Technology is here!

Star Maker

2010-01-18T06:45:00.000-08:00

Galaxies throughout the universe are ablaze with star birth. But for a nearby, small spiral galaxy, the star-making party is almost over.

Astronomers were surprised to find that star-formation activities in the outer regions of NGC 2976 have been virtually asleep because they shut down millions of years ago. The celebration is confined to a few die-hard partygoers huddled in the galaxy’s inner region.

The explanation, astronomers say, is that a raucous interaction with M81, a neighboring group of hefty galaxies, ignited star birth in NGC 2976. Now the star-making fun is beginning to end. Images from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope show that star formation in the galaxy began fizzling out in its outskirts about 500 million years ago as some of the gas was stripped away and the rest collapsed toward the center. With no gas left to fuel the party, more and more regions of the galaxy are taking a much-needed nap. The star-making region is now confined to about 5,000 light-years around the core.

Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Dalcanton and B. Williams (University of Washington, Seattle)

NASA Launches New Technology: An Inflatable Heat Shield

2009-08-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

WALLOPS ISLAND, Va. -- A successful NASA flight test Monday demonstrated how a spacecraft returning to Earth can use an inflatable heat shield to slow and protect itself as it enters the atmosphere at hypersonic speeds.

The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment, or IRVE, was vacuum-packed into a 15-inch diameter payload "shroud" and launched on a small sounding rocket from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Va., at 8:52 a.m. EDT. The 10-foot diameter heat shield, made of several layers of silicone-coated industrial fabric, inflated with nitrogen to a mushroom shape in space several minutes after liftoff.

The Black Brant 9 rocket took approximately four minutes to lift the experiment to an altitude of 131 miles. Less than a minute later it was released from its cover and started inflating on schedule at 124 miles up. The inflation of the shield took less than 90 seconds.

"Our inflation system, which is essentially a glorified scuba tank, worked flawlessly and so did the flexible aeroshell," said Neil Cheatwood, IRVE principal investigator and chief scientist for the Hypersonics Project at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. "We're really excited today because this is the first time anyone has successfully flown an inflatable reentry vehicle."

According to the cameras and sensors on board, the heat shield expanded to its full size and went into a high-speed free fall. The key focus of the research came about six and a half minutes into the flight, at an altitude of about 50 miles, when the aeroshell re-entered Earth's atmosphere and experienced its peak heating and pressure measurements for a period of about 30 seconds.

An on board telemetry system captured data from instruments during the test and broadcast the information to engineers on the ground in real time. The technology demonstrator splashed down and sank in the Atlantic Ocean about 90 miles east of Virginia's Wallops Island.

"This was a small-scale demonstrator," said Mary Beth Wusk, IRVE project manager, based at Langley. "Now that we've proven the concept, we'd like to build more advanced aeroshells capable of handling higher heat rates."

Inflatable heat shields hold promise for future planetary missions, according to researchers. To land more mass on Mars at higher surface elevations, for instance, mission planners need to maximize the drag area of the entry system. The larger the diameter of the aeroshell, the bigger the payload can be.

The Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment is an example of how NASA is using its aeronautics expertise to support the development of future spacecraft. The Fundamental Aeronautics Program within NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate in Washington funded the flight experiment as part of its hypersonic research effort.

For images and more information about the experiment, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/aeronautics/features/irve.html

Oldest Material on Earth

2009-06-18T01:22:00.000-07:00

The oldest material on Earth which has yet been dated by man is a zircon mineral that is 4.4 billion years old and comes from a sedimentary gneiss in the Jack Hills of Australia's Narre Gneiss Terrane. It is the most ancient fragment of the earth’s crust so far identified, formed approximately 150 million years after the planet itself. In August 2007, scientists reported finding the world’s oldest diamond crystals, encased inside the zircon crystals.

The image was acquired by ASTER on Oct. 12, 2004. With its 14 spectral bands from the visible to the thermal infrared wavelength region and its high spatial resolution of about 50 to 300 feet, ASTER images Earth to map and monitor the changing surface of our planet and is one of five Earth-observing instruments launched Dec. 18, 1999, on NASA's Terra satellite.

