NASA







Technology Gallery

2016

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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.




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Mechanical engineering meta-shell test with aluminum structural shell, 54 glass test segments, 216 spacers, and 432 epoxy bonds


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

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

PI: Zhang, William (GSFC)




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X-ray Critical-Angle Transmission (CAT) gratings during optical alignment


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)




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Large-format antenna-coupled bolometer arrays for Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarimetry


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)




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Candidate demonstration model Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs) array for the ATHENA X-ray Integral Field Unit (X-IFU)


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-IFU

PI: Caroline Kilbourne (GSFC)




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Mounted adjustable cylindrical X-ray mirror showing piezo cells and wiring


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

Project Title: Development of 0.5-Arc-second Adjustable Grazing-Incidence X-ray Mirrors for the SMART-X Mission Concept

PI: Paul Reid (SAO)




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Students working on REXIS, a student-built instrument deployed on the OSIRIS-REx mission to Asteroid Bennu, that deployed with directly deposited filter on its X-ray CCDs


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)




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Detecting tripped micro-mirrors in Digital Micro-mirror Device (DMD) during vibration and shock testing done as part of flight qualification


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

Project Title: Development of DMDs for Far-UV Applications

PI: : Zoran Ninkov (RIT)




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1.5-m mirror blank after grinding and polishing


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

PI: H. Philip Stahl (MSFC)




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1.5-m mirror with strip heaters placed at 120⁰ intervals on its outside, and 18 thermocouples on its back and sides, as well as measuring the ambient temperature


Significance:This technology may enable required ultra-stability (~10 pm) for HabEx and LUVOIR missions

Project Title: Predictive Thermal Control (PTC) Technology to enable Thermally Stable Telescopes

PI: H. Philip Stahl (MSFC)




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Delta-doped Electron-Multiplied CCD detectors (EMCCD) deployed at Palomar


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

Project Title: Advanced FUV/UV/Visible Photon-Counting and Ultralow-Noise Detectors

PI: Shouleh Nikzad (JPL/Caltech)




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100 mm polyimide anode used for 100×100 mm2 Multi-Channel Plate (MCP) detector


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

Project Title: : Development of 100×100 mm2 photon-counting UV detectors

PI: John Vallerga (UC Berkeley)




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90-GHz feedhorn-coupled focal plane array for performing Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) measurements


Significance: CMB measurements may enable identification of the “Inflation” cosmologists believe may have occurred instants after the Big Bang

Project Title: High Efficiency Feedhorn-Coupled TES-based Detectors for CMB Polarization

PI: Edward Wollack (GSFC)




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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 Development for the LISA Mission

PI: Jeffrey Livas (GSFC)




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Prototype laser oscillator and pre-amplifier for lasers enabling 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)




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GRACE Follow-On photo-receivers integrated into testbed as part of phasemeter development for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) gravitational-wave (GW) observatory


Significance: LISA needs a phasemeter system to allow interferometric measurement of the multi-million-km distance between the three spacecraft

Project Title: Phase Measurement System Development for Interferometric GW Detectors

PI: William Klipstein (JPL)




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Biasless 1.9-THz triplers developed for multi-pixel Local Oscillator (LO


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 C+ and OI Mapping

PI: Imran Mehdi (JPL)




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484-pixel 350-mm 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)




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Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) reactors at JPL used for developing advanced UV coatings


Significance:High-reflectivity, high-uniformity, wide-bandpass UV coatings are key for astrophysics and exoplanet studies

Project Title: UV Coatings, Materials and Processes for Advanced Telescope Optics

PI: Bala K. Balasubramanian (JPL)




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Test box for characterizing AC- and DC-biased Transition-Edge Sensors (TESs)


Significance:: AC-biased TESs and Frequency Division Multiplexing are ATHENA’s baseline readout architecture

Project Title: Technology Development for an AC-Multiplexed Calorimeter for ATHENA

PI: Joel Ullom (NIST)




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Four X-ray reflection gratings aligned into a single module for testing


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)













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