Stories
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Briefs: Electronics & Computers
This radiation-hardened, compact, low-power, quad 12-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) incorporates science-driven features...
Briefs: Software
Automated Generation of Failure Modes and Effects Document from a Simple SysML Model
This software queries a model of system in the MagicDraw program and uses that information to create an Excel spreadsheet that represents a basic FMEA (Failure Modes and Effects Analysis). It automates the generation of an FMEA; the user only has to open MagicDraw,...
Briefs: Information Technology
Space Network Access System (SNAS)
SNAS is a single, universally accessible, standards-based, full-featured customer interface for performing Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) planning, scheduling, and real-time service monitoring and control. It consolidates functionality of multiple legacy customer interface systems into a single...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
NASA App
The NASA App showcases a huge collection of the latest NASA content in a mobile optimized format, including images, videos on-demand, NASA Television, mission information, news and feature stories, tweets, ISS sighting opportunities, satellite tracking, Third Rock Radio, featured educational content, and much more for iOS and Android...
Briefs: Information Technology
Program to Categorize and Count Observations Performed by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
CreateMEPReport.pl software is designed to read through a description of observations scheduled to be taken by the instruments onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) spacecraft to categorize the observations, and then present totals for the categories...
Briefs: Software
Anomaly Detection in Large Sets of High-Dimensional Symbol Sequences (sequenceMiner)
SequenceMiner was developed to address the problem of detecting and describing anomalies in large sets of high-dimensional symbol sequences. sequenceMiner works by performing unsupervised clustering (grouping) of sequences using the normalized longest common...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Time-Scaled Activity Diagram Simulator
The Time-Scaled Activity Diagram Simulator software simulates and animates time-tagged events as an overlay on activity and internal block diagrams in MagicDraw as a plugin application. “Events” are quite generic and include atomic actions, compound actions, signal and message exchanges, invocations, and...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
General-Use Nodal Network Solver (GUNNS)
Crewed space vehicle training has always required highfidelity models of vehicle systems. Many of these systems, particularly of the “flow” variety, benefit from modeling the system as a whole, rather than relying only on the interactions between individual components. In general, system properties...
Briefs: Information Technology
Modularized SIR-to-NetCDF Conversion Command-Line Tool
This innovation reads in a proprietary formatted binary data format known as Scatterometer Image Reconstruction (SIR), and converts these data files to netCDF-classic format. This software is provided as a command-line tool for Linux/UNIX-based systems, and includes built-in regression testing...
INSIDER: Green Design & Manufacturing
New Tool Guides Infrastructure Recovery After Disasters
A new computerized tool guides stakeholders in preparing for, and recovering from, natural and man-made disasters such as the cyclones in India that knocked out swaths of the Indian Railways Network. The method, developed by Northeastern University researchers, guides stakeholders in the...
INSIDER: Materials
The tiny transistor is the heart of the electronics revolution, and Penn State scientists have discovered a way to give this workhorse a big boost, using a new technique to incorporate vanadium...
INSIDER: Energy
Capacitors are key components of portable electronics, computing systems, and electric vehicles. In contrast to batteries, which offer high storage capacity, but slow...
INSIDER: Test & Measurement
As NASA missions to Mars progress, spacecraft will require larger heat shields to protect against the extreme heat of entering a planet's atmosphere and decelerating at a safe altitude...
Articles: Aerospace
Real-Time Fiber Optic Sensing System
Lance Richards NASA Armstrong Flight Research Center Edwards, CA
A team at NASA Armstrong has developed fiber optic sensing system...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Fault Recovery for Multi-Phase Power Converters
A fault recovery method for multiphase power converters enables delivery of reduced output power of as much as 66% of normal power in the event of a shorted power switch component. The need for redundant power converters in conventional multi-phase space power systems is reduced, if not eliminated....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Isolated Bidirectional DC Converters for Distributed Battery Energy Applications
Power systems are the core heartbeat of any advanced vehicle. Reliability and flexibility of these systems are of the highest priority. This innovation is a highly efficient and modular isolated bidirectional DC converter for battery energy applications that has been...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Device Accommodating Volume Expansion and Contraction for Water-Ice Phase Change Material Heat Sinks
This invention accommodates the volume expansion and contraction of water ice as it freezes and thaws, thus enabling the use of water as a phase change material (PCM) for thermal energy storage. Due to the relatively large volume expansion of water...
