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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
There is no convenient way to demonstrate mechanically, as an outreach (or inreach) topic, the angular momentum trade-offs and the conservation of angular momentum associated with gravityassist...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Spectroscopic Chemical Analysis Methods and Apparatus
This invention relates to non-contact spectroscopic methods and apparatus for performing chemical analysis and the ideal wavelengths and sources needed for this analysis. It employs deep ultraviolet (200- to 300-nm spectral range) electron- beam-pumped wide bandgap semiconductor lasers,...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Motion-Corrected 3D Sonic Anemometer for Tethersondes and Other Moving Platforms
To date, it has not been possible to apply 3D sonic anemometers on tethersondes or similar atmospheric research platforms due to the motion of the supporting platform. A tethersonde module including both a 3D sonic anemometer and associated motion correction sensors...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Water Treatment Systems for Long Spaceflights
Space exploration will require new life support systems to support the crew on journeys lasting from a few days to several weeks, or longer. These systems should also be designed to reduce the mass required to keep humans alive in space. Water accounts for about 80 percent of the daily mass intake...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Seismic Imager Space Telescope
A concept has been developed for a geostationary seismic imager (GSI), a space telescope in geostationary orbit above the Pacific coast of the Americas that would provide movies of many large earthquakes occurring in the area from Southern Chile to Southern Alaska. The GSI movies would cover a field of view as long as...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Low-Cost Phased Array Antenna for Sounding Rockets, Missiles, and Expendable Launch Vehicles
A low-cost beamformer phased array antenna has been developed for expendable launch vehicles, rockets, and missiles. It utilizes a conformal array antenna of ring or individual radiators (design varies depending on application) that is designed to be fed by...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Microchip Non-Aqueous Capillary Electrophoresis (μNACE) Method to Analyze Long-Chain Primary Amines
A protocol was developed as a first step in analyzing the complex organic aerosols present on Saturn’s moon Titan, as well as the analogues of these aerosols (tholins) made on Earth. Labeling of primary amines using Pacific Blue™ succinimidyl...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
In radiometer applications, it is required to design antennas that meet low average sidelobe levels and low average return loss over a specified frequency bandwidth. It is a...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Mars Science Laboratory Engineering Cameras
NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Rover, which launched to Mars in 2011, is equipped with a set of 12 engineering cameras. These cameras are build-to-print copies of the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) cameras, which were sent to Mars in 2003. The engineering cameras weigh
Briefs: Information Technology
Estimating Sea Surface Salinity and Wind Using Combined Passive and Active L-Band Microwave Observations
Several L-band microwave radiometer and radar missions have been, or will be, operating in space for land and ocean observations. These include the NASA Aquarius mission and the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) mission, both of which use...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Cascading Tesla Oscillating Flow Diode for Stirling Engine Gas Bearings
Replacing the mechanical check-valve in a Stirling engine with a micromachined, non-moving-part flow diode eliminates moving parts and reduces the risk of microparticle clogging.
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A high-strength, low-weight pressure vessel dome was designed specifically to house a high-pressure [2,000 psi (≈13.8 MPa)] electrolyzer. In operation, the dome is filled with an inert gas...
Briefs: Medical
Wideband Single-Crystal Transducer for Bone Characterization
The microgravity conditions of space travel result in unique physiological demands on the human body. In particular, the absence of the continual mechanical stresses on the skeletal system that are present on Earth cause the bones to decalcify. Trabecular structure decreases in thickness...
Briefs: Medical
Extreme Ionizing-Radiation-Resistant Bacterium
There is a growing concern that desiccation and extreme radiation-resistant, non-spore-forming microorganisms associated with spacecraft surfaces can withstand space environmental conditions and subsequent proliferation on another solar body. Such forward contamination would jeopardize future life...
Briefs: Medical
Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting of Live Versus Dead Bacterial Cells and Spores
This innovation is a coupled fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) and fluorescent staining technology for purifying (removing cells from sampling matrices), separating (based on size, density, morphology, and live versus dead), and concentrating cells (spores,...
