Award Data

Under Project Constellation, NASA is developing a new generation of spacecraft for human spaceflight. A significant percentage of the structures used in these spacecraft will be made of composite materials, and the Ares V payload shroud will be one of the largest composite structures ever built. This offers many challenges, not only for design and manufacturing, but also for inspection and maint ...

Military operations require sustained cognitive performance in challenging environments. Situational awareness, vigilance, memory, decision-making, and other neurocognitive processes are all impacted by poor sleep quality, sleep deprivation and accumulating sleep debt with potentially detrimental consequences. Although efficient amelioration of the effects of sleep deprivation or accumulated sleep ...

The overall objective of the proposed research is to design, develop and demonstrate fluidic actuator arrays for aerodynamic separation control and drag reduction. These actuators are based on a compact design of low mass-flow fluidic oscillators that produce high frequency (1-5 kHz) sweeping jets. Preliminary experiments on separation control over a trailing edge flap on a NACA 0015 airfoil, V-22 ...

Analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are the key components for digitizing high-speed analog data in modern data acquisition systems, which is a critical part of sensor/detector array readout electronics widely used by NASA. Unfortunately, commercially available ADCs consume high power and feature high system latency and poor linearity; especially at input bandwidths larger than 1GHz. In addition, ...

An integrated environment for rapid design studies of small satellite missions will be developed. This environment will be designed to streamline processes at the NASA Ames Mission Design Center. Several key concepts are introduced. The proposed environment introduces modern Product Data Management and Product Lifecycle Management (PDM/PLM) tools and processes to satellite mission design. Specific ...

Technology research and development in such areas as next-generation atomic clocks, quantum information processing with trapped ions, and atomic spectroscopy is impeded by the lack of commercially available laser sources that meet the required specifications of wavelength tuning range, output power, frequency-stability and reliability. Arete Associates is developing frequency-stable Optically Pump ...

A novel quiet engine air-brake (EAB) is proposed in response to NASA's solicitation for active and passive noise control concepts for conventional and advanced aircraft. The EAB concept is applicable to 1) next-generation, conventional tube and wing aircraft (current generation +1) and 2) advanced integrated airframe/propulsion system configurations (current generation +2, +3). Potential retrofit ...

Future NASA missions require thermal control systems that can accommodate large changes in ambient temperature. The two essential aspects of an effective thermal interface material (TIM) are high compliance and high thermal conductivity. Thermal interface materials (TIM) are often used to fill the cavities between mating surfaces to increase the thermal conductance across the interface. Traditio ...

Our objective is to demonstrate the feasibility and merit of a cognitive aid that monitors the user"s situation to provide cues based on state conditions instead of pre-scheduled cues which are based only on time. We extend a commercially available cognitive aid to use condition-based cues which are responsive to the user"s changing situation. Context-aware cognitive aids which adjust to the user" ...

The SAVe II life support mechanical ventilator proposed in phase II will meet all of the needs for modern ventilation on the battlefield and any pre-hospital environment where ease of use, size, cost , safety and functionality is critical. Currently there are no commercial mechanical ventilators that will meet the specifications of this design based on the needs of the Tactical Combat Casualt ...