Tech Briefs

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A comprehensive library of technical briefs from engineering experts at NASA and major government, university, and commercial laboratories covering all aspects of innovations in electronics, software, photonics, imaging, motion control, automation, sensors, test, materials, manufacturing, mechanical, and mechatronics.

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Briefs: Information Technology
Airborne Radar Interferometric Repeat-Pass Processing

Earth science research often requires crustal deformation measurements at a variety of time scales, from seconds to decades. Although satellites have been used for repeat-track interferometric (RTI) synthetic-aperture-radar (SAR) mapping for close to 20 years, RTI is much more difficult to...

Briefs: Software
Wallops Ship Surveillance System

Approved as a Wallops control center backup system, the Wallops Ship Surveillance Software is a day-of-launch risk analysis tool for spaceport activities. The system calculates impact probabilities and displays ship locations relative to boundary lines. It enables rapid analysis of possible flight paths to...

Briefs: Software
Guidance, Navigation, and Control Program

The Rendezvous and Proximity Operations Program (RPOP) is realtime guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) domain piloting-aid software that provides 3D Orbiter graphics and runs on the Space Shuttle’s Criticality-3 Payload and General Support Computer (PGSC) in the crew cockpit. This software...

Briefs: Software
Source Lines Counter (SLiC) Version 4.0

Source Lines Counter (SLiC) is a software utility designed to measure software source code size using logical source statements and other common measures for 22 of the programming languages commonly used at NASA and the aerospace industry. Such metrics can be used in a wide variety of applications, from...

Briefs: Software
Single-Frame Terrain Mapping Software for Robotic Vehicles

This software is a component in an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) perception system that builds compact, single-frame terrain maps for distribution to other systems, such as a world model or an operator control unit, over a local area network (LAN). Each cell in the map encodes an...

Briefs: Software
Auto Draw From Excel Input Files

The design process often involves the use of Excel files during project development. To facilitate communications of the information in the Excel files, drawings are often generated. During the design process, the Excel files are updated often to reflect new input. The problem is that the drawings often lag the...

Briefs: Software
Observation Scheduling System

Software has been designed to schedule remote sensing with the Earth Observing One spacecraft. The software attempts to satisfy as many observation requests as possible considering each against spacecraft operation constraints such as data volume, thermal, pointing maneuvers, and others. More complex constraints...

Briefs: Software
CFDP for Interplanetary Overlay Network

The CCSDS (Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems) File Delivery Protocol for Interplanetary Overlay Network (CFDP-ION) is an implementation of CFDP that uses ION’s DTN (delay tolerant networking) implementation as its UT (unit-data transfer) layer. Because the DTN protocols effect automatic,...

Briefs: Software
X-Windows Widget for Image Display

XvicImage is a high-performance X-Windows (Motif-compliant) user interface widget for displaying images. It handles all aspects of low-level image display. The fully Motif-compliant image display widget handles the following tasks:

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
MMIC Replacement for Gunn Diode Oscillators

An all-solid-state replacement for high-frequency Gunn diode oscillators (GDOs) has been proposed for use in NASA’s millimeter- and submillimeter-wave sensing instruments. Highly developed microwave oscillators are used to achieve a low-noise and highly stable reference signal in the 10–40-GHz...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Binary-Signal Recovery

Binary communication through long cables, opto-isolators, isolating transformers, or repeaters can become distorted in characteristic ways. The usual solution is to slow the communication rate, change to a different method, or improve the communication media. It would help if the characteristic distortions could be...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Volumetric 3D Display System With Static Screen

Current display technology has relied on flat, 2D screens that cannot truly convey the third dimension of visual information: depth. In contrast to conventional visualization that is primarily based on 2D flat screens, the volumetric 3D display possesses a true 3D display volume, and places...

Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Feature Acquisition With Imbalanced Training Data

This work considers cost-sensitive feature acquisition that attempts to classify a candidate datapoint from incomplete information. In this task, an agent acquires features of the datapoint using one or more costly diagnostic tests, and eventually ascribes a classification label. A cost function...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Carbon Nanotube-Based Structural Health Monitoring Sensors

Carbon nanotube (CNT)-based sensors for structural health monitoring (SHM) can be embedded in structures of all geometries to monitor conditions both inside and at the surface of the structure to continuously sense changes. These CNTs can be manipulated into specific orientations to...

Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping

A recent collaboration between the Whitesides Group at Harvard University and CSM Instruments has culminated in an important advance in lithography of different...

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Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Mount Protects Thin-Walled Glass or Ceramic Tubes From Large Thermal and Vibration Loads

The design allows for the low-stress mounting of fragile objects, like thin walled glass, by using particular ways of compensating, isolating, or releasing the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) differences between the mounted object and the mount...

Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Anti-Rotation Device Releasable by Insertion of a Tool

A drive mechanism enables a socket-type wrench to rotate a shaft and prevents accidental rotation of the shaft when the wrench is not coupled to the shaft. In the original intended application, the shaft would be part of an attachment mechanism on a spacecraft, and the purpose to be served...

Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Wireless Inductive Power Device Suppresses Blade Vibrations

Vibration in turbomachinery can cause blade failures and leads to the use of heavier, thicker blades that result in lower aerodynamic efficiency and increased noise. Metal and/or composite fatigue in the blades of jet engines has resulted in blade destruction and loss of lives....

Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Safe, Advanced, Adaptable Isolation System Eliminates the Need for Critical Lifts

The Starr Soft Support isolation system incorporates an automatically reconfigurable aircraft jack into NASA’s existing 1-Hertz isolators. This enables an aircraft to float in mid-air without the need for a critical lift during ground vibration testing (GVT),...

Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems

This innovation comprises a compact drill that uses low-axial preload, via vibrations, that fractures the rock under the bit kerf, and rotates the bit to remove the powdered cuttings while...

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Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A Magnetically Coupled Cryogenic Pump

Historically, cryogenic pumps used for propellant loading at Kennedy Space Center (KSC) and other NASA Centers have a bellows mechanical seal and oil bath ball bearings, both of which can be problematic and require high maintenance. Because of the extremely low temperatures, the mechanical seals are made of...

Briefs: Materials
Fire-Retardant Polymeric Additives

Polyhydroxyamide (PHA) and polymethoxyamide (PMeOA) are fire-retardant (FR) thermoplastic polymers and have been found to be useful as an additive for imparting fire retardant properties to other compatible, thermoplastic polymers (including some elastomers). Examples of compatible flammable polymers include...

Briefs: Materials
Variable Emittance Electrochromics Using Ionic Electrolytes and Low Solar Absorptance Coatings

One of the last remaining technical hurdles with variable emittance devices or skins based on conducting polymer electrochromics is the high solar absorptance of their top surfaces. This high solar absorptance causes overheating of the skin when facing...

Briefs: Materials

A lift-gas cracker (LGC) is an apparatus that generates a low-molecular-weight gas (mostly hydrogen with smaller amounts of carbon monoxide and/or carbon dioxide) at low gauge pressure by...

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Briefs: Materials
Ionic Liquids to Replace Hydrazine

A method for developing safe, easy-to-handle propellants has been developed based upon ionic liquids (ILs) or their eutectic mixtures. An IL is a binary combination of a typically organic cation and anion, which generally produces an ionic salt with a melting point below 100 °C. Many ILs have melting points...

Briefs: Physical Sciences

The detection of volatile vapors of unknown species in a complex field environment is required in many different applications. Mass spectroscopic techniques require subsystems including an...

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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Correction for Self-Heating When Using Thermometers as Heaters in Precision Control Applications

In precision control applications, thermometers have temperature-dependent electrical resistance with germanium or other semiconductor material thermistors, diodes, metal film and wire, or carbon film resistors. Because resistance readout requires...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Gravitational Wave Detection With Single-Laser Atom Interferometers

A new design for a broadband detector of gravitational radiation relies on two atom interferometers separated by a distance L. In this scheme, only one arm and one laser are used for operating the two atom interferometers. The innovation here involves the fact that the atoms in...

Briefs: Physical Sciences
Titanium Alloy Strong Back for IXO Mirror Segments

A titanium-alloy mirror-holding fixture called a strong back allows the temporary and permanent bonding of a 50° D263 glass x-ray mirror (IXO here stands for International X-ray Observatory). The strong back is used to hold and position a mirror segment so that mounting tabs may be bonded to...

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