O grau de exigência da sociedade no atendimento das suas necessidades vem aumentando progressivamente, bem como a complexidade tecnológica dos bens e serviços oferecidos. Para se atender a essa acelerada evolução, o processo de inovação tecnológica precisa atingir um nível de eficiência e eficácia que articule todos os atores do processo de inovação em redes de cooperação, pois já não há mais lugar para o trabalho organizacional solitário. No novo cenário, há necessidade de parcerias para que novos produtos e processos atinjam a sua verdadeira utilidade, que é a melhoria da qualidade de vida da humanidade. Nesse contexto, o setor espacial tem um papel de destaque, seja por meio da monitoração climática ou até de equipamentos de medicina preventiva, desenvolvidos a partir de tecnologias espaciais. Assim, o Brasil tem utilizado o programa de parceria Uniespaço, sob coordenação da Agência Espacial Brasileira (AEB), para transferir tecnologias para o seu setor espacial. Com base na experiência internacional dos programas espaciais e do levantamento da literatura, este estudo parte do pressuposto de que a eficácia da transferência de tecnologia (TT) nos programas de parceria pode ser alcançada mediante a superação de barreiras existentes no processo, por intermédio de elementos facilitadores. Desta forma, a pesquisa teve por objetivo identificar os fatores críticos entre atores no processo de TT, a partir de estudos de 05 projetos de parceria do programa Uniespaço. As organizações geradoras da tecnologia foram três instituições de ensino superior e quatro institutos de Pesquisa & Desenvolvimento (P&D), tendo como usuários o Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE) e o Instituto de Aeronática e Espaço (IAE). Além desse programa, foi estudado o programa de parceria inovativa (PPI) da NASA, identificando o arranjo organizacional e os fatores que fomentam a TT entre os atores do sistema setorial de inovação e produção espacial dos EUA. O presente trabalho teve como resultado principal a elaboração de dois modelos conceituais; o primeiro focando a TT entre gerador e usuário em termos dos fatores críticos obtidos na pesquisa, dentre eles o nível de maturidade tecnológica, adaptação da nova tecnologia versus a cultura tecnológica do usuário, e capacitações de absorção tecnológica e inovativa, e o segundo modelo como resultado da formação de parcerias e do impacto dos demais atores sociais envolvidos nos processos de TT. / The level of requirement of the society in order to satisfy its needs has been increasing progressively, as well as, the technology complexity of goods and services offered. In order to follow this evolution, the technology innovation process needs to achieve a certain level of efficiency and effectiveness, which is able to articulate all players of the innovation process in the network cooperation, in other words, there is no place for solitary organizational work. Partnerships are required to produce new products and processes to achieve its goals and promote a better quality of life. The space sector has an important role, such as the earth climate monitoring and preventive medicine equipments that were developed from technologies used for space applications. Therefore, similarly to other countries, Brazil has transferred technologies to its space sector, through partnership programs, though, sometimes with no success. The assumption of this study was the effectiveness of technology transfer in the partnership programs can be achieved by overcoming the barriers in the process through specific facilitators, and it was based on the international experience of space programs and literature review. The aim of this dissertation was to identify critical factors between players in the technology transference process on the brazilian space sector. The methodology used was based on case studies of five partnership projects and involved both three universities and four R&D institutes in the brazilian partnership program called Uniespaço, which is coordinated by the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB). The NASAs innovative partnership program was also studied, in order to know the organizational arrangement and the technology transfer facilitators between players in the US space sector system of innovation and production. The main results of this dissertation were two new conceptual models; the first was based on critical factors of TT between technology generators and users, such as, technology maturity level, adaptation of new technology versus users technological culture, and the ability of absorbing technology and innovation; the second model was the result of the dynamic of partnership formation and the impact of social players involved in the TT process.

Master's thesis "Communication strategy of NASA during space programs Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs in 1958-1972" is a summary of the work of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the field of external communications. This diploma thesis maps the communication strategy during the first space programs Mercury, Gemini and Apollo in the 50s-70s. of the 20th century. It also puts it in a wider historical, social and media context. It is also devoted to the emergence of NASA, to individual programs and the emergence of space interest in the United States.

The first part of a study of passenger flight experience of Urban Air Mobility was completed. This first part included the design of different Urban Air Mobility vehicle models, in which the passenger flight experience would be quantitatively measured. A first version of a simulator setup, in which the measurements were performed, was also developed. Three concept vehicle models, a single main rotor, a side-by-side rotor and a quadrotor, were designed in the conceptual design software NDARC. The vehicles were electrically propelled with battery technology based on future technology predictions and were designed for autonomous flight with one passenger. The emissions of the vehicles were analyzed and compared with an existing turboshaft helicopter. The interface between NDARC and the flight dynamics analysis and control system software FlightCODE, which was used to create control systems to the NDARC models,  was developed to fit the vehicle configurations considered. The simulator setup was created with a VR headset, the flight simulation software X-Plane, an external autopilot software and stress sensors. Trial runs with the simulator setup were performed and gave important data for the continued development. Planned upgrades of the simulation station were presented and the continuation of the study was discussed.

