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Briefs: Information Technology
Mars Science Laboratory Frame Manager
One of the highly desired enhancements to the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) and Phoenix flight missions was the centralized coordinate transform database maintained onboard. Without the database, there are quite a few operations that require cumbersome, error-prone manual calculations on the ground such as...
Briefs: Software
SIVO-PyD: A Python Distribution for Scientific Computing Visualization
SIVO-PyD gathers and automatically installs (in various computing platforms) a collection of Python-related packages for scientific computing and visualization. All of the packages in distribution are accessible within the Python framework. The distribution is self-contained and...
Briefs: Information Technology
Formal Validation of Model-Based Fault Management Design Solutions
Model-Based System Engineering is becoming widely adopted at JPL and in industry because model-centric systems introduce improved methods of system engineering. As systems with ever-increasing complexity are developed at JPL, model-centric engineering be comes essential for design,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Development of Free Molecule Flow Equations from a Transient, Asymmetric Source
The analysis and simulation of gases expanding from sources such as rocket nozzles into vacuum, or the effects plumes from these sources create when they interact with solid surfaces, present a considerable challenge to the scientific and engineering communities. As a...
Briefs: Information Technology
iPhone App to Facilitate Airborne Radar Operations
The Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) is an Earth imaging radar that flies on a Gulf-Stream Jet. Its mission is to collect data for NASA scientists who are using Synthetic Aperture Radar to develop methods for monitoring changes in the Earth’s surface. As with many...
Briefs: Information Technology
Spherical Empirical Mode Decomposition
The spherical empirical mode decomposition algorithm is an adaptation in the spherical space of the 2D empirical mode decomposition in Euclidian space. This algorithm is a signal analysis method for any spherical data, such as orbital measurements. The two primary advantages of this innovation are the absence...
Briefs: Information Technology
Database Design for Storing Software Entity Metadata, User Identification, and License Terms
The NASA Space Telecommunications Radio System (STRS) specification cites a plan for an application repository, similar to an “app store,” but with a wide variety of licensing restrictions on access to different applications, and even different parts of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Geometry Manipulation Protocol for CFD Applications, V1.0
Geometry Manipulation Protocol (GMP) is a library that serializes data types between XML and ANSI C data structures to support computational fluid dynamics (CFD) applications. This library currently provides a description of geometric configurations, general moving-body scenarios (prescribed...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Manufacturers in the process industries need to adjust to smaller batches and different types of product in the same plant. Plants based on the “Lego principle” are...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Electrochemically Enhanced Mechanical Polishing of Optics
Optical component fabrication using metals or ceramic materials involves many grinding and/or machining and polishing steps to achieve the proper form to the tolerances of imaging or photonic focusing instruments. These instruments range from infrared sensors, through visible and...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Expendable Cooling System for Venus Lander Concept
This innovation is a concept for a novel thermal architecture that would enable a day-long surface mission on Venus. A Venus lander mission could last much longer than a few hours on the surface of the planet by absorbing heat from the Venus environment, and from the electronics within the lander,...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Rapid Quench Furnace for Processing Powder in an Inert Environment
Ongoing work in the development and characterization of sensory materials requires the development of shape memory alloy (SMA) powder or particles. These are embedded in structural material so that the progression of localized damage that occurs during fatigue crack growth will...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The Centaur 2 (C2) platform is a compact vehicle with four independently steered and actuated wheel pods, allowing the vehicle to pivot in place and tilt in two directions. It is designed to...
Briefs: Robotics, Automation & Control
Deep space missions, like the ones going to outer planets and those that rely on solar photovoltaic power, need extremely large solar arrays to produce that power for...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Existing technologies [Loop Heat Pipe (LHP) and passive Thermal Control Valve (TCV)] are integrated and made to work together to provide a passive variable thermal link. The...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Low-Cost Solar-Simulated Radiometric Calibration Source
An integrating sphere is a spherical shell that has its internal wall coated with a highly reflective, diffuse scattering material. It typically includes both entrance and exit ports where illumination sources and light monitoring sensors are added to produce a well-known uniform light source....
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Future cryogenic far-infrared (IR) missions will require moderate-resolution far-IR spectrometers operating at the photon background limit. Full utilization of these facilities requires compact,...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Nanosensors for Medical Diagnosis
Many diseases are accompanied by characteristic odors, and their recognition can provide diagnostic clues, guide the laboratory evaluation, and affect the choice of immediate therapy. The study of the chemical composition in human breath using gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) has shown a correlation...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Passive Voice-Enabled RFID Devices
Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID) is a technology that provides automatic identification of objects, and relies on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. The RFID tag is an object that can be applied to and/or incorporated into a product, animal, or person for the...
Briefs: Materials
Lightweight, Flexible, Energy-Manageable Polymer Nanocomposites
Solar energy has attracted keen attention because it is a unique, clean, and sustainable energy resource. It is also widely utilized as a power source in space exploration. A lightweight, durable, deployable, and highly efficient all polymer-based solar power panel was developed...
Briefs: Materials
Nanocomposites for Radiation Shielding
Currently, lead and lead-based materials are used to fabricate shields not only for X-rays, but also for other types of radiation. With the growing environmental concern about the toxicity of lead, and the high costs associated with transporting heavy lead-based shields in spacecraft, alternatives are needed...
Briefs: Materials
Lightweight, High-Strength Nanocomposite Magnesium for Radiators
The next generation of radiators will be designed using a composite with the combination of the lowest density, highest thermal conductivity, and highest strength. A scalable, low-cost process was developed to advance state-of-the-art metal matrix thermal conductors to reach a...
Briefs: Materials
Advanced Protective Coatings for Graphite Substrates
The purpose of this innovation is to develop advanced multilayered coating architectures to protect graphite substrates from hot hydrogen attack. The concept consists of coating the graphite substrate with metallic and non-metallic layers consisting of ZrC; Nb, Mo, and/or Nb-Mo alloy; and/or...
Briefs: Materials
Plasma Extraction of Oxygen from the Martian Atmosphere
Extraction of oxygen from the abundant carbon dioxide present on Mars (96% atmospheric composition) is an important objective in preparation for missions to the planet. Oxygen is not only a fundamental reactant with high-specific-energy chemical fuels such as hydrogen and methane, but, along...
Briefs: Materials
Application of Carbon Nanotube Hold-Off Voltage for Determining Gas Composition
In this innovation, a method and associated system have been created to vary a voltage applied to an exposed end of a carbon nanotube for a selected time interval to promote gas discharge, and to estimate a gas component involved in the discharge. Each component of a...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A component-level DC transformer was developed in which no alternating currents or voltages are present. It operates by combining features of a homopolar motor and a homopolar generator, both DC devices, such that the output...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Wallops Flight Facility 6U Advanced CubeSat Ejector (ACE)
Six-unit (6U) CubeSats are recognized as the next nanosatellite to be considered for standardization. The CubeSat standard established by California Polytechnic University (Cal Poly), which applies to 1U–3U sizes, has proven to be a valuable asset to the community. It has both provided...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Improved Attachment Design for Ceramic Turbine Blades Via Hybrid Concepts
This innovation is a hybrid metal-ceramic matrix composite (CMC) turbine blade in which a SiC/SiC CMC airfoil section is bonded to a single-crystal superalloy root section in order to mitigate risks associated with an all-CMC blade inserted in a superalloy disk. This will...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
This work involved designing a liquid nitrogen cold-plate heat exchanger with a high thermal mass using code-standard, high-pressure tubing. High thermal mass requires a substantial amount of material,...
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