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Supporting apparatus holds model for measurements of electromagnetic properties. Includes rigid swept strut, on end of which model oriented over range of angles. Designed to interfere minimally with electromagnetic measurements.
Programmable waveform generator synthesizes two independent waveforms simultaneously at frequencies up to 250 MHz. Can be in phase or out of phase with each other. Use of commercial integrated circuits helps keep cost low. Operation governed by BASIC source code enabling any user equipped with suitable personal computer to specify waveforms. User can modify source code to satisfy special needs. Other applications include simulation of Doppler waveforms for radar, and of video signals for testing color displays and computer monitors. With eventual substitution of gallium arsenide integrated circuits for its present silicon integrated circuits, instrument able to generate waveforms with 14-bit precision and sample rates as high as 2 GHz.
The new NASA credo of 'faster, better, cheaper' calls for a new generation of smaller and less complex spacecraft. In response to this challenge, many new spacecraft concepts have been generated within NASA, industry, and academia. The JPL, Rockwell International Space Systems Division, and The Space Dynamics Laboratory (SDL)/Utah State University (USU) are jointly examining one such new spacecraft concept, hereafter termed ISOBUS, which is derived from recent research and development work in isogrid structures based on a six-sided hexagon shaped structure. Two prototypical products from SDL/USU's work are ISOSPACEPACK and ISOSAT. These hexagon shaped elements serve as building blocks for the ISOBUS spacecraft concept. Various aspects of the ISOBUS concept are discussed.
Ultrasonic C-scan and eddy current imaging systems are of the pointwise type evaluation systems that rely on a mechanical scanner to physically maneuver a probe relative to the specimen point by point in order to acquire data and generate images. Since the ultrasonic C-scan and eddy current imaging systems are based on the same mechanical scanning mechanisms, the two systems can be combined using the same PC platform with a common mechanical manipulation subsystem and integrated data acquisition software. Based on this concept, we have developed an IBM PC-based combined ultrasonic C-scan and eddy current imaging system. The system is modularized and provides capacity for future hardware and software expansions. Advantages associated with the combined system are: (1) eliminated duplication of the computer and mechanical hardware, (2) unified data acquisition, processing and storage software, (3) reduced setup time for repetitious ultrasonic and eddy current scans, and (4) improved system efficiency. The concept can be adapted to many engineering systems by integrating related PC-based instruments into one multipurpose workstation such as dispensing, machining, packaging, sorting, and other industrial applications.
By the end of this decade, Hughes' SPACEWAY network will provide the first interactive 'bandwidth on demand' communication services for a variety of applications. High quality digital voice, interactive video, global access to multimedia databases, and transborder workgroup computing will make SPACEWAY an essential component of the computer-based workplace of the 21st century. With relatively few satellites to construct, insure, and launch -- plus extensive use of cost-effective, tightly focused spot beams on the world's most populated areas -- the high capacity SPACEWAY system can pass its significant cost savings onto its customers. The SPACEWAY network is different from other proposed global networks in that its geostationary orbit location makes it a truly market driven system: each satellite will make available extensive telecom services to hundreds of millions of people within the continuous view of that satellite, providing immediate capacity within a specific region of the world.
To better predict global climate change, scientists are developing climate models that require interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts in their building. We are currently involved in several such projects but will briefly discuss activities in support of two such complementary projects: the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) program of the Department of Energy and Sequoia 2000, a joint venture of the University of California, the private sector, and government agencies. Our contribution to the ARM program is to investigate the role of clouds on the top of the atmosphere and on surface radiance fields through the data analysis of surface and satellite observations and complex modeling of the interaction of radiation with clouds. One of our first ARM research activities involves the computation of the broadband shortwave surface irradiance from satellite observations. Geostationary satellite images centered over the first ARM observation site are received hourly over the Internet network and processed in real time to compute hourly and daily composite shortwave irradiance fields. The images and the results are transferred via a high-speed network to the Sequoia 2000 storage facility in Berkeley, where they are archived These satellite-derived results are compared with the surface observations to evaluate the accuracy of the satellite estimate and the spatial representation of the surface observations. In developing the software involved in calculating the surface shortwave irradiance, we have produced an environment whereby we can easily modify and monitor the data processing as required. Through the principles of modular programming, we have developed software that is easily modified as new algorithms for computation are developed or input data availability changes. In addition, the software was designed so that it could be run from an interactive, icon-driven, graphical interface, TCL-TK, developed by Sequoia 2000 participants. In this way, the data flow can be interactively assessed and altered as needed. In this environment, the intermediate data processing 'images' can be viewed, enabling the investigator to easily monitor the various data processing steps as they progress. Additionally, this environment allows the rapid testing of new processing modules and allows their effects to be visually compared with previous results.
