Case Study: NASA Stennis Space Center achieves reusable rocket propulsion testing data acquisition with National Instruments LabVIEW

NASA Data Acquisition System Software for Rocket Propulsion Testing

The customer, NASA John C. Stennis Space Center, faced the challenge of developing a non-proprietary data acquisition system (DAS) software to support rocket engine testing across multiple facilities. Their legacy systems required specialized, custom-built software for each unique hardware configuration, which was costly and time-consuming to develop and maintain. This fragmented approach also created interoperability issues and workforce management problems across NASA's various Rocket Propulsion Test facilities.

The solution, created with National Instruments' LabVIEW software, was the NASA Data Acquisition System (NDAS). This flexible, modular framework uses a hardware abstraction layer, the Actor Framework, and Object-Oriented programming to create a portable, reusable application. For National Instruments, the results included significant cost and schedule savings through code reuse, reduced training time, and an unprecedented level of software collaboration across NASA facilities. The NDAS architecture provides a consistent, hardware-neutral foundation for propulsion testing, supporting everything from 30-year-old legacy systems to the newest hardware.

NASA John C. Stennis Space Center

Phillip Hebert

NASA John C. Stennis Space Center