United States of America as Represented by the Administrator of Nasa

US Government as Represented by the Secretary of the Army

Charles L Johnson

George R Edlin

Leon H Riley

Thomas G Miller

Peter S Schuler

Jason A Vaughn

Gregory L Matloff

Judy L C Ballance

Lee A Hilbert

Enrico Lorenzini

Wilford W Gebhart

Kenneth J Welzyn

A tether system for providing thrust to or power subsystems of an artificial satellite in a low earth orbit. The tether has three main sections, an insulated section connected to the satellite, a conducting section connected to the insulating section for drawing in and releasing electrons from the space plasma and a non-conducting section for providing a tension to the other sections of the tether. An oxygen resistant coating is applied to the bare wire of the conducting section as well as the insulated wires of the insulated section that prevents breakdown during tether operations in the space plasma. The insulated and bare wire sections also surround a high tensile flexible polymer core to prevent any debris from breaking the tether during use.

Electrodynamic tether

A propulsion system for a spacecraft includes a solar sail system and an electrodynamic tether system. The solar sail system is used to generate propulsion to propel the spacecraft through space using solar photons and the electrodynamic tether system is used to generate propulsion to steer the spacecraft into orbit and to perform orbital maneuvers around a planet using the planet's magnetic field. The electrodynamic tether system can also be used to generate power for the spacecraft using the planet's magnetic field.

Combination solar sail and electrodynamic tether propulsion system

A laser pulse fiber optic neutron detector which is capable of discriminating against background neutrons and gamma rays while measuring both the energy of an incoming neutron and its direction has a sensor having a plurality of vertically-stacked organic fiber light pipes and a reflector at one end of the light pipes. Ionized tracks in the light pipes caused by neutron radiation are detected by directing pulsed laser radiation into one end of the light pipes and detecting the laser radiation backscattered and reflected from the light pipes.

Laser pulsed fiber optic neutron detector

Growing community of inventors

Madison, AL, United States of America

Charles L Johnson