Award Data

Development of a reflection control and direction device (RCDD) is proposed. This innovative device will progress the state of the art for propulsion of solar sails used to fly space weather monitoring sensors to sub-LaGrange point orbits for earlier warning times of impending destructive space weather events. A reflection control device (RCD) utilizes polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) mater ...

Drought is responsible for $327.7B in economic loss since 1980 in the United States and typically precedes, cooccurs, or initiates other hazards like wildfires or prolonged periods of intense heat. The compounding or cascading of these hazards routinely threatens the wellbeing and stability of communities. The economic impact from drought can be especially harsh when the drought begins rapidly in ...

We propose to develop resistance welding (RW) technology for carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites (CFR-TCs) based on innovative heating element technology. A proposed target for these innovations is repurposable aerospace applications. Historically, CFR-TCs were not considered as the material of choice for aerospace applications despite their excellent specific strength and modulus. In ...

The proposed effort concerns technologies related to cryogenic propellant production, storage, transfer, and usage to support NASArsquo;s in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) goals. nbsp;They include a broad range of applications, scales, and environments consistent with future NASA missions to the Moon and Mars.nbsp;nbsp;More specifically, the project will addressnbsp;development of a piecewise-sm ...

Achieving trustworthy and trusted autonomy starts early in the development process through performing hazard analysis, fault analysis, identifying mitigating requirements, and carefully and rigorously tracing those requirements all the way into design, models, implementation, and tests. However, traceability can be time-consuming, costly, and error-prone. To address these challenges, significant a ...

Hypersonic vehicles have seen renewed interest in recent years for both civilian and government applications. However, the hypersonic flow regime poses unique challenges to computational aerothermodynamic simulation tools due to complex physics, including a combination of strong shockwave formation, thin boundary layers, real gas effects, thermochemical nonequilibrium, and departures from continuu ...

Uncertainty management within autonomous systems is imperative to improving trust in multi-agent cyber-physical-human systems. These multi-agent systems require not only a robust uncertainty quantification strategy, but also an intelligible representation of uncertainty to human agents to elucidate confidence in the autonomous portions of the multi-agent systems. Here, we propose to develop a gene ...

This project will advance technology for the automated assembly of large truss towers.nbsp; Assembly of truss-based structures is one of the leading candidates for establishing some of the early lunar infrastructure.nbsp; Specifically, joining technologies and robotic tools are required to enable autonomous/automated assembly of tall towers as well as shelters, domes and habitats.nbsp; Automated a ...

To automate the sample prep for MinION sequencing, we propose a paradigm shift in the inherently liquid-based, multi-step protocol. The traditionally labor-intense process will occur within disposable microfluidic ldquo;cardsrdquo; which have an unexpected feature. Each card will contain separate reaction wells where single operations will occur (e.g. lysis, fragmentation, amplification). However, ...

Despite the maturity of welding and related joining processes for terrestrial applications, there is limited understanding of the effects of an in-space environment on weld quality. An ICME framework leveraging physics-based process and metallurgical models, anchored by terrestrial data, is desired to predict the effects of in-space, lunar, and Martian environments on the welding process and resul ...