Electronics & Software

The GOATS Orbitology Component software was developed to specifically address the concerns presented by orbit analysis tools that are often written as stand-alone applications. These applications do not easily interface with standard JPL first-principles analysis tools, and have a steep learning curve due to their...

The use of underfill materials is necessary with flip-chip interconnect technology to redistribute stresses due to mismatching coefficients of thermal expansion (CTEs) between dissimilar materials in the overall assembly. Underfills are formulated using organic polymers and possibly inorganic...

COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) hardware using an industry-standard Camera Link interface is proposed to accomplish the task of designing, building, assembling, and testing electronics for an airborne spectrometer that would be low-cost, but sustain the required data speed...

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Advanced Orbiting Systems (AOS) space data link protocol provides a framing layer between channel coding such as LDPC (low-density parity-check) and higher-layer link multiplexing protocols such as CCSDS Encapsulation Service, which...

The Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems (CCSDS) Encapsulation Service is a convergence layer between lower-layer space data link framing protocols, such as CCSDS Advanced Orbiting System (AOS), and higher-layer networking protocols, such as CFDP (CCSDS File Delivery...

A software program that searches and browses mission data emulates a Web browser, containing standard metaphors for Web browsing. By taking advantage of back-end URLs, users may save and share search states. Also, since a Web interface is familiar to users, training time is reduced. Familiar back and...

The Phenological Parameters Estimation Tool (PPET) is a set of algorithms implemented in MATLAB that estimates key vegetative phenological parameters. For a given year, the PPET software package takes in temporally processed vegetation index data (3D spatio-temporal arrays) generated by the time series...

The Morbiter software numerically averages an osculating orbit’s equations of motion (EOM) to arrive at the mean orbit’s EOMs, which are then numerically propagated to obtain the long-term orbital ephemerides. The long-term evolution characteristics, and stability, of an orbit are best...

An analytical, advanced imaging method has been developed for the initial monitoring and identification of foam debris and similar anomalies that occur post-launch in reference to the space shuttle’s external tank (ET). Remote sensing technologies have been used to...

Recent advances in quantum information theory have inspired an explosion of interest in new quantum algorithms for solving hard computational (quantum and non-quantum) problems. The basic principle of quantum computation is that the quantum properties can be used to represent structure data, and...

A method was developed for measuring the atmospheric density of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, to create an accurate density profile as a function of altitude. This will allow mission planners to select safe flyby altitudes, and for navigation engineers to accurately predict the delta-v...