Award Data

In Phase I of this NASA SBIR project, Daniel H. Wagner Associates, Inc., designed and demonstrated the feasibility of a system for integrating environmental data into flight planning and execution for Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) in the National Airspace System (NAS). The Weather Aware Route Planning (WARP) system will provide weather-based Indicators and Warnings (I&W) and navigational recommendat ...

BHL? technology offers the means to reduce the mass of cryogenic propellant tanks by 75% relative to state-of-the-art metal tanks. Since propellant tanks are generally the largest individual mass item on a launch vehicle or spacecraft, this mass savings of this magnitude can have profound effect on vehicle performance. A conceptual design of a spherical BHL cryotank for the NASA Morpheus Lander ...

In order to promote and facilitate broader use of NASA and other Earth observation data sources, the Phase I research focused on development of a cloud-based distributed computation platform for building, storing, and executing complex geospatial models. Widespread access to frequent, high-resolution Earth observation imagery has created the need for innovative tools like ModelLab that will help ...

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have the potential to significantly impact modern society. While the technology for unmanned air vehicles operating day in and day out without constant human supervision is maturing steadily, much remains to be done to make these vehicles commonplace. We have identified a number of challenges that must be addressed for these vehicles to safely and efficiently conduct ...

Innovative low cost, light-weight airlock technologies are required to integrate with deep space and surface platform hosting Extra-Vehicular Activity. CFDRC team proposes an inflatable airlock structure that employs unique fabric architecture capable of delivering the lowest mass and greatest versatility of any competing design. The proposed design features a completely integrated air beam inter- ...

A critical element in the NASA/NRC Technology Roadmap is to develop Power Electronic Building Block (PEBB) devices that can function in Extreme Environments. NASA?s stated aim is to use high power density/high efficiency PEBB devices to streamline design and introduce size, weight, cost and efficiency savings. The formidable challenge is to design such PEBB devices that use materials that can fu ...

Research in Flight is proposing to advance the capabilities of its surface vorticity solver for aerodynamic loads on subsonic aircraft to include more robust solutions for high lift configurations. A compelling capability to accurately calculate lift for high lift configurations such as the NASA EET geometry and the DLR-F11 geometry. Generally, there is an upper limit on lifting surface incident ...

Future aircraft propulsion is destined to be electric. All electric aircraft propulsion systems promise significant improvements in energy efficiency, maneuverability, safety, reliability, reduced maintenance costs, noise reduction, higher lift, shorter takeoff, and other factors. NASA's LEAPtech technology is the major departure from the current state-of-art aircraft vehicle/engine design, possi ...

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and, in particular, intelligent, autonomous aircraft operating in the national airspace system (NAS) have the potential to significantly impact modern society. They could perform difficult and dangerous tasks such as fire fighting, border patrol, and search and rescue, and dull tasks such as surveying crops. The elimination of a cockpit and pilot makes UAS operation ...

Concerns in recent years about the toxicity and safe handling of the storable class of propellants have led to efforts in greener monopropellants and bi-propellants. CFDRC has worked with researchers in designing and synthesizing propellants called ionic liquids. These are generally not as high-performing as traditional storables and still have toxicity issues. Other work by CFDRC and Army rese ...