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Briefs: Software
Image Segmentation, Registration, Compression, and Matching
A novel computational framework was developed of a 2D affine invariant matching exploiting a parameter space. Named as affine invariant parameter space (AIPS), the technique can be applied to many image-processing and computer-vision problems, including image registration, template...
Briefs: Software
Image Calibration
Calibrate_Image calibrates images obtained from focal plane arrays so that the output image more accurately represents the observed scene. The function takes as input a degraded image along with a flat field image and a dark frame image produced by the focal plane array and outputs a corrected image. The three most prominent...
Briefs: Software
Rapid ISS Power Availability Simulator
The ISS (International Space Station) Power Resource Officers (PROs) needed a tool to automate the calculation of thousands of ISS power availability simulations used to generate power constraint matrices. Each matrix contains 864 cells, and each cell represents a single power simulation that must be run. The...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Optimization of Indium Bump Morphology for Improved Flip Chip Devices
Flip-chip hybridization, also known as bump bonding, is a packaging technique for microelectronic devices that directly connects an active element or detector to a substrate readout face-to-face, eliminating the need for wire bonding. In order to make conductive links between the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Pre-Finishing of SiC for Optical Applications
A method is based on two unique processing steps that are both based on deterministic machining processes using a single-point diamond turning (SPDT) machine. In the first step, a high-MRR (material removal rate) process is used to machine the part within several microns of the final geometry. In the...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
The term “tape setback method” denotes a method of designing and fabricating bonded joints between (1) box beams or other structural members made of laminated composite (matrix/ fiber)...
Briefs: Materials
Measuring Moisture Levels in Graphite Epoxy Composite Sandwich Structures
Graphite epoxy composite (GEC) materials are used in the construction of rocket fairings, nose cones, interstage adapters, and heat shields due to their high strength and light weight. However, they absorb moisture depending on the environmental conditions they are exposed to...
Briefs: Materials
Optimized Li-Ion Electrolytes Containing Triphenyl Phosphate as a Flame-Retardant Additive
A number of future NASA missions involving the exploration of the Moon and Mars will be “human-rated” and thus require high-specific-energy rechargeable batteries that possess enhanced safety characteristics. Given that Li-ion technology is the most...
Briefs: Materials
Real-Time Deposition Monitor for Ultrathin Conductive Films
A device has been developed that can be used for the real-time monitoring of ultrathin (2 Å or more) conductive films. The device responds in less than two microseconds, and can be used to monitor film depositions up to about 60 Å thick. Actual thickness monitoring capability will vary...
Briefs: Materials
Marshall Convergent Spray Formulation Improvement for High Temperatures
The Marshall Convergent Coating-1 (MCC-1) formulation was produced in the 1990s, and uses a standard bisphenol A epoxy resin system with a triamine accelerator. With the increasing heat rates forecast for the next generation of
vehicles, higher-temperature sprayable coatings...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Super Dwarf Wheat for Growth in Confined Spaces
USU-Perigee is a dwarf red spring wheat that is a hybrid of a high-yield early tall wheat (USU-Apogee) and a low-yield, extremely short wheat that has poor agronomic characteristics. USU-Perigee was selected for its extremely short height (≈0.3 m) and high yield — characteristics that make it...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Most optical systems require antennas with directive patterns. This means that the physical area of the antenna will be large in terms of the wavelength. When...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Local Leak Detection and Health Monitoring of Pressurized Tanks
An optical gas-detection sensor safely monitors pressurized systems (such as cryogenic tanks) and distribution systems for leaks. This sensor system is a fiber-coupled, solid optical body interferometer that allows for the miniaturized sensing element of the device to be placed in the...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Single-Antenna Temperature- and Humidity-Sounding Microwave Receiver
For humidity and temperature sounding of Earth’s atmosphere, a single-antenna/LNA (low-noise amplifier) is needed in place of two separate antennas for the two frequency bands. This results in significant mass and power savings for GeoSTAR that is comprised of hundreds of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Broadband Achromatic Phase Shifter for a Nulling Interferometer
Nulling interferometry is a technique for imaging exoplanets in which light from the parent star is suppressed using destructive interference. Light from the star is divided into two beams and a phase shift of π radians is introduced into one of the beams. When the beams are...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Fine Guidance Sensing for Coronagraphic Obser vatories
Three options have been developed for Fine Guidance Sensing (FGS) for coronagraphic observatories using a Fine Guidance Camera within a coronagraphic instrument. Coronagraphic observatories require very fine precision pointing in order to image faint objects at very small distances from a...
