Electronics & Software

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) generates planetary and lunar ephemeris data and FORTRAN routines that allow users to obtain state data for the Sun, the moon, and the planets. The JPL Solar System Ephemeris Toolbox, developed at Kennedy Space Center, is a set of functions that provides the same functionality in...

Major upgrades have been made in two of the programs reported in "Five Computer Codes for Analysis of Turbomachinery" (LEW-16851), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 23, No. 11 (November 1999), page 28. The affected programs are:

An end-of-life prediction system developed for electric machines and their loads could be used in integrated vehicle health monitoring at NASA and in other government agencies. This system will provide on-line, real-time condition assessment and end-of-life...

A computer program has been written to facilitate appraisals according to the methodology of Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). [CMMI is a government/ industry standard, maintained by the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, for objectively assessing the engineering capability...

Wing-Viewer is a computer program for acquisition and reduction of image data acquired by any of five different scientific grade commercial electronic cameras used at Langley Research center to observe wind-tunnel models coated with pressure or temperature-sensitive paints (PSP/TSP).

The Grid Visualization Tool (GVT) is a computer program for displaying the path of a mobile robotic explorer (rover) on a terrain map. The GVT reads a map-data file in either portable graymap (PGM) or portable pixmap (PPM) format, representing a gray-scale or color map image, respectively.

An updated version of the General Chemical Kinetics and Sensitivity Analysis (LSENS) computer code has become available. A prior version of LSENS was described in “Program Helps to Determine Chemical-Reaction Mechanisms” (LEW-15758), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 19, No. 5 (May 1995), page 66. To...

Avionics System Architecture Tool (ASAT) is a computer program intended for use during the avionics-system-architecture- design phase of the process of designing a spacecraft for a specific mission.

TURBO-AE is a computer code that enables detailed, highfidelity modeling of aeroelastic and unsteady aerodynamic characteristics for prediction of flutter, forced response, and bladerow interaction effects in turbomachinery.

The Portable Airborne Laser System (PALS) is a combination of laser ranging, video imaging, positioning, and data-processing subsystems designed for measuring the heights of forest canopies along linear transects from tens to thousands of kilometers long. Unlike prior laser ranging...

A process for n-type (electron-donor) delta (d) doping has shown promise as a means of modifying back-illuminated image detectors made from n-doped high-purity silicon to enable them to detect high-energy photons (ultraviolet and x-rays) and low-energy charged particles (electrons and ions)....

Advanced ablative (more specifically, charring) materials that provide temporary protection against high temperatures, and advanced methods of designing and manufacturing insulators based on these materials, are undergoing development. These materials and methods were conceived in an effort to...

The Generic Kalman Filter (GKF) software provides a standard basis for the development of application-specific Kalman-filter programs. Historically, Kalman filters have been implemented by customized programs that must be written, coded, and debugged anew for each unique application, then tested and tuned with...

A computer program implements two extensions of ANTLR (Another Tool for Language Recognition), which is a set of software tools for translating source codes between different computing languages. ANTLR supports predicated-LL(k) lexer and parser grammars, a notation for annotating parser grammars to direct...

yourSkyG is the second generation of the software described in "yourSky: Custom Sky-Image Mosaics via the Internet" (NPO-30556), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 27, No. 6 (June 2003), page 45. Like its predecessor, yourSkyG supplies custom astronomical image mosaics of sky regions specified by...

A computer program utilizes the classical theory of gravitation, implemented by means of the finite-element method, to calculate the near gravitational fields of bodies of arbitrary size, shape, and mass distribution. The program was developed for application to a spacecraft and to floating...

A computer program enables construction and optimization of plans for activities that are directed toward achievement of goals that are interdependent. Goal interdependence is defined as the achievement of one or more goals affecting the desirability or priority of achieving one or more...

The System Power Analysis for Capability Evaluation (SPACE) software analyzes and predicts the minute-byminute state of the International Space Station (ISS) electrical power system (EPS) for upcoming missions as well as EPS power generation capacity as a function of ISS...

A software system for autonomous operation of a Mars rover is composed of several key algorithms that enable the rover to accurately follow a designated path, compensate for slippage of its wheels on terrain, and reach intended goals. The techniques implemented by the algorithms are visual...

Version 2 of Closed Loop Execution and Recovery (CLEaR) has been developed. The previous version was reported in “Software for Automation of Real-Time Agents” (NPO-21040), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 26, No. 7 (July 2002), page 34. To recapitulate: CLEaR is an artificial intelligence computer...

This software provides a LabView interface to the NT drivers for the PCI-SpaceWire card, which is a peripheral component interface (PCI) bus interface that conforms to the IEEE-1355/ SpaceWire standard.

Spacecraft Engineering Simulation II (SES II) is a C-language computer program for simulating diverse aspects of operation of a spacecraft characterized by either three or six degrees of freedom.