The broad spectral coverage and high spectral resolution of ASTER provides scientists in numerous disciplines with critical information for surface mapping and monitoring of dynamic conditions and temporal change.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Turning the Tide to Energy: New Concept Could Harness the Power of Ocean Waves

2009-06-14T06:32:00.000-07:00

NASA researchers who developed a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles believe a spin-off technology could help convert ocean energy into electrical energy on a much larger scale. The researchers hope that clean, renewable energy produced from the motion of the ocean and rivers could potentially meet an important part of the world's demand for electricity.

Many different methods already exist for using moving water to create power. Hydroelectric plants, for example, are among the most established and least expensive sources of electricity. They benefit from the large hydrostatic pressure difference between the water surface behind the dam and the turbines that can be harnessed to produce power. But the power that can be produced in this manner is limited, because most of the suitable rivers already have hydroelectric dams.

Other technologies have been designed -- and are being developed -- to turn the energy of ocean currents, tides, and flowing rivers into another kind of power, called hydrokinetic energy. Many of these hydrokinetic energy systems use underwater turbines, similar to those in wind farms. Ocean currents or tides turn the turbines, which generate electricity that can be transferred by cable to shore.

Jack Jones, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Yi Chao, a JPL scientist, have designed a new kind of underwater hydrokinetic energy system. It uses water motion to generate a high-pressure liquid rather than electricity. That liquid is then transported to shore and used to produce electricity on land. Caltech, which operates JPL for NASA, holds the patent on this innovative energy technology.

The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy system is a spin-off from a research project to find a new way to power robotic underwater vehicles. Most robotic underwater vehicles run on batteries and have to be recovered by ship to have their batteries recharged or replaced.

In this project, initiated by Pat Beauchamp of JPL's Center for In Situ Exploration and Sample Return, Jones was asked to develop a way to use temperature differences in the ocean to power submersibles. He had previously developed thermally controlled balloons for Venus, Mars and Titan. Jones was teamed up with Chao, who uses underwater gliders in his oceanographic research. "I saw we could extend the lives of these vehicles significantly by harvesting energy from the ocean environment," Chao says.

Jones and Chao propose, ocean tides and waves, as well as river flows, would provide the energy source to create a high-pressure liquid. Jones and Chao designed a system that takes advantages of changes in ocean temperature to create a high-pressure fluid that can be used to generate power. "The trick was to find a special substance known as a phase change material that changes from a solid to a liquid as the temperature in the environment changes from cold to warm," Chao says. "When the material melts, it expands, compressing a central tube in which another liquid is stored. This liquid, now under high pressure, is used to generate electricity to charge the battery underwater."

While they were working on this project, the researchers realized that they could employ the same concept -- using an environmental pump to generate a high-pressure liquid -- to produce electricity from the world's ocean.

Going with the flow

In the large-scale JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system Jones and Chao propose, ocean tides, currents and waves, as well as river flows, would provide the energy source to create the high-pressure liquid. As the water turns underwater turbine blades, the rotor's rotational speed would be increased through a gearbox, which drives a high-pressure fluid pump. The high-pressure fluid would be transported though flexible tubes to a larger pipe and then to an efficient, onshore hydroelectric power plant.

"If we use fresh water in a closed cycle and recycle the fluid, there would be no direct impact to the ocean or river's ecosystem," Chao adds.

"A major advantage of this design," says Jones, "is that it eliminates all submerged electrical components, which are subject to corrosion." In addition, other tidal turbine energy systems, such as the one now in operation in Manhattan's East River, transfer the power generated by the turbines to the surface through buried electrical cables. These are expensive, hard to maintain, and can be dangerous, Jones says. Similar issues exist with two other types of hydrokinetic systems in use in the United Kingdom and planned for South Korea.

"The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system combines a simple, corrosion-resistant subsurface design with the least expensive electrical energy generation system onshore," says Jones."The JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system combines a simple, corrosion-resistant subsurface design with the least expensive electrical energy generation system onshore," says Jones.

