Award Data

In response to NASA?s solicitation for light-weight and power efficient instruments that enable in situ compositional analysis, Q-Peak in partnership with the University of Hawaii proposes to develop a compact, robust, and efficient instrument to combine all laser based spectroscopies capable of performing imaging, Raman, Laser Induced Breakdown, Laser Induced Fluorescence and LIDAR The main adva ...

Silicon Carbide based ceramic matrix composites (CMCs) offer the potential to fundamentally change the design and manufacture of aeronautical and space propulsion systems to significantly increase performance and fuel efficiency over current metal-based designs. Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) and our team members at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) are developing, designing and fabr ...

After successfully demonstrating the basic functionality of a damage-detecting, self-healing 'smart' material system in Phase I, Aurora and UMass Lowell aim to advance the material technology to a TRL 5 in Phase II. The team will use their 'smart' material system to design and manufacture various scaled-up core-stiffened composite specimens in application-appropriate geometries, and subsequently t ...

GTL has been developing a suite of transformational technologies that have the capability to disrupt the traditional launch vehicle paradigm. BHL composite cryotank technology provides a four times improvement over large aluminum iso-grid tanks, offering a 6 percentage point improvement in small stage PMF. Superior Stability Engine is an innovative liquid rocket engine configured to maximize comb ...

"It is our objective to develop a cost effective, durable and reliable hydrogen-bromine flow battery system for small-scale electrical energy storage applications. H2/Br2 flow battery technology has been around for decades, however, the lack of low-cost and durable electrode and membrane materials in addition to non-optimal cell/stack configurations have prevented this technology from widespread d ...

The innovation being developed in this program is a Mg Hall Effect Thruster system that would open the door for In-Situ Resource Utilization based solar system exploration. Magnesium is light and easy to ionize. Performance advantages of a Mg thruster include far higher specific impulse and less life limiting erosion. Additional advantages include low propellant cost and low pressure propellant ...