Electronics & Software

Sample-return missions to primitive solar system bodies (asteroids, comets, and planetary satellites) can provide a wealth of scientific information and insight into the composition and origins of the solar system. Recent interest in primitive body missions has been driven by the...

Half-Cycle Crack Growth software offers a reliable method for calculating theoretical fatigue crack growths that could lead to catastrophic structural component failures. The program builds upon and integrates Armstrong’s proven half-cycle and closed-form aging theories, and considers every half-cycle of loading spectra...

NASA Visualization Explorer (NASA Viz) is an intuitive, interactive iOS application (app) that delivers science stories with multimedia content linking high-quality explorable images, descriptive text, visualizations, videos, and interviews with a fresh look and feel. NASA Viz aims to excite a wide audience about...

In many fields of spectroscopy, classification of the measured multivariate response is not always a straightforward process. Accurate classification is limited by many factors that are highly dependent upon the spectroscopy method being utilized. In all cases, however,...

The primary function of the Feature Database (FDB) is to contain information about all the ground features seen so far in a sequence of aerial images. This information is organized so that features can be efficiently located and tracked into later images. As each new image is processed, the database grows to include more images and...

DRAT software overcomes limitations inherent in the Apache Release Audit Tool (RAT), and also brings code auditing and open-source license analysis into the realm of Big Data by using scalable, open-source Apache technologies. Distributed RAT (DRAT) leverages Apache Tika to automatically detect and classify...

Current RHBD electronics are limited to speeds that approximate 250 MHz, regardless of the electronic process. The fact that determines the final speed is based on the nature of the current SEU (single-event upsets) radiation-tolerant latches, and the data flow between the latches through combinational...

The configuration of the reprogrammable field-programmable gate array (FPGA) currently on the market is very susceptible to single event upset when it operates in radiation environments. The current state-of-the-art approach is to refresh the configuration...

Amethod was developed to model polymorphic heterogeneous multicore processors at a high level of abstraction, and formally verify them. The Bahurupi polymorphic heterogeneous multi-core architecture allows the combination of multiple simple processor cores — which...

To enable NASA’s next-generation missions, there is a critical need for a reconfigurable field programmable gate array (FPGA) that can withstand the wide temperature ranges and radiation of the space environment while consuming minimal power without...

The current flight software approach is monolithic in nature. Every module has tentacles that reach deep within dozens of other software modules. Because of these interdependencies between modules, functionality is difficult to extract and reuse for other missions.

Peak-seeking algorithms optimize physical processes in real time and are widely used throughout a variety of industries. However, measuring associated parameters in changing conditions, and responding to them appropriately, is difficult because the measurements are typically distorted by noise. This technology addresses...

An enterprise middleware solution allows disparate information technology (IT) systems to be integrated into one seamless, efficient system. As software and database platforms continue to develop at an accelerated pace, legacy systems can be a drain on resources, requiring complex workarounds and major code...

A suite of software tools was developed that enables powerful and efficient processing of time history data. These tools can be used together or independently, offering a variety of capabilities including comparison of time history data files to validate pre-processing activities, conversion...

Cryptography and molecular biology share certain aspects and operations that allow for a set of unified principles to be applied to problems in either venue. A DNA-inspired hash code system is presented that utilizes concepts from molecular biology. It is a keyed-Hash Message...

The Station Spacewalk game enables players to virtually conduct NASA repair work on the International Space Station, including jobs critical to help power up the space station so it can continue to operate. Players are provided with a limited quantity of oxygen during which they must complete extravehicular activities (EVAs) and...

The Inductive Monitoring System (IMS) software tool uses data mining techniques to automatically characterize nominal system operation by analyzing archived system data. These nominal characterizations are then used to perform near-real-time system health monitoring or to analyze...

When a person is interviewed, some of the answers may be inaccurate, or even deceptive, because the person may have either incomplete information, is telling only part of the truth, or is fabricating a false answer, or a combination of all three. When the person is habitually making...

The determination of local geodetic parameters for VLBI (very-long-baseline interferometry) antennas is traditionally done by conventional surveying techniques. These techniques are laborious and error-prone. The objective here was to develop a space geodesy method of measuring the parameters to make it easy to...

Knowledge of a patient’s cardiac age, or “heart age,” could prove useful to both patients and physicians for encouraging lifestyle changes that are potentially beneficial for cardiovascular health. This may be particularly true for patients who exhibit symptoms, but who test negative for cardiac...

A new program has been written that utilizes advanced numerical methods to perform high-precision, sub-pixel volume measurements of samples that are processed containerlessly. The volume measurements are essential for the measurement of density and thermal...

Lunar Mapper (LM) is a Web-based software that allows visualization of lunar spatial data layers acquired from lunar missions and other sources. The data includes imagery, digital elevation models, resource maps, and model output. LM is accessed using standard Web browsers and uses open-source tools and libraries. The data is stored on...

Software has been developed that provides an integrated and automated test environment for the Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS). This software package is Linux based and provides interactive and scripted control to test the JPL Software Defined Radio (SDR)...