Abstract: An aerial vehicle including a collapsible and inflatable vehicle body capable of being filled with a lighter than air gas so as to make the vehicle semi-buoyant or 100% buoyant at a predetermined altitude in an atmosphere above a solar system body. The vehicle body has a shape suitable to provide aerodynamic lift. The vehicle may include a propulsion device coupled to and extending from the vehicle body, where the device provides power to aerodynamically lift the vehicle above the 100% buoyant altitude to a higher altitude where the vehicle can maintain that altitude through the aerodynamic lift and vehicle buoyancy. The vehicle is configured to be deployed/inflated from a collapsed and stowed configuration to a deployed/inflated configuration in an orbit above the atmosphere of the solar system body, and is configured to enter the atmosphere in the inflated configuration and descend without propulsion.

Abstract: The invention is a spaced based navigation system for guiding a spacecraft. In detail, the navigation system includes at least two Doppler range/range rate satellites positioned at LaGrangian stability points between first and second planetary bodies wherein the first planetary body rotates about the second planetary body. A processing system mounted on the spacecraft for receiving Doppler range and range rate data from said at least two Doppler range/range rate satellites and calculating the position and velocity of the spacecraft.

Abstract: The apparatus and method of the present invention operates to perform a floating-point operation involving at least two operands in floating-point representation. The apparatus comprises two concurrent data paths, a short path and a long path. The short path is used to produce a result of the floating-point operation if the floating-point operation is a subtract operation and the exponent difference of the two operands is 0, or if the floating-point operation is a subtract operation, the exponent difference is 1, and the mantissa of the operand with a larger exponent is within a predetermined number range. The long path is used to produce a result of the floating-point operation if the floating point operation is an addition operation, or if it is a subtraction operation and the exponent difference is larger than one, or if it is a subtract operation, the exponent difference is 1, and the mantissa of the operand with the larger exponent is within another predetermined number range.