Award Data

There is growing recognition that success in a variety of space mission types can be greatly enhanced by making current communication transceivers and networks evolve towards networked communication systems that are intelligent, self-aware and thus can support greater levels of autonomy. This will be especially relevant as networked clusters of smaller-size satellites, made of CubeSats or microsat ...

Space Micro and its partner research institution, the University of Arizona bring together innovations in channelization and network protocol development. Together, these innovations will provide improved hopping radios (with digital, rapidly reconfigurable implementation, wider bandwidth and reduced overhead penalty for hopping) and improved spectrum and link quality sensing. We will demonstrate ...

High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) aircraft have garnered increased interest in recent years as they can serve several purposes, including many of the objectives of satellites while incurring a fraction of the cost to deploy. Examples applications include Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance, communications relay systems, and environmental and atmospheric sensing. The requirements for H ...

We propose the development of a modern panel code for calculation of steady and unsteady aerodynamic loads needed for dynamic servoelastic (DSE) analysis of flight vehicles. The code will be especially tailored to be robust, reliable, and integrated with the NASA Object Oriented Optimization (O3) system through selection of analysis methods, file formats, and computing environment, allowing it to ...

Solar Particle Events (SPEs) represent a major hazard for extravehicular maneuvers by astronauts in Earth orbit, and for eventual manned interplanetary space travel. They can also harm aircraft avionics, communication and navigation. We propose to develop a system to aid forecasters in the prediction of such events, and in the identification/lengthening of "all clear" time periods when there is a ...

The paradigm of exploration is changing. Smaller, smarter, and more efficient systems are being developed that could do as well as large, expensive, and heavy systems in the past. The 'science' fiction becomes reality fueled by advances in computing, materials, and nano-technology. These new technologies found their way into CubeSats – a booming business in the 21st century. CubeSats are no l ...

The technical innovation proposed here is the design during Phase I of a high performance upper stage for a two-stage "20 / 450" Nanosat Launch Vehicle (NLV) that is configured to deliver up to 20 kg to a 450 km low Earth orbit (Figure 1). Parallel tasks prepare for the Phase II development and sub-orbital flight testing of a prototype vehicle that is directly traceable to the orbital-capable ...

M4 Engineering and Missouri S&T propose to investigate the viability of creating a multidisciplinary analysis and optimization architecture for analyzing spacecraft system models. The current approach will utilize commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) software to alleviate acquisition hurdles for NASA (and public) technical monitors/reviewers. Next, a preliminary set of analysis modules will be develo ...

For this STTR project, American GNC Corporation (AGNC) and Louisiana Tech University (LaTECH) are proposing a significant breakthrough technology for improving embedded sensing, remote and wireless monitoring, and the capture of data, information, and knowledge (DIaK) at propulsion ground test facilities with the Integrated Monitoring AWAReness Environment (IM-AWARE). This system consists of smart ...

Pressurized systems and pressure vessels used in NASA ground-based and flight-based applications including fuel tanks, composite overwrapped pressure vessels (COPVs), and composite tankage commonly suffer from several types of degradation including fatigue, cracking, lack of bonding, and leakage. Veraphotonics proposes to develop a pressure vessel leak and damage detection system. In a large vesse ...