Briefs: Medical
Nonhazardous Urine Pretreatment Method
A method combines solid phase acidification with two non-toxic biocides to prevent ammonia volatilization and microbial proliferation. The safe, nonoxidizing biocide combination consists of a quaternary amine and a food preservative. This combination has exhibited excellent stabilization of both acidified and...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
In this innovation, the three-way combiner consists internally of two branchline hybrids that are connected in series by a short length of waveguide. Each branch-line hybrid is...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Low-Gain Circularly Polarized Antenna With Torus-Shaped Pattern
The Juno mission to Jupiter requires an antenna with a torus-shaped antenna pattern with approximately 6 dBic gain and circular polarization over the Deep Space Network (DSN) 7-GHz transmit frequency and the 8-GHz receive frequency. Given the large distances that accumulate en-route to...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Laser-Ranging Transponders for Science Investigations of the Moon and Mars
An active laser was developed ranging in real-time with two terminals, emulating interplanetary distances, and with submillimeter accuracy. In order to overcome the limitations to ranging accuracy from jitters and delay drifts within the transponders, architecture was...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Structural health monitoring (SHM) is one of the most important tools available for the maintenance, safety, and integrity of aerospace structural systems. Lightweight,...
Briefs: Software
Stereo and IMU-Assisted Visual Odometry for Small Robots
This software performs two functions: (1) taking stereo image pairs as input, it computes stereo disparity maps from them by cross-correlation to achieve 3D (three-dimensional) perception; (2) taking a sequence of stereo image pairs as input, it tracks features in the image sequence to...
Briefs: Software
Global Swath and Gridded Data Tiling
This software generates cylindrically projected tiles of swath-based or gridded satellite data for the purpose of dynamically generating high-resolution global images covering various time periods, scaling ranges, and colors called “tiles.” It reconstructs a global image given a set of tiles covering a...
Briefs: Software
GOES-R: Satellite Insight
GOES-R: Satellite Insight seeks to bring awareness of the GOES-R (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite — R Series) satellite currently in development to an audience of all ages on the emerging medium of mobile games. The iPhone app (Satellite Insight) was created for the GOES-R Program. The app describes in...
Briefs: Software
Aquarius iPhone Application
The Office of the CIO at JPL has developed an iPhone application for the Aquarius/SAC-D mission. The application includes specific information about the science and purpose of the Aquarius satellite and also features daily mission news updates pulled from sources at Goddard Space Flight Center as well as Twitter. The...
Briefs: Information Technology
Monitoring of International Space Station Telemetry Using Shewhart Control Charts
Shewhart control charts have been established as an expedient method for analyzing dynamic, trending data in order to identify anomalous subsystem performance as soon as such performance would exceed a statistically established baseline. Additionally, this leading...
Briefs: Information Technology
Time Manager Software for a Flight Processor
Data analysis is a process of inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling data to highlight useful information and suggest conclusions. Accurate timestamps and a timeline of vehicle events are needed to analyze flight data. When data is gathered onboard a rocket, precise time stamping is even more...
Briefs: Information Technology
Simulation of Oxygen Disintegration and Mixing With Hydrogen or Helium at Supercritical Pressure
The simulation of high-pressure turbulent flows, where the pressure, p, is larger than the critical value, pc, for the species under consideration, is relevant to a wide array of propulsion systems, e.g. gas turbine, diesel, and liquid rocket engines....
Briefs: Information Technology
Theory of a Traveling Wave Feed for a Planar Slot Array Antenna
Planar arrays of waveguide-fed slots have been employed in many radar and remote sensing applications. Such arrays are designed in the standing wave configuration because of high efficiency. Traveling wave arrays can produce greater bandwidth at the expense of efficiency due to power...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A Superfluid Pulse Tube Refrigerator Without Moving Parts for Sub-Kelvin Cooling
A report describes a pulse tube refrigerator that uses a mixture of 3He and superfluid 4He to cool to temperatures below 300 mK, while rejecting heat at temperatures up to 1.7 K. The refrigerator is driven by a novel thermodynamically reversible pump that is capable of...
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