Award Data

Launch vehicles experience extreme acoustic loads during liftoff driven by the interaction of rocket plumes and plume-generated acoustic waves with ground structures. Currently employed predictive capabilities are too dissipative to accurately resolve the propagation of waves throughout the launch environment. Higher fidelity non-dissipative analysis tools are critically needed to design mitigatio ...

The liberation of particles induced by rocket plume flow from spacecraft landing on unprepared regolith of the Moon, Mars, and other destinations poses high mission risks for robotic and human exploration activities. This process occurs in a combination of "extreme environments" that combine low gravity, little or no atmosphere, rocket exhaust gas flow that is supersonic and partially rarefied, an ...

Advances in structured heterogeneity together with nanomaterials tailoring has made it possible to create thermoelectrics using high temperature, polymer composites. While such thermoelectrics do not have the capability to approach the efficiency of top performing ceramic modules such as BiTe, they do provide two unique aspects of use in energy scavenging: the ability to conform to irregular large ...

Phase II work will build upon results of Phase I investigations into the performance of cooperative adsorbents for life-support on Mars. The work will focus on the creating of a prototype EMU unit sized to support a single person (1 kg/day of CO2 removal. Tasks in support of this effort include in depth investigations of the role of water on CO2 adsorption mechanism. Improved pellet formulations w ...

A hybrid electric aircraft simulation system and test bed is proposed to provide a dedicated development environment for the rigorous study and advancement of hybrid electric powered aircraft. The new test bed and simulation system will provide a dedicated platform and set of analysis tools to study, design, and test hybrid electric powered propulsion components and systems for use in commercial, ...

The objective of this proposal is to integrate three unique energy harvesting technologies utilizing our existing research strengths that will be of interest and utility to NASA applications and environmental conditions. By developing multiple technologies, NASA will be able to harvest energy from multiple waste energy sources, namely environmental vibrations, thermal energy, and solar flux. These ...

UbiQD, Inc,nbsp;has partnered with the University of Arizona, Controlled Environment Agriculture Center, to enhance the lighting component of the Mars-Lunar Greenhouse prototype to improve the food production of the system. Ultimately, the goals are for UbiQD to install a down-conversion film composed of quantum dots (QDs) into a solar collecting/fiber optic system to not only provide higher quali ...

American GNC Corporation (AGNC) and Louisiana Tech University (LaTECH) are proposing a significant breakthrough technology, the Integrated Monitoring AWAReness Environment (IM-AWARE) consisting of an Enterprise Infrastructure with closely coupled smart sensor networks and Enhanced IT Security to enable: (i) real time monitoring of the distribution systems health; (ii) supporting maintenance operat ...

Chromologic (CL) and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) propose to continue the Phase II STTR development and demonstration of a Multifunctional Environmental Digital Scanning Electron Microprobe (MEDSEM) instrument that transmits high energy beams of electrons sequentially using a two-dimensional array of multiple, miniaturized electron probes into a planetary atmosphere and strike ...

We will extend our previous work to create artificial intelligence (AI) Reasoning Modules for planning, scheduling, characterization, machine learning, and fault detection/diagnosis/reconfiguration for spacecraft and their subsystems, each able to operate in standalone fashion or be easily integrated with one another to execute in a variety of computational environments, including in highly distri ...