NASA







Technology Gallery

2014

Select Gallery View : Slideshow | Thumbnails | PDF

Slide 1 of 19
slide photo
Slide 2 of 19
slide photo
Slide 3 of 19
slide photo
Slide 4 of 19
slide photo
Slide 5 of 19
slide photo
Slide 6 of 19
slide photo
Slide 7 of 19
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo
slide photo

PhysCOS and COR Strategic Technology Portfolio


For more information about these technologies visit our Technology Database.

PhysCOS and COR Strategic Technology Portfolio

PhysCOS and COR Strategic Technology Portfolio


For more information about these technologies visit our Technology Database.




slide image

Silicon block with polished cylindrical surface (left) and lightweight silicon X-ray mirror substrate


Significance: World-class thin grazing-angle X-ray mirror technology; baselined for Lynx X-ray flagship mission concept

Project Title: High-Resolution and Lightweight X-ray Optics for the X-ray Surveyor

PI: Zhang, William (GSFC)




slide image

Prototype X-ray Critical-Angle Transmission (CAT) grating with quarter coin for scale


Significance:Highest-resolution X-ray grating technology; baselined for Lynx X-ray flagship mission concept

Project Title: Development of a CAT Grating Spectrometer

PI: Mark Schattenburg (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research)




slide image

SPIDER payload with bolometer arrays for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarimetry undergoing integration and test at Palestine, Texas


Significance: : Developing antenna designs providing sensitivity, stability, and minimized particle susceptibility for bands required by the Inflation Probe, enabling identification of Inflation instants after the Big Bang

Project Title: Planar Antenna-Coupled Superconducting Detectors for CMB Polarimetry

PI: James Bock (JPL/Caltech)




slide image

ATHENA-scale Transition-Edge-Sensor (TES) 64×64 array with 16×16-pixel corners removed


Significance: TES microcalorimeters offer energy resolution for the European ATHENA mission

Project Title: Providing enabling and enhancing technologies for a demonstration model of the ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU)

PI: Caroline Kilbourne (GSFC)




slide image

Strain gauges mounted to piezo cells to allow figure adjustment of thin X-ray mirrors


Significance: Adjustable X-ray optics are a backup technology for the Lynx large mission concept

Project Title: Adjustable X-ray Optics with Sub-Arcsecond Imaging

PI: Paul Reid (SAO)




slide image

150-mm wafer containing four CCID41 (CCD) X-ray detectors


Significance: X-ray detectors operate far better when filters allow X-ray photons through and block longer wavelength light

Project Title: Directly-Deposited Blocking Filters for X-ray Imaging Detectors

PI: Mark Bautz (MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research)




slide image

Low-temperature testing of Digital Micro-mirror Device (DMD) done as part of flight qualification


Significance: Replacing windows of commercially available DMDs may enable far-UV multi-object spectrometry in future missions

Project Title: Development of DMDs for Far-UV Applications

PI: Zoran Ninkov (RIT)




slide image

Modulus-of-Rupture (MOR) boxes cut out of glass boule using abrasive water jet (left) and placed in storage fixture (right) for future low-temperature-fusion (LTF) assembly


Significance: Deep-core manufacturing enables 4-m-class mirrors such as planned for the HabEx exoplanet observatory concept with significantly lower cost and risk

Project Title: Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) for Very Large Space Telescopes




slide image

2-Megapixel delta-doped CCD detectors on wafer (left) and as packaged die (right)


Significance: Advanced detectors developed by this team are baselined by SHIELDS, HabEx, LUVOIR, and ground facilities

Project Title: High-Efficiency Detectors in Photon Counting and Large Focal Plane Arrays for Astrophysics Missions

PI: Shouleh Nikzad (JPL/Caltech)




slide image

50 mm polyimide cross-strip anode used for 50×50 mm2 Multi-Channel Plate (MCP) detector


Significance: Large-format low-noise detectors may enable future far-UV missions

Project Title: High-Performance Cross-Strip MCP Detectors

PI: John Vallerga (UC Berkeley)




slide image

Testbed for measuring scattered light in prototype Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) telescope


Significance: The LISA gravitational-wave observatory crucially depends on collecting laser light from a remote spacecraft, millions of km away

Project Title: Telescope for a Space-Based Gravitational Wave Mission

PI: Jeffrey Livas (GSFC)




slide image

Installation of frequency-reference cavity for oscillator tests used in developing a prototype laser for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational-wave observatory


Significance: LISA crucially depends on lasers to allow interferometric measurement of the multi-million-km distance between the three spacecraft; technology readiness level (TRL) of 5 is needed for infusion into the mission

Project Title: Demonstration of a TRL-5 Laser System for LISA

PI: Jordan Camp (GSFC)




slide image

Colloid microthruster propellant tank and controls developed to allow a gravitational-wave (GW) observatory in space


Significance: LISA crucially depends on microthrusters to keep its three spacecraft floating around the free-falling test masses within each, to allow interferometric measurement of the multi-million-km distance between each pair of spacecraft

Project Title: Colloid Microthruster Propellant Feed System for GW Astrophysics Missions

PI: John Ziemer (JPL)




slide image

Magnified image of last-stage tripler for controlling pixel power in an array receiver


Significance: This high-resolution multi-pixel far-IR detector technology may enable or enhance future missions

Project Title: A Far-IR Heterodyne Array Receiver for CII and OI Mapping

PI: Imran Mehdi (JPL)




slide image

27×16-pixel ground-based Kinetic Inductance Detector (KID) array


Significance: Polarization-sensitive arrays in the far-IR can provide critical information on the role of magnetic fields in galaxy formation and evolution, and star formation in our galaxy and nearby galaxies

Project Title: KID Imaging Arrays for Far-IR Astrophysics

PI: Jonas Zmuidzinas (JPL)




slide image

Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) image of grooved surface for X-ray reflection grating


Significance: X-ray reflection gratings enable high throughput, high spectral resolving power below 2 keV, a spectral band holding major astrophysics interest

Project Title: Reflection Grating Modules: Alignment and Testing

PI: Randall McEntaffer (PSU)




slide image

Coating fixture enabling dual-dielectric deposition in 2-m coating chamber


Significance: Advanced coatings with high reflectivity in the far UV enable future astrophysics missions by greatly enhancing system throughput in photon-starved far-UV observations

Project Title: Enhanced Al Mirrors for Far-UV Space Astronomy

PI: Manuel Quijada (GSFC)




slide image

Gas cell test assembly (left) and same cell with Brewster windows (right)


Significance:A highly stable laser simultaneously locked to a cavity and a molecular transition at a telecom wavelength can provide a highly coherent light source for future missions

Project Title: Laser Stabilization with CO

PI: John Lipa (Stanford University)













NASA logo Goddard Space Flight Center