ALBERT

Description: There are many challenges involved in deep-space exploration, but several of these can be mitigated, or even solved, by the development of a coating that can reject most of the Sun's energy and yet still provide some far-infrared heat emission. Such a coating would allow non-heat-generating objects in space to reach cryogenic temperatures without using an active cooling system. This would be a benefit to deep-space sensors that require low temperatures, such as the James Webb Telescope focal plane array. It would also allow the use of superconductors in deep space, which could lead to magnetic energy storage rings, lossless power delivery, or perhaps a large-volume magnetic shield against galactic cosmic radiation. But perhaps the most significant enablement achieved from such a coating would be the long-term storage in deep space of cryogenic liquids, such as liquid oxygen (LOX).In this report, we review the state of the art in low-temperature coatings and calculate the lowest temperatures each of these can achieve, demonstrating that cryogenic temperatures cannot be reached in deep space in this fashion. We then propose a new coating that does allow coated objects in deep space to achieve the very low temperatures required to store liquid oxygen or nitrogen. These new coatings consist of a moderately thick scattering layer (typically 5 mm) composed of a material transparent to most of the solar spectrum. This layer acts as a scatterer to the Sun's light, performing the same process as titanium dioxide in white paint in the visible. Under that layer, we place a metallic reflector, e.g. silver, to reflect long-wave radiation that is not well scattered. The result is a coating we call "Solar White," in that it scatters most of the solar spectrum just as white paint does for the visible. Our modeling of these coatings has shown that temperatures as low as 50 K can be reached for a coated object fully exposed to sunlight at 1 AU from the Sun and far from the Earth.In the second half of the report we explore a mission application of this coating in order to show that it allows LOX to be carried on a mission to Mars. Heat can reach a LOX tank in five ways: direct radiation from the Sun, scattered or reflected radiation from the Sun off of spacecraft components, radiation from nearby planets or the Moon, radiation from the infrared emission of other parts of the spacecraft, and conduction along support struts and flow lines. We discuss these and sum their total contribution when using a Solar White coating to demonstrate an architecture that allows the transportation of LOX to Mars. After this, other applications of Solar White are listed.

Description: A surface acoustic wave (SAW)-based coherence multiplexing system includes SAW tags each including a SAW transducer, a first SAW reflector positioned a first distance from the SAW transducer and a second SAW reflector positioned a second distance from the SAW transducer. A transceiver including a wireless transmitter has a signal source providing a source signal and circuitry for transmitting interrogation pulses including a first and a second interrogation pulse toward the SAW tags, and a wireless receiver for receiving and processing response signals from the SAW tags. The receiver receives scrambled signals including a convolution of the wideband interrogation pulses with response signals from the SAW tags and includes a computing device which implements an algorithm that correlates the interrogation pulses or the source signal before transmitting against the scrambled signals to generate tag responses for each of the SAW tags.

Description: JSC 66320, Revision A, Optical Property Requirements for Glasses, Ceramics, and Plastics in Spacecraft Window Systems, lists several quantitative requirements that spacecraft windowpanes must meet. Recently, we were asked to establish a capability at the Kennedy Space Center to perform these measurements on category B plastic panes, i.e., plastic panes that could be used on a spacecraft for long-focal-length photography and piloting. Two of the criteria, normal wavefront and 30-degree wavefront attributes, can be measured with existing equipment and processes (see NASA TM NESC-RP-14-00951, April 2016) and are not discussed in this document. However, the other six criteria-haze, wedge angle, birefringence, reflectance, transmittance, and color balance-required substantial development and are the subject of this document. In this document, we do not discuss the rationale behind the requirements, but we did engage in discussions with the authors of JSC 66320 in order to better understand the requirements and the verifications being imposed on windows and their testing. Accordingly, this document presents our best understanding of the requested requirements and verifications. We also present our methodology for performing each of the six measurements, along with applicable mathematics and a description, with photos, of the hardware used. In addition, we supply the results of a test on a low-quality in-house plastic window as an example of the system operation. Only requirements that can be met by acceptance test and analysis, as opposed to optical inspection, are considered in this document.