Physical Sciences

A report discusses a new technique to prevent condensation on the cabin walls of manned spacecraft exposed to the cold environment of space, as such condensation could lead to free water in the cabin. This could facilitate the growth of mold and bacteria, and could lead to oxidation and weakening of the...

Segment mirror phasing, a critical step of segment mirror alignment, requires the ability to sense and correct the relative pistons between segments from up to a few hundred microns to a fraction of wavelength in order to bring the mirror system to its full...

NASA’s investigations of the upper atmosphere and ionosphere require measurements of composition of the neutral air and ions. NASA is able to undertake these observations, but the instruments currently in use have their limitations. NASA has extended the scope of its research in the atmosphere...

Free space optical communications links from deep space are projected to fulfill future NASA communication requirements for 2020 and beyond. Accurate laser-beam pointing is required to achieve high data rates at low power levels. For the highest pointing accuracy, a laser beacon transmitted...

A large depth-of-field particle image velocimeter (PIV) is designed to characterize dynamic dust environments on planetary surfaces. This instrument detects lofted dust particles, and senses the number of particles per unit volume, measuring their sizes,...

A multiple-pass optical platform eliminates essentially all optical alignment degrees of freedom, save one. A fourpass absorption spectrometer architecture is made rigid by firmly mounting dielectric-coated mirror prisms with no alignment capability to the platform. The laser diode beam...

A method to qualify the Rover Low Gain Antenna (RLGA) for use during the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission has been devised. The RLGA antenna must survive all ground operations, plus the nominal 670 Martian sol mission that includes the summer and winter seasons of the...

The Onboard Calibration (OBC) source incorporates a medical/scientific-grade halogen source with a precisely designed fiber coupling system, and a fiber-based intensity-monitoring feedback loop that results in radiometric and spectral stabilities to within

At extreme temperatures, cryogenic and over 300 °C, few electronic components are available to support intelligent data transfer over a common, linear combining medium. This innovation allows many sensors to operate on the same wire bus (or on the same airwaves or optical...

To support long-duration manned missions in space such as a permanent lunar base, Mars transit, or Mars Surface Mission, improved methods for the treatment of solid wastes, particularly methods that recover valuable resources, are needed. The...

The Moonraker Excavator and other tools under development for use on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids will be employed to construct a number of civil engineering projects and to mine the soil. Mounds of loose soil will be subject to the local transport mechanisms plus...

The VisIR HIP generates spatially-spectrally complex scenes. The generated scenes simulate real-world targets viewed by various remote sensing instruments. The VisIR HIP consists of two subsystems: a spectral engine and a spatial engine. The spectral engine generates spectrally complex uniform...

The purpose of this program was to develop single-photon-sensitive shortwavelength infrared (SWIR) and midwavelength infrared (MWIR) avalanche photodiode (APD) receivers based on linear-mode HgCdTe APDs, for application by NASA in light detection and ranging (lidar) sensors. Linear-mode...

Hypergolic fuel sensors were designed to incorporate novel chemo chromic pigments into substrates for use in various methods of leak detection. There are several embodiments to this invention that would provide specific visual indication of hypergols used during and after...

The motivation of this work was to have robust spectroscopic sensors for sensitive detection and chemical analysis of organic and molecular compounds. The solution is to use silica sphere optical resonators to provide surface-enhanced spectroscopic signal.

Small size, wide spectral bandwidth, and highly multiplexed detector readout are required to develop powerful multi-beam spectrometers for high-redshift observations. Currently available spectrometers at these frequencies are large and bulky. The grating sizes for...

Investigation of sonic boom has been one of the major areas of study in aeronautics due to the benefits a low-boom aircraft has in both civilian and military applications. Current Federal Aviation Administration regulations prohibit supersonic flight over land due to...

Future NASA destinations will be challenging to get to, have extreme environmental conditions, and may present difficulty in retrieving a spacecraft or its data. Space Photonics is developing a radiationtolerant (rad-tolerant), high-speed, multichannel fiber-optic...

A new fluorescence cell has been developed for the laser induced fluorescence (LIF) detection of formaldehyde. The cell is used to sample a flow of air that contains trace concentrations of formaldehyde. The cell provides a hermetically sealed volume in which a flow of air containing...

The mesh reflector is the only type of large, in-space deployable antenna that has successfully flown in space. However, state-of-the-art large deployable mesh antenna systems are RF-frequency-limited by both global shape accuracy and local surface quality. The limitations of mesh reflectors stem from two...

This invention is designed to ascertain the snow water equivalence (SWE) of snowpacks with better spatial and temporal resolutions than present techniques. The approach is ground-based, as opposed to some techniques that are air-based. In addition, the approach is compact,...