Electronics & Software

The HDF-EOS 2 and HDF-EOS 5 Compatibility Library contains C-language functions that provide uniform access to HDF-EOS 2 and HDF-EOS 5 files through one set of application programming interface (API) calls. (“HDF-EOS 2” and “HDF-EOS 5” are defined in the immediately preceding article.) Without...

A shell script has been written as a means of automatically making HDF-EOS-formatted data sets available via the World Wide Web. (“HDF-EOS” and variants thereof are defined in the first of the two immediately preceding articles.) The shell script chains together some software tools developed by the Data Usability Group at...

A computer program partly automates the task of determining whether an HDF-EOS 5 file is valid in that it conforms to specifications for such characteristics as attribute names, dimensionality of data products, and ranges of legal data values. [“HDF-EOS” and variants thereof are defined in “Converting EOS Data From HDF-EOS...

An Extensible Markup Language (XML) document type definition (DTD) standard for the structure and contents of HDF-EOS files and their contents, and an equivalent standard in the form of schemas, have been developed. (“HDF-EOS” and variants thereof are defined in the first two of four related articles immediately...

A computer program recreates an HDF-EOS file from an Extensible Markup Language (XML) representation of the contents of that file. (“HDF-EOS” and variants thereof are defined in the first of five related articles that immediately precede this article.) This program is one of two programs written to enable testing...

A computer program called “42” simulates the attitudes and trajectories of multiple spacecraft flying in formation anywhere in the Solar System. The rotational dynamics are represented by high-fidelity models of spacecraft, each comprising as many as three connected rigid bodies and...

This Mathematica script defines a color function to be used with Mathematica’s plotting modules for differentiating data attaining both positive and negative values. Positive values are shown as shades of blue, and negative values are shown in red. The intensity of the color reflects the...

Global Alert Resolution Network (GARNET) is a software system for delivering emergency alerts as well as less-urgent messages to members of the Goddard Space Flight Center work force via an intranet or the Internet, and can be adapted to similar use in other large organizations. Messages can be...

A one-page document describes a Ka-band transponder being developed for use in deep-space radio science. The transponder receives in the Deep Space Network (DSN) uplink frequency band of 34.2 to 34.7 GHz, transmits in the 31.8 to 32.3 GHz DSN downlink band, and performs regenerative ranging on a DSN...

A document discusses the replication of the functionality of the onboard space-shuttle general-purpose computers (GPCs) in field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) and application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs). The purpose of the replication effort is to enable utilization of proven...

A document discusses work that obtains a low-dimensional model that captures both temporal and spatial flow by constructing spatial and temporal four-mode models for two classic flow problems. The models are based on the proper orthogonal decomposition at two reference Reynolds numbers....

Register today for NASA Tech Briefs' National Nano Engineering Conference (NNEC), the premier event focused on current and future developments in engineering innovations at the nanoscale. The event returns to Boston this year on November 12-13 at the Boston Colonnade Hotel, featuring the fourth annual Nano 50...

A prototype of an advanced robotic vision system both (1) measures its own motion with respect to a stationary background and (2) detects other moving objects and estimates their motions, all by use of visual cues. Like some prior robotic and other optoelectronic vision systems, this...

A wide-band penetrating radar system for measuring the thickness of sea ice is under development. The need for this or a similar system arises as follows: Spatial and temporal variations in the thickness of sea ice are important indicators of heat fluxes between the ocean and atmosphere and, hence,...

A proposed device for combining or switching electromagnetic beams would have three ports, would not contain any moving parts, and would be switchable among three operating states:

This design allows broadband power combining with high isolation between the H port and E port, and achieves a lower insertion loss than any other broadband planar magic-T. Passive micro wave/millimeter-wave signal power is combined both in-phase and out-of-phase at the ports, with the phase error being less than...

The Next Generation Flight Controller Trainer (NGFCT) is a relatively inexpensive system of hardware and software that provides high- fidelity training for space-shuttle flight controllers. NGFCT provides simulations into which are integrated the behaviors of emulated space-shuttle vehicle onboard...

A quasi-optical transmission line (QOTL) has been developed as a low-loss transmission line for a spaceborne cloud-observing radar instrument that operates at a nominal frequency of 94 GHz. This QOTL could also readily be redesigned for use in terrestrial millimeter- wave radar systems and...

Single-event upsets (SEUs) pose great threats to avionic systems' state machine control logic, which are frequently used to control sequence of events and to qualify protocols. The risks of SEUs manifest in two ways: (a) the state machine's state information is changed, causing the...

A computer program called “ddor_sasf2apf” converts delta-door (delta differential one-way range) request from an SASF (spacecraft activity sequence file) format to an APF (apgen plan file) format for use in the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission-planning-and- sequencing process. The APF is used as an...

A computer program called “dsn config converter” automates what had been a manual process for updating the multi-mission adaptation file (multi.aaf) used by a multiple- mission- command- sequence- generating process comprised of a combination of the AUTOGEN and APGEN programs mentioned in the immediately preceding...

A computer program called “autogen hypertext map generator” satisfies a need for documenting and assisting in visualization of, and navigation through, model files used in the AUTOGEN and APGEN software mentioned in the two immediately preceding articles. This program parses autogen script files,...

The Sequence History Update Tool performs Web-based sequence statistics archiving for Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Using a single UNIX command, the software takes advantage of sequencing conventions to automatically extract the needed statistics from multiple files. This information is then used to populate a PHP...

The Display Audit Suite is an integrated package of software tools that partly automates the detection of Portable Computer System (PCS) Display errors. [PCS is a laptop computer used onboard the International Space Station (ISS).] The need for automation stems from the large quantity of PCS displays (6,000+,...

This software tool saves time and reduces risk by automating two labor-intensive and error- prone post-processing steps required for every DKF [DSN (Deep Space Network) Keyword File] that MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) produces, and is being extended to post-process the corresponding TSOE (Text Sequence Of Events) as...