Award Data

ACTA and Sandia National Laboratories propose to quantify and propagate substructure modeling uncertainty for reduced-order substructure models to higher levels of system assembly, thereby enabling predictive simulations of engineering designs with quantified margins and uncertainties for model-based flight qualification of complete spacecraft. A critical part of this process is the accurate mode ...

This NASA Phase I STTR effort will establish the feasibility of developing a compact broadband near to mid-IR programmable optical comb for use in laser based remote sensing and communications. The comb generator will use a waveguide-based optical parametric gain block technology that can have ultra wideband (>250nm) operation with very high gain (>25dB) in a very compact footprint. This approach ...

To provide reliably secure communications, development of quantum optical devices for encrypted ground-to-space communications is a necessity. The overall goal of this NASA effort is to develop and deliver efficient, single-pass quantum optical waveguide sources capable of backward quasi-phase-matched interactions for generation of high purity photon pairs for use in an on-demand photon source to ...

This SBIR Phase I effort proposes to establish the feasibility of developing a UV Planar Lightwave Circuit (PLC); a compact, highly efficient, waveguide-based frequency conversion module for the generation of phase modulated UV radiation for use in multi-wavelength lidar applications such as NASA LaRC's HSRL program. The proposed module will provide phase modulated 355 nm radiation for calibratio ...

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I effort will investigate the feasibility of using electro-optic (EO) beam scanning element to control coupling into a fiber as a fiber coupled pulse shaper. The goal of the pulse shaper is to reduce a 4-6ns pulse to 0.4-0.6ns pulse at 1064nm and/or 532nm at input powers at the 2mJ level. The highest utility of the proposed pulse shaper is its progr ...

In providing an innovative solution to improving information technologies and health management systems, AGNC is proposing a significant technological achievement with the Advanced Structural Health Monitoring System for Comprehensive Real-Time Vehicle Characterization. During in-flight conditions, this system is able to not only provide the status of information such as regarding the flight envel ...

As the size of composite parts exceed that of even the largest autoclaves, new out-of-autoclave processes and materials are necessary to achieve the same level of performance as autoclave cured composites. Unfortunately, the quality of composites manufactured with current out-of-autoclave prepreg systems is limited by their short shelf-life at ambient conditions. The resin advancement, due to lo ...

Various planned NASA missions require heat switches for active thermal control. As an example cryocoolers, including redundant coolers are incorporated on select missions. The redundant coolers operate when deteriorating or defunct coolers are deactivated. However, integration of redundant coolers may cause substantial parasitic heat loads unless the cold regions are thermally connected to the act ...

Rotorcraft design and optimization currently still rely largely on simplified (low-fidelity) models, such as rotor disk or wake models to reduce the turn-around time and allow exploration of a large parameter space. On the other hand, accurate noise prediction requires first principle, high fidelity simulations to capture small scales, highly unsteady aerodynamic sources of noise. This forces us t ...

Installation effects arising from propulsion airframe interaction are known to produce substantial variations in the in-situ jet noise. A hybrid LES/RANS computational framework is proposed for prediction of noise from the engine and airframe, and interactions between airframe and propulsion systems. The basis of LES (large eddy simulation) is that the energy-bearing turbulent eddies in the domin ...