Tech Briefs

A method was developed for transfer of lunar soil into and out of process equipment. The Lunar Materials Handling System (LMHS) conveys solids to a process vessel, provides a gas-tight seal, prevents seal contamination, and minimizes wear from abrasive particles. The LMHS increases equipment life and minimizes...

It is necessary to track system state during robotic manipulation. System state is defined to be manipulator and environment configuration. Without tracking, the robot is ignorant of the outcomes of its actions. State tracking enables the robot to...

The dynamics in the vicinity of small bodies are highly nonlinear. Trajectory design in small-body environments requires accurate gravity and solar radiation pressure models to guarantee the satisfaction of spacecraft operational constraints such as...

The goal of this work was to develop algorithms and software to generate a path that takes into account the direction of waves and wind as much as possible in order to mitigate potential damage to an autonomous underwater vehicle. A risk-based path planning algorithm to analyze real-world...

Repetitive manual operations can degrade the work efficiency of a human operator over time, with the cumulative stresses of repetitive motion potentially affecting the resultant product quality and/or process efficiency. Accordingly, a lightweight, motorized device has been created that a user/operator may wear on a hand and...

Existing scientific research balloons such as those launched from Wallops Flight Facility could be placed in near- Earth space where they would perform as solar sails, providing relatively inexpensive propulsion systems for interplanetary missions. The balloons would accelerate at rates comparable with the ion...

Converting in-situ resources such as CO2, which is the main component of the Mars atmosphere, into methane for rocket propellants can significantly reduce the cost and risk of human exploration while at the same time enabling new mission concepts and long-term exploration...

A recently developed 1,500-lbf (6,672-N) thrust-class liquid oxygen/liquid methane (LO2/LCH4) rocket engine was tested at both sea level and simulated altitude conditions. Sea-level tests were conducted using both a static horizontal test bed, and...

Hall thrusters normally use Xe propellant, which is expensive and scarce in the solar system. The weight of Xe is such that typical Hall thrusters are limited in specific impulse to approximately 3,000 s. The objective of this program was to improve and demonstrate Mg Hall thruster systems. Mg...

NASA required an aerodynamics model of a spent solid rocket booster (SRB) to predict trajectory and impact location of the Ares I first stage after separation. The software needed to be integrated into new simulations written in C. Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) had previously developed a solid...

Space motion sickness (SMS) commonly experienced by astronauts during a space mission often requires treatment with medication. However, exposure to a microgravity environment results in a myriad of physiological changes that alter bioavailability. In particular, studies indicate that the bioavailability of oral...

International treaty requires spacecraft landing on planetary surfaces that may have water present, or may have supported life in the past, to adhere to strict guidelines governing the microbial contaminants that are incidentally present in, and on, spacecraft hardware introduced...

To decrease the mass of the space food system and still maintain the nutritional intake of a mission crew, meal replacement bars and beverages are desired to supplement the menu and serve as meal alternatives. Nutritional requirements for such replacement products for breakfast and lunch...

A complex organization with many tasks and sub-tasks, many phases, and many workers often will have an associated database with many users and groups, each of whom has a limited “need to know” (e.g. fine-grained security access controls) that does not extend to all information in the database. A group...

This tool supports the development of table loads required to inform the flight software of new on-the-fly packet definitions. The main outcome of the processing includes all the database products needed by the ground system to process the newly created packets. The tool ingests...

This hardware-independent, Web-based service provides the capabilities to improve software assurance by streamlining the management of the analysis tools, the code being analyzed, and the results that are generated. The service is a GUI (graphical user interface) application that addresses the needs of software developers and supporting...

Previously, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) did not allow observations to go beyond the end of a planning period. However, opportunities for observing the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover occur close enough to these boundaries to require the...

The Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) Ground Support System (IGSS) Equation Processor (IEP) allows for the general production of “derived” telemetry products in the Raytheon Eclipse ground system used to support the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) project. The IEP works...

Perilog measures the degree of contextual association of large numbers of term pairs in text to produce network models that capture the structure of the text and, by virtue of Perilog’s validated theory of iconicity, the structure of the domains, situations, and concerns expressed by the author of the text. Given alphanumeric...

BAT is a Web-based application used for the assembly and inspection of critical flight and associated ground support hardware for JPL missions that are developed in-house. It is used to capture and communicate data that is unique to a part or assembly that cannot be captured...

There are several frequency conversion applications associated with lidar-based remote sensing that would benefit from the use of high-quality, complex (i.e., chirped, multi-section, or otherwise modulated) domain-engineered magnesiumoxide- doped lithium niobate...

An optical-fiber sensor based on Faraday Effect was developed for measuring total lightning current. Designed for aircraft installation, it is lightweight, non-conducting, structure conforming, and is immune to electromagnetic interference, hysteresis, and saturation. It can also...

For deep space communication systems, the decision of whether or not to suppress the transmitted carrier has always been an issue. For certain missions that use high data rates, the available bandwidth might be a limiting factor. In such cases, it is preferred to use a...

This software implements a new probabilistic framework for integrated multi-target detection and tracking of small moving objects in image sequences, with specific application to tracking people in aerial images, in which image stabilization is inherently noisy.

The Neo-Geography Toolkit (NGT) is a collection of open-source software tools for the automated processing of geospatial data, including images and maps. It can process raw raster data from remote sensing instruments and transform it into useful cartographic products such as visible image base maps, topographic models,...