Videos: Software
Quantum computers are still years away, but a trio of theoretical physicists has already figured out at least one talent they may have. The theorists, including one from the National...
Question of the Week
Wake Forest University physicists have developed a "Power Felt" fabric that doubles as a spare outlet. When used to line a shirt, for example, it converts subtle differences in temperature into electricity. The technology could be used to power up devices, including MP3 players and cell phone batteries. ...
News
Engineers from the University of California, Berkeley, sent a fleet of 100 smartphone-equipped floating robots down the Sacramento River to demonstrate the next generation of water monitoring technology, promising to transform the way government agencies monitor one of the state’s most...
News
As far as the design of the basic hand grenade goes, "The basic technology is almost 100 years old," said Richard Lauch, a Picatinny Arsenal engineer. Lauch, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, has been on a mission to modernize the hand grenade so that it is safer as well as easier to use and cheaper to...
News
Soldiers stationed in remote combat outposts face logistics and safety challenges to power their radios, laptops and GPS units. U.S. Army scientists are researching methods to harness the Sun and wind to ease the burdens associated with transporting fossil fuels to dangerous areas
News
Thanks to a group of University of Houston students, the hearing impaired may soon have an easier time communicating with those who do not understand sign language. During the past semester, students in UH’s engineering technology and industrial design programs teamed up to develop the concept and...
Videos: Green Design & Manufacturing
Prospecting for elusive fast-growing, oily microalgae is a muddy but rewarding job for National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) researcher Lee Elliott. Trees, grasses, and...
Briefs: Software
iGlobe is open-source software built on NASA World Wind virtual globe technology. iGlobe provides a growing set of tools for weather science, climate research, and agricultural analysis. Up until now, these types of sophisticated tools have been developed in isolation by national...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
With present concern for ecological sustainability ever increasing, it is desirable to model the composition of Earth’s upper atmosphere accurately with regards to certain helpful and...
Briefs: Software
The CARVE Small Aircraft Data Distribution System acquires the aircraft location and attitude data that is required by the various programs running on a distributed network. This system distributes the data it acquires to the data acquisition programs for inclusion in their data files.
Briefs: Software
The Datacasting software, which consists of a server and a client, has been developed as part of the Earth Science (ES) Datacasting project. The goal of ES Datacasting is to provide scientists the ability to automatically and continuously download Earth science data that meets a precise, predefined need, and then to...
Briefs: Information Technology
An algorithm based on Chebyshev polynomials effects lossy compression of time-series data or other one-dimensional data streams (e.g., spectral data) that are arranged in blocks for sequential...
Briefs: Information Technology
An onboard processing mission concept is under development for a possible Direct Broadcast capability for the HyspIRI mission, a Hyperspectral remote sensing mission under consideration for launch in the next decade. The concept would intelligently spectrally and spatially...
Briefs: Software
The Security Data Warehouse (SDW) is used to aggregate and correlate all JSC IT security data. This includes IT asset inventory such as operating systems and patch levels, users, user logins, remote access dial-in and VPN, and vulnerability tracking and reporting. The correlation of this data allows for an...
Briefs: Information Technology
This technique enhances the detection capability of the autonomous RealNose system from MIT to detect odorants and their concentrations in noisy and transient environments. The low-cost, portable system with low power consumption will operate at high speed and is suited for...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Satellite-based laser technology has been developed for topographical measurements of the Earth and of other planets. Lasers for such missions must be highly efficient and stable over long periods in the temperature variations of orbit. In this innovation,...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
This innovation is a high-voltage, lowpower BNC (Bayonet Neill–Concelman) feedthrough that enables the user to terminate an instrumentation cable properly while connected to a high voltage, without the use of a voltage divider. This feedthrough is low power, which will not load the source, and...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
The proposed Aerosol/Cloud/Ecosystems (ACEs) mission development would advance cloud profiling radar from that used in CloudSat by adding a 35-GHz (Ka-band) channel to the 94-GHz (W-band) channel used in CloudSat. In order to illuminate a single antenna, and use CloudSat-like quasi-optical...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Efficient onboard data compression can reduce the data volume from hyperspectral imagers on NASA and DoD spacecraft in order to return as much imagery as possible through constrained downlink channels. Lossless compression is important for signature...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
This version of the SpaceCube will be a full-fledged, onboard space processing system capable of 2500+ MIPS, and featuring a number of plug-andplay gigabit and standard interfaces, all in a condensed 3×3×3 form factor [
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A radiation-hard transponder was developed utilizing submicron/ nanotechnology from IBM. The device consumes low power and has a low fabrication cost. This device utilizes a Plug-and-Play concept, and can be integrated into intra-satellite networks, supporting SpaceWire and Gigabit...
Briefs: Software
This software is designed to predict large active mirror performance at various stages in the fabrication lifecycle of the mirror. It was developed for 1-meter class powered mirrors for astronomical purposes, but is extensible to other geometries. The package accepts finite...
Briefs: Information Technology
The Personal Computer Transport Analysis Program (PCTAP) is C++ software used for analysis of thermal fluid systems. The program predicts thermal fluid system and component transients. The output consists of temperatures, flow rates, pressures, delta pressures, tank quantities, and gas quantities in the...
Briefs: Information Technology
Navigation (Nav)/Prop software is used to support shuttle mission analysis, production, and some operations tasks. The Nav/Prop suite containing configuration items (CIs) resides on IPS/Linux workstations. It features lifecycle documents, and data files used for shuttle navigation and propellant analysis for all...
Briefs: Software
A pressure ratio to thermal environments (PRatTlE.pl) program is a Perl language code that estimates heating at requested body point locations by scaling the heating at a reference location times a pressure ratio factor. The pressure ratio factor is the ratio of the local pressure at the reference point and...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
FATIG computes fatigue damage/ fatigue life using the stress rms (root mean square) value, the total number of cycles, and S–N curve parameters. The damage is computed by the following methods: (a) traditional method using Miner’s rule with stress cycles determined from a Rayleigh distribution up to...
Briefs: Software
The ASCENT program solves the three-dimensional motion and attendant structural loading on a flexible vehicle incorporating, optionally, an active analog thrust control system, aerodynamic effects, and staging of multiple bodies.
Briefs: Software
Satellite observations can play a very important role in airborne field campaigns, since they provide a comprehensive description of the environment that is essential for the experiment design, flight planning, and post-experiment scientific data analysis. In the past, it has been...
Briefs: Information Technology
Downloading and organizing large amounts of files is challenging, and often done using ad hoc methods. This software is capable of downloading and organizing files as an OpenSearch client. It can subscribe to RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds and Atom feeds containing arbitrary metadata, and maintains a local content...