High-Resolution Commercial Validation Products API

NASA's SpaceCube Mini SSDR is a 3.5”x3.5” card designed for use in CubeSats and SmallSats. The SSDR uses a radiation-tolerant field programmable gate array (FPGA) that interfaces with two independently controlled and powered banks of NAND Flash storage, providing up to 12 Terabits of storage capacity. The card includes multiple SpaceWire nodes and multi-gigabit transceivers for commanding and data transfer, various error prevention and correction mechanisms including Reed-Solomon encoding/decoding and data randomization schemes, and depacketizers/packetizers for handling data in CCSDS format. This NASA technology is innovative in its combination of high reliability for harsh radiation environments (e.g., geostationary orbit, lunar orbit and surface, etc.) with high-speed data transfer capabilities (400+ MB/s write, 600+ MB/s read) in a compact form factor. The design allows for selective population of NAND Flash modules and independent control of memory banks, enabling power optimization through features like single-bank operation. The card integrates with a modular architecture system in which multiple CubeSat-sized cards (e.g., processors, GPS, etc.) can be mixed and matched to meet specific mission requirements. The SSDR card includes radiation-hardened voltage regulators to ensure safe operation in space environments. The SSDR is ideal for small form factor satellites with some combination of the following requirements: (a) ability to store large amounts of data generated by high-performance detectors and sensors for extended durations (e.g., in environments without nearby relay capabilities), (b) ability to read and write data with high throughput, and (c) ability to operate in harsh radiation environments. It is fully compatible with NASA’s CubeSat Card Specification (CS2) and NASA’s SpaceCube v3.0 mini processing card, which is also available for licensing.

The Miniaturized Astrometric Alignment Sensor advances satellite capabilities for astrophysical measurements, necessary for formation flying, relative navigation, and virtual telescope capabilities. The sensor is a single assembly consisting of a small, low powered camera assembly. The sensor detects stellar objects from which both stellar and object tracking are performed. The sensor’s components consist of a low power camera assembly, interchangeable lenses, camera power supply, and image processing software and algorithms. The system functions by searching and identifying objects in the camera's field of view and tracking the objects against a selected star pattern with a central body of interest in the sensor's field of view. The Miniaturized Astrometric Alignment Sensor makes it possible to measure a spacecraft’s altitude and orientation with respect to known stellar objects. The instrument takes an image of a patch of sky, identifies the stars in that field of view, and compares the field view with a stored star map. The data is processed with a dedicated processor attached to the instrument to spell out the attitude and orientation of a spacecraft.

Currently, HSEG software is being used by Bartron Medical Imaging as a diagnostic tool to enhance medical imagery. Bartron Medical Imaging licensed the HSEG Technology from NASA Goddard adding color enhancement and developing MED-SEG, an FDA approved tool to help specialists interpret medical images. HSEG is available for licensing outside of the medical field (specifically for soft-tissue analysis).

This dual band infrared imaging system is capable of spatial resolution of 60 m from orbit and earth observing expected NEDT less than 0.2o C. It is designed to fit within the top two-thirds of a 3U CubeSat envelope, installed on the International Space Station, or deployed on other orbiting or airborne platforms. This infrared imaging system will utilize a newly conceived strained-layer superlattice GaSb/InAs broadband detector array cooled to 60 K by a miniature mechanical cryocooler. The camera is controlled by a sensor chip assembly consisting of a newly developed 25 m pitch, 640 x 512 pixel.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center now offers a new capability for meeting this Big Data challenge: MERRA Analytic Services (MERRA/AS). MERRA/AS combines the power of high-performance computing, storage-side analytics, and web APIs to dramatically improve customer access to MERRA data. It represents NASAs first effort to provide Climate Analytics-as-a-Service. Retrospective analyses (or reanalyses) such as MERRA have long been important to scientists doing climate change research. MERRA is produced by NASAs Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO), which is a component of the Earth Sciences Division in Goddards Sciences and Exploration Directorate. GMAOs research and development activities aim to maximize the impact of satellite observations in climate, weather, atmospheric, and land prediction using global models and data assimilation. These products are becoming increasingly important to application areas beyond traditional climate science. MERRA/AS provides a new cloud-based approach to storing and accessing the MERRA dataset. By combining high-performance computing, MapReduce analytics, and NASAs Climate Data Services API (CDS API), MERRA/AS moves much of the work traditionally done on the client side to the server side, close to the data and close to large compute power. This reduces the need for large data transfers and provides a platform to support complex server-side data analysesit enables Climate Analytics-as-a-Service. MERRA/AS currently implements a set of commonly used operations (such as avg, min, and max) over all the MERRA variables. Of particular interest to many applications is a core collection of about two dozen MERRA land variables (such as humidity, precipitation, evaporation, and temperature). Using the RESTful services of the Climate Data Services API, it is now easy to extract basic historical climatology information about places and time spans of interest anywhere in the world. Since the CDS API is extensible, the community can participate in MERRA/ASs development by contributing new and more complex analytics to the MERRA/AS service. MERRA/AS demonstrates the power of CAaaS and advances NASAs ability to connect data, science, computational resources, and expertise to the many customers and applications it serves.