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The Advanced Life Support Automated Remote Manipulator (ALSARM) is a three-degree-of-freedom robotic system that positions an array of sensors inside a closed-system hydroponic chamber used in research on the production of biomass and the use of hydroponic subsystems of life-support...

The latest version of the Parallel Virtual Machine (PVM) computer program, denoted PVM 3.4.3, incorporates a massively-parallel-processor (MPP) software port that enables a user working on a computer outside a Beowulf system (a cluster of personal computers that run the Linux operating system) to...

The Iterative Plan Optimization computer program automatically optimizes plans with respect to preferences expressed by human planners. This program incorporates a generalization of commonly occurring plan-quality metrics to provide a language for expression of preferences. The program implements a...

The AMM Automated Mission Planner computer program was developed to save time and money by automating much of the planning of the Second RADARSAT Antarctic Mapping Mission (AMM), which was scheduled to take place at the time of writing this article. The planning problem for this and other...

Two reports propose the development of non-ablative aeroshells for braking of spacecraft entering the atmospheres of Earth, Mars, and other planets. The primary advantages of non-ablative aeroshells, relative to ablative aeroshells, results from reduced mass and increased aerodynamic stability of the aeroshell occasioned by...

A report describes the NASA Spacecraft Transponding Modem (STM) — a spacecraft transponder now under development for planned use on deep-space missions scheduled for launch in the year 2003. In comparison with a traditional deep-space transponder, the STM will be smaller and less power hungry; the reductions...

The design of a highly reliable controller for a digital data bus incorporates improvements, in both hardware and software, over the basic design of a low-speed, low-power, serial bus known in the industry as "I2C." ("I2C" signifies "inter integrated circuit bus" — a bus developed by Philips...

Five papers address interrelated topics in parallel computing and the use of adaptive, unstructured computational grids. The titles of the papers and their general subject matters are the following:

COSIM is a computer program that numerically simulates oxidation and diffusion in a metallic coating layer on substrates made of nickel-base alloys. COSIM is primarily useful for analyzing the gradual deterioration and predicting the lifetimes of the protective coating on turbine blades and...

Enigma version 4.4 is an integrated three-dimensional (3D)-graphics application program that includes multiple cost- and time-saving features. Enigma provides capabilities for building geometric models, key-frame animation, and video recording, and provides graphical front ends for use by...

Titanium has been found to offer several advantages over molybdenum as the material used to construct electrostatic-accelerator and -screen grids for ion thrusters for spacecraft. These advantages could also be expected to extend to the manufacture of grids for ion accelerators used in scientific...

The state of the art of pressure gauging has been advanced by the development of a new technique, and of a nonintrusive gauge based on the technique, for measuring the pressure of a fluid in the same segment of pipe in which the mass-flow rate of the fluid is also measured. NASA anticipates the first use of the...

Parameter-Variation-Principle (PVP) based Mathematical Programming (MP) is the basis of a computational method of analyzing wrinkles in membranes. Devised for original application to lightweight membrane structures in outer space, the method can also be applied on Earth to similar...

A proposed valve unit called a "vacuum pumping station" would be incorporated into a plumbing system that supplies a vacuum for vacuum insulated cryogenic equipment. The vacuum pumping station is intended to perform functions now performed by, and to be a simpler and more reliable alternative to, an assembly of components...

A report discusses direct numerical simulations (DNS) of a developing mixing layer between nitrogen and heptane initially at different temperatures and initially flowing at different velocities under supercritical conditions. The usual conservation equations for a binary fluid, along with the...