Electronics & Software

High-speed complex-amplitude spatial light modulators (SLMs) containing liquid crystals with pixel electronic circuitry on single-crystal-silicon backplanes are undergoing development. The basic approach taken in this project is to use fast-switching liquid-crystal materials and modulation-enhancing...

School Internet Manager Over Networks (SIMON) is a software tool, exclusively for use on Macintosh computers, that is designed to provide access to, and management of, Internet information for teachers and students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. By eliminating the requirement for advanced...

The VrTool computer program enables its user to rapidly develop a prototype virtual-reality (VR) application program. Users of VR application programs need software that can help them keep pace with the rapidly evolving VR field. None of the previously commercially available VR software tool kits...

A computer program establishes an interface between the MATLAB software and the serial data port of a personal computer (PC) that runs either the Windows 95 or the Windows NT operating system. The program makes it possible to utilize the graphical user interface (GUI) and the...

A computer program facilitates the analysis and design of a radio-communication system for transmitting data from an orbiting spacecraft to ground stations. Input data provided by the user include primarily (1) parameters of the spacecraft orbit (including parameters that specify...

The Space Communications Protocol Standards (SCPS) specify a developmental system of international protocols for data communications between spacecraft and points on Earth. SCPS protocols are intended to make a spacecraft appear, to a terrestrial computer user, as just another node on...

A software system has been devised to manage automatically (1) the distribution of mutually independent computing tasks to computer workstations in NASA's Flight Design and Analysis System (FADS) network and (2) the execution of those tasks on those workstations. This program parallelizes serial tasks,...

A laser illuminator system has been developed for use in automated tracking of objects. In its original application, the system illuminates a 5° conical region expected to contain a small satellite at a distance up to 750 m from the space shuttle. If the satellite comes within this region, then a receiving...

Scientists have developed a type of composite graphite anode that will benefit the U.S. space program and private industry by increasing the rechargeability of lithium-ion batteries. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, which are used on the space shuttle and Space Station, are also used in...