Award Data

ABSTRACT:The goal of the Space Test Program is to enable the US Air Force to rapidly develop emerging space technologies by providing economical flight opportunities to increase a technologys TRL. Over the past decade, the CubeSat form factor has emerged as an economical platform for testing technologies that can be packaged within the 10x10x30 cm form factor. However, the lack of a programmable S ...

ABSTRACT: U.S military logistics fuels such as JP-8 and JP-5 are used across the full range of its IC engines, from those adapted from Avgas to Remove Piloted Aircraft (RPA) applications to heavy duty compression ignition engines. Yet unlike commercial diesel fuels, these distillate fuels have no cetane specification, and so vary widely in this key measure of ignition delay. The result can be s ...

A variety of ruggedized Lithium Niobate integrated optic devices are proposed. These devices are designed to support the requirements of Coherent and Spectral Beam Combining high power fiber laser systems including high power handling phase and polarization control modules and high bandwidth phase modulators for Stimulated Brillouin Scattering suppression. A primary goal of the proposed work is ...

A missile will sometimes break into smaller pieces, either by design or as a result of a malfunction or collision. The latter cases are called off-nominal, and can be difficult to analyze, especially if not observed directly. Before break-up there is a single parent object. After break-up there are multiple child objects, likely on very different trajectories. A radar is assumed to track the p ...

ABSTRACT:This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop a vacuum compatible, high gradient insulator (HGI) based on low SEE yield aluminum nitride (AlN) ceramic with high surface flashover resistance for pulse power applications. In Phase I we will design and fabricate AlN-Metal HGIs, and investigate the effects of AlN and metal layer thicknesses, and number of layers on the ...

ABSTRACT:The goal of this proposed R & D project is to develop safe, low cost, robust lightweight electrochemical power sources for space launch vehicle upper stages, and flight termination batteries for space launch vehicle first stages. The project specifically addresses a Flight Termination Battery (FTS) that weighs less than 7.0 lbs., another Flight Termination System Battery that weighs less ...

ABSTRACT:The objective of this solicitation is to develop real-time automatic scaling software for oblique ionograms (OIs). The NWRA team has developed an extensive HF propagation computational tool set, which includes a capability called APEx (Automated Point Extraction) for automatically finding vertical ionogram (VI) traces within an ionogram image. APEx does not require pre-separation of the O ...

ABSTRACT:Abstract: Electromagnetic signals used in communications and sensor systems can be seriously impacted after propagation through a region of the atmosphere or ionosphere disturbed by turbulence. This work will develop new physics-based technology that calculates EM propagation from HF to laser frequencies, including the effects of turbulence with long correlation length in the direction of ...

ABSTRACT: To produce high dielectric strength insulator materials, our approach, called Optimized Additive Manufacturing for High Dielectric Strength (OAHDS), will optimize fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printing in order to fabricate high density parts. Currently, thermoplastics 3D printed via FFF have dielectric strengths one to three orders of magnitude lower than injection molded parts ma ...

The number of commercial space vehicles including launch and reentry vehicles, and high-altitude balloons is growing, and new technology is needed to minimize their impact on the National Airspace System (NAS). Currently the FAA issues Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) to reserve large airspace sections for long periods of time for launches and reentries. Automatic Direct Surveillance Broadcas ...