This paper presents a summary description of SPACEWAY(TM), a network of Ka band geostationary satellites being developed by Hughes Communications, Inc. to provide worldwide interactive telecommunications services to small, low cost user terminals. By the end of this decade SPACEWAY(TM), using relatively few satellites and tightly focused spot beams, will provide affordable interactive 'bandwidth on demand' communication services on a global basis to consumer and commercial end users. This paper describes the system concept, details the space and ground segment characteristics, and discusses communication links.
We have developed a low-power. programmable radio "microreceiver" that combines the functionality of two science instruments: a Relative Ionospheric Opacity Meter (riometer) and a swept-frequency, VTF/HF radio spectrometer. The radio receiver, calibration noise source, data acquisition and processing, and command and control functions are all contained on a single circuit board. This design is suitable for miniaturizing as a complete flight instrument. Several of the subsystems were implemented in a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), including the receiver detector, the control logic, and the data acquisition and processing blocks. Considerable efforts were made to reduce the power consumption of the instrument, and eliminate or minimize RF noise and spurious emissions generated by the receiver's digital circuitry. A prototype instrument was deployed at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and operated in parallel with a traditional riometer instrument for approximately three weeks. The attached paper (accepted for publication by Radio Science) describes in detail the microreceiver theory of operation, performance specifications and test results.
Advanced Fuel Research, Inc. (AFR) developed a new sol-gel material coating for sample vials to be used in surface-enhanced Raman (SER) spectroscopy. In the fields of biomedical and forensic science, the coated vials are used to identify physiological chemicals present in blood and urine. The vials are used in the pharmaceutical industry in the area of drug development and discovery. In the drug enforcement field, using the vials helps with detection of trace amounts of drugs on surfaces. The SER vials will also help to identify contaminants in water sources, such as various inorganics and pesticides. The new vials have advantages over other SER materials. Former products required that samples be pre-mixed or dissolved into specific solvents or reagents. The SER vials do not have these limitations, and measurements can be performed using any solvent. Furthermore, the signal appears in less than one second. The sol-gel material will stay active for at least one year and the vials are compatible with any Raman spectrometer. Most importantly, the SER activity can be duplicated from vial-to-vial, allowing for reproducible results.
A radome at Logan Airport and a large parabolic antenna at the Wang Building in Massachusetts are protected from weather, corrosion and ultraviolet radiation by a coating, specially designed for antennas and radomes, known as CRC Weathertite 6000. The CRC 6000 line that emerged from Boyd Coatings Research Co., Inc. is a solid dispersion of fluorocarbon polymer and polyurethane that yields a tough, durable film with superior ultraviolet resistance and the ability to repel water and ice over a long term. Additionally, it provides resistance to corrosion, abrasion, chemical attacks and impacts. Material can be used on a variety of substrates, such as fiberglass, wood, plastic and concrete in addition to steel and aluminum. In addition Boyd Coatings sees CRC 6000 applicability as an anti-icing system coated on the leading edge of aircraft wings.
Dynamic Systems, Inc. started after NASA-Ames scientists began work on a padding concept in 1968. They were looking for a better airplane seat. They found a new foam material that today has all kinds of additional applications including wheelchairs, x-ray table pads, off road vehicle seats, ski boots, and football helmet liners. Temper foam exhibits about 340% less shock from impact. Material is an open-cell polyurethane silicone plastic foam that takes shape of impressed objects but returns to its original shape even after 90% compression.
A number of protein complexes have been developed as nanoscale templates. These templates can be functionalized using the peptide sequences that bind inorganic materials. However, it is difficult to integrate peptides into a specific position within a protein template. Integrating intact proteins with desirable binding or catalytic activities is an even greater challenge. We present a general method for modifying protein templates using circular permutation so that additional peptide sequence can be added in a wide variety of specific locations. Circular permutation is a reordering of the polypeptide chain such that the original termini are joined and new termini are created elsewhere in the protein. New sequence can be joined to the protein termini without perturbing the protein structure and with minimal limitation on the size and conformation of the added sequence. We have used this approach to modify a chaperonin protein template, placing termini at five different locations distributed across the surface of the protein complex. These permutants are competent to form the double-ring structures typical of chaperonin proteins. The permuted double-rings also form the same assemblies as the unmodified protein. We fused a fluorescent protein to two representative permutants and demonstrated that it assumes its active structure and does not interfere with assembly of chaperonin double-rings.
