiles, and enable more challenging space missions. The use of silicon for the anode of lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries is...

PyTMatrix is a Python interface to a T-matrix numerical scattering computation code originally developed at NASA GISS (Goddard Institute for Space Studies). It integrates into the NumPy/SciPy scientific framework. The software provides streamlined access to numerical T-matrix...

NASA’s Glenn Research Center is offering a sensor and actuator networking innovation applicable to smart vehicle or component control. This innovation requires no additional connectivity beyond the wiring providing power. This results in lower system weight, increased ease and flexibility...

Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a microwave power module to power radar, communications, and/or navigation interchangeably. This high-efficiency, all-solid-state microwave power module (MPM) is based on a multi-stage distributed-amplifier design, which is capable of very wideband operation....

NASA’s Langley Research Center has created a collection of innovations for rapid, precise, and verified crimps. Wiring crimp failures can be a threat to safety and may lead to a loss of critical functions in high-risk applications, such as aerospace. In addition to the safety...

Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a low-cost, high-efficiency solar cell that uses a thin layer of selenium as the bonding material between wafers. Selenium is a semiconductor, and it is also transparent to light at photon energies below the band gap. The...

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) cells are increasingly used in high-voltage and high-capacity modules. The Li-ion chemistry has the highest energy density of all rechargeable battery chemistries, but associated with that energy is the issue of catastrophic thermal runaway with a fire. With...