Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A breadboard version of a transmitter for radio communication at a carrier frequency of 32 GHz (which is in the Ka band) utilizes a vector modulator operating at a carrier frequency of...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A circuit that can function as a phase switch, frequency mixer, or frequency multiplier operates over a broad frequency range in the vicinity of 100 GHz. Among the most notable...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
An optically modulated field-effect transistor (OFET) based on a silicon carbide junction field-effect transistor (JFET) is under study as, potentially, a prototype of devices that could be useful for detecting ultraviolet light. The SiC OFET is an experimental device that is one of several devices,...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Systems requirements for complex spacecraft drive design requirements that lead to structures, components, and/or enclosures of a multi-material and multifunctional design. The...
Briefs: Manufacturing & Prototyping
Wick structures fabricated by machining of titanium porous material are essential components of lightweight titanium/ water heat pipes of a type now being developed for operation at temperatures up to...
Briefs: Materials
Gadolinia-doped ceria, or GDC, (Gd0.4Ce0.6O2–δ, where the value of δ in this material varies, depending on the temperature and oxygen concentration in the atmosphere in which it is...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed system for exploiting the ocean thermal gradient to generate power would be based on the thawing-expansion/ freezing-contraction behavior of a wax or perhaps another suitable phase-change...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
A proposed system would exploit the ocean thermal gradient for recharging the batteries in a battery-powered unmanned underwater vehicle [UUV (essentially, a small exploratory submarine...
Briefs: Mechanical & Fluid Systems
Two hydrogen generators based on reactions involving magnesium and steam have been proposed as means for generating the fuel (hydrogen gas) for such fuel-cell power systems as those...
Briefs: Medical
A method of sensitive detection of bacterial spores within delays of no more than a few hours has been developed to provide an alternative to a prior three-day NASA standard culture-based assay. A...
Briefs: Medical
A method of rapid detection of bacterial spores is based on the discovery that a heat shock consisting of exposure to a temperature of 100 °C for 10 minutes causes the complete...
Briefs: Imaging
An established method of room-temperature interferometric null testing of mirrors having simple shapes (e.g., flat, spherical, or spheroidal) has been augmented to enable measurement of...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Microleaks for inlets of mass spectrometers used to analyze atmospheric gases can be fabricated in silicon wafers by means of photolithography, etching, and other techniques that are commonly...
Briefs: Physical Sciences
Series-coupled pairs of whispering-gallery-mode optical microresonators have been demonstrated as prototypes of stable, narrow-band-pass photonic filters. Characteristics that are generally...
Briefs: Information Technology
An improved method of model-based diagnosis of a complex engineering system is embodied in an algorithm that involves considerably less computation than do prior such algorithms. This...
Briefs: Information Technology
A computationally efficient method has been developed to enable optimization of the placement of sensors for the purpose of diagnosis of a complex engineering system (e.g., an aircraft or...
Briefs: Information Technology
In this innovation, it is shown that a commonly used rule of thumb (that the truncation depth of a convolutional code should be five times the memory length, m, of the code) is accurate only for rate 1/2 codes. In fact, the truncation depth should be 2.5 m/(1 – r), where r is the code rate....
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
A proposed metrology system would be incorporated into a proposed telescope that would include focusing optics on a rigid bench connected via a deployable mast to another rigid bench...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A conceptual space telescope having an aperture tens of meters wide and a focal length of hundreds of meters would be implemented as a group of six separate optical modules flying in formation: a primary-membrane-mirror module, a relay-mirror module, a focal-plane-assembly module containing...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
A method reduces sensitivity to noise in a signal from a laser heterodyne interferometer. The phase-locked loop (PLL) removes glitches that occur in a zero-crossing detector's output [that can happen if the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the heterodyne signal is low] by the use of an internal oscillator...
Briefs: Photonics/Optics
Crystalline whispering gallery mode resonators (CWGMRs) made of crystals with axial symmetry have ordinary and extraordinary families of optical modes. These modes have substantially...
Briefs: Electronics & Computers
Suitably formulated spatial modulation of a scene imaged by a computed-tomography imaging spectrometer (CTIS) has been found to be useful as a means of improving the imaging performance of the CTIS. As used here, “spatial modulation” signifies the imposition of additional, artificial structure on...
NASA Spinoff: Medical
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Langley Research Center’s Soluble Imide (LaRC-SI) was discovered by accident. While researching resins and adhesives for advanced composites for...
NASA Spinoff: Software
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Managed by Goddard Space Flight Center, the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) was launched on December 30, 1995, from Kennedy Space Center, and to this day, it is...
NASA Spinoff: Software
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
The Structures and Materials Division at Glenn Research Center is devoted to developing advanced, high-temperature materials and processes for...
NASA Spinoff: Software
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
NASA missions require advanced planning, scheduling, and management, and the Space Agency has worked extensively to develop the programs and software...
NASA Spinoff: Software
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
Expert system software programs, also known as knowledge-based systems, are computer programs that emulate the knowledge and analytical skills of one or...
NASA Spinoff: Software
Originating Technology/NASA Contribution
To relay data from remote locations for NASA’s Earth sciences research, Goddard Space Flight Center contributed to the development of “microservers”...