Briefs: Information Technology
Ascent Heating Thermal Analysis on Spacecraft Adaptor Fairings
When the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) is launched, the spacecraft adaptor (SA) fairings that cover the CEV service module (SM) are exposed to aero heating. Thermal analysis is performed to compute the fairing temperatures and to investigate whether the temperatures are within the...
Briefs: Information Technology
Prioritized LT Codes
The original Luby Transform (LT) coding scheme is extended to account for data transmissions where some information symbols in a message block are more important than others. Prioritized LT codes provide unequal error protection (UEP) of data on an erasure channel by modifying the original LT encoder. The prioritized algorithm...
Briefs: Information Technology
Fast Image Texture Classification Using Decision Trees
Texture analysis would permit improved autonomous, onboard science data interpretation for adaptive navigation, sampling, and downlink decisions. These analyses would assist with terrain analysis and instrument placement in both macroscopic and microscopic image data products. Unfortunately,...
Briefs: Information Technology
More-Accurate Model of Flows in Rocket Injectors
An improved computational model for simulating flows in liquid-propellant injectors in rocket engines has been developed. Models like this one are needed for predicting fluxes of heat in, and performances of, the engines. An important part of predicting performance is predicting fluctuations of...
Briefs: Information Technology
Improved Systematic Pointing Error Model for the DSN Antennas
New pointing models have been developed for large reflector antennas whose construction is founded on elevation over azimuth mount. At JPL, the new models were applied to the Deep Space Network (DSN) 34-meter antenna’s subnet for corrections of their systematic pointing errors; it...
Briefs: Information Technology
Observability and Estimation of Distributed Space Systems via Local Information-Exchange Networks
Spacecraft formation flying involves the coordination of states among multiple spacecraft through relative sensing, inter-spacecraft communication, and control. Most existing formation-flying estimation algorithms can only be supported via highly...
Briefs: Information Technology
In-Orbit Instrument-Pointing Calibration Using the Moon as a Target
A method was developed for in-orbit measurement of the relative pointing of spectrometer channels, and the relationship between the spectrometer channels and the spacecraft coordinate system. In this innovation, individual scans of the Moon, from the three channels, were used to...
Briefs: Information Technology
Constraint Embedding Technique for Multibody System Dynamics
Multibody dynamics play a critical role in simulation testbeds for space missions. There has been a considerable interest in the development of efficient computational algorithms for solving the dynamics of multibody systems. Mass matrix factorization and inversion techniques and the O(N)...
Briefs: Information Technology
Entanglement in Self-Supervised Dynamics
A new type of correlation has been developed similar to quantum entanglement in self-supervised dynamics (SSD). SSDs have been introduced as a quantum-classical hybrid based upon the Madelung equation in which the quantum potential is replaced by an information potential. As a result, SSD preserves the...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Reliability of Ceramic Column Grid Array Interconnect Packages Under Extreme Temperatures
A paper describes advanced ceramic column grid array (CCGA) packaging interconnects technology test objects that were subjected to extreme temperature thermal cycles. CCGA interconnect electronic package printed wiring boards (PWBs) of polyimide were...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Six Degrees-of-Freedom Ascent Control for Small-Body Touch and Go
A document discusses a method of controlling touch and go (TAG) of a spacecraft to correct attitude, while ensuring a safe ascent. TAG is a concept whereby a spacecraft is in contact with the surface of a small body, such as a comet or asteroid, for a few seconds or less before...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Optical-Path-Difference Linear Mechanism for the Panchromatic Fourier Transform Spectrometer
A document discusses a mechanism that uses flex-pivots in a parallelogram arrangement to provide frictionless motion with an unlimited lifetime. A voice-coil actuator drives the parallelogram over the required 5-cm travel. An optical position sensor...
Briefs: Sensors/Data Acquisition
Electronic biosensing technology could someday displace the multi-welled microplate, long a standard tool in biomedical research and diagnostic laboratories. Essentially arrays of...
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