Award Data

Large space-deployed structures such as synthetic aperture radars, radiometers, and solar arrays are receiving a great deal of interest by NASA in the Earth Sciences program. These large structures by necessity must be ultra-lightweight and low stored volume. Inflatable or self-deployable approaches that become rigid after they reach the correct shape appear to be a promising approach for fabricat ...

There is an increasing need for large, reliable, and cost-effective inflatable space antennas for communications applications. This Phase I program will focus on the design and development of open-celled foams as structural elements in self-deploying antenna systems. Foams offer the following significant advantages over conventional materials for these applications: open cellular structure allowin ...

Performance requirements for polymer matrix composites (PMCs) in aerospace and transportation applications are generally quite stringent. Among these requirements are excellent thermal stability, high strength and high toughness. Easy processing is also desirable. Electron-beam (e-beam) curing has the potential to significantly reduce the overall cost of manufacturing PMC parts for use in aerospac ...

Performance requirements for polymer matrix composites (PMCs) in aerospace and transportation applications are generally quite stringent. Among these requirements are excellent thermal stability, high strength and high toughness. Easy processing is also desirable. Electron-beam (e-beam) curing has the potential to significantly reduce the overall cost of manufacturing PMC parts for use in aerospac ...

Mobile Geographical Information Systems (MOGIS) are applications capableof running on wireless devices. Two major hardware limitations havehindered the development of efficient MOGIS: (1) reduced screen sizesand (2) small memory capacities. An innovative approach that overcomesthese shortcomings is the utilization of map generalization. Mapgeneralization is a visualization and geospatial data redu ...

Next generation design software will support fully associative geometric and physics-based analysis models throughout the entire product life-cycle. Most current CAD systems directly support finite element systems, but use proprietary database formats that do not promote diverse tool use and may not exist throughout the entire product life-cycle. Model sharing in common practice has been limited t ...

Next generation design software will support fully associative geometric and physics-based analysis models throughout the entire product life-cycle. Most current CAD systems directly support finite element systems, but use proprietary database formats that do not promote diverse tool use and may not exist throughout the entire product life-cycle. Model sharing in common practice has been limited t ...

Platforms for scientific instruments increasingly require attitude knowledge and optical instrument pointing at sub-arcsecond accuracy. No low-cost commercial system exists to provide this level of accuracy for guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) and precision instrument pointing. ATA proposes to introduce a small inexpensive inertial attitude reference system based upon magnetohydrodynamic (M ...

QorTek will develop an advanced hardware demonstration of a compact and functionally integrated tunable laser. The prototype will demonstrate a new dually opposed wideband extension-compression piezo-actuated approach to modulation that will enable larger wavelength excursion at sweep frequencies needed for emission or damage detection by NASA. The demonstration prototype will be VME board fiber m ...

QorTek will develop an advanced hardware demonstration of a compact and functionally integrated tunable laser. The prototype will demonstrate a new dually opposed wideband extension-compression piezo-actuated approach to modulation that will enable larger wavelength excursion at sweep frequencies needed for emission or damage detection by NASA. The demonstration prototype will be VME board fiber m ...