With improvements to miniaturization technologies, the ratio between operators required per UAV has become increasingly smaller at the cost of increased workload. Workload is an important factor to consider when designing the multi-UAV systems of tomorrow as too much workload may decrease an operator's performance. This study proposes the use of text to speech combined with an emphasis on a single screen design as a way of improving situational awareness and perceived workload. A controlled experiment consisting of 18 participants was conducted inside a simulator. Their situational awareness and perceived workload was measured using SAGAT and NASA-TLX respectively. The results show that the use of text to speech lead to a decrease in situational awareness for all elements inside the graphical user interface that were not directly handled by a text to speech event. All of the NASA-TLX measurements showed an improvement in perceived workload except for physical demand. Overall an improvement of perceived workload was observed when text to speech was in use.

This thesis details work carried out by two students working as contractors at the Community Coordinated Modelling Center at Goddard Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The thesis is made possible by and aims to contribute to the OpenSpace project. The first track of the work implemented is the handling of and putting together new data for a visualization of coronal mass ejections in OpenSpace. The new data allows for observation of coronal mass ejections at their origin by the surface of the Sun, whereas previous data visualized them from 30 solar radii out from the Sun and outwards. Previously implemented visualization techniques are used together to visualize different volume data and fieldlines, which together with a synoptic magnetogram of the Sun gives a multi-layered visualization. The second track is an experimental implementation of a generalized and less user involved process for getting new data into OpenSpace, with a priority on volume data as that was a subject of experience. The results show a space weather model visualization, and how one such model can be adapted to fit within the parameters of the OpenSpace project. Additionally, the results show how a GUI connected to a series of background events can form a data pipeline to make complicated space weather models more easily available.

Command and control (C2) environments are complex, dynamic and rich in information. Thus, measuring the performance of an agent in a C2-system, in this case a platoon commander, poses a challenging task for the researcher. To measure the performance of a platoon commander in this thesis, the OODA loop is used as a model for representing the four processes in which the platoon commander is engaged in during a military C2 mission. In accordance with these processes, performance measurements for the platoon commander are identified. The relevance of the performance measurements, to the C2 tasks and goals of the platoon commander, are tested through three studies conducted in a simulated warfare scenario, and two workshops, one with a platoon commander and one with two scientists. As a result of the studies and workshops, an assessment tool for measuring the C2 tasks and goals of the platoon commander, is developed. This assessment tool consists of modified versions of the Crew Awareness Rating Scale (CARS), the Situation Awareness Global Assessment Technique (SAGAT) and the NASA-Task Load Index (NASA-TLX), as well as generic performance measurements measuring fratricide, deaths and completion of overarching goal.

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Oceanic microwave remote sensing provides the data necessary for the estimation of significant geophysical parameters such as the near-surface vector wind. To obtain accurate estimates, a precise understanding of the measurements is critical. This work clarifies and quantifies specific uncertainties in the scattered power measured by an active radar instrument. While there are many sources of uncertainty in remote sensing measurements, this work concentrates on three significant, yet largely unstudied effects. With a theoretical derivation of the backscatter from an ocean-like surface, results from this dissertation demonstrate that the backscatter decays with surface roughness with two distinct modes of behavior, affected by the size of the footprint. A technique is developed and scatterometer data analyzed to quantify the variability of spaceborne backscatter measurements for given wind conditions; the impact on wind retrieval is described in terms of bias and the Cramer-Rao lower bound. The probability density function of modified periodogram averages (a spectral estimation technique) is derived in generality and for the specific case of power estimates made by the NASA scatterometer. The impact on wind retrieval is quantified.

Because the earth's cryosphere influences global weather patterns and climate, the scientific community has had great interest in monitoring this important region. Microwave remote sensing has proven to be a useful tool in estimating sea and glacial ice surface characteristics with both scatterometers and radiometers exhibiting high sensitivity to important ice properties. This dissertation presents an array of studies focused on extracting key surface features from multisensor microwave data sets. First, several enhanced resolution image reconstruction issues are addressed. Among these are the optimization of the scatterometer image reconstruction (SIR) algorithm for NASA scatterometer (NSCAT) data, an analysis of Ku-band azimuthal modulation in Antarctica, and inter-sensor European Remote Sensing Satellite (ERS) calibration. Next, various methods for the removal of atmospheric distortions in image reconstruction of passive radiometer observations are considered. An automated algorithm is proposed which determines the spatial extent of sea ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions from NSCAT data. A multisensor iterative sea ice statistical classification method which adapts to the temporally varying signatures of ice types is developed. The sea ice extent and classification algorithms are adopted for current SeaWinds scatterometer data sets. Finally, the automated inversion of large-scale forward electromagnetic scattering of models is considered and used to study the temporal evolution of the scattering properties of polar sea ice.