"Our proposed system has another advantage," he says. "The pressurized hydraulic energy can be stored in an elevated onshore reservoir and can be used to generate electricity when it is needed to respond to energy-demand. Most environmentally friendly energy systems produce power intermittently."

"This type of hydraulic energy transfer system is potentially applicable to many types of hydrokinetic energy from rivers, ocean waves, tides and currents," Chao says. Scientists can use state-of-the-art computer models of winds, river flows, ocean currents and tides to determine any location's potential for energy production, he adds. They can also predict how much energy could be produced in the future to help in planning energy use and storage.

"As with all such technologies, the ultimate arbiter is the end result of systems-engineering studies, overall efficiency, and costs in terms of dollars per output watt capacity and cents per kilowatt-hour produced," says Paul Dimotakis, JPL's chief technologist. "Such studies and preliminary development efforts also need to be performed for the JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy systems, and if these are promising, then the next phase in development can be undertaken."

Jones and Chao will be presenting a paper on the JPL/Caltech hydrokinetic energy transfer system at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers conference on Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering this summer in Honolulu, Hawaii.

For more information about NASA climate research, news, and technology, visit Global Climate Change.

Written by Rosemary Sullivant/Global Climate Change

With Every Beat, NASA Involved in How the Heart Behaves

2009-06-11T02:27:00.000-07:00

"Who knows?" laughed Dr. Rob Bryant, the inventor of a NASA 'super plastic.' "The life I save might be my own."

Then Bryant, a senior researcher at NASA Langley, takes a serious note, "Langley Research Center's Soluble Imide is an excellent example of how taxpayer investment in NASA materials research has resulted in a direct benefit beyond the aerospace sector by extending the quality of life through medical technology."

And heart failure, like structure failure on an aircraft, is serious business.

The plastic is an advanced aerospace resin, Langley Research Center's Soluble Imide, or LaRC-SI -- a highly flexible material, resistant to chemicals, and withstands extreme hot and cold temperatures. The technology was developed for an aerospace high-speed research program. But among its other applications, the material was also discovered to be biologically inert -- suitable for medical use including implantable devices.

For more about LaRC SI, visit:
http://technologygateway.nasa.gov/Advanced_Materials.html
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/Spinoff2008/hm_4.html

The application is the insulation for leads to the human heart from a cardiac resynchronization therapy or CRT -- a stopwatch-sized device implanted into the chest. A lead is a special wire that delivers energy from a CRT to the heart muscle. Electrical impulses generated by CRTs resynchronize heartbeats and improve blood flow.

NASA licensed the patented LaRC-SI insulation technology in July 2004 to Medtronic Inc. -- a Minneapolis-based medical technology company -- who recognized the potential of the highly flexible resin for its Attain Ability left-heart lead cardiac CRT device.

Due in part to Langley Research Center's Soluble Imide, on April 6, 2009, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a left-heart lead available for use with the new Medtronic CRT -- one of the thinnest available for heart failure patients. The use of this NASA-developed material in a medical implant is the latest in a long line of medical applications that have benefited from NASA technology.

"One of the advantages of this material is that it lends itself to a variety of diverse applications, from mechanical parts and composites to electrical insulation and adhesive bonding," added Bryant.

Heart failure occurs when the heart muscle is unable to pump effectively to meet the

body's need for blood and oxygen. It is a chronic and progressive condition that affects more than five million Americans and more than 22 million individuals worldwide. Cardiac resynchronization therapy, or CRT, is designed to coordinate the contraction of the heart's two lower chambers and improve the heart's efficiency to increase blood flow to the body.

The NASA insulation material makes possible the compact and flexible design of Medtronic's CRT lead, one of the thinnest left-heart leads available. Placing a lead in the heart is widely recognized by physicians as the most challenging aspect of implanting CRT devices. The narrow design allows physicians to choose between different sites on the heart to deliver optimal therapy. The lead is delivered by an inner catheter, a feature that helps physicians place the lead directly in difficult-to-reach areas of the heart. Clinical studies in the U.S. and Canada showed physicians were successful in placing the Attain Ability lead 96.4 percent of the time.

