Award Data

An on-board oxygen concentrator is required during long duration manned space missions to supply medical oxygen. Commercial medical oxygen generators are pressure swing adsorption (PSA) based systems that use nitrogen selective zeolites and are mostly large, massive, and power intensive. TDA Research, Inc. (TDA) proposes to develop a small, lightweight, portable oxygen generator that uses a high c ...

The goal of this SBIR project is to develop an innovative, high fidelity computational tool for accurate prediction of aerothermal environment around space vehicles. This tool will be based on the Unified Flow Solver (UFS) developed at CFDRC for hybrid simulations of rarefied, transitional and continuum flows. In this project, UFS will be enhanced to include: Boltzmann/continuum solvers for vibrat ...

An acoustic igniter eliminates the need to use electrical energy to drive spark systems to initiate combustion in liquid-propellant rockets. It does not involve the use of catalysts (which have a limited life), it does not exhibit typical wear and tear as seen in spark and catalytic igniters, and it is simple in design with no moving parts. Orion's proposed Acoustic Igniter is expected to offer a ...

Arctic Slope Technical Services, Inc. (ASTS) is pleased to present this proposal for demonstrating feasibility of an additive manufacturing (AM) approach for fabricating bimetallic combustion chambers. Our chamber design, which is applicable to future NASA small launch vehicles, exploits the combined capabilities of selective laser melting (SLM) and magnetic pulse welding (MPW), in order to reduc ...

This proposal is to demonstrate the feasibility of using selective laser melting (SLM) to develop the material composition and the additive manufacturing fabrication process of silicon carbide (SiC) reinforced AlSi10Mg matrix composite (SiC-AMC). ASTS will also demonstrate feasibility that we can customize the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) in the substrate material based upon increasing ...

The proposed SBIR program by Virtual AeroSurface Technologies (VAST) focuses on the development of a novel variant of pulsed blowing active flow control in which chemically-based flow control actuators are utilized to create high-impulse pulsed jets from discrete reaction chambers with a flowable propellant mixture provided to each. Chemically-based actuation is capable of producing high-impulse ...

Radiation-cooled, bipropellant thrusters are being considered for the Ascent Module main engine of the Altair Lunar Lander. Currently, iridium-lined rhenium combustion chambers are the state-of-the-art for radiatively cooled thrusters. To increase the performance of radiation-cooled engines, improved chamber materials are being developed that will allow higher operating temperatures, better resi ...

We propose to develop a monopropellant replacement for hydrazine using eutectic mixtures of ionic liquids (EILs). These liquids offer us the ability to tailor fluid and chemical properties, are safe to handle and burn cleanly. They also offer potentially higher performance as a monopropellant than hydrazine.

The Advanced Mars Water Acquisition System (AMWAS) recovers and purifies water from Mars soils for oxygen and fuel production, life support, food production, and radiation shielding in support of human exploration missions. The AMWAS removes water from Mars soils using hot, recirculating carbon dioxide gas to provide rapid heat transfer. The AMWAS evaporates water from ice and salt hydrates, leavi ...

The Launch Abort System (LAS) for the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) will provide a safe escape for the crew in the event of an emergency during launch. A key component of the LAS is its Attitude Control Motor (ACM). Recent testing of the ACM valve assembly has resulted in failure during hot-fire testing. These failures are believed to be the result of the molybdenum alloy component disto ...