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Briefs: Physical Sciences
Simplified Night Sky Display System
A document describes a simple night sky display system that is portable, lightweight, and includes, at most, four components in its simplest configuration. The total volume of this system is no more than 106 cm3 in a disassembled state, and weighs no more than 20 kilograms. The four basic components are a...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Determination of neutral winds and ion drifts in low-Earth-orbit missions requires measurements of the angular and energy distributions of the flux of neutrals and ions...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Three proposed methods for measuring trace quantities of hydrazines involve ionization and detection of hydrazine derivatives. These methods are intended to overcome the limitations of prior...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
The Cryogenic Moisture Apparatus (CMA) is designed for quantifying the amount of moisture from the surrounding air that is taken up by cryogenic-tank-insulating material specimens while under typical conditions of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A transportable atom interferometer-based gravity gradiometer has been developed at JPL to carry out measurements of Earth’s gravity field at ever finer spatial resolutions, and...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Instrument for Analysis of Greenland’s Glacier Mills
A new instrument is used to study the inner workings of Greenland’s glacier mills by riding the currents inside a glacier’s moulin. The West Greenland Moulin Explorer instrument was deployed into a tubular shaft to autonomously record temperature, pressure, 3D acceleration, and location. It...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Wavefront Correction for Large, Flexible Antenna Reflector
A wavefront-correction system has been proposed as part of an outer-space radio communication system that would include a large, somewhat flexible main reflector antenna, a smaller subreflector antenna, and a small array feed at the focal plane of these two reflector antennas. Part of the...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Specially designed focusing of light beams has been proposed as a means of improving the performances of optical buffers based on cells containing hot atomic vapors (e.g., rubidium...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Specially designed focusing of light beams has been proposed as a means of improving the performances of optical buffers based on cells containing hot atomic vapors (e.g., rubidium...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Low-Friction, Low-Profile, High-Moment Two-Axis Joint
The two-axis joint is a mechanical device that provides two-degrees-of-freedom motion between connected components. A compact, moment-resistant, twoaxis joint is used to connect an electromechanical actuator to its driven structural members. Due to the requirements of the overall mechanism, the...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Miniature Multi-Axis Mechanism for Hand Controllers
A hand controller provides up to three axes of motion, and all required feel characteristics (stiffness and breakout torques) located inside a hollow handle within the grip of the hand. This is achieved using a miniature gimbal mechanism that allows for independent motion about one, two, or three...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A magnetostrictive brake has been designed as a more energy-efficient alternative to a magnetic fail-safe brake in a robot. (In the specific application, “fail-safe” signifies that the brake is normally engaged; that...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Active and Passive Hybrid Sensor
A hybrid ocean wind sensor (HOWS) can map ocean vector wind in low to hurricane-level winds, and non-precipitating and precipitating conditions. It can acquire active and passive measurements through a single aperture at two wavelengths, two polarizations, and multiple incidence angles. Its low profile, compact...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Quick-Response Thermal Actuator for Use as a Heat Switch
This work improves the performance of a heat switch, or a thermal actuator, by delivering heat to the actuator in a more efficient manner. The method uses a heat pipe as the plunger or plug instead of just using a solid piece of metal. The heat pipe could be one tailored for fast transient...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
AlGaN Ultraviolet Detectors for Dual-Band UV Detection
This innovation comprises technology that has the ability to measure at least two ultraviolet (UV) bands using one detector without relying on any external optical filters. This allows users to build a miniature UVA and UVB monitor, as well as to develop compact, multicolor imaging technologies...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Perlite is the most typical insulating powder used to separate the inner and outer shells of cryogenic tanks. The inner tank holds the low-temperature commodity, while the outer...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
A proposed radiation-detecting apparatus would provide information on the kinetic energies, directions, and electric charges of highly energetic incident subatomic particles. The apparatus was originally...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Using Thin-Film Thermometers as Heaters in Thermal Control Applications
A cryogenic sensor maintains calibration at ≈4.2 K to better than 2 mK (
Briefs: Physical Sciences
System for Hydrogen Sensing
A low-power, wireless gas-sensing system is designed to safeguard the apparatus to which it is attached, as well as associated personnel. It also ensures the efficiency and operational integrity of the hydrogen-powered apparatus. This sensing system can be operated with lower power consumption (less than 30 nanowatts),...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A new space-qualified, high-power, high-efficiency, K-band traveling-wave tube amplifier (TWTA), shown in the figure, will provide high-rate, high-capacity, direct-to-Earth communications for science data...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Sideband-Separating, Millimeter-Wave Heterodyne Receiver
Researchers have demonstrated a sub-millimeter-wave spectrometer that combines extremely broad bandwidth with extremely high sensitivity and spectral resolution to enable future spacecraft to measure the composition of the Earth’s troposphere in three dimensions many times per day at...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A simplified load-following control scheme has been proposed for a fuel cell power system. The scheme could be used to control devices that are important parts of a fuel cell system but...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Loosely Coupled GPS-Aided Inertial Navigation System for Range Safety
The Autonomous Flight Safety System (AFSS) aims to replace the human element of range safety operations, as well as reduce reliance on expensive, downrange assets for launches of expendable launch vehicles (ELVs). The system consists of multiple navigation sensors and flight...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Modified Phasemeter for a Heterodyne Laser Interferometer
Modifications have been made in the design of instruments of the type described in “Digital Averaging Phasemeter for Heterodyne Interferometry” (NPO-30866), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 28, No. 9 (September 2004), page 6a. To recapitulate: A phasemeter of this type measures the difference...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
An improved design concept for coaxial propellant injectors for a rocket engine (or perhaps for a non-rocket combustion chamber) offers advantages of greater robustness, less...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Adaptable Diffraction Gratings With Wavefront Transformation
Diffraction gratings are optical components with regular patterns of grooves, which angularly disperse incoming light by wavelength. Traditional diffraction gratings have static planar, concave, or convex surfaces. However, if they could be made so that they can change the surface...
Briefs: Software
Natural-Language Parser for PBEM
A computer program called “Hunter” accepts, as input, a colloquial-English description of a set of policy-based-management rules, and parses that description into a form useable by policy-based enterprise management (PBEM) software.
Briefs: Software
Policy Process Editor for P³BM Software
A computer program enables generation, in the form of graphical representations of process flows with embedded natural-language policy statements, input to a suite of policy-, process-, and performance-based management (P3BM) software developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Like the program...
Briefs: Software
A Quality System Database
A quality system database (QSD), and software to administer the database, were developed to support recording of administrative nonconformance activities that involve requirements for documentation of corrective and/or preventive actions, which can include ISO 9000 internal quality audits and customer complaints. [“ISO...
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