The Langley Research Center's Soluble Imide was featured in Spinoff 2008 -- NASA's annual premier publication featuring successfully commercialized NASA technology. For more than 40 years, the NASA Innovative Partnerships Program has facilitated the transfer of NASA technology to the private sector, benefiting global competition and the economy. Since 1976, Spinoff has featured 40 to 50 of these commercial products annually.

In 1995, R&D Magazine selected the resin for an R&D 100 award as one of the top 100 technical innovations of the year.

iPhone Stars in Apple Show

2009-06-09T18:51:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple offered its devoted fans their periodic supply of catnip on Monday with a new version of the iPhone, called the iPhone 3G S.
By BRAD STONE and JENNA WORTHAM

Apple announced some things that were characteristically Apple: more, better, faster features on its smartphones and computers. It also announced something that was not: lower prices.

The company said the third model of its hit phone, which looks physically identical to the last version but includes internal hardware and software improvements, will go on sale on June 19. Among the changes, the iPhone 3G S will have a three-megapixel camera that also records video, an internal digital compass and voice-control features that let owners use spoken commands to make calls and play music.

The S stands for speed, and upgraded internal components will allow the device to run more than twice as fast as the previous model, according to Philip W. Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president for worldwide product marketing. Mr. Schiller delivered much of the keynote presentation at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference, a meeting of Apple software makers that will last through Friday.

Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, was not present, as some commentators had expected. Mr. Jobs is on a six-month medical leave and is not expected to return until later this month.

The iPhone 3G S, which will be available in both black and white, is priced at $199 for the 16-gigabyte version and $299 for the 32-gigabyte version. A spokesman for AT&T, Apple’s exclusive iPhone partner in the United States, said that for now, it would not change the monthly prices on its iPhone voice and data plans.

Apple also announced it would sell the previous eight-gigabyte iPhone 3G for a price of $99, reduced from $199, on top of data and voice plans. That could make the iPhone accessible to cost-conscious consumers and undercut competitors like Palm. Palm’s new smartphone, the Pre, which went on sale Saturday, costs $199 after a mail-in rebate. Sprint, which is selling the Pre exclusively, offers a two-year service contract that is cheaper than the one AT&T offers for the iPhone.

“This puts a lot of pressure on the likes of RIM and Palm,” said Charles Wolf, an analyst at Needham & Company, referring to the BlackBerry maker Research in Motion. “It sorts of upsets Palm’s apple cart two days after the launch of the Pre.”

Apple also used the industry gathering to announce new features and price cuts on its MacBook Pro line of laptops. All new MacBook Pros will feature up to seven hours of battery life — a 40 percent increase from the last version, because of the new lithium-ion batteries Apple is using. The new batteries are sealed into the laptops, as opposed to the removable batteries that have been in previous MacBooks. Apple is saying the power units can be recharged up to 1,000 times — up to three times as much as other batteries. New MacBook Pros will also feature an SD memory-card slot for simpler photo transfers.

The new, lower prices suggest the company is taking aim at recession-wary consumers and is willing to sacrifice at least some profit to increase its share of the market for personal computers.

But Apple did not budge on prices significantly. For example, the new 15-inch MacBook Pro now costs $1,699, $300 less than the previous version.

“I think there was a recognition that their prices are becoming increasingly disconnected from the market,” said Toni Sacconaghi Jr., an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. “But this was not a bold step into new price points.”

AT&T said iPhone owners with existing contracts would have to pay more to upgrade to a new phone: $299 for the eight-gigabyte, $399 for the 16-gigabyte and $499 for the 32-gigabyte. However, current customers who are eligible for upgrades and those whose contracts have expired would pay the same price as a new customer, said Mark Siegel, executive director of media relations for AT&T mobility and consumer markets. The original iPhone was sold two years ago.

TomTom, the maker of GPS systems for cars or personal use, also made a presentation at the conference, in which it said it was introducing a portable navigation application and car kit to provide drivers with turn-by-turn directions. TomTom executives were acknowledging that the iPhone and other smartphones were killing its market for stand-alone GPS hardware and that the company was entering the accessories and applications business.

