Award Data

Turboelectric aircraft with gas turbines driving electric generators connected to electric propulsion motors have the potential to transform the aircraft design space by decoupling power generation from propulsion. Resulting aircraft designs such as blended-wing bodies with distributed propulsion can provide the large reductions in emissions, fuel burn, and noise required to make air transportati ...

Radiator panels are the baseline approach for rejecting waste heat from NASA Fission Surface Power (FSP) systems. The required panels are very large, which makes them challenging to launch, deploy, support, and move. Panel performance may also be degraded by dust, radiation, insolation, and micrometeorite impact. In response, we propose to develop an ultra-compact heat rejection system for use ...

We propose a novel technology to leverage rapidly evolving cloud based infrastructure to improve time constrained situational awareness for real-time decision making. Our "CloudTurbine" innovation eliminates the distinction between files and streams to distribute live streaming sensor and video data over cloud file sharing services. Streaming and static data have long been considered separately ...

We propose to develop antimony-based focal plane arrays (FPAs) for NASA's imaging and spectroscopy applications in the spectral band from visible to shortwave-infrared, viz. wavelengths from 0.5 - 2.5 microns. We will leverage recent breakthroughs in the performance of midwave and longwave infrared FPAs based on the InAs/GaSb/AlSb material system in which QmagiQ has played a key part. In these s ...

Future NASA planetary science missions will incorporate detectors, sensors, shields, and telescopes that must be cooled to cryogenic temperatures. These missions have very limited access to solar power and therefore reducing the cryocooling system power is more critical than for earth-orbiting satellites. On this program, Creare proposes to develop and demonstrate an innovative Stirling cryocool ...

Frozen tissue samples represent the state of the art in tissue preservation in many molecular analysis techniques as well as in in membrane analysis using free-fracture techniques. Rapid or snap freezing eliminates the artifact caused by ice crystal formation within the tissues. Ice crystal nucleation and growth occurs between 0 degrees C and -20 degrees C typically. To avoid this damage and mi ...

According to the decadal report titled, Life and Physical Sciences Research for a New Era of Space Exploration, a Report, "…the AHB Panel would be remiss if it did not strongly recommend an animal centrifuge capable of accommodating rats/mice at variable gravity levels." In response, Techshot proposes to develop a Rodent Centrifuge Facility (RCF) that utilizes eight EXPRESS Rack locker locat ...

The proposed innovation is a platform upon which to perform high voltage Electrical microGravity Research In colloidal Development (E-GRID). This platform will facilitate safe experimentation in space with colloidal samples at high voltages. E-GRID will be comprised of three components: the experiment module, which houses the colloidal sample and electrodes; the high voltage safety tether, which p ...

This Phase I SBIR will establish the feasibility of developing a collinear three wavelength source for an in-situ, 1800, back scatter nephelometer. The three wavelength source is being developed to facilitate on-board validation measurements of airborne remote backscatter lidar. Currently, commercial nephelometers utilized for in-situ validation measurements employ wavelengths that are both not ...

Bridger Photonics Inc. (Bridger) proposes developing the most efficient, compact, rugged, low-power consumption and cost-effective UV ozone differential absorption lidar (DIAL) transmitter available. Bridger will demonstrate pulse energies above 0.5 mJ with a goal of 1 mJ/pulse with a pulse repetition frequency of 1 kHz. The proposed transmitter will enable widespread deployment of ozone DIAL s ...