Award Data

ABSTRACT: Space solar power systems range in size from the International Space Station with 8 solar arrays producing 84,000 watts all the way down to body-mounted single wafers on individual cubesats. The current state-of-the-art relies on multi-junction gallium arsenide or inverted metamorphic cells affixed to rigid structural panels. The need for a low-mass, high energy output solar array for ...

ABSTRACT: Solar arrays play a key role in the operation of spacecrafts and unmanned aerial vehicles. Traditionally, inorganic semiconductor based solar arrays have been used for space applications because of their highest efficiencies. However, these solar arrays have several major limitations like extremely high cost, low specific power and large stowage volume. Organic photovoltaic (OPV) module ...

The goal of the proposed research is to develop self-healing embedded communication antennas to be used in transparent armori.e., ground vehicle windows. Embedded antennas are known to delaminate from their host structures after impact; this allows an empty space to form around the antenna and as a result detunes the antenna. A sandwich structure will be designed, fabricated, and tested whereby th ...

We propose a platform for aerial environmental monitoring based on the integration of two advanced technologies for the first time: a lightweight, flying robotic platform capable of hovering and swarming, and a compact, low-power chemical sensor platform called the Molecular Property Spectrometer (MPS): a robust, low-cost, silicon-chip-based micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) that has been use ...

ABSTRACT: State of the art Orbital Transfer Vehicle systems and GEO transfer missions require the demanding combined requirements of both high Thrust-to-Power (greater than 150 mN/kW) and high specific impulse (greater than 3000 s), all at constant power. The 9 kW PROTEAN system is a two-stage plasmoid thruster which adds secondary Neutral Entrainment (NE) to the ElectroMagnetic Plasmoid Thruster ...

In this STTR project we aim to build software interfaces and enhancements to existing parallel mesh adaptation libraries for applications in high performance flow modeling. In Phase-I we demonstrated a preliminary implementation of such a system and identified technology needs. Phase-II development will include both open source, as well as commercially supported mesh adaptation software and interf ...

ABSTRACT: The objective of this STTR proposal is to develop and demonstrate a radiation hardened organic-based solar array adaptable to nanosatellites which exhibits flexibility, variable topology, high specific power, and low cost. Organic photovoltaics (OPVs) represent a transformative technology with great potential for extremely high-throughput manufacturing at very low cost. They have the po ...

ABSTRACT: High-performance organic electro-optic (OEO) polymers can enable the development of advanced EO technologies for achieving significantly reduced energy consumption and bandwidth enhancement in future information and communication technologies. One of the most critical steps in developing successful photonic technologies is to have high quality, reproducible materials that can be availab ...

ABSTRACT: Due to increasing communications demand for tactical mission operations force the DoD to initiative to migrate the existing circuit-switched, bent-pipe satellite communication systems to the onboard packet switched satellite systems using Internet Protocols. The new approach offers significant flexibility and performance gain, but there are still tough challenges, e.g., high bit error r ...

Several laser types are in development by the government for advanced proximal sensors, including the quantum cascade laser, the miniature solid state laser with optical parametric oscillator and the miniature CO2 gas laser. The enabling critical component for all these advanced transmitters is the compact, robust, rapid, precision wavelength selector. It is proposed to develop and deliver a sta ...