The new software for the iPhone also pushed the device more clearly into the portable game console arena occupied by Nintendo’s DS and Sony’s PSP. In what looks like another play for the iPhone to resemble a handheld gaming device, the new peer-to-peer connection feature will locate nearby users using Bluetooth and connect the two using Wi-Fi, allowing them to compete in various games.

Much of Apple’s presentation was devoted to software, both for the Macintosh computer and the iPhone. The company said a new version of its operating system for the Macintosh, called Snow Leopard, would be available in September. It will cost $29 for current Mac owners to upgrade and the operating system will be shipped with all new Macs.

Snow Leopard includes new features that include enhanced global search that can now read URLs and text in Web pages; better compatibility with Microsoft Exchange, the dominant e-mail system used in businesses; and faster computing over all.

Apple also said the new version of the iPhone’s operating system, iPhone OS 3.0, will be made available free to current iPhone owners beginning June 17. The software will have more than 100 new features, including capabilities for multimedia messaging; cut, copy and paste tools; and search functions. It will also unlock features developers have eagerly awaited, like the ability to buy virtual goods or new gaming levels within applications.

ScrollMotion, a start-up based in New York, unveiled an application at the convention called Iceberg, a digital bookstore that will let users purchase best sellers from within the application without having to open a browser.

Lockable Knee Brace Speeds Rehabilitation

2009-01-20T22:02:00.000-08:00

The space shuttle zips along at 17,000 mph. The Ares rocket will go from zero to 1,000 mph in 57 seconds. NASA knows a thing or two about making things go faster.

Here on Earth, a NASA-enhanced knee brace is helping patients speed up their recovery times.

Once upon a time at a meeting at the Marshall Center, orthotist Gary Horton met NASA engineer Neil Meyers. During a chat about knee braces, Meyer revealed the basics for a new type of brace with a lockable joint and hinge brake.

Intrigued by the possibilities, Horton licensed the NASA technology and worked with the University of Arkansas to perfect the design. Seven years of development and testing created the Stance Control Orthotic Knee Joint (SCOKJ), which became available in 2002.

Horton's brace helps patients with weak or missing thigh muscles -- the quadriceps -- and various degrees of knee instability. This might include people fighting polio, spinal cord injuries, and conditions like unilateral leg paralysis. It also speeds recovery when injuries won’t allow the knees to carry a person's full weight.

The brace is effective because it mimics natural motion in the human knee. Stand up for a minute. Now look down at your knee. When you're standing, your knee is in a "locked" mode for balance and stability. Now take a few steps. When you walk, your knee has two modes: free motion and automatic stance control. If you needed to use a more traditional brace for an injury, it would support your knee but also limit its movement.

Here's where space technology kicks in. When a patient wears the lockable knee brace, the knee has support AND freedom of movement. While walking, the brace lets the knee swing naturally. Each time the heel strikes the ground, the brace locks to provide stability, just like a healthy knee. When the heel lifts to take another step, the brace automatically unlocks and lets the knee return to free motion.

Depending on a patient's needs, the brace can be adjusted to be triggered by weight bearing or joint motion. This smooth, automatic action allows a normal walking gait and stability when standing. Not only does this speed up a person's ability to get around, but it also helps speed up healing.

It's just one more way that NASA technology is helping knee patients get a leg up on their recovery.

Biometric Technology

2009-01-14T21:16:00.000-08:00

Biometric technology is used for automatic personal recognition based on biological traits—fingerprint, iris, face, palm print, hand geometry, vascular pattern, voice—or behavioral characteristics—gait, signature, typing pattern. Fingerprinting is the oldest of these methods and has been utilized for over a century by law enforcement officials who use these distinctive characteristics to keep track of criminals.

The National Science and Technology Council provides the following overview of biometric system components: “A typical biometric system is comprised of five integrated components: A sensor is used to collect the data and convert the information to a digital format. Signal processing algorithms perform quality control activities and develop the biometric template. A data storage component keeps information that new biometric templates will be compared to. A matching algorithm compares the new biometric template to one or more templates kept in data storage. Finally, a decision process (either automated or human-assisted) uses the results from the matching component to make a system-level decision.”

