Topic

A paper presents the concept of a system for autonomous communication among multiple satellites and other spacecraft. The design of the system would be based on an evolvable architecture of multiple intelligent agents (that is, artificial-intelligence constructs implemented in software and...

Sensor webs are developmental collections of sensor pods that could be scattered over land or water areas or other regions of interest to gather data on spatial and temporal patterns of relatively slowly changing physical, chemical, or biological phenomena in those regions. Each sensor pod would be a node in a data-gathering/...

The process of anodizing, or controlled oxidation, of aluminum and aluminum alloys is more than seven decades old. The primary intent of anodizing aluminum and aluminum-alloy parts is to protect the highly reactive surface against corrosion in aqueous environments, such as humid...

Millimeter-Wave Optics Design Tool (MOD Tool) is a computer program for analyzing and designing multiple-reflector antenna systems that operate at microwave and millimeter wavelengths. MOD Tool is intended for use in conjunction with a computer-aided-design (CAD) program along with other...

A report presents a computational study of heat and mass transfer for isolated and interacting drops of one fluid (liquid O2) immersed in another fluid (H2) in finite, quiescent surroundings under supercritical conditions. The mathematical models used in this...

A report proposes an assembly of gimbaled valve/nozzle subassemblies for use in injecting either a propellant fluid (e.g., monomethyl hydrazine) or a propellant-simulating fluid (e.g., water) into the combustion chamber of a spacecraft thruster during hot-fire or cold testing, respectively. The...

"Hybrid imaging technology" (HIT) is the name of a discipline in which the advancement of electronic image sensors is pursued via hybridization of charge-coupled-device (CCD) and complementary metal oxide/semiconductor (CMOS) circuitry. The guiding principle of HIT is to combine CCD and CMOS components into units that...

Parallel ultra-low-noise hybrid detectors (PHUDs) are developmental image-detector devices for use in low-power, scientific-grade video cameras. The hybrid nature of a PHUD lies in the incorporation of both charge-coupled-device (CCD) image-detection circuitry and complementary metal...

Accelerations of one airplane encountering a vortex or pair of vortices in the wake of another airplane were computed in a parametric study. The approach taken in the study was to systematically investigate the effects of progressively more nearly complete descriptions of the interaction of...

Automation Language for Managing Operations (ALMO) is a computer program that assists a human operator at a central control station in monitoring and controlling a complex equipment system that includes multiple subsystems connected in a digital communication network. Still undergoing development, ALMO is...

Two reports describe a Rayleigh-scattering attitude sensor (RSAS) - an optoelectronic instrument for determining the orientation of a spacecraft. An RSAS comprises a telescope/video-camera/image-digitizer combination that is mounted on the spacecraft and that captures images of the limb of...

A report describes experiments in which planar laser-induced fluorescence (PLIF) of hydroxyl radicals was used to study the structures of flames in burner test rigs (a flame-tube combustor and a sector combustor) under conditions like those in combustors of aviation gas-turbine engines. The PLIF...