Modeling and simulation of balloons and aerobots (robotic balloons) is an essential part of scientific balloon mission development and planning.
We report the first synthesis of Ru(II) tris(3,8-dibromo-1,lO-phenanthroline) bishexafluorophosphate, and we demonstrate its utility as a building core for the divergent synthesis of hyperbranched systems by coupling with phenylacetylene in the preparation of Rum tris(3,8-diphenylethynyl- 1,lO-phenanthroline) dihexafluorophosphate.
Conceived and implemented through the development of probabilistic risk assessment simulations for Project Constellation, the Geometric Toolkit allows users to create, analyze, and visualize relationships between geometric shapes in three-space using the MATLAB computing environment. The key output of the toolkit is an analysis of how emanations from one "source" geometry (e.g., a leak in a pipe) will affect another "target" geometry (e.g., another heat-sensitive component). It can import computer-aided design (CAD) depictions of a system to be analyzed, allowing the user to reliably and easily represent components within the design and determine the relationships between them, ultimately supporting more technical or physics-based simulations that use the toolkit. We opted to develop a variety of modular, interconnecting software tools to extend the scope of the toolkit, providing the capability to support a range of applications. This concept of simulation composability allows specially-developed tools to be reused by assembling them in various combinations. As a result, the concepts described here and implemented in this toolkit have a wide range of applications outside the domain of risk assessment. To that end, the Geometric Toolkit has been evaluated for use in other unrelated applications due to the advantages provided by its underlying design.
A thermal protection system for atmospheric entry of a vehicle, the system including a honeycomb structure with selected cross sectional shapes that receives and holds thermally cured thermal protection (TP) blocks that have corresponding cross sectional shapes. Material composition for TP blocks in different locations can be varied to account for different atmospheric heating characteristics at the different locations. TP block side walls may be attached to all, or to less than all, the corresponding honeycomb structure side walls.
We have developed and successfully flight-tested on 14 different airborne missions the hardware and techniques for routinely conducting valuable astronomical and aeronomical observations from high-performance, two-seater military-type aircraft. The SWUIS-A (Southwest Universal Imaging System - Airborne) system consists of an image-intensified CCD camera with broad band response from the near-UV to the near IR, high-quality foreoptics, a miniaturized video recorder, an aircraft-to-camera power and telemetry interface with associated camera controls, and associated cables, filters, and other minor equipment. SWUIS-A's suite of high-quality foreoptics gives it selectable, variable focal length/variable field-of-view capabilities. The SWUIS-A camera frames at 60 Hz video rates, which is a key requirement for both jitter compensation and high time resolution (useful for occultation, lightning, and auroral studies). Broadband SWUIS-A image coadds can exceed a limiting magnitude of V = 10.5 in <1 sec with dark sky conditions. A valuable attribute of SWUIS-A airborne observations is the fact that the astronomer flies with the instrument, thereby providing Space Shuttle-like "payload specialist" capability to "close-the-loop" in real-time on the research done on each research mission. Key advantages of the small, high-performance aircraft on which we can fly SWUIS-A include significant cost savings over larger, more conventional airborne platforms, worldwide basing obviating the need for expensive, campaign-style movement of specialized large aircraft and their logistics support teams, and ultimately faster reaction times to transient events. Compared to ground-based instruments, airborne research platforms offer superior atmospheric transmission, the mobility to reach remote and often-times otherwise unreachable locations over the Earth, and virtually-guaranteed good weather for observing the sky. Compared to space-based instruments, airborne platforms typically offer substantial cost advantages and the freedom to fly along nearly any groundtrack route for transient event tracking such as occultations and eclipses.
The present invention provides chaperonin polypeptides which are modified to include N-terminal and C-terminal ends that are relocated from the central pore region to various different positions in the polypeptide which are located on the exterior of the folded modified chaperonin polypeptide. In the modified chaperonin polypeptide, the naturally-occurring N-terminal and C-terminal ends are joined together directly or with an intervening linker peptide sequence. The relocated N-terminal or C-terminal ends can be covalently joined to, or bound with another molecule such as a nucleic acid molecule, a lipid, a carbohydrate, a second polypeptide, or a nanoparticle. The modified chaperonin polypeptides can assemble into double-ringed chaperonin structures. Further, the chaperonin structures can organize into higher order structures such as nanofilaments or nanoarrays which can be used to produce nanodevices and nanocoatings.