Authentication systems can be based on three measures: what you know-a password, what you have-a token or passcard, or what you are-biometrics. Passwords, keys and tokens can be forgotten, lost, stolen or otherwise compromised. Biometric identifiers also carry risks. Engineering professor, Tsutomu Matsumoto, demonstrated this point by using a digital camera, a PC, and gelatin to fashion a fake finger which fooled biometric scanners 80% of the time. [2] However, new applications can detect fakes by identifying sweat pores, measuring conduction properties, and determining the differences in how a live finger and a dummy finger deform the surface of a sensor.

Biometric systems are vulnerable to two types of failures: a false-positive, in which a system falsely identifies an imposter as the valid user, and a false-negative, in which the system fails to make a match between a valid user and the stored template. Because no single identifier is fool-proof, using more than one method, such as a biometric measure in addition to a personal identification number, can enhance security.

Research and Consultancy Outsourcing Services estimates that the market for biometric products will reach $3.4 billion in 2007 with finger-scanning technology accounting for 60 percent of the market. [3] Current commercial uses include voice identification for telephone banking and fingerprint recognition for payment in hundreds of supermarkets, where customers pay for their groceries by pressing their finger to a sensor located near the cash register. Fingerprint sensors act as locks for cell phones and are used to replace text-based logins on laptops. Fingerprint technology could also be used to enhance the security of credit card purchases, both on-line and off.

Government uses of biometrics include the US-VISIT program, in which visa-issuing consular offices collect biometric data, fingerscans and photographs, which are checked against a database of known criminals and suspected terrorists. The traveler’s identity is verified at entry and exit of the country. Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), the FBI’s national fingerprint and criminal history system, the Transportation Workers Identification Credentials (TWIC) program, and the Registered Traveler (RT) program are other government uses of biometrics.

The following information from the National Science and Technology Council presents four types of biometric standards: technical interfaces, data interchange formats, application profile standards, and performance testing and reporting.

“Technical interface standards specify interfaces and interactions between biometric components and sub-systems, including the possible use of security mechanisms to protect stored data and data transferred between systems; and specify the architecture and operation of biometric systems in order to identify the standards that are needed to support multi-vendor systems and their applications.

“Data Interchange Formats specify the content, meaning, and representation of formats for the interchange of biometric data, e.g., Finger Pattern Based Interchange Format, Finger Minutiae Format for Data Interchange, Face Recognition Format for Data Interchange, Iris Interchange Format, Finger Image Based Interchange Format, Signature/Sign Image Based Interchange Format, and Hand Geometry Interchange Format; and specify notation and transfer formats that provide platform independence and separation of transfer syntax from content definition.

“Application Profile Standards specify one or more base standards and standardized profiles, and where applicable, the identification of chosen classes, conforming subsets, options, and parameters of those base standards or standardized profiles necessary to accomplish a particular function.

“Performance Testing and Reporting standards specify biometric performance metric definitions and calculations, approaches to test performance, and requirements for reporting the results of these tests.”

Descriptions of specific standards can be found on the websites of the InterNational Committee for Information Technology Standards (INCITS) M1, the National Institute of Standards, Joint Technical Committee 1 (JTC 1)/Subcommittee 37 (SC 37), and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS).

There are several concerns surrounding the use of biometrics for identification. If a credit card or key is lost or stolen, the card can be cancelled, the locks can be changed and replaced. However, if biometric data is compromised, there are a finite number of replacements, as a person has only 10 fingers, two eyes, etc. Another concern is the possibility that sensors which require contact could be unsanitary. Ensuring the privacy and security of biometric data is also of concern, as users will be unlikely to accept the technology if information could potentially be tampered with, stolen or otherwise misused.

Shake, Rattle and Roll: James Webb Telescope Components Pass Tests

2009-01-08T21:09:00.000-08:00

You might think that shaking and freezing a state-of-the-art, meticulously crafted machine is a bad idea. But when it comes to firing telescopes and their instruments into the frigid cold of space, the more you test your hardware, the better.

