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National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Goddard Space Flight Center

Office of the Chief Technologist

Office of the Chief Technologist

Two Columns

Feature

Early-Stage Innovations: A Glimpse at the Future?

What’s the next best technology, the innovative new approach that will enable never-before-imagined science or significant leaps in capability? Here, we provide snapshots of a few of the Center’s “early-stage innovations.” The technologists who are pursuing these longer-range technologies could provide the revolutionary new capability needed to enable next-generation astrophysics, Earth science, or heliophysics missions. These technologies, which could take years to mature, would secure Goddard’s expertise in areas that the Center has deemed important to its future.

Scaling Up Detector Arrays

Obtaining high-resolution data of faint or very distant objects will require technologists to build instruments equipped with large detector arrays containing literally thousands of tiny pixels. Getting to that next level of sophistication, however, is easier said than done. Technologists not only have to develop ways to more easily assemble these detector arrays, they also have to come up with better ways to “wire” them so that the data they collect are efficiently transmitted to read-out systems.

“If you have 10,000 detectors, you’ll have at least 10,000 terminals to be wired,” says Goddard technologist Kongpop U-Yen. “We’re trying to minimize the number of output wires.” Under his R&D funding, U-Yen’s team is developing a technique where the pixels would share the same transmission line, freeing up space, and ultimately improving technologists’ ability to scale up the pixel density needed for next-generation missions like the Beyond Einstein Inflation Probe and the International X-ray Observatory (formerly called Constellation-X), to name a few.

Compressing Radar Data

Remote-sensing instruments generate copious amounts of information, which must be compressed and stored until the user retrieves the data. Not only are data-processing systems complex — requiring, for one, a complicated data-sampling step — errors can propagate when the user decompresses the information.

Goddard technologist Wai Fong thinks there is a better way. He and his team are trying to develop new ways to record the data so that they are sampled and compressed in one simple process on the instrument itself. This would eliminate the need for complex onboard data-processing equipment, which would reduce spacecraft weight — always an important concern for mission planners, he says. Although he is focused now on radar applications, it is conceivable that the technology ultimately could be applied to other types of measurements.

Measuring Martian Methane

In January, Goddard scientist Mike Mumma announced he had used ground-based telescope data to definitively detect methane plumes in the northern hemisphere of Mars. Its detection made headlines because it showed that Mars still could be alive — either biologically or geologically. Not surprisingly, discovering the source of these gases is a science priority and will require additional missions to the planet itself.

Goddard scientist Emily Wilson believes a smaller gas correlation radiometer, particularly one that implements a hollow-optical fiber to reduce the size of the instrument, offers an ideal solution for globally pinpointing the source of methane on Mars. R&D funding is allowing her to develop this reduced-size instrument and make it viable for a Mars orbiter or lander mission. “We’re getting close,” she says.

Tailoring Hyperspectral Datasets

Earth scientists can learn much from hyperspectral data — everything from identifying mineral deposits and land-use changes to detecting and mapping fires, chemical spills, and even floods. However, only a small portion of a hyperspectral image is useful for identifying any given material, says scientist Kevin Fisher. Furthermore, material-classification programs that analyze images run slowly because these images contain so much data.

Under a new R&D effort, Fisher is developing a system that creates reduced datasets tailored to each potential application, whether it’s looking for a specific mineral or mapping wildfires in California. In particular, Fisher is developing an algorithm to quickly analyze hyperspectral images and select the most useful spectral bands for a given science application.

The ultimate goal, he says, is to perform image analysis on the spacecraft itself. That way, “the spacecraft can make more intelligent decisions about what to observe,” Fisher says.  “It would be like an onboard scientist analyzing the images.”

Advancing a New Type of Refrigerator

Goddard is the world-renowned expert in building cooling technologies for astronomical instruments. Goddard technologist Franklin Miller would like to continue that legacy.

 

With R&D funding, Miller is developing technologies needed for the next-generation Sub-Kelvin Active Magnetic Regenerative Refrigerator, a new type of technology that would cool infrared bolometers and X-ray microcalorimeters needed for the International X-ray Observatory and other missions.

In particular, Miller developed an efficient thermodynamically reversible pump, which has no moving parts, to force a mixture of helium 3 and helium 4 in a temperature range below 1.7 Kelvin. Now, he’s advancing the capabilities of other components. The technology “allows greater flexibility and lowers mass,” Miller said. “This is another step beyond.”


Building a Miniaturized Mass Spectrometer

Discovering the origin and history of Mars, Venus, the Moon, comets, and geologically active moons orbiting Saturn will require that scientists measure volatiles using a mass spectrometer, similar to the one that Goddard is building for the Mars Science Laboratory. But the next-generation mass spectrometer will have to be smaller and even more capable to obtain the type of measurements that would determine the potential for past or present life on these worlds.

Principal Investigator Todd King is on the case. Using R&D funding, he and his team have demonstrated the theoretical basis for a small, low-weight, high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The team is employing micro- and nano-fabrication methods to build components that will result in a miniaturized, more capable instrument, King says. “The work we’re doing is a significant step toward a substantially more resource-efficient, high-performance mass spectrometer for space use.”

Technologies

Goddard technologists win new work, secure follow-on funding to mature new technologies, formulate concepts, and validate new instrument concepts in flight demonstrations — successes that benefit Goddard and the scientific community as a whole.