Materials & Manufacturing

In response to the Columbia Accident Investigation Board report, a plug repair kit has been developed to enable astronauts to repair the space shuttle’s wing leading edge (WLE) during orbit. The plug repair kit consists of several 17.78-cm-diameter carbon/ silicon carbide (C/SiC) cover plates of...

The purpose of the invention is to covalently attach functionalized carbon nanotubes to silicon. This step allows for the introduction of carbon nanotubes onto all manner of silicon surfaces, and thereby introduction of carbon nanotubes covalently into...

One day in 2010, a Rutgers physicist watched a store employee showcase a kitchen gadget that vacuum-seals food in plastic. The simple concept – an airtight seal around pieces of food – just might apply to his research: developing flexible electronics using lightweight organic semiconductors for...

Scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have usedthe capabilities of the Rensselaer Center for Nanotechnology Innovations (CCNI) supercomputer touncover the properties of a promising form of graphene, known as graphenenanowiggles. The graphitic nanoribbons can be segmented into several...

Any manned missions to extraterrestrial locations will require shelter structures for a variety of purposes ranging from habitat to biomass production. Such shelters need to be constructed in such a way as to minimize stowed volume and payload weight. The structures must also be very durable and have...

Five improvements are reported in cold-plate fabrication. This cold plate is part of a thermal control system designed to serve on space missions.

Highly active Ru/TiO2 catalysts for Sabatier reaction have been developed. The catalysts have shown to be stable under repeated shutting down/startup conditions. When the Ru/TiO2 catalyst is coated on the engineered substrate FeCrAlY felt, activity enhancement is more than doubled when...

A document describes the fabrication of a two-dimensional microcalorimeter array that uses microstrip wiring and integrated heat sinking to enable use of high-performance pixel designs at kilo - pixel scales (32×32). Each pixel is the high-resolution...

Scientists at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) developed a composite material based on graphite that is as thin as paper and 10 times stronger than steel. This material has the potential to revolutionize the automotive, aviation, electrical, and optical industries.Graphite paper is a...

University of Illinois researchers have demonstrated an acoustic cloak, a technology that renders underwater objects invisible to sonar and other ultrasound waves.The cloak is made of metamaterial, a class of artificial materials that have enhanced properties as a result of their carefully engineered...

Stray light reflected from the surface of imaging spectrometer components — in particular, the spectrometer slit — degrade the image quality. A technique has been developed for rapid, uniform, and cost-effective black silicon formation based on inductively coupled plasma (ICP) etching at...

Large, high-precision composite reflectors for future space missions are costly to manufacture, and heavy. An active composite reflector capable of adjusting shape in situ to maintain required tolerances can be lighter and cheaper to manufacture.

An advanced system for removing CO2 and H2O from cabin air, reducing the CO2, and returning the resulting O2 to the air is less massive than is a prior system that includes two assemblies — one for removal and one for reduction. Also, in this system, unlike in the prior system, there is no need to...

A document discusses a zeolite-based sprayable molecular adsorber coating that has been developed to alleviate the size and weight issues of current ceramic puck-based technology, while providing a configuration that more projects can use to protect against degradation from outgassed materials within a spacecraft,...

Voting is officially open for the 2011 NASA Tech Briefs Readers’ Choice Product of the Year awards. You can cast your vote for one of 12 nominees featured this year as Products of the Month.

Tiny wires could help engineers realize high-performance solar cells and other electronics, according to University of Illinois researchers. The research group, led by electrical and computer engineering professor Xiuling Li, developed a technique to integrate compound semiconductor...

An international team has developed transistors using natural cotton fibers — an innovation that represents a significant leap forward because it lays the groundwork for creating even more complex devices, such as cotton-based circuits, which in turn open doors to the creation of wearable electronic devices...