Tech Briefs

Reusable holders have been devised for evaluating high-temperature, plasma-resistant re-entry materials, especially fabrics. Typical material samples tested support thermal-protection-system damage repair requiring evaluation prior to re-entry into...

A four-element array conformed to a singly curved conducting surface has been demonstrated to provide 2 dB axial ratio of 14 percent, while maintaining VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio) of 2:1 and gain of 13 dBiC. The array is digitally controlled and can be scanned with the LMS Adaptive Algorithm...

The Reconfigurable Robust Routing for Mobile Outreach Network (R3MOON) provides advanced communications networking technologies suitable for the lunar surface environment and applications. The R3MOON technology is based on a detailed concept of operations tailored for lunar surface networks,...

The invention allows a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) or similar device to be efficiently reconfigured in whole or in part to provide higher capacity, non-redundant operation. The redundant device consists of functional units such as adders or multipliers, configuration memory for the functional units,...

Helmet- and head-mounted display systems, denoted fiber-scanned micro-displays, have been proposed to provide information in an “augmented reality” format (meaning that the information would be optically overlaid on the user’s field of view). A system of this type would include laser diodes feeding light into the...

A computational model calculates the excitation of water rotational levels and emission-line spectra in a cometary coma with applications for the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO). MIRO is a millimeter-submillimeter spectrometer that will be used to study the nature of cometary nuclei, the physical processes...

The Ground Resource Allocation and Planning Environment (GRAPE 1.0) is a Web-based, collaborative team environment based on the Microsoft SharePoint platform, which provides Deep Space Network (DSN) resource planners’ tools and services for sharing information and performing analysis. The foundation platform for GRAPE...

This software models the gas and dust dynamics of comet coma (the head region of a comet) in order to support the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO) project. MIRO will study the evolution of the comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko’s coma system. The instrument will measure surface temperature,...

AVA v2 software selects goals for execution from a set of goals that oversubscribe shared resources. The term “goal” refers to a science or engineering request to execute a possibly complex command sequence, such as image targets or ground-station downlinks.

A simulation testbed architecture was developed and implemented for the integration, test, and development of a TRL-6 flight software set called AutoGNC. The AutoGNC software will combine the TRL-9 Deep Impact AutoNAV flight software suite, the TRL-9 Virtual Machine Language (VML) executive, and the TRL-3 G-REX guidance, estimation,...

OPTOOL software is a general-purpose optical systems analysis tool that was developed to offer a solution to problems associated with computational programs written for the James Webb Space Telescope optical system. It integrates existing routines into coherent processes, and provides a...

A design concept, and a fabrication process that would implement the design concept, have been proposed for nearly seamless vacuum-insulated boxes that could be the main structural components of a variety of controlled-temperature containers, including common household refrigerators and insulating containers...

This valve is designed to create a zero-leak seal in a liquid propulsion system that is a functional replacement for the normally closed pyrovalve. Unlike pyrovalves, Nitinol is actuated by simply heating the material to a certain temperature, called the transition temperature. Like a pyrovalve,...

Researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center have developed a new ceramic design flame holder with a service temperature of 4,000 °F (2,204 °C). The combination of high strength and high temperature capability, as well as a twist-lock mounting method to the steel burner, sets this flame...

A recently discovered superconductor, magnesium diboride (MgB2), can be used to fabricate conducting leads used in cryogenic applications. Discovered to be superconducting in 2001, MgB2 has the advantage of remaining superconducting at higher temperatures than the previously used material, NbTi. The purpose of these...

Polyimide aerogels with three-dimensional cross-linked structure are made using linear oligomeric segments of polyimide, and linked with one of the following into a 3D structure: trifunctional aliphatic or aromatic amines, latent reactive end caps such as nadic anhydride or...

Aerogels that consist, variously, of neat silica/polymer alloys and silica/polymer alloy matrices reinforced with fibers have been developed as materials for flexible thermal-insulation blankets. In comparison with prior aerogel blankets, these aerogel blankets are more durable and less...

NASA PS400 is a solid lubricant coating invented for high-temperature tribological applications. This plasma-sprayed coating is a variant of the previously patented PS304 coating, and has been formulated to provide higher density, smoother surface finish, and better dimensional stability.

A glove containing force sensors has been built as a prototype of tactile sensor arrays to be worn on human hands and anthropomorphic robot hands. Whereas the force sensors of a prior force-sensing glove are mounted on the outside, the force sensors of this glove are mounted inside, in protective...

An improvement has been made in the design of a compact, highly stable mercury-ion clock to suppress a loss of ions as they are transferred between the quadrupole and higher multipole ion traps. Such clocks are being developed for use aboard spacecraft for navigation and planetary radio science. The...

A measurement-based radiance estimation approach for vicarious radiometric calibration of spaceborne multispectral remote sensing systems has been developed. This simplified process eliminates the use of radiative transfer codes and reduces the number of atmospheric assumptions required to perform sensor...

An active optical sensor probes a region of free space that is engulfed in bright thermal noise to determine the presence (or absence) of a weakly reflecting target. The returned light (which is just thermal noise if no target is present, and thermal noise plus a weak reflection of...