Development models for components of the Mid-Infrared Instrument on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have now passed a series of temperature and vibration tests. Now that engineers know the models could survive the ride to space, they have begun building parts of the actual instrument.

"Our models went through some harsh abuse and survived," said Michael Ressler, the project scientist for the Mid-Infrared Instrument at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., where the tests were performed.

The Webb telescope will be the most sensitive infrared space telescope ever built. Its many pursuits include: seeing the farthest galaxies in the universe and the light of the first stars; studying young planetary systems; and looking for conditions suitable for life on planets around other stars.

The Mid-Infrared Instrument is the telescope's longest-wavelength instrument and will operate between so-called mid-infrared wavelengths of 5 through 28.5 microns (a micron is about 1/100 the width of a human hair). It will be the most sensitive mid-infrared detector ever flown in space.

Infrared instruments are extremely sensitive to heat, so they must be kept icy cold. A refrigerator system onboard the Webb telescope will chill the Mid-Infrared Instrument down to temperatures as low as 7 Kelvin (about 266 degrees below zero Celsius) -- significantly colder than the telescope's other instruments.

When designing the Mid-Infrared Instrument, engineers have to take this cold temperature into account. The instrument will have three detectors housed in insulated, brick-like structures called focal plane modules. The detectors have to be perfectly aligned within these brick structures, so that when the chill shrinks the various materials, they do not become misaligned.

"Different materials shrink by varying amounts when cooled. The materials we are using in the focal plane modules can shrink as much as 200 microns. Our instrument alignment needs to be within 50 microns, so it's crucial that our instrument design accounts for the varying thermal contractions at cold temperatures," said Kalyani Sukhatme, the project element manager for the focal plane modules at JPL.

In addition to temperature threats, the focal plane modules will undergo extreme rattles and shakes during launch -- further opportunities to become misaligned.

Because models for these focal plane modules have now officially passed temperature and vibration tests, one of the actual, or "flight," modules has been built and is currently going through its testing.

All three flight detectors have been delivered to JPL from Raytheon Vision Systems in Goleta, Calif.

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. is managing the overall development effort for the Webb telescope. The Mid-Infrared Instrument is an international collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency. Its focal plane modules, related electronics and software are being built at JPL. The instrument's cooler is being built by Northrop Grumman Space Technologies in Redondo Beach, Calif., and managed by JPL. The instrument's optics are being built by an international consortium of European astronomical institutes.

Whitney Clavin
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

HP BladeSystem c-Class c7000 Enclosure

2009-01-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

A BladeSystem c7000 enclosure holds up to 16 server and/or storage blades plus redundant network and storage switches. It includes a shared, multi-terabit high-speed mid-plane for wire-once connectivity of server blades to network and shared storage. Power is delivered through a pooled power backplanethat ensures the full capacity of the redundant hot-plug power supplies is available to all blades.

Each c7000 enclosure is built with the following functions:

Up to 16 half-height and/or up to 8 full-height server blades and/or storage blades per enclosure.

Up to 4 different interconnect fabrics (Ethernet, FC, IB, iSCSI, SAS, etc.) supported simultaneously within the enclosure.

Choice of a single-phase, three-phase or a -48V DC power subsystem - for flexibility in connecting to datacenter power.

HP Thermal Logic technology for lower power consumption and airflow.

Four (4) or Six (6) Active Cool fans as standard. For redundancy and improved power consumption and acoustics; additional Active Cool Fan kits can be added for a maximum of 10 fans.

Redundant hot-plug cooling, redundant hot-plug power supplies, redundant connections, redundant interconnect modules, optional redundant Onboard Administrator management modules.

Lowest cost of ownership.

Full AC redundancy - with no power zones.

An Onboard Administrator management module is built in to the enclosure with the following functions:

Robust, multiple enclosure setup and control.
Reports asset and inventory information for the devices in the enclosure.

Reports thermal and power information, including real-time actual power usage per server and per enclosure.

Front-mounted Insight Display for easy management within the datacenter.
Integrated access to all server blade iLOs from a single cable.

