Award Data

Reduced mass materials are critical to the success of aerospace systems. Thus, large air and space structures can benefit from lightweight composite materials. However, their adoption is impaired by the lack of a robust, cost-effective fabrication process, principally because the autoclaves used to consolidate composite laminates are so expensive for large parts. This program develops for US aeros ...

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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 ...

A new type of planetary body sample acquisition tool called a Comet Nucleus Surface Sampler is proposed for development. The initial proposed use of this innovation is for comet surface sampling but the system can be applied to asteroids and Mars too. This invention allows for direct sampling of a comet nucleus surface employing a touch and go spacecraft. By avoiding a landing, the in situ study o ...

The observation missions for the New Millennium Program will utilize new materials and sensor technologies that will require cooling to temperatures in the 40K to 150K range. A space radiator with high conductivity at low temperatures that is lightweight and has high stiffness is required. The opportunity presented in this Phase I proposal is to demonstrate a space radiator that will have high con ...

k Technology Corporation (kTC) proposes to develop a high performance satellite radiator material system that satisfies both structural and thermal management requirements. The proposed material system has a honeycomb core with carbon fiber composite encapsulated thermal pyrolytic graphite (TPG) face sheets. The encapsulated TPG face sheets have high conductivity (up to 1300 W/mK), low mass densit ...

Compliant surface non-contacting foil seals (CSFS) with the ability to operate under large rotor excursions, high temperatures and pressure differentials without loss of performance have the potential to make significant improvements in gas turbine engine performance, operability and reliability. However, high-temperature, long-life coatings, improved design analysis and scalable designs are neede ...

The astronomical community recognizes the Pixon(TM) method as the highest performance image reconstruction method ever developed. In addition to tremendous performance gains relative to competing methods (factors of several in resolution, orders of magnitude in sensitivity and robust artifact rejection), the Pixon method is much faster than standard non-linear methods (orders of magnitude). By nat ...

HANDS-OFF AUTOMATION OF DISPLAYS WOULD SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASE THE EFFICIENCY OF COMPLEX MAN-MACHINE SYSTEMS THROUGH REDUCTION OF OPERATOR WORKLOAD AND OPTIMIZATION OF OPERATOR INFORMATION PROCESSING. COMBINATION OF A VOICE RECOGNITION SYSTEM WITH A NON-INSTRUSIVE EYE POSITION INDICATOR WOULD PROVIDE TOTALLY HANDS-OFF DISPLAY INTERACTION WITH A MINIMUM OF TECHNICAL RISK. THE CONCEPT ADAPTS TO USER ...

PRESSURE INSTRUMENTED AIRFOIL MODELS FOR TESTING IN CRYOGENIC WIND TUNNELS DEMAND THE SIMULTANEOUS ACHIEVEMENT OF MANY FACTORS INCLUDING STRENGTH, TOUGHNESS, DIMENSIONAL STABILITY, MACHINABILITY, BONDABILITY, ACCURACY OF PROFILE AND SURFACE FINISH. MANY PREVIOUS MODELS HAVE FAILED TO REACH COMPLETION OR HAVE PERFORMED INADEQUATELY BECAUSE ACHIEVEMENT OF SOME FACTORS HAS CRITICALLY COMPROMISED OTHE ...