Award Data

Autonomous systems, when subjected to novel environments and tasks, suffer from issues with unknown unknowns. Under these circumstances, human intervention is frequently required. In deep space, such as a manned mission to Mars, communications with Earth require minutes round trip, effectively removing a typical safety net for the astronauts onboard when dealing with autonomous systems and sensors ...

Achieving trustworthy and trusted autonomy starts early in the development process through performing hazard analysis, fault analysis, identifying mitigating requirements, and carefully and rigorously tracing those requirements all the way into design, models, implementation, and tests. However, traceability can be time-consuming, costly, and error-prone. To address these challenges, significant a ...

Supporting human life on long-tern space exploration missions, such as manned missions to the surface of Mars, require sustainable resource utilization with minimal support from Earth. In response to this need, NASArsquo;s in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) mission was put in place to provide a sustainable infrastructure for long-tern missions, such as exploration of extraterrestrial planets. One ...

The development of rocket propulsion systems requires rigorous testing. Technology with low-technology readiness levels (TRL) can be proven in small scaled down experiments. However, components and systems with higher-TRLs must be tested at full-scale conditions. These full-scale tests usually require numerous non-homogenous sensors and instrumentation meticulously placed over large distances that ...

This Phase I SBIR will lead to the development of a bandwidth tailored pump source for high purity photon pair generation. Spontaneous parametric down conversion can be used to generate high purity photon pairs at wavelengths of interest to NASA and the broader scientific community. However, these sources are highly dependent on pulsed pump laser parameters. Traditional pulsed laser sources are la ...

This proposal develops a robust low size weight and power quantum entangled light source based on time-frequency encoded states. This configuration mitigates the phase stabilization requirements inherent in more conventional coherent quantum systems. An important aspect of the source is nonlinear optic conversion from a relatively short wavelength single photon source to a longer wavelength for lo ...

Quantum light sources are a critical need for NASA and the broader scientific community. The proposed program will develop ultra-high brightness, low loss, integrated quantum light sources in the IR spectral regime using waveguide-based technology.

One promising solution to affordable space exploration beyond the lower Earth orbit lies in advanced tailorable composites and/or hybrid material systems (TC-HMS), which can equip lightweight space structures with reduced thermal sensitivity while retaining their strengths/stiffnesses. In contrast to conventional unidirectional fiber-reinforced composites (UDFRCs), TC-HMS have:nbsp;Location-depend ...

The proposed effort concerns technologies related to cryogenic propellant production, storage, transfer, and usage to support NASArsquo;s in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) goals.nbsp;nbsp;They include a broad range of applications, scales, and environments consistent with future NASA missions to the Moon and Mars.nbsp;nbsp;More specifically, this project will address development of a piecewise-s ...

Special Power Sources (SPS) will harness the advanced proton-conducting electrolyte developed at Kansas State University (KSU) and will deliberately design a novel, robust, tubular, high-performance, contaminants-tolerant, fuel-flexible, reversible electrochemical cells for producing Lunar and Martian propellants (H2, CH4, and O2), generating power, and thus supporting critical NASA missions. This ...