Provides integrated access to interconnect bay device management ports from the single Onboard Administrator cable.

Single sign-on capability for all devices in the enclosure
Role-based security locally and/or with LDAP directory services.
Provides a wizard-based initial setup process for easy configuration.

A BladeSystem c7000 enclosure provides the following benefits:

With local and remote hardware management integrated across the solution, one full enclosure can be managed as easily as one server.

Scalable: Management and network interconnects extend scalability beyond a single enclosure, allowing resources to be pooled and shared across multiple enclosures.

Investment protection: Accommodates multiple server and network designs in one enclosure.
Lower costs per server, in comparison to rack-mounted servers
Lower power consumption, in comparison to rack-mounted servers.
Lower airflow requirements, in comparison to rack-mounted servers
QuickSpecs HP BladeSystem c7000 Enclosure
HP BladeSystem c-Class Overview

Fuel for Thought: Researcher Seeks to Put Fuel Cells on the Fast Track

2009-01-07T19:53:00.000-08:00

The slow evolution of clean-energy solutions is about to kick into high gear, if Sossina M. Haile has anything to say about it. As a fuel cell researcher at the California Institute of Technology and a founding member of the company Superprotonic Inc., she hopes to make this “technology of the future” practical for today’s applications.

Current fuel cell technology is hamstrung by impracticality. The most efficient and powerful fuel cells need large amounts of heat and space, whereas those suitable for smaller scale operation require lots of precious, expensive platinum. “If we converted every car in the U.S. to fuel cells, we’d need more platinum than there is in the proven reserves,” Haile says.

Haile’s research, which initially began several years ago with fuel cell researchers at JPL, has led to breakthroughs in more “consumer-ready” fuel cell technology. She’s developed fuel cell systems that strike a balance between power and manageability –- perfect, she says, for standalone residential generators. Her team has worked hard to reduce the amount of platinum needed for each system.

Haile's team has also taken on one of the biggest roadblocks to widespread fuel cell use -- their reliance on hydrogen as a primary fuel. Hydrogen requires lots of energy to extract and it’s difficult to store and distribute.

In fact, Haile thinks that the verdict is still out on whether hydrogen “makes sense” as the fuel of the future. “When most people hear ‘fuel cells,’ they think Size comparison of a fuel cell and a dime Size comparison of a fuel cell and a dime. hydrogen,” says Haile. “That’s a common misperception -- fuel cells aren’t necessarily restricted to hydrogen.”

Haile's team has focused on developing fuel cells that can run on more traditional fuels, like ethanol or biomass, while also solving many of the problems of conventional hydrogen fuel cells.

Fuel cells that use carbon-based fuels still produce carbon emissions, but at a much lower rate than their internal-combustion counterparts. Because fuel cells extract energy from electrochemical reactions instead of burning their fuel, they are much more efficient and environmentally friendly. “It’s a unique middle Postdoc Zongping Shao listens to a fuel-cell powered MP3 player. Zongping Shao, who is now a professor at Nanjing College of Chemistry in China, listens to an MP3 player being powered by two fuel cells. ground,” explains Haile -- one she believes will speed the integration of these new technologies into the current energy infrastructure.

For Haile, the incentive to design practical, unconventional fuel cells is simple: “Science should be in the service of society.” She thinks that fuel cells that can use renewable energy resources like biomass will help end what she calls she calls “drawing from the bank” -- using fossil fuels as a source of energy.

“There’s scientific proof that CO2 concentrations have been rising for decades to levels not felt on the Earth in millenia,” Haile says. “We need to have a diverse approach to solving the problem before it’s too late.”

MacBook

2009-01-04T21:18:00.000-08:00

To build something truly different, you need to work in a truly different way. Apple designers and engineers work together through every stage of product development. It’s a partnership that makes innovation possible. And it’s exactly how the new MacBook was created. With its breakthrough unibody enclosure, industry-first features, and environmentally sound design, it’s a revolution in the way notebooks are made.

Athlete.com

2008-11-12T17:08:00.000-08:00

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