Award Data

Lunar night poses a significant thermal challenge to small, low power payloads, rovers and landers. Due to the slow rotation of the lunar surface, the environmental temperature drops to below 100K for approximately 14 earth days. In order to enable long duration science missions on the lunar surface it is necessary to maintain the electronics above survival temperature during the lunar night. nbsp ...

Space Policy Directive 1 directs NASA to return to the Moon. Artemis is Americarsquo;s flagship program to support this endeavor and could deliver the first woman and the next man to the lunar surface as soon as 2025. In preparation for a human return as well as directly support crewed operations, robotic platforms are necessary to learn more about the lunar environment, identify where resources a ...

ProtoInnovations, LLC proposes to continue the advancement and maturation of the Rover-Based Non-Prehensile Manipulation for Improved Mobility, Scientific Exploration and Terrain Shaping on Planetary Surfaces (RBNPM, NASA Phase II SBIR Contract #80NSSC19C0215) software control architecture and algorithms to enable robotic rovers to perform autonomous or semi-autonomous excavating, transporting, an ...

ProtoInnovations, LLC and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology propose to continue the maturation and validation of combined slip estimation and traction control software algorithms, called the Mobility Optimizer, for improved robotic or manned rover wheeled locomotion on The Moon. The Mobility Optimizer provides a dramatic improvement to current slip estimation and traction control strategie ...

Within the hypersonic missile community, it is generally known that Mentis Sciences, Inc. (MSI) is developing a candidate Quartz/Polysiloxane radome solution for the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC3) system. This solution is presently in the process of being evaluated for the relevant hypersonic rain erosion environs and full-scale thermal/structural loading. At this time, it has exceeded all mec ...

Mentis Sciences Inc. (Mentis) proposes to design, develop, and fabricate a high lift to drag ratio (L/D), Dual band Radio Frequency/Infrared (RF/IR), radome assembly suitable for use as a technology demonstrator for hypersonic missile defense applications. The final deliverable will be a full scale RF radome with integrated IR transparent windows in a high L/D form factor. Material models will be ...

In Phase I, we demonstrated ATSP-based coatings vs. ATSP-based coatings have excellent tribological performance: low coefficient of friction (COF) and ldquo;zero wearrdquo; in a widet emperature application range (from -196deg;C to 300deg;C). Additionally, for ATSP-based coatings, the 50-year equivalent low-earth-orbit proton exposure had no effect on its tribological performance. This excellent t ...

The primary objective of this proposed Phase II Project is to scale up the SiMMtec diode array manufacturing process and to demonstrate that the target price of $3/W for QCW operation for high performance high power diode arrays can be achieved for 1000 array orders. We propose to develop and demonstrate the scale up of the required processes to fabricate the SiMM array. Extended lifetest of the ...

Nokomis Plans to further advance prototype Hiawatha-MEMS monitoring system developed under previous SBIR. System employs novel methodologies to determine device health by identifying degradation in electronic components in order to assess their Remaining Useful Life (RUL) in addition to environmental assessments provided by Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) devices. This second Phase II effor ...

Space and military system designers have a significant and growing problem migrating from system solutions using radiation-hardened components to commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) and "rad-hard by design" (RHBD) components. Current testing solutions are either custom built "one-off" solutions, expensive, and/or not easily portable. QuickFlex is extending prior successful work for NASA to create the ...