Briefs: Aerospace
High-Power, Solid-State Power Amplifier System
The purpose of the invention was to increase the operational power levels of solid-state power amplifiers using state-ofthe- art power amplifier design and combining methodology. Using 1-kW RF modules and proper RF combining techniques, a system was built that generated 16 kW of RF power for use in...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
H2O/NaCl-Based Radio Frequency Power Load
The purpose of the invention was to increase the operational power levels of power loads as well as improve the overall reliability and safety of existing systems. Using water (H2O), table salt (NaCl) or some other form of salt, and a matching network, an RF power load can be built to absorb transmitted...
Briefs: Software
Discovery Through Eigenbasis Modeling of Uninteresting Data
When presented with a new data set, a common initial goal is to explore its contents in a discovery mode to find items of interest. However, each user who views the data set may have a different scientific goal in mind, and therefore a different desired prioritization of the items for...
Briefs: Software
Obstacle Avoidance Methods
Obstacle avoidance is a difficult problem due to the non-convex state constraints. Therefore, the feasible state space needs to be convexified, or split, into convex regions at which point the search for an optimal solution among those convex regions is done. Methods for obstacle avoidance include two mixed integer linear...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Bar Code Scanner to Supplement Property Inventory Process
Within NASA Goddard, property inventories outside of the formal inventories had no automated method to perform quick checks of equipment location, especially during periods leading up to a formal inventory. One method that existed simply involved printing out an end-user’s equipment in a...
Briefs: Information Technology
Semantic Language and Tools for Reporting Human Factors Incidents
This human factors incident reporting tool for authoring and using human factors incident data combines semantic Web technologies with automated assistive technologies to aid users in finding relationships among incidents. The semantic indexing provided by the use of incident...
Briefs: Information Technology
Control Software for Integrated CW Radar Module
This software controls the behavior of a miniaturized microwave radar module. It controls the hardware, digitizes raw samples from the analog output of the module, and applies DSP (digital signal processing) algorithms to the data stream to reduce the bandwidth and data rate. It also implements an...
Briefs: Software
Furuno Radar/SureTrak Interface Software
The Wallops Flight Facility Launch Range has a need to interface data from ship surveillance Furuno radar to an existing surveillance display system (SureTrak). SureTrak is a multi-sensor waterway and air surveillance system. The display of Furuno radar data by the SureTrak system will be used for risk...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An Empirical Metric of Individual Datapoint Utility Given Ample Metadata as Applied to the OCO-2 Flight System
Traditionally, quality flags provided a binary yes/no estimation of a datapoint’s utility. However, in modern instrumentation, significant auxiliary information for each datapoint can be obtained. This permits prediction of more than a...
Briefs: Information Technology
Gravitational Compensation Onboard a Comsat
This technique for compensating the gravitational attraction experienced by a test-mass freely floating onboard a satellite is new, and solves an important problem that all gravitational wave missions face. Its application to the geostationary Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (gLISA) mission concept...
Briefs: Software
Open Scheduling and Planning Interface for Exploration (Open SPIFe)
In order to accomplish mission objectives, NASA must be able to plan and sequence assets (spacecraft and astronauts) in a short amount of time. Planning is a complex process that involves reasoning about thousands of constraints and uncertain conditions in order to produce a...
Briefs: Information Technology
AMMOS-PDS Pipeline Service (APPS) — Label Design Tool (LDT)
A software program builds PDS4 science product label (metadata) and automatically generates its description as part of the software interface specification (SIS) document. This software allows the mission system engineer to interact programmatically with the PDS4 information model, and...
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