The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating alternative approaches, technologies, and communication network architectures to facilitate building the Spaceports and Ranges of the future. These investigations support the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (2nd Gen RLV), Orbital Space Plane (OSP) and other associated craft presently under development or under consideration in Government, academic, and private sectors. These investigations also provide a national centralized R&D forum for next-generation Spaceport and Range technology development. Together,...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating alternative approaches, technologies, and communication network architectures to facilitate building the Spaceports and Ranges of the future. These investigations support the Second Generation Reusable Launch Vehicle (2nd Gen RLV), Orbital Space Plane (OSP) and other associated craft presently under development or under consideration in Government, academic, and private sectors. These investigations also provide a national centralized R&D forum for next-generation Spaceport and Range technology development. Together,...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating alternative technologies to facilitate building communication networks for future Spaceports and Ranges. This reports documents an investigation conducted from October 2002 through September 2003 of an emerging communication technology known as Ultra Wideband (UWB) communication. Contained in this report is an overview of UWB communication technology, a survey of UWB equipment vendors, and complete details of the theoretical and experimental research that was performed during this emerging communication technology...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating alternative approaches, technologies, and communication network architectures to facilitate building the Spaceports and Ranges of the future. These investigations support the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) and other associated craft presently under development or under consideration in Government, academic, and private sectors. These investigations also provide a national centralized R&D forum for next-generation Spaceport and Range technology development. Together, these sectors all share the common goal of changing...

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is investigating alternative approaches, technologies, and communication network architectures to facilitate building future Spaceports, building on the communications capabilities that already exist. These investigations support the development of communication networks for use with the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), as well as other crafts presently under development or under consideration in the Government, academic, and private sectors. Forming part of the associated Ground Support Equipment (GSE) that will be necessary to prepare...

The following NASA Contractor Report documents the indepth studies on select technologies that could support long-term aeronautical mobile communications operating concepts. This work was performed during the third and final phase of NASA's Technology Assessment for the FAA/EUROCONTROL Future Communications Study (FCS) under a multiyear NASA contract. It includes the associated findings of ITT Corporation and NASA Glenn Research Center to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as of the end of May 2007. The activities documented in this report focus on three final technology candidates...

Nearly 300 million yrs ago a comet with a diameter of approx.10 km struck the Earth near Chicxulub in present-day Mexico. The impact created a crater nearly 300 km in diameter and drove very large quantities of dust and debris into the atmosphere. The dust prevented much of the Sun's radiation from reaching the Earth's surface and the resulting Ice Age caused the extinction of approx. 50 percent of the existing animal species-including, most famously, the dinosaurs. Approximately 50,000 yrs ago a stony-iron asteroid with a diameter of approx. 150 m struck the Earth in what is now...

There has been interest in obtaining gas, dust, rocks, or soil samples from comets or nearby planets since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s. Flying a spacecraft to the destination and returning a sample in an Earth entry vehicle can accomplish this. The return spacecraft is called a sample return vehicle (SRV). Detailed studies of Martian samples can only be conducted on Earth. In the past decade there have been many studies investigating the feasibility and practicalities of sample return missions to Mars Samples collected on Mars will be sealed in a special capsule to prevent...

Starting in January 2004, the NESC has received several communications from knowledgeable technical experts at NASA expressing shared concerns (mainly at the Langley Research Center (LaRC) and Ames Research Center (ARC)) about Huygens mission success. It was suggested that NASA become more technically involved directly in the analysis of Huygens' entry, descent and landing (EDL) focusing on the following primary concerns: 1. The parachute deployment trigger performance and the resultant effects on the operation of the parachute system, and 2. The determination of the radiative heating...

A Neptune Aerocapture Systems Analysis is completed to determine the feasibility, benefit and risk of an aeroshell aerocapture system for Neptune and to identify technology gaps and technology performance goals. The high fidelity systems analysis is completed by a five center NASA team and includes the following disciplines and analyses: science; mission design; aeroshell configuration screening and definition; interplanetary navigation analyses; atmosphere modeling; computational fluid dynamics for aerodynamic performance and database definition